Hello My good People (Week #22)

This week was a week of miracles!

Saturday, 2 of our investigators, an awesome married couple we have been working with for more than a month, got baptized and yesterday were confirmed. Our church meeting was a little hecktic, but they still loved it and I see them more and more happy each time we visit. The wife, Cristina, Had a hard time quitting coffee, so we woke up at 5:30 am every day for a week to help her stop, but now she doesnt even want it! It is truly incredible!

Also on Saturday. We received a reference from a member who visited last sunday from Sao Paulo for Brasilian fathers day. He told us his dad was already a member and lived here in Quixeramobim, just not in the city in the countryside. To give you an idea about the countryside here in brasil, or at least in Ceará, the streets dont have names and the houses dont have numbers. So when we went to search for this member on Saturday not knowing where he lived, I was nervous, but something told me we HAD to go and that everything would work out. We started walking to the bus station to catch a bus going that way, and ended up having a friend of ours pass by with his car and give us a ride. This was the first mini miracle because we arived at the bus station just as the last bus for the day was leaving for that area. We managed to get seats on the bus, and after a 25 minute bus ride, we got off the bus in an area that didnt have a house in sight! We decided to walk back the way we came, and through talking to many people ended up discovering his house, and meeting with him. This was incredible. He started crying as he shared he has lived there for 20 years, and been praying every day that the church would arrive in Quixeramobim. We talked with him for a while, and are now helping him return to be a completely active member in the church, and he wants to go through the temple! The last part of this story is we arrived at his house at 5 PM, and had a Baptism the same night sceduled for 7:30. We did not have a way to get back to Quixeramobim, and it was more or less a 3 hour walk if we had to walk. But this member called a friend who gave us a ride to arrive for our baptism exactly on time.

This is just a testament to me. Jesus Cristo will always send someone for you. He will always leave the 99 for the 1. He loves us all, and through us, we saw him realize a miracle in this mans life.

I love you all, and hope your weeks were good!

Love, Elder Ferrell

Happy Birthday Quixeramobim! (Week #21)

Hello world! 

It was another fine week here baking in the sun! But also very busy. Our mission has a new goal of fulfilling 10 contacts every single day. While this is a lot more difficult in the small city of quixeramobim, Elder Passos and I have been doing our best, and we were blessed with more people than we had time to teach for it last week! 

Nothing particularly interesting happened other than on Wednesday night, the city had a ceremony for all of the courses they sponsored, and my english class was one of them. They all sang Happy by Pharrell Williams, and as I was exiting the stage you just know I tripped in front of all those people!

I do have a message for you all this week. As I am starting to understand a lot more Portugues, it is starting to become easier to focus on learning more life and spirtual lessons throughout the week.

Today I want to share with you a thought that I have been pondering after hearing it from Janhailson, the leader of our church group here, this last week. 

It is very similar to President Uchdorfs talk on not using fear to motive, and i encourage you all to review that talk when you have time. But basically, as mankind we have two ways of teaching: through love, or through pain. Teaching through pain, or through pressure, manipulation, any form of teaching that trys to translate our will onto others with force, is a very powerfull teacher. But as these things are not of God, they will teach to fear, teach to loath, and teach to hate. These teaching most of the time can be almost impossible to remove. But if we focus on teaching with love, with patience, we may not see a chance as rapidly as with the alternative, but you will teach with more power than you thought possible. 

This is not my promise, but the Promise of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. 

Until Next week! Love you all

Elder Ferrell

I´m a Dad? (Its a mission term) (Week #20)

Hello Everyone!
This last week was a mix of Incredible and Sad. Tuesday, about an hour before my bus left for Fortaleza, we found out that my recent convert whom I had just baptized on Sunday was arrested. There is still confusion as to whether he actually did anything wrong, but because he was arrested he was fired from his job, and has not been home for us to speak to him all week, and personally I feel like he really does not want to speak to us. Soo that was definitely not the most awesome thing in the world, BUT:

On Wednesday a met my new companion! His name is Elder Passos from Rio de Ganeiro, and he is awesome! On a mission, they call a missionary you train your ´´son´´ and your trainer is your ´´father´´ of the mission, which is partially a joke but also partially a truth because when new missionaries arrive they are very lost with so much to learn and so much to adjust to. So elder Passos is my first son here in Brazil! We did training on Wednesday and returned here to Quixeramobim on Thursday.

The week itself was pretty normal except for the fact that God definitely has blessed us with miracles. The first miracle was with my Portuguese! I wasn’t at all nervous to train a new missionary, but I was a bit nervous about communication in general. But from the moment they announced Elder Passos as my companion I have been able to understand almost everything in Portugues, and speak a lot more as well. This is just a confirmation to me that when God calls you to the work, if you put your faith in him he will always bless you with what you need to succeed.

Then yesterday we closed a baptism for a married couple we have been working with for over a month. They are awesome, and it was incredible because yesterday the Husband stood up and bore his testimony in Fast and Testimony meeting! That was truely special.

I hope everyone there has had an incredible week, and that this coming week will be just as good!

I love and miss you all,

Elder Ferrell

Transfers (Week #19)

Hello all!

This last week was awesome! We went for all you can eat pizza last wednesday night which was awesome! Then Yesterday I baptized the first person here in Brazil that I actually contacted myself, and helped teach all the lessons to. His name is Junior, and we met him less than two weeks ago! He was definitly a miracle, and someone God put in our path because he really needs the gospel in his life, and he has already changed so much!

Tomorrow I will travel for Fortaleza because I have been called to train a new missionary which is weird! President rarely calls brand new missionaries to train, and I just finished my own training last week so it is a huge honor that president has that kind of faith in me.

Thats all for now! Everything here is awesome! Hope you all are well, and I will write more next week!
Love,

Elder Ferrell

Week 18! (Actually week 17!!)

Hello All!

This last week was truly incredible! We put our noses to the grind stone here and worked, and ended up finding a young man who not only is very receptive to the gospel, but after speaking with him and hearing about his family struggles it is clear to me that God put him in our path because he needs the comfort of the gospel more than anything right now. Beyond this, We had an investigator named Ezidio, and his wife Kristine. They are an interesting couple to be sure, and when we first started teaching them three weeks ago, we came close to moving on to other investigators because Ezidio was not following any of our invitations. But we kept on visiting them because his wife, Kristine, was actually reading the Book of Mormon on her own! We kept teaching them, and Kristine kept reading the book of mormon and asking questions but she didn’t seem very interested even still. Then that Sunday, Ezidio surprised us by coming to church! So we kept on teaching them, another week passed by, and they were still in the same place, not very interested but Kristine again was still reading so we kept coming. And again that Sunday, Ezidio surprised us by showing up for church, but Kristine wouldn’t come. This last week started off the same. On Wednesdaywhen we asked Ezidio about church he said he wouldn’t go because he had his 50^th birthday this Sunday (Yesterday) and he had family coming. We understood and kept visiting. Friday Morning, things were different. We arrived and Kristine was really cheerful and happy, and had some great questions about the book of Mormon. We asked Ezidio about his plans for his Birthday and he said he decided he was going to go to church! Then they invited us to have lunch with them on his birthday! (Not important, but the food in that lunch was incredible!) In this lunch he told us that he wanted to drink beer for his birthday but decided not to! Then He came to church that day, and after the church meeting tolda Janhuson, our group leader here, that he knew everything was true and that he wanted to bring his wife and family! It is truly incredible to see the Gospel Changeing him!

Then in Church yesterday we had 32 people! if you remember my first week here we had around 14 People in church. To have 32 yesterday was a miracle and true evidence that god is working here. 

Those are the most important parts of my week!

I hope you all are well!

Love,

Elder Ferrell

A Good Week! (#16)

Hello World!

It has been an awesome week here in the Easy Bake oven of Brazil! We had a zone conference in Fortaleza on Thursday, which meant we had to travel to Fortaleza on Wednesday, and Tuesdays we don’t have much time to work because of weekly planning and English Class, and Monday was P Day, so last week we really were only able to work 2 days before Sunday. BUT, with just these two days of work, our numbers were better than the entire week before!

Yesterday, church was a miracle indeed! Every week we generally have members from the Branch in Quixada visit to help us with sacrament meeting, but here everyone is on summer break from school, and a lot of people are traveling, so we found out at lunch yesterday nobody from Quixada was going to come! This was after only having two days to work this week, and we knew that some of our members here and some of our investigators who visit every Sunday (just waiting to get married for baptism) were out of town as well. Generally in sacrament meeting here we have around 23 people, and this is with 8-10 people from Quixada. Well yesterday we had 17 people in church, with just 2 days of work, no one from Quixada, and 7 people who usually frequent gone. It was incredible. In past weeks, there have been times where I have been caught up in how hard things are, with my health, with the sun, with my companion, and with the Language, that I have also at times forgotten how incredibly lucky I am to be here, and to take part in the building of the lords kingdom here in Quixeramobim. It is truly incredible.

That’s about it for last week! I hope you all are well and I wish you the best!

With lots of love,

Elder Ferrell

Hello All! (Week #15)

Hello My Friends!

This last week was incredible! I spent Monday and Tuesday in Fortaleza working things out with my Visa, and I think it is all taken care of now which is a relief! Then we returned here to Quixeramobim late Tuesday Night accompanied by our Zone leaders, and Wednesday went on splits with them which was fun. Throughout the entire week we were focusing on doing whatever we could to teach more by the spirit and it really made a difference! On Friday we went to teach the Grandmother of one of our investigators Who is 15 years old. We have been teaching her for about two weeks now, but her Grandmother wouldnt let her go to church because she didnt believe that she was actually going to go to church. So Friday we went to try and smooth things over with the Grandma and Explain why were there and what we were doing, and we were really nervous because our investigator told us that her Grandma was really Catholic, and here that generally translates into were about to have some lady screaming at us how aweful our church is. But we walked up to the house and she was sitting out in front reading a church pamphlet on the Restoration! She invited us in and started talking to us, then started crying because she explained that she was affraid of dying. We were able to teach her about the Plan of Salvation, and it was Just an incredible experience! It is true evidence that Gods Prepares people to recieve our message!

Other than that nothing is new here, Just the same old grind as the Sun slowly but surely cooks my skin, and the mosquitos consume me one (more like 50) bites at a time! Haha I hope everyone there is having a good Summer. Have a good week!

Love,

Elder Ferrell

1) My Brasil Family!

2) Bannanas Here

3) The first tie I made