After the trial of our Faith (Week #60)

Hello all! 

I hope everyone had an excellent week this last week and an awesome mothers day yesterday for all you moms out there!

My letter today will be a bit brief.

Transferes came in last night and Elder Mortensen and I are still companions which is good! Nothing change for us but we have 4 new missionaries coming into our zone!

The other peice of big news came in the form of a great miracle. Satuday afternoon I was able to skype my family which was awesome, but one of the questions in that conversation was if we had sombody getting baptised on Sunday. To better explain this moment for all, Elder Mortensen and I were hoping and praying to Baptise this last week, but we did not have an investigator progressing in the way of being ready for baptism. We had 2 that we wanted to try and see if they wanted to get baptised when the week started, but as each day passed, we tried to visit them but they were never home. So when Saturday arrived and my family asked if we had a baptism, I wasnt too sure how to respond. Especially because the only candidates we had for baptism for the week were 2 people with whom we had never talked about baptism. But even with all this, to be optimistic, and to act and show my faith a little bit, I told my family that yes, I thought we would have a baptism. 

We went out to work Saturday afternoon as usual, and once more the people we were trying to talk with were not home. However as we continued working, at around 6 PM we encountered one of these two people walking on the street. His name was Elizaldo, and to be honest he was the least possible of the 2 people we had because he had already been attending church for 8 months with his girlfriend, but many missionaries had already worked for months with him and every time was the same, He didnt want anything to do with baptism. But when we ran into him on the street, and started talking to him, he told us he was reading the Book of Mormon! When he said that Elder Mortensen and I looked at each other, and we already knew. Elder Mortensen asked why he had never been baptised and Elizaldo answered: 

´´its watever man itll be alright´´

E. M. ``itll be alright as in you want to be baptised?´´

Elizaldo: ´´Sure´´

E.M. `´When do you want to get baptised?´´

Elizaldo `` when were you thinking?´´

E.M. & E.F. in unison: ``how about tomorrow?``

Elizaldo: ``OK!``

Yesterday, God once more confirmed our Faith. Elizaldo was baptised by the Bishop here in our ward. Is Girlfriend (atually fiance now) was suuuppperrr happy and really suprised! They are planning to get married and are also now planning to be sealed together in the Fortaleza temple one year from now.

Such a blessed week!

Love you all and hope you have an excellent week!
Love, 

Elder Ferrell

 

Photos

1) Baptism of Elizaldo

2) Im holding a Parrot

3) This spider was in the Baptisimal Font at the Sisters Chapel

4) Shout out to the Fam

And the Blessings Continue! (Week #59)

Hello All!

What a wonderful week!

First off, Congradulations to my Brother T.J. for his college graduation last week! #AllGrownUp!

Second off, LAst week was truly a week of miracles here in Zona Pacajus! Elder Mortensen and I had Leadership Council on Tuesday, then we had to go back to Fortaleza on Wednesday for Zone Conference, then back once more Friday Morning to do Baptisimal Interviews for a District Leader in our Zone, so one strong theme as always for the week was tiredness, but on the mission if you arent tired from all the work and daily grind you arent doing it right! The challenge was how to manage to get all the work done in our Area for the week while losing 2 and a half days of work! But knowing that the Lord would provide a way, we managed and were truly blessed with the results!

Yesterday Wesley was baptised, and Gustavo received the Holy Ghost! These are the two biggest highlights of the day. The second biggest is we had 3 Families visit church Yesterday who are serious investigators! One of these Families was Wesley´s family. Wesley´s brother and sister were already recent converts before I arrived here, and Elder Mortensen said that their Parents had no interest whatsoever in the Gospel. But we optamisticly went to try and teach them and either they aparently had a miraculous change of heart! Starting with the first day we started teaching them they seem to litterally change in the moment after learning about every principal of the gosel. We are helping them get married on the 26th of this month, but they are more excited about their baptisms that will happen right after the wedding! A true Miracle!

Also, when I arrived in Pacajus, our Zone was not baptising at all! In some of my last letters I already mentioned that actually. That is why this last week was such a wonderful one! Our Zone had 7 people get baptised and 8 People get confirmed, and our Stake attendance went up by about 60 People!! Just shows how eager God is to pour out Blessings upon his Children!

Love you all, hope you have a good week! And happy Mothers day to all the Moms out there!

Elder Ferrell

1) Baptism of Wesley. (Wesley, Wesley´s neighbor who baptised him, and his Family)

2) Baptism from Last week of Gustavo

Real Quick (Week #58)

Hello all!
Just a quick update today!

This last week flew by and was super diffiuclt because last P-day we had to go to the mission office to get matirials for the zone and didnt have time to rest. In Brasil, a week without P-day is not pretty haha.But everything worked out!
Saturday we had a Baptism of a young adult, Julianna. A truly elected daughter of God! She was confirmed yesterday along with Rayssa and Ruan, and last night we had one more baptism of Gostavo, a super smart 8 year old kid who is the brother of a Less active member!

God is blessing us so much!

More details next week! 

Love you all!

Elder Ferrell

"It's not working Elder!"... "Well did you turn it on?" (Week #57)

Hello All!

This last week was jammed packed with excitement! 

The First Sunday of the transfer, our Zone didnt have a single Baptism!

So Elder Mortensen and I came up with the plan to have a Zone study on Faith and then to have a Zone fast on Friday to help everyone get a little more focused on the work! And it worked! Our zone baptised 6 people last week and we already have 3 people to baptise this week! God is truly blessing us!
Yesterday Elder Mortensen and I had 2 baptisms, Rayssa and Ruan. These two kids who are incredibly smart! They are the brother and sister of a Recent convert, and the exciting part is that in a few weeks here their mom will be baptised too! She is a single mom so with her baptism we will be able to complete a family with Eternal Prospects! Nothing is better than that! 

Rayssa wanted me to baptise her, and she is hilarious! It was a really special experience!

Also last Pday we spent the ENTIRE day cleaning our house because it was soo dirty, but Tuesday it got way dirty again because our house turned into a war zone.   If any of you have ever wondered, how many Elders it takes to kill a mouse, the answer is 4. And even with that a lot of luck! After a hunt that was full of quite a lot of excitement, Elder Mortensen was able to corner the unwelcomed guest that wandered into the wrong house Last Tuesday night while the Elderes from Aracati were visiting for us to do splits with them. Never a dull moment on the Mish!

Another funny thing was when the Bishop called on Saturday to tell us the water wasnt working in the chapel for the baptismal font. But when we went to go resolve the problem, the first thing we did was the solution! Turns out somebody turned off the water switch outside of the font, and didnt think to turn it on....now that im writing it it doesnt seem that funny.....but it was just trust me! haha

Anyways thats it from Horizonte this week!

Until next monday Fam!

Love Elder Ferrell

1) Fotos of the Baptism

2) Rayssa

(I´ll have better pics next week)

No Sleep till Horizonte (Week #56)

Hello all!
And WOW Im tired!

This last week was crazy and I am still adjusting to the even faster paced schedule!
Elder Mortensen is awesome and we mess around a lot, but he is so obediente, and super spiritual! Im learning a lot with him!

He is from Moapa Valley Nevada, and he is freaking tall and walks fast! So that was a little difficult this last week haha. The most memorable moment was when we were walking fast and I was doing my best to keep up and not complain, he looked at me and said ´´Your nitro boost bar is full, I repeat, your nitro boost bar is full´´ and he took off walking soo fast that I had to litterally run to keep up with him! 

But its all part of things. Horizonte is awesome! The members here are awesome and help a lot with missionary work! There is one sister here whose son is serving a mission, and since our ward doesnt have a ward missionary leader, she took it upon herself to lead us. Its pretty awesome actually. Last Friday we had a family who we were teaching that wanted to get baptised, but the mom, while loving the church, still isnt too sure about baptism and giving up some things to obey the commandments. So last Friday we brought our ´´Ward Missionary Leader´´ with us, who had already reached out on her own to get to know our investigator, and Elder Mortensen and I basically sat and watched these two sisters have a deep conversation for about 40 minutes, then our investigator cried out of gettin the feels, and we left! After the appointment we gave the sister from the ward the Baptisimal forms for her to pass by on saturday and get the mom to sign the baptisimal forms and it worked! This week the two kids of our investigator, Maria, who still havent been baptised, and we hope maria herself, will be baptised! And as Missionaries we did hardly anything! This just goes to show the magic that can happen when members really get involved in the work!

Other than that, like all areas Horizante has its difficulties, but were helping things improve, and were very excited for another week of doing the lords work!

I hope everyone is well!

Love Elder Ferrell

 

Pictures!

Notice: Please Clean your Local Church Building!

Thank You!

Photos 2&3 are our Baptisimal Font!

Transfers (Week #55)

Hello all!
Just a quick email today!
I was transferred from Quixada to be a zone leader in the zone Pacajus.

My area is called Horizante, and my new companion is an American from Las Vegas, Elder Mortensen.

I was reaaaallly sad to Leave Quixada, but it all is part of the experience. New things to come!

Love you all have a great week!

Elder Ferrell

He Lives, don't you know? (Week #54)

What a true blessing it is for us to be living in a day where we can be led by and governed by a true profet called of God. What a special experience it was to see, hear, and witness God work through his beloved servant Presidente Nelson this last weekent. I bear solemn testimony that the words, revelations and sentiments transmitted from the speakers in this last General Conference are the words of god himself, and that those who delivered them are true diciples called of him!

We were all excited to show our support for our New Profet on Saturday, as well as to see our two new Apostles on Sunday, one of which, Elder Suares, is from Brasil!

But it is at this moment I would like to ask you all to ponder something in your minds going forward these next few weeks. As missionaries we often teach a specific lesson on the first visit with an investigator. This message is called the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It truly is a message of hope and joy to our world today to know that through a profet called of God, God restored the order of his church here on the earth. But I would like to ask all of you, is the restoration complete? Is the restoration only the revelations that Joseph Smith and the other modern profets that imidietly followed received? NO!

My friends we live in an exciting time in which we are PARTICIPATING in the restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. As Christ taught us in Acts 1:7 ´´It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power.´´ 

I have already heard a few voice their concerns and confusion about glorious changes made in the orginization of the church this last weekend to better progress the RESTORATION of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. To any concern or confusion that may come it is important to know that this is the adversary trying to tempt us and ubstruct the work of the Lord being finished. We cannot forget, especially this the weekend that we celebrate the ressurection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Crist, that HE LIVES. He is at the helm and he does not sleep on the Job! If you think that the restoration of his church and his gospel is complete, I invite you to read the New testament and see the laws and covenants that were made or the orginizations that were created, and see how little by little we are seeing the church of God being adjusted to truly be restored to its original form, clean and pure. The most exciting part is that we are a direct influence on how quickly or how slowly this restoration is accomplished! God will continue to pregress is work for he is a God of Progression. When his children here on earth show that they are pregressing with Him He will give us more parts of the puzzle to motivate us to continue on this road of Progression.

The more dedicated we are to obeying our sacred covenants, the faster this restoration will be accomplished. 

The more dedicated we are in helping our bretheren know about the joy and love that comes through following and obeying the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the faster that Gospel will be Restored.

We are our own agents. As we can see through every example in our history, when we, the people of Zion turn to be a righteous people, God will entrust us with knowlede of his works. But if we cannot understand things terrestres how can we be expected to understand things Celestial? (Words of Christ John 3) 

I would like to extend a loving invitation to all to embrace with excitiment every new revelation and new step of the Restoration of His Gospel which God chooses to reveal through his servants in these later days, and would like to encourage all to always search to be the best disiple of Christ you can be, through following all his commandments. Let us, as a people, hasten the work of our Master. Let us do our part to have confidence in a ´´Better World´´ (Ether 12:4)

I miss you all, have an excellent week!

With all my love,

Elder Ferrell