tracting games

My dearest family and friends,

It´s getting so close to Christmas, did it creep up this fast last year?? I am so excited to talk to you all and finally hear your voices! I will be ready to chat up a storm.

 

This week was pretty great, I got some more snowflakes to add to the ones you sent me and plastered them all over our piso. The other elders love it, always making comments about my Christmas spirit. I´ve been trained well :) 

 

This week started out super crazy. On Tuesday we were walking around on the streets contacting, when we got a call from the zone leader saying we had to be in our Piso´s at 3:00 because a huge storm is coming and we won't be able to leave. We found out a little later that there was a red alert throughout all of the islands for this storm and the stake president of the islands talked to president about keeping us in our pisos. It freaked me out a little but I was also a little excited--you know me, I like a thunderstorm once in a while. But sadly it hardly turned out to be anything, except in the morning there was a thunderstorm and one bolt struck right next to our building, illuminating our entire piso then followed by an incredible boom that stopped my heart. Besides that, it was just a little rain and wind which permitted us to continue working. 

 

Our ward had their Christmas dinner on Saturday and Pablo, Pilar, and Louis (our investigating family) all came! As far as I know they loved it. It was amazing to me how willing the members were to strike up conversations with them and make them feel welcomed and loved. Sadly only Pilar came to church yesterday, but I am praying and hoping that Louis and Pablo will want to continue coming. 

 

Now on to the funny stories: 

We were in a hurry to catch the tranvia (basically the train) which was just about to leave, and so we were scrambling to put coins in the machine right next to the train, by putting all the coins we could fine which were 1s and 5´s until it got to 1.35- the amount for one ticket. Right as soon as we bought the ticket, I grabbed it and turned around just in time to see the train leaving! Hahaha I felt like such a dork, someone was probably havin a good time watching us throw coins in the slot as fast as we possibly could. 

 

Some days we spend a little time docking doors, and a fun thing that we´ve come up with to do so that we aren´t bored out of our minds is pick a work that the other has to say during the conversation we have with them at the door. So Elder Wilson gave me the word bizcochon (that wonderful bread/cake stuff), so this was my conversation (translated):

 

The guy: Hello? 

Me: Hey, we are missionaries and would love to share our message with you, do you have some time right now? 

Guy: Yeah right, now I don´t have time

Me: Well could we pass by another day? I can bring bizcochon for you? 

Hahaha, well, it keeps us entertained. 

We passed a very serious looking man on the street with a complete samurai sword on his back...not sure if I should be scared or not. 

Okay that's about all for today. Once again, thanks for your support for me. I am very grateful for your love and sacrifices so that I can have this opportunity to be a part of God´s army and share this light that you have given to me, Mom and Dad.

Love 

Elder Franson

it's christmas time in the piso

Hola familia!

 This is super weird, it is December 9 and it does not feel like Christmas at all. It still gets pretty warm here, doesn´t snow at all here. However it has been raining a lot lately--on Friday it didn´t stop raining all day! Lots of the roads here they have made sort of a more ´modern´ cobblestone look, and with that they have a super bad drainage system. We were driving on the freeway and there was probably a 6 foot cliff to our right with water just billowing off onto the freeway. It was super scary ha, driving on a freeway covered in water. But we got home safely :) Thank goodness I wasn´t driving. (I hardly ever drive now. First off our area and companionship doesn´t have the car, but whenever we are together the other elder always wants to drive ha).

So, I have a great story for today. Remember Pilar? So she has a husband and son here living all together in a house. We went to her house one of the first times and asked if her husband wanted to hear but she told us ´No, he doesn´t really believe in anything, I don´t think he wants to hear´. So it was kind of tough but one day we were talking to her and her son, Pablo, and invited him to JAS (young single adult activities they have every Friday) which he wanted Pilar to come as well. So we went down to Santa Cruz for the activity expecting to find just Pilar and Pablo but we found the husband there as well!! So we spent the night with them cutting out snowflakes (MY FAVORITE! P.S. I got your letter with the snowflakes and they are now all over our piso haha, the other elders love them. I made some more to add to the collection) and eating some delicious food that the senior couple made. THEN, we invited them to church on Saturday with brownies again and they all three came!! It was such a great day... well...week haha. I am so grateful for the opportunity that I have to teach them and bring this light into their lives. Pray for them to continue coming to church and meeting with us please! 

Ok, frustrating story about Miguel. So this guy has a photographic memory or something becuase he just spends his time reading Wikipedia pages or books and can remember everything. After he started meeting with us he has been reading tons of stuff about our church- both true and false. When we met with him again this was part of our conversation:

Miguel: ´I´ve been reading lots of stuff about your church and there are just some beliefs that I cant believe. For example you believe that Adam (Adam and Eve) was God. And I do not believe that at all. 

Me: ´Uhhh no. Actually we don´t Miguel¨ 

Miguel: '...Well Brigham Young said this and its true! So I can´t accept that. 

Elder Wilson: 'Miguel, we don´t believe that Adam was God! You can´t read stuff on the internet and expect it all to be completely correct!'

Miguel: silence...

Honestly it was so frustrating because he didn't care what we said, he still firmly believes all of the ridiculous things he has read on the internet. We kept telling him the only way he can know what is the real truth is through prayer. Because God is the only person who can do that. But he brushed it off and said he won´t pray. I don´t know, I guess there´s not much we can do. It's just pretty sad. He got into such deep doctrine like the planet Kolob and how God lives there but he doesn´t believe that because blah blah blah. It's making my blood pressure rise just thinking about it. 

Back on a brighter note, the ward had their Christmas concert last night! It was very good, the choir of only 8 or 9 members sang. I love the Christmas spirit. I love seeing just the small group of willing members use their talents for the ward. For some reason I was always afraid of doing the choir at our ward. Remind me to buck up and be a man please when I get home. We´ve been singing Christmas hymns and cutting out snowflakes during mediodia which has really been getting me in the spirit. Today we´re going to go buy a little pre-lit tree to have in our piso ha. 

Ok, thats probably about it. I hope you all have a great week! I love and appreciate you guys, thanks for all the help, encouragement and support you´ve given me. 

Elder Franson

delicious fries

long lost investigator is found!

Hoooooooola.

We had the best week--I can´t even believe how amazing it was. And now I´m so excited to share the miracles we had with all of you! 

 

We started the week off in a trio becuase Elder Eskelson left and his companion was waiting for his new comp--Elder Bohne from Alpine--for a couple days. So it was tough for those first few days, just because we had to combine both of our areas and teach both of our investigators. But anyway, one of the first miracles that I want to write about was incredible! Remember Paco? Our investigator from about 2 months ago. Elder Pugh and I were teaching him, had a baptismal fecha and was on track and super ready. The only problem was his wife. He told us he wanted to get a divorce before he got baptized becuase she hates this church and does not what him to be a part of if it. (And I think they were having a lot of other problems as well). But anway, he called us!!!!! After 2 months of never answering his phone, not having any contact with him, he called us! I picked up the phone and was speechless. He seemed a little different, not as excited to hear my voice as I was to hear his. But the first thing he did was ask me if we had time on Tuesday to talk at our usual bench in El Parque de Constitución. We set it up and then said goodbye. I have no idea what changed in him to make him call us back after 2 months, maybe he got a divorce. Maybe something happened with him, who knows. But I do know that the Lord works in mysterious ways and that he knows everything. All I am here to do is to be his hands. 

 

Second miracle was a member reference from Romina Cozzolino (she was the returned missionary who has I think been in a couple of my pictures, and I think she said something about adding you, mom, on Facebook) anyway, she was at the church and started talking to a guy who had stopped and was looking at the church. Long story short, we met with him a couple days later at the chapel with Romina. He is from Poland, his hame is Miguel,  has lived here for 18 months, knows Polish, German, English, and Spanish. He was telling us that he had a great friend in the military back in Poland who was Mormon and really helped him out, and had given Miguel a Book of Mormon too.  However, he lost the book and lost contact with his friend. So for many years he was blindly searching for it again but couldn´t find it, until he walked past our church and recognized the plaque in front that says ¨La Iglesia de Jesucristo de los Santos de los Últimos Días¨. Cool huh? So we taught him in the chapel and the spirit was already so strong. At the end, we asked him if he would give the closing prayer to which he told us it had been years since he´d prayed and he didn´t feel good enough to pray. I was thinking for a second, a little worried about how we could get him to feel comfortable and know that he can always pray to our Heavenly Father. We paused for a second and then Romina asked him what some of the things were that he was grateful for in his life. After he said a couple things she asked him what he wanted to ask God for. She then told him she would say the prayer with the things he had just told her and he could repeat it after her. We all scooted out chairs a little closer together and she began the prayer, saying the things he told us he was grateful for. It was so spititual in the there, I felt the spirit so so strong. I think from that, my appreciation for prayer and knowledge that God really is there listening to your prayers grew quite a bit.

 

I am so thankful for prayer and the comfort and peace it brings into my life. Since being on my mission my prayers have become so much more meaningful. 

 

At church yesterday we had 3 of our investigators come! Fani, Pilar, and Miguel. Super super awesome. It has hardly ever been that much. But I think it was because we went around inviting our investigators to church Saturday with brownies Elder Wilson and I made. Brownies are the key!  haha Elder Wilson´s mom sent him 4 or 5 boxes of brownie mix to make for our investigators in a huge box for his birthday. 

 

A couple more things for this week and then I gotta go. Silverio, with the family that got in a car crash in Wyoming--turns out they live in Cokeville!! Can you imagine that?! Small world. 

 

Its been tough this week because we are working on the university campus basically and all of the students have finals...and all of our investigators are students. haha

 

Ok, I love you all. I´m having a great time out here. Its weird how its almost Christmas and I´m not doing all those fun things with the fam, but I´m so grateful to be here.

 

Elder Franson

 

P.s!! This morning I swear it was snowing!! It had been raining but I started to see little things wafting around in the air. Awesome!

full of funny stories this week

Dear Family and Friends,

These last couple weeks have been a bit stressful and crazy. Zone conference, no electricity for 4 days (we got it back though thank goodness), the other elders moved out and into another piso, Elder Eskelsen got transferred back to the peninsula! And a lot more but I just can´t think of it all right now. 

 

Today is the start of the next transfer, my 3rd transfer in the field! I think yesterday was my 4 month mark--holy. 

 

I wanted to tell you guys about a guy we´ve been talking with for the past month or so. Super nice man, works at a small food place which is kinda similar to a fast food place because it sells hamburgers, hot dogs, french fries, baguette sandwhiches, and grilled cheese sandwhich stuff. But it is sooo much better. We´ve eaten there once or twice total and it's really good. Anyway, he works all the time and we can´t get into his house but we stop by every day almost and talk to him whenever there isn´t anyone in the store about the Book of Mormon. We´ve been leaving him chapters to read and he loves it. For a little bit he just started reading from page 1 and got to the vision of the tree of life. The next day he told us he was pretty confused and needed some help to understand it haha. He is awesome. He loves to practice his English with us whenever he can. The other day, he told us if we ever need help with money or food, to come to him because he´ll take care of us :) aww.  Good thing we have this plastic card that money just magically appears on it every month. 

 

This last Wednesday we stopped a lady on the street and we started explaining a little about the Book of Mormon with her. But not very far into it another lady walked past, who we found out later was her friend, and stopped and listened to us. We got the second lady´s number, named Pilar, and got her addresses and a time to stop by yesterday. During the quick lesson we had with her, she started crying. After asking if she was alright she told us her 18 year old son is very sick and she felt helpless. I felt so sorry for her. We left her house with another prayer specifically for him and told her we would be back (tonight actually). I am hoping that as we keep talking with her and sharing the message of joy and happiness that it will unite their family more and help her son. Honestly, my family is everything to me. And because we have the gospel it makes it even more special to me. I learned to pray from you and dad, I learned more about the Book of Mormon with you guys, your testimonies, everything! I am so gratefuly for the knowledge that I do have and the loving family that my Father in Heaven blessed me with. Each one of you mean so much to me and are so special to me. Thank you for everything that you have done for me. 

 

Ok now it´s time for some funny stories! 

 

1.We have some pretty cheap chairs in our piso, not very good quality. As we were finishing up plainning one night, I slid my chair back from the table to get up and it completely broke! The whole middle thing that you sit on had fallen down which left me, of course the 6 foot 6 guy, impossibly squished down into that hole. My butt was touching the ground and my feet were off the ground. Sorry for the bad description, I´ll try to send a picture of it  for you guys to really appreciate how funny it was. 

 

2. Elder Wilson sometimes just randomly askes me weird questions that he doesn´t quite think through before they come out of his mouth haha. The other day he asked me, while still deep in thought, "If you could be any other gender, other than male, what would you be?" Haha what a dork. 

 

3. In p90x one morning, Elder Christensen, Wilson, and I were down doing the workout and Eskelsen didn´t want to so he was sitting on the couch huddled up in a ball with a blanket. At one point in the workout the guy says something like "If you need a break, take the break!" and I heard Eskelsen say "Ok, I guess I´m taking the break! Man you guys should take the break too!" haha. Funny guy. I also heard him as he was trying to make himself get out of bed, in a very high pitched voice, "Help! Help!" Haha. 

Ok, that's all for now. Hope you enjoyed the stories from this week. Talk to you all next week! 

Love,

Elder Franson

power outage on a chilly day

Dear family and friends,

 

Ok, I have basically no time today to write because we have zone conference here in the island of Grand Canaria (same one that we went to last time for the stake opening). We rode the shuttle, woke up at 4:45 to get there on time! 

 

Oh, p.s. this week is the last week of the transfer (Where the freak did the time go?!) so don´t send anymore letters until I know I´m going to stay or leave. Sorry for the late notice. I am pretty sure I´ll stay here with Elder Wilson for at least one more but who knows. 

 

So, highlight of this week was probably yesterday morning. Its been cooling off pretty good at nights here and so the other elders found 2 plug in heaters and were trying to warm up. We had them plugged in and were beginning our personal study when all of a sudden the lights went out....yep. The power went out. Soooo we looked around and couldn´t find anything so we just left for the day. Last night we looked and looked for the breaker box but couldn´t find it. So while we´re here in Las Palmas our frozen dinners and food will be thawed. Actually, now that I think about it our milk and eggs will be fine since for some reason they don´t need to be refrigerated here...scary. 

Anyway, sorry for the super short emails and no personal emails. We are in a sketchy locutorio and we gotta go soon. But thanks for the emails this week--they were great! Good luck with that cat, let me know how it goes :) Also, congrats to porter in basketball! Keep it up bud! I want to hear more about it. 

Love you all.

Elder Franson

can't stop smiling

Hey Family and Friends!

This week has probably been one of the best that I´ve seen since I´ve been out here. We saw a bunch of miracles and I learned so much. We had a zone meeting on Wednesday--every month, and we use telecom since our zone is ´The Canary Islands´. The zone leader asked me to share a spiritual thought during it. Rewind, I had gotten a letter from Grandpa Franson with 3 scriptures on it and really liked them. 2 of them were from Alma 37. So I decided to share those two which talked mainly about having all of our actions, thoughts, and deeds in the Lord. During it I just felt the spanish smoothly come out of my mouth, which was a really cool feeling. I pray every day for the gift of tongues as I go out to preach His Gospel. In Preach My Gospel there is a section on the gift of tongues which says something along the lines of ´part of receiving the gift of tongues is working hard and struggling with the language.´  It is important, with everything in this church, to work hard and show to our Lord that we really do desire that gift or blessing. Ether 12:6 the blessings will come AFTER the trial of our faith. 

Another thing that i really noticed this week was that I was just so happy. So so so happy, I would kneel down to pray at night and during the pray I just couldn't help smiling. I love missionary work. 

Ok, on Thursday we had a really cool thing happen. We were walking to a sweet old lady´s house, who we had previously met on the street (oh and we had confirmed our lesson with her about 2 hours earlier) and as we got there and knocked on the door we heard some footsteps and a dog inside but no one answered. So we left, I was a little annoyed that we just got set up but we started right in with contacting on the streets. The first person we stopped and talked to was an 18 year old college student who ended up being super nice and open minded. We had a lesson right there on a bench and taught him about the Book of Mormon. We had another lesson with him on Saturday and we set up a baptismal date! Usually we ask people the question if they´ll be baptized and they seem a little hesitant and then we say ´after more preparation and when you receive an answer for yourself that this is true?´  and some seem a little more willing. Well this guy, Jacob, said yes before we even finished the first question! haha I was super happy, 

Funny story--So the streets here are way narrow as it is, and then everyone parallel parks on them which makes them almost impossible to drive. One guy drove past us and hit a car that was parked, and we were right there haha. He, staying in his car, asked us if it was ours and we said no. He then said ´Well, shhhh´ and drove off! Hahaha these people.

We have a new investigator, her name is Mabel and she´s from the Dominican Republic. We´ve started teaching her and she seems to like it. She works everyday until 7ish everyday, lives alone except for a tiny dog that keeps her company. That sad thing is that the dog sits at home for those 9 or 10 hours until she returns and takes her on a short walk to the park. Life here is super different than in Soda Springs, I am used to having space and places to go other than more buildings and roads. 

Elder Christensen and I sang a hymn in sacrament this last week, I´ve been a little sick lately so my voice sounds bad and there were a couple close calls to my voice cracking but i made it through haha. There are hardly any musical numbers, almost every time it´s been another hymn. One time the choir sang but that was it. 

Thats probably it for this week, I gotta go get back to our piso to eat some of my newly bought food! I think I´ve gained some weight. I´m not sure though because every scale I´ve used has been different. I found some Lays salt and vinegar chips but they were pretty expensive and really small. I miss that endless supply in our pantry :)

Love you all, thanks for your prayers and support. 

Love Elder Franson

"Julian and me."

"Spain parking. This is our car, and Elder Christensen was somehow able to squeeze right in there."

their success is my success

Hello friends and family!

Although it basically still is summer here, it's starting to cool off more at nights and for the first 4 or 5 days this past week it was raining and got pretty cool! It's so funny to see, the slightest bit of cloud cover and everyone runs and grabs a winter coat and scarf...come on people, you gotta experience the Idaho cold! 

 

This week was pretty hard, a good week of course, but it was pretty hard. We got failed a ton, one of our new investigators--Julio--has been super chungo lately (flakey, sketchy). We were sitting in a park where we usually meet with him, with a member too, and after we called him he told us ´Oh sorry, I can´t sorry guys.´ Punk. So anyway, we were struggling a little bit with that but we still managed somehow. 

 

This Saturday we had a baptism of a lady named Milagros and her son Jose Antonio! Its a weird situation, we first started teaching her while in the trio but she lives about 40 minutes away by car so when Elder Wilson came and the other elders still have the only car, she was their investigator. I was pretty sad but it's fine. She was so prepared it's not even funny. She had been talking with the Jehovah's Witnesses because she had just been searching and searching for something and didn´t know what or where it was. Then her friend, a member, gave her to us and we started teaching her. It was so cool. The baptism was really spiritual, and it made me think of the Holy Ghost and back to my baptism. *haha my good old broken arm in a sling.* I am so grateful for this gift I´ve been given. 

We found a guy, Julian, 19 years old and super cool! He swims, which made me really happy. But the coolest part is how we found him. Last week we found a lady in the streets and we set something up with her for this week to talk to her. When we met, she had a friend, Julian, and interestingly enough she was not prepared at all for this message and he was! I don´t know what made her bring him a long, but he asked to read the Book of Mormon before we even offered it haha. But of course it was too good too be true, he lives down in Santa Cruz which means we had to pass him off to the elders down there and they get to teach him, not us. :( but its okay, something I´ve been trying to work on is the who their success is my success. This is all the Lord's work and it shouldn´t be about me at all. 

The Book of Mormon is key. Holy, that is the understatement of the year. It is so essential. We had an investigator that for the 2nd lesson he didn´t read the section that we left for him but the next time he did read it and we could tell a total difference in him. It was incredible really. Don´t take this book that most of us have had and known about all our lives for granted. 

That basically sums it up, oh besides the awesome hike we went on this morning with some members and investigators--super beautiful. I´ll send some pictures. 

Thank you for everything,
Love, 

Elder Franson

faith in the atonement

Hey Friends and Family!

Wow, I'm already 3 months in. Crazy! I´m worried its going by too fast, and before I know it I´ll have to be transferred or something. But, thats why you work hard every day :) 

 

So, funny story. On Saturday night they had the daylight saving time so we were going to get an extra hour to sleep. First of all, we were all STOKED to get another hour of sleep. I remember asking Jess if it felt like you were just sleep deprived for the whole 2 years and after he said yes. I didn´t really believe it...until now. Every night I fall onto my metal springy mattress exhausted. So anyway, we wanted to have a little party thing so we put all of our mattressses in the ´living room´ and all 4 of us slept out there for Saturday night and Sunday night haha. It was very fun, I´ve got some great pictures. Chocolate and sleepovers make everything better :)

 

I stopped a guy in the street earlier this week, just a super happy looking fellow which isn´t that common in these streets. He had a fanny pack (everyone here wears fanny packs haha) that had those Jamaican colors on it and dread locks! So we were talking, he gave us his number and I was feeling pretty good about it. Well, a couple days later I called him and he was going off about something and at first I couldn´t understand him. But then I heard him say (in Spanish of course) look, will you please just call me another day? Today I am a bit crazy in the head. Hahahaha. So its a very good possibility that he is a pot head. But we´ll see if we can change him. 

 

We have been meeting with a inactive man named Jose Carlos. He´s this little short man, super nice, and has a really high voice ha. Anyway, we´ve been working with him to try to get him to come back to church and it was tough at first just with his job and vollunteer work, but yesterday he finally came!! And he was telling us man it's been such a long time! I´m starting to understand the Atonement a little better, and with that am realizing how important it is to keep coming back to church, to keep coming and renewing your convenants. Christ paid the ultimate price for each one of us, you and me. One Elder shared with us a quote from someone about the difference between Satan and Jesus, how Satan wanted us all to have that free ticket and not have to choose right from wrong. But he wanted the glory. And the interesting part I thought was when he said he thought the reason being was because Satan was unwilling to suffer. He was unwilling to pay that price for each of us. And then we have Jesus Christ, our big bro, who was willing to do it without murmuring at all and suffered for each and every one of God´s children. And then on top of that gave all of the glory to God. Brother Hegamann gave a lesson in seminary once where he had Andy Nielsen go up front and would do 15 push ups for every student in the class to have a brownie. There were some kids who said no when he offered them the brownie, and Bro. Heg said ´Andy, will you do 10 pushups so that this person can have a brownie that he/she doesn´t want?" Ugh whenever I think of that lesson I get a knot in my throat as I remember the times when I might have said no, I don´t want it, in life. And yet...Jesus still suffered for you. He Loves us so much. My heart breaks every time I talk to people here and think of the people everywhere who choose, with a gift given to them from our God, to believe that He doesn´t exist. 

Ok, I want to share a miracle we had this week. Well. Yesterday. So, Javier lives with 3 roommates--all body builders haha. Anyway, one of them is an inactive member! His name is Silverio. He is always super nice to us and fun, but never wants to hear anything about the gospel. But Elder Wilson and I were walking in the street and I saw him! We ran up to him and said hi. He looked different, very sad. He told us his sister, who lives in Wyoming with her husband and kids, got in a car wreck and right now she is in the SLC hospital and her son is the the Primary Children's or something like that. I think he said that the kid got ejected from the car as it flipped. (Have you heard or seen anything about it in the news?) but he said he finally wants to come back to church! We talked a little more, and then on Sunday I was waiting outside to greet people and right before I was about to go inside becuase the first hymn had started, He pulled up! He sat by us, crying during most of the meeting, and afterwards we were able to have a little chat with him. It was cool to see, how in our lives we have those mount everests that we have to climb, that just plop down right in the middle of our path without warning. And we can choose to either hike up it alone carrying our every growing pack by ourselves, or we can turn to the lord and he can help take some of the weight off your shoulders. In that sense, the choice seems pretty obvious. 

 

This week honestly was great, Elder Wilson and I met some awesome people and are trying really hard to get more and more investigators. Idk if I told you guys this before or not, but we´re right in the center of a college town--Universitad de la Laguna. So as intimidating as it is,I´ve been trying to get better at talking to kids my age and sharing the gospel with them. We have right now...I think like 5 or so investigators and all of them are between 20 and 25 years old. It's awesome, one guy--se llama Julio--is a super cool Bolivian who, since the first lesson, trusts us a lot more and more. I think that is so crucial in this work. 

 

...Oh no, another guy with bad  BO just walked past and is sitting by us...awww shoot. Gosh, the elevator in our piso building stunk SO BAD of smoke, it was horrible. We all were holding our breath the whole way down haha. 

 

Ok, well that's good for now. 

Thanks for the prayers and support, keep the letters coming! haha 

Love you all,

Elder Franson

missing american hot chocolate

Hola Family and Friends,

This week has been great, like every other week in the mission haha. I got my new companion last Monday- Elder Wilson. I´ll send a couple pictures home this week. So he is only one transfer ahead of me, just barely got out of his training (Oh I forgot to answer that question from you mom, there is a 12 week program for each new missionary with a booklet. Each week you have to read certain stuff together from Preach My Gospel or watch an episode or 2 from the district or whatever). So it´s been great because we both still have that drive and motivation. The hard thing about it has been having 2 different trainers. Elder Pugh was my first and I got used to how we did things, how he trained and taught. We had our ´groove´. And now Elder Wilson does it so differently. Just with a lot of little things. It's been a little tough with that, but I was working really hard to work together and to have a ´Christ like love´. And it´s helped! The best person that we can turn to for our problems is the Lord, because he´ll always help us become stronger and better. Ether 12:27. 

 

So, this week nothing super cool or interesting happened. Oh, yesterday we got fed 3 times in like 6 hours.... it was so crazy. A lentil soup from an Argentinian family--story about that family in a second--which was sooo good. The funny thing with her lentil soups (we´ve had a couple from her) is that he loves to put slices of hot dogs in them haha. I wonder how dad would like that. The next meal, immediately following this one, was from another member who just looooooves the missionaries... and she just looooves tuna.... and I do not looooove tuna. Haha this time actually she cooked us some rice and mini chicken drum sticks (Another thing different here than America, the drumsticks are super small. Haven´t seen a normal sized one yet.). She put a tomato paste over the rice which I thought was interesting. I didn´t like it too much but oh well, you gotta do what you gotta do right? THEN, after we waddled out to our car with food babies--pretty sure I could have had a triplets--we separated from the other elders and hit the streets because all of our lessons failed us. I don´t know how I did it honestly. But we walked for a while talking to basically everyone we passed haha. I was amazed, because absolutely no one listened to us or would even slow down. I started getting a little discouraged, there was so much rejection. But something my companion told me was that after those tough times, always, there is a miracle to follow. Satan tries to get us down, but if we pull through and continue to work hard there will be a miracle after. So sure enough, we found a guy, Bolivian named Julio, who let us teach him right there on a bench about the Book of Mormon. It was really cool to see that. So, we got a new investigator! 

 

Ok, back to the meals. Mari told us to come over and she was going to show us how to make Bizcochón. So we get there, but she said we didn´t have time that night to make it, but she already had some made for us to just eat haha. I swear that lady constantly has 2 or 3 loaves of bizcochon ready at all times for us haha. We ate some of that and then her hot chocolate (that is where the picture came  from that you probably saw on Facebook of me drinking 4 glasses hahaha. I was just trying to make a funny picture, I don´t think I could drink any more of that heavenly drink than one glass. It is so different, very very thick. I still miss the hot chocolate we had at home, but this stuff is still pretty good. 

 

We´ve had over the last couple of weeks a couple people make us some crepes, one lady made it with ice cream in side and nutella haha so good. 

 

Ok so back to that Argentinian family. Their name is Cozzolino, and her daughter just barely got back from her mission in Barcelona on Thursday. I remember Jess telling me something about how weird it´ll be if I ever see a missionary´s homecoming while I´m out here, and it was super weird. But it didn´t make me sad or homesick at all like I thought it might. She was an amazing missionary, and has been begging to come with us to do some more work haha. Seeing her motivation and love for the work has motivated me to be better and work harder. She´s so cool. And then this next week is another homecoming for an elder serving in the Arizona Tempe mission! 

 

We have that investigator, Hong, a Chinese lady who loves Jesus Christ and really liked the chruch. She came once with Elder Pugh and me but hadn´t come again. And then yesterday we were sitting down in sacrement meeting and all of a sudden I saw Hong walk in with a friend! So they came and sat by us. She is super busy and we can never get a lesson with her, but at least she´s coming to chruch right? 

 

Ok thats it for now, holy thats a long email. Thanks for everything you guys, you are all the best. Arely tells me every time I see her how popular I am on Facebook and that everytime she posts a picture of me she gets notifications on it all day and night long hahaha. Thank you for that. 

I love you all, 

Elder Franson

false summit

Dear Family and Friends,

So I didn´t get a chance last week to tell you about our trip to El Teide, so I´ll talk a little about it today. Tenerife, my island, is the only one with a volcano out of all 7 islands. And interestingly enough it is the highest point of all of Spain. So we got up a little earlier, 6 or 630ish and headed out. The drive went through a thick foresty area that brought back memories of idaho--super pretty. There is a little resort spot down at the base with a little restaurant and gift shop. Then you get on the little ski lift thing, only it was enclosed, and you ride up the volcano! They don´t take you all the way to the top, I guess you have to have special permission to do that, but we went to the ´false summit´. I got some sweet pictures. It was super pretty, I could see all of Tenerife, and then the island of Gran Canaria and also Las Palmas.

 

So, today we picked up Elder Wilson from the airport--my new companion! He´s super short, of course, and from Alpine. Another funny thing, is that he is only 1 transfer ahead of me! He just finished his training, and then gets assigned to come out and finish training me in the Canary Islands haha. I'm a little nervous, just thinking about the stress that will be on our shoulders, but I´m so excited as well. Last night I wrote in my journal how I felt like the president is trusting us with this, as well as the Lord, and I want to work my hardest to prove to them that I can do it. It might start out rough, probably just lots of walking, but I love walking and can´t wait! 

 

So when we were in the trio, we got a reference from a member in Santa Cruz for a lady who lives over in La guancha (about 45 minute drive). So we went and met her at her house. She had so many questions, and at one point started crying just because shes been looking for the right answers and the truth and has talked to JW´s, evangelists and everybody else but it wasn´t there. We taught her the restoration and then made plans to get her to church--and she came!! With her son too! We taught her again Sunday night and when we first walked in to her house she had conference playing! How is this happening?! I feel like this is too good to be true. The sad thing is is that I wont be able to teach her again, the other elders have her--they have the car and me and Elder Wilson are always on foot ha. Its fine though,  I´m trying to get an attitude of your success is my success. That's something I struggled with a lot before my mission and I want to get a lot better at. 

We lost contact with Paco, who would have stayed as mine and Elder Wilson´s investigator, but he won´t answer and I´ve been desperately praying for help. I don't know what happened, maybe something with his family. I know that he wanted to get a divorce because his wife was not a good person. So I don't know, I´m praying for the best. 

 

We have an older couple who are members who actually were able to fly to Salt Lake and go to conference! They spent 10 days there with the missionary who baptized them and went to 4 or 5 temples. For people living here, that was such a huge blessing for them. Not many people here have the money to do that. 

We were in a lesson with a man, Hector, who has been going to church for 10-12 years. His wife is a strong member but he is just being a pansy. No I think its actually just his mom and dad are super strong Catholics and don´t want him to change. Its super sad because he won´t be able to baptize his son unless he gets baptized and gets the  priesthood soon. Anyway, we had a lesson and the spirit was strong, both of the other Elders shared experiences and started crying. Then it was my turn. I started talking about my family and how much you mean to me, and then I got a dang bloody nose! Ugh perfect timing. I only had one in the MTC, and in just the last week I´ve probably had 6 or 7. What can you do...

 

Anyway, that's good for now. Thank you for all of your letters and emails. I really appreciate it. I love you all

Elder Franson

spanish blessings and general conference

Hola mi familia y amigos!

So, I am in a trio right now with Elder Eskelson and Elder Christensen (who was in the MTC with me, same district and room). It's alright but I prefer just the normal 2 companionships. They had a different area than me and Elder Pugh and had much more investigators and members in it, so when we combined, we teach the 2 investigators I had and all the rest that they have. Our days can get pretty packed, but there's always the usual of people dropping us--which sucks but it's part of the work I guess. We went to one lady´s house earlier this week and she had asked for a blessing of health. I expected Elder Eskelson to take over for the blessing since Christensen and I haven´t been out for a while, I was hoping to be able to do the anointing (I told you I did the annointing for a lady last Sunday, right?) but anyway, we got ready and he looked to me and said, You´ve got the blessing Elder Franson! ... I had no idea what to do. Already I had only given one blessing--and that was in English. This would have to be in Spanish! So I said a silent prayer to myself, asked for help and the ability to communicate as much as needed to be the instrument in His hands for this lady. They wrote down her name on a piece of paper and held it up (it was super long haha) and then I gave the blessing. I´m pretty sure my hands were shaking the entire time and I might have freaked her out a little bit, but the Lord definitely answered my prayer in that moment. I gave a blessing to her and it was in Spanish. It´s hard to a explain, I just felt comforted and I was able to say what I needed. So that was one of the highlights of this week. 

Remember Javier? I think I talk about him a lot. Well anyway, we met with him as a trio and gave him a little lesson. But before we had started the actual lesson, I noticed that he was just much more open and friendly than he was to Elder Pugh and me--he was cracking jokes, laughing, he just seemed more like himself. He mentioned something about how Elder Pugh always talked about his mission and there wasn't really any fun in the lessons. As I looked back, I realized we would have a lot of fun in the streets and just talking, but when we started talking with someone on the streets or one of our investigators he just went into this mode where it was just work work work. Idk, its kinda hard to explain. But I finally knew why he never wanted to switch his religion while we were teaching him--we just never got a good relationship with him, we never opened ourselves up to him, and likewise he never opened his true self up to us. I was, wow I´m sorry, the guy sitting next to me in this internet cafe has horrible BO and its stinking up the whole room.. Gosh my eyes are starting to water. Looks like I´m gonna test my breath holding skills.. Ok back to Javier. I was feeling kinda down, just not too happy, thinking that I had wasted those hours with him trying to teach him about the importance of baptism when if we can just become someones friend (but at the same time, keep it clear we are here to bring souls to Christ and are doing His work) then it will bring about a whole different story. I don´t know, Dad and Jess do you remember any experiences with this? Elder Eskelsen told me not to feel down, but to realize that your whole mission is a growing and learning experience. Which is true, no one is a perfect missionary. 

Lots of you asked about conference--we got to watch it live with you guys! The canaries are only 7 hours ahead not 8, so we watched it from 5 p.m. to 7, then 9 to 11. Priesthood was replayed for us on Sunday morning though. It was AWESOME! I think one of my favorite talks was Ballard's, another was Richard G. Scott's. But man they were all so good. I definitely took conference for granted, and the easiness to watch and hear it. All we did was turn on the radio and/or the computer and sat in the living room as a family taking notes. But over here, either they watch it at home over the internet (but the connection for a lot of people is really bad I think) so they have to go to Santa Cruz (that's where we went, it's just the city right below La laguna) where they play it in the chapel. We fortunately enough got to hear it in English in a different room with super comfy couches and chairs. I want to share an experience with conference I had. A couple days before, while I was still thinking about the Javier thing, I came up with a question that I wrote down in my journal. I wanted to know how I could be a better missionary, how I could do my best and not waste the Lord´s time. I wanted to know something I could do that would be more successful. And as I watched conference, I heard over and over again the topic of members and missionaries working together! I thought to myself that yeah 80,000 or so missionaries is amazing and it's going to help, but what the Lord wants is 15 million missionaries! He wants all of us sharing with our friends or whoever. I challenge you, my family, to invite the missionaries over to our house for dinner and invite a nonmember friend or less active friend of either you two or Cady or Porter, or a family. You can eat together, let the missionaries get better acquainted with these friends and after that, the missionaries can have sort of a family home evening. That is what we are doing here, trying to get the members to invite one of their friends and then we have a FHE with all of them. Will you do it? The challenge goes to every family though, not just mine. Everyone who reads this letter should do it.  Oh boy those missionaries are going to be happy and fat :D haha

Oh. One more thing about conference--we watched the last session in Spanish because Isabel came (!) so we wanted to go sit with her. I said a prayer to be able to understand better and get something out of it. I didn´t understand all of it, of course, but I surprised myself at how much I was able to understand and get out of it. There are lots of cool things that can happen from a little prayer to our Father in Heaven. 

During conference I realized how amazing those men are, regarding their family life. It made me make a goal right there to be like Richard G. Scott, who so dearly loves his wife and can always feel her presence. I want to be that kind of husband and father. Thank you Mom and Dad for being perfect examples of that to me, you are incredible parents. 

Love you all, Take care! 

Love Elder Franson

PS Don´t forget about the FHE thing! I will check up next week

new comp (mid-transfer)

Sounds like life is great! It feels kinda like life just stopped over there when i left, but hearing about those stories made it come back to life :) 

So for this week, nope not much success. Oh but one big thing! Elder Pugh on Wednesday I think got a call from president Jackson and he told him that they were transferring him back to the peninsula! He I guess is going into the office, but it was mid transfer which was weird. Anyway, we drove him up to the airport this morning and now he´s gone. Pretty sad. We had to go around at church saying goodbye to some of the members and I started to feel sad and now I don't want to leave! It´s so much harder than I thought it would be. We have some of the best members here, and I´m so grateful for them. 

So now I am companions with an elder who was with me in the MTC, but usually in Santa Cruz (long story but his comp is the zone leader and has to fly to Madrid every month for the zl conf). So since he doesn´t know this area at all, I´ve gotta plan for lessons and where to go and what to do. I felt like Kayla for a bit because I started stressing myself out more and more hahaha. No but it is cool, I feel like it is a great growing opportunity for me and I´m really excited. After his comp comes back, tomorrow night, I´ll be in a trio with the other elders in our piso. 

So, good news for everybody- we went to a chino (Chinese store with everything imaginable for super cheap) and I found flip flops that fit me! Ok they are a little small but that's to be expected. 

Some random things that happened this week were...I was walking down the street and I heard dad's ringtone! That old fashioned phone ring thing haha. I looked back expecting to see him. Another thing like that, I´m not sure if I wrote it to you or not, but Elder Pugh while on the phone snapped a couple times (I was reading the bom) and i looked right up expecting to see mom telling me to go do something like take care of my laundry or something hahaha. I love you mom :) 

I have a goal to read the Spanish Book of Mormon and finish it by Christmas, I´m super excited! Although it just takes forever to read in Spanish, but I want to do it. 

One of the members, Mari, who cooks for us 2 times a week and is amazing, cooks us bizcochon a lot. it is basically just like banana bread or something like that but a little different and with chocolate inside! So good. 

At another house, she cooked us some hot chocolate...hmm mmmm is anyone else thinkin what I´m thinking?? My favorite. Super super good, other than the fact that it was already pretty hot outside haha. 

Javier, the big hunk, is being ridiculous lately. He loves the spirit and he prays every night and morning as well as reads the bom everyday. But he just doesn´t want to get baptized because his mom doesn´t want him to change his religion (Catholic). its really sad. He has never really felt the spirit before, so when he feels it when he prays he thinks it's great and will just settle with that, but I´ve been trying to tell him there is so much more! I don´t know, I´m going to keep working on him and we´ll see what happens. 

Paco, our great investigator, actually our only investigator, came to church yesterday! I was so happy, and he loved it! I love seeing the happiness that people have when they finally find this gospel, even though it hasn´t happened to very many people yet haha. 

We don´t knock doors usually, we mainly just walk and talk to everybody we can haha. Sounds boring but sometimes it can be fun getting to know the people here. Also whenever we encounter smokers, I have a little personal contest going to see if I can make it down the whole street holding me breath. I haven´t passed out yet so I think we´re doing good. 

I know this email is a bit shorter, sorry :( but I´m going to try to write back to the other emails I got and to Cady and Porter and Dad. Thanks for everything Mom :) you truly are the greatest mom ever. How did us kids get so lucky?!

I love you so so so much Mom, and everyone else haha. Thank you for the emails, 

Love
Elder Franson

opening the first stake in the canaries

Dear Family and Friends (but mostly family haha :)) 

Ah the emails this week were awesome!! Thank you so much for them. I liked the live updates for the sacrament thing with Heman-thanks for that haha. Helaman is awesome, i´ll write him and see how he´s doing. hopefully that is the right email or else some random Helaman will get a email haha. 

So...first order of business. Maine?! It´s Blue! MY HAIR IS BLUE! hahaha Thats so cool!! I can´t believe dad was down for a last minute trip, or maybe you´ve been planning it for awhile?? How many days did you stay there? I miss that place. Sounds like you had a great time! 

So, The coolest thing happened yesterday! They made the first stake here for the Canary Islands!! There was a conference over on the Island Gran Canaria so we got to ride a ferry over early in the morning and watch the sunrise :) they rented a big auditorium thing to fit everybody and had some speakers, testimonies and musical numbers. Elder Texiera (the area president over Spain) spoke at it too. After that, we went to a senior couples home a little ways away and ate a delicious lunch, then played a game or two. Oh and before that all started, President Jackson took out someones ingrown toenail! haha It was so funny, lots of missionaries were taking pictures and freaking out. He ended up ripping the entire nail off, I´ve got pictures! haha, it was crazy. 

The last couple of weeks, or idk how long (1 or 2 weeks) have been super hard and humbling. First of all, learning a language is humbling! Wow I rely so much on the Lord. But it's just been super hard, we had 2 investigators but Sandra found a job in a different town and is moving (still has her baptismal date for the 26 of October but we´re not sure if she´ll pull through, she has no phone or car so it makes it more difficult). I think I said this before but the area me and my comp are in was basically like opening up a new area. The chapel is here but we only have about 6ish people who live in our area who are active members. The rest live a little bit lower in La Cuesta. So we walk all day and don´t have many lessons. But its okay! Lately, we talked about how to better the work here and how to preach the gospel in the Lord's way (that is something they are stressing a lot on here) and we came up with working more with the members. Almost every member here has siblings, kids or just family that is inactive or nonmembers! So we´ve been going to members houses and asking for their names and we pray for all of them (we have a huge list haha) and we ask the member to pray for them as well. I know it's hard to talk to friends or someone you´re close with about the gospel, I was always scared to in high school. Not that I was ashamed of it, i just didn´t feel comfortable with it and I didn´t have the faith. But the Lord will help up with things like that. After we started with that, I felt so much better about the work. My comp and I both talked about how we felt that this is how the Lord wants us to do it here. 

The Spanish is different here, they have a distinctive accent where they talk super fast and drop the s´s and z´s from the end of the words. Mas o menos (more or less) here is ma o meno. Kinda hard to understand haha. One time some elders in the MTC were talking about how much Spanish sucked and it was hard, and I just thought of dad having to learn Japanese and Jess having to learn Russian. I can´t even imagine... My respect for you both has grown a bunch! haha 

What do you know, another blog. canaryislandsysa.blogspot.com haha. This is from a senior couple here and she posts a lot of pics of the islands so that could be nice. 

Lets see...so many people exercise here (funny that they all smoke too) but I see so many bikers, runners, and lots of gyms. There is one gym on our way to the church that is all outside. It kinda just looks like a park but it has all this stuff in it to workout with. Its pretty cool. Each morning I just do ab stuff and push ups, I want to go on some runs in the morning but we´ll see if my comp is down for that haha. 

PS I asked the president about it so I have to wait for his approval first but I was thinking about asking for a workout dvd like P90X Ab Ripper or something like that to do in the morning. If we don't have that dvd then don't worry about it--I´ll survive. I just need to hear what he says first.

We have a jump drive that we play music on the dvd player and it has tons of songs on it. Theres a folder for piano and one of them is the Cat and the Mouse!! I was so stoked, I love hearing you play that song, Kayla. 

There is a small town above us, on the other side of the little mountain called Tegueste i think. It is such a cool place! Lots of colorful houses, green mountains on both sides, and then a great view of the ocean! It was so awesome, I loved it there. It isn´t super green here in this island, but good enough for me haha. 

Dad, we have a member here--woman, 40 i think--who we found out has lupus. I felt so bad, she just gets tired really fast and is sick easy I think. But she said the medicine she has helps. What do you know about lupus? I remember learning about it in medical terminology. There isn't a cure is there? 

Could I get Andy Nielsen´s email address? I want to see how he´s doing.

The piso we live in is kinda gross, but I now know exactly what Leah and Kayla were talking about in college haha. I have sympathy for them now. I have my own dishes because the other elders will just put the plates or whatever in the sink and leave them. I do not want to eat on one of those. 

My comp told me that during the night I sat up and said a prayer in Spanish haha.

I love you all, thanks for the emails. Mom you really are the greatest, I love you. Thanks for the stories, I like this idea for the one big email. Works out great and you all can hear more of what's going on! 

I love you!!! 

Love
Elder Franson

determined to not get chubby

Ok, I like that idea about the emails- I just felt really bad about not replying to one or two of the kids and having them feel left out or something. But with this I will just write one big one to you and have some little things for each of the kids inside of it. 

First, Kayla idk how much you use my Facebook, but Hermana Jackson (pres wife) doesn´t like it when the family uses their Facebook to post pictures and stuff. She said either always put that you are the one writing and posting, or delete it...so whatever you want to do. I don´t care ha.

P.S. Did a missionary in columbia get shot? I heard something but I just wasn´t sure. 

Mom, I just want to say real quick how sorry I am for being lazy at home, not wanting to do the stupid little chores that you needed me to do. I am so mad at myself for not bucking up and helping you and dad and the family out more. I hope you will forgive me for all those times. I have the best mom and dad and love you both so much. How can I thank you enough? 

So...in my planner I keep a giant list of stuff I want to tell you that I add to every week so I´ve whipped it out and got a lot for today haha. So, first of all, Kayla you asked about my comp Elder Pugh. He is a year and a month into his mission, said it has gone by way too fast, and is super super funny. We are worried we might be having too much fun and it's taking time out of working harder haha. He will be that super awkward RM when he gets home, he can´t even talk to girls around here! haha He is the district leader and at our meeting he was trying to assign one of the hermanas to do a spiritual thought but spent about 30 minutes one night holding the phone having a moral dilemma about how to talk to her and about how scared he is hahaha. Sooo funny.

 Levi and his trainer, Elder Pugh.

Anyways, I want to tell you all about some of our investigators. I think I told you about Javier right? Venezuelan, body builder, way cool guy. Anyways, he started to get really hard to contact and get a hold of and we were having a hard time. Elder Pugh had had some suspicions of him living with a girl or not but we weren´t sure. One day, we ran into a lady and talked to her for a sec. She recognized us so we were trying to figure out how she knew us and she told us that we have been teaching Javi, and that she's living with him... awkwardddddd. So what do we do?? Idk, we´ll figure it out.

The next is Sandra, I challenged her a couple days ago to be baptized and she accepted!! I was so happy! But she's kinda weird as well, hasn´t been giving us all details. Yesterday we ran into her in a bar, well outside of a bar, and she told us that she has 3 kids back in the peninsula! Gosh. But her baptismal date is the 26 of October and I´m praying for her to keep up with it and pull through.

Every September 14 they have a HUGE Jesus Christ party. At first you may think, as I thought, that it was a good thing, they´re recognizing him. Only nope nope nope. They somehow manage to have even MORE beer stands and cigarettes all over and they have a huge parade and drums and fireworks all night long that kept me awake. It was really sad to see. We had one more hour of the day to proselyte, so we walked up near it but not that close--I could see a crowd of people. As soon as I turned the corner and was in range of that, I felt the spirit leave so dang fast and I actually felt sick. We went back down and from then on we decided to try to stop the people going up in that direction (because everybody was going up there) and at least just tell them that we´re representatives of Jesus Christ. Then they could see the difference. I kind of felt like one of those men in the Book of Mormon who was amongst so many wicked people just preaching his hardest. I was trying my best--even though I didn´t see any immediate success I feel like I did just what God wanted me to do and that I may have planted some seeds.

They walk this road a lot.

There have been a bunch of times just in this week that I´ve felt the spirit incredibly strong and then something happens and I feel it gone. We were in a lesson with a member and inactive guy and we watched a movie that brought the spirit and a calmness into the room. Then right after the less-active just started making some stupid comments under his breath about his wife not doing her part (she has throat cancer and is scared to get it removed, so she's basically slowly dying) and the member just started chewing him out about bucking up basically and being a man. It went on for probably 30 minutes and I was just sitting there staring at them haha. Gosh it was crazy. I think God wanted me to have those experiences and to feel the difference. We as lifelong members have always had that spirit in our home and lives and don´t really know exactly what it's like to live without it, at least I don´t. But after having those, there is no way I am giving this gift I have up. No way. I feel so safe with it, it comforts me when I´m discouraged or sad, I can feel your love through it, and the love from my Heavenly Father. I cherish the gift of the Holy Ghost and I hope every one who has it will too. It is so wonderful to have, and I don´t ever want to lose it.

Now to the funny stories haha. 

1. The male police officers here wear skinny blue pants and boots that very closely resemble moon boots like Napoleon Dynamite.

Our toilet has something wrong with it (4 of us living in this piso with only 1 toilet, maybe thats why...) but it won´t completely flush the contents down. I´m trying to explain this in the best terms possible, bear with me. Anyways, one of the elders went in the morning and I was quitely eating cereal at my desk, and I hear a flush...then another flush...then a third flush. Then he comes out and said "Elders, I'm so sorry, but it just won´t go down." So it´s been sitting there all day, hopefully it´ll have softened enough to go down tonight. Oh boy I´m screwed.

This mission very well could be one where missionaries gain 20 pounds, the members feed you soooo goood. An older couple feeds us twice a week, and if someone else fails us she insists that we go again. So I´m basically in heaven haha. But I´m walking a ton, from 11:30 or 12:30 to 2, then from 4 to 10 at night. Constant walking. Unless in the blue moon that we get a lesson and I get to rest my poor skis. (We are basically opening up a new area, hardly any members and only 1 or 2 less-actives). One elder has gained probably 20 or 30 pounds since being here for 3 transfers and has had to have his mom send him 2 new pairs of pants because he can´t fit into them anymore!! hahahaha ohhh boy.

"The smallest car I've ever seen."

A few people have told me I have a really young looking face...not sure if thats a compliment or nooot.

An old guy was walking on a cross walk and in the middle just as the light for the cars turned green. So the impatient driver revved his engine really loud and honking and the guy jumped so high! Hahaha then started taking frantic small steps to get across the road. So funny!

I walked into a members home, the dad opened the door wearing his Gs and some camo pants. He let us in, I took two steps and saw their living room wall. I´m not joking at all when I say there were over 200 knives, guns, swords, all hung up on the wall. Funny, I felt like I was right back in the good old ´murica. Haha gosh it was ridiculous! He had 4 legit samurai swords too.

Some of you have asked about Pday--we study in the morning til 11:30, then go to the store to buy our weekly groceries (Dad I bough some awesome looking bread for 1.27 euros that looks like yours! I´ll attach a pic), then go back to the piso and cram in all into the fridge and cupboards (don't worry, I took pictures), then walk to the internet cafe where we write, then after this we will probably go back to the piso and do something, not sure haha. Depends. One of these days we´re going to go up and hike to the top of Teide (the volcano) I´m super stoked.

Every morning we workout for 30 minutes. There are some yoga pads and some elders get out of bed and unroll them out to start exercising but end up just sleeping on the yoga pad haha. I do a bunch of ab stuff and push ups because I am not getting chubby. Nope nope nope.

Cady! Congrats on volleyball!!! I am so proud :) Don´t worry, I´ll practice my setting so when I come home I´ll set and you´ll hit it like no one's ever seen before :) When is your next game? Let me know how they go!! The weather here is perfect, the hottest day its been here is around 80 I think. But theres always a breeze and almost always some clouds. Yesterday it looked like it was going to pour but it just drizzled. I guess there are hardly ever thunderstorms or pouring rain here. Oh and P.S. I wanted to tell you that so many people here ride vespas! There are some cool ones. Every pizza delivery guy or anything being delivered (the mailmen) ride vespas haha.

Leah: good luck with school! How were the blood tests? Still going? I love you lots, be smart, thanks for the letter with the pictures, it was perfect.

Porter--did you get the postcard I sent you?? I hope you like it! How is school going? Who is your teacher? I met a boy in the branch who reminded me a bit of you. You are the best brother in the whole world, no one else is as lucky as I am to have you as a brother.

Mom--thank you so much for finding out about the drivers license. It sounds like a pain but I´ll try to get it done as fast as I can. I have 1 passport picture that I saved from Paul but not two, ughhhhh. But I´ll find somewhere. Oh, and we´ll only need to do it for 1 year, because after I leave the Canaries I won't need to drive again I don´t think. Idk, we´ll see. There aren´t cars in the peninsula. Hahaha thanks for that story about your workout, very good. But hey, you probably got super stronger from it! :)

Dad: I bought some apples from the store, they are called Royal Gala. SO GOOD! I dont´know if they have them in the states, we probably do and I just haven´t tried them. but these are so good, I might just bring home a bunch of food for you all to try haha. I got that bread, I´ll try to eat it with some oil and vinegar later today and let you know how it tastes.

The bread that looks like Dad's.

Love you all, thanks so much for the stories and the advice and prayers. I feel your help and love and comfort everyday. 

Love, 

Elder Franson

first week in the canary isles

Hola!

So, last Wednesday they assigned us all and they sent me out to the Canary Islands!! I still can´t believe it. It is soo cool. I love it here so much. I also just love being an actually missionary in the field. It did feel a bit like a prison in the MTC haha. 

 

We walk a TON because we don't have many members in our area yet--yet. we´re working on it haha. I love walking though, just talking to everybody and seeing what it's all like here. So pretty. It´s kinda dry but as you go up it gets more and more green. I´m so happy to be here. The Lord has definitely blessed me and I am so happy. 

 

So, just a little about this place first. There are bars all over, almost everybody smokes it seems like which is sad. Hopefully I don´t die from secondhand smoke. They have cigarette vending machines here that anyone could buy from, a little kid even! There's just a sticker that says you have to be 18 or whatever age they say. We talk to so many people, but one of them was a lady who, no joke, had a beard!! There were some long black hairs dotting all the way down her chin line! So crazy haha. We saw a guy with implanted horns on his forehead, scary. 

 

We have an investigator named Javier. A huge guy who works out all the time and is awesome. He love us, but the other day he said he couldn´t be baptized even though he knows its right, just because his mom doesn´t agree with it. I´ve been praying for him and hope that he´ll make the right decision. 

 

Lets see, I hardly have any time, I´m so sorry for the super short email! I still need to write the president :S 

But...Oh there's a cactus fruit that is completely filled with these seeds. Don´t ask me how I ate it (a lady fed us 3) and while we were eating them she told us quietly that if you eat too many you can´t go to the bathroom. AHH! I was so worried, it was kinda like that moment when we drank the water and she said it was from the trout creek (trout poop creek) and I spit it out. I didn´t spit it out but I didn´t eat any more hahaha. 

 

Life here is great, next week I´ll send some pictures hopefully. 

Love you all, the Church is so awesome, 

Love Elder Franson

Elder Franson with President and Sister Jackson. Just look at that handsome kid.

He's headed to the Canary Islands!

called to the canary islands!

Dear Parents of Elder Franson,

We received your son into our mission this morning. We brought him to the Mission Home and fed him lunch. We gave him an overview of the mission and some of the rules and expectations, and spent most of the day with him. He was excited, and seemed ready to get to work.

Later this afternoon, we had a meeting at the stake center in Madrid on Temple Square, and met with his trainer to discuss the new 12 week training program. During this 12 week period, your son will have an extra hour of companion study each day, and will be given specific things that he should report to the Mission President. We know that this is an inspired program, and will help to make missionaries better teachers and better followers of Christ. Please encourage your son in this program. It will help him develop tools that will help him to have a successful mission and a more successful and fulfilling life after his mission.

Elder Franson has been assigned to La Laguna on the island of Tenerife, in the Canary Islands. He will serve with Elder Pugh, who is from Rexburg, Idaho. Elder Pugh is a happy, obedient missionary who will be a good first companion for your son.

Our Preparation Day is on Monday. Elder Franson is instructed to email his immediate family every week.

We look forward to getting to know him and working alongside him in this great work here in the Spain, Madrid Mission. We can tell he will be a great missionary. Thank you for sharing him with us! We already love him.

Sincerely,
President and Sister Jackson

waiting to hear about first transfer

Hey Mom!

We´re headed out to the field tomorrow, Tuesday afternoon, so they are letting us write now to let you know we´re okay. But the thing is is that I don´t know where I´m headed yet...weird I know. Tomorrow we are going to the mission president´s house to spend the day with them. I´m not really sure what we´ll be doing but it should be really fun. Then in the afternoon we go back to the stake center and thats where the president will announce us and our trainers and where we´ll be headed. I´m so excited!!! If I´m going to be serving in an area around here in Madrid or a surrounding area, I´ll go there tomorrow night and spend the first night there in the new area. But if I get called to the Canary Islands or up north like Vigo, I´ll spend the day at the president's house and leave the next day I think...but I´m not positive. Where are your votes on where I´ll be going?? I want to go up north so bad, but anywhere is going to be awesome. I can´t wait to find out!

I saw Chelsey yesterday! We actually got to have a good conversation and I got to ask her some things. She is staying in this area, right next to the temple, for the next transfer so I think it´d be cool if we served in the same area.

I had an interview with the pres and his wife and they are the nicest people in world! I love them. I guess for sacrement they go to the same ward Chelsey does and when they saw each other the pres and wife were telling Chelsey how they met me and thought I was sharp and a really good missionary, which was really nice of them to say.

Anyways, I gotta go pack and finish some letters. (I´m going to be sending out a letter to you and a postcard to Porter so keep on the lookout for those).

I love you so much, I don´t know when I´ll be able to email you next, probably next Monday since that will be the next pday.

Keep your fingers crossed for me!!

Love you so much!!!

Love Elder Franson

last email from the mtc!

Well where do i start...Life here at the MTC is great, but it just feels a little like a prison haha. There are natives that got here last Wednesday and they´ve tightened the rules a bit because in the past some of them have organized to meet their family or girlfriends outside, so we can´t go outside unless its for the sport time and we´re going to play soccer or if we get special permission from the president.

I keep a list in my planner throughout the week so I don't forget the good stuff to tell you all, and it helps so much haha. So that is why my emails may seem super unorganized.

This will be my last email from the MTC, because i´m leaving on Tuesday morning! They will take us to the stake center, the other red brick building right next to the temple and MTC, and the mission president will come and tell us where we´re headed and who our trainer will be. I´m so excited, i can´t wait! I talked to Chelsea the other day and she said if she is made a trainer again then she will be at that meeting, but who knows. She has been trying to come by when we sing on the steps on Sunday and we can talk for a second. it was so cool, she is so happy and having a great time. We talked about the good old days when we played Settlers of Catan and the competitiveness between her and Steph hahaha.

Let's see, oh we had our first real rainstorm and thunderstorm yesterday! Oh how I love those days. There were some dark clouds and while we were playing soccer in the stadium thing we saw some lightning. So cool! I´ve missed that. Here in Madrid it is pretty dry and hot (we´ve been playing soccer in around 44 celcius weather, but the hottest was 48! And this is all at 5oclock at night!!!) The rain was amazing, I got some pictures of the dark clouds behind the temple--pretty amazing. Madrid is cooling off, it isn´t as hot has it used to be. But it's still hot haha.

We went to the big city mall last Thursday and had a great time. We (my district) all wanted to get nice indoor soccer shoes to play in because our Nike Frees were getting beat up, but as i was struggling to get the shoes on my skis, I nicely found out that Nike and Adidas don´t send shoes to Spain that are about size 11... I´m a size 13... super. Hahah no its fine, we all had a good laught about it. My Nike Frees are holding up besides the one square on the bottom that casually ripped off in one of our games. But it's all good ha.

The mall was HUGE! So many stores, I got lost multiple times. It was so crazy. There was an IKEA and a huge grocerey store a little smaller than the average Walmart I´m guessing, on both sides of the mall. There is a store called Primark which makes so many things for so cheap, like a really nice Dillards or JC Penny- and I got 3 skinny ties from it for about 6 euros. Pretty sweet!

We watched a devotional on Sunday from a recording of Holland´s talk from awhile ago. The title was "Don´t You Dare Go Home." It was incredible. He talked about some stuff and then stopped for a second and said 'I don´t know why I´ve been so strongly prompted to say this, perhaps there are some of you in the audience who have been having these thoughts. Don´t you dare go home. Don´t you dare leave this place, we´re on the Lords time and it is not about us...' So cool! I have never had a thought of going home early, but throughout his talk he did a really good job at just pounding it in our brains how important this opportunity is and to do our best and trust in the lord. I love that man.

I got a big letter from Adam and Melissa, so nice of them. They told me to spend 20 bucks and buy something nice from Spain but I have NO IDEA what to get. I need help!! haha

Well I don´t have much more, I love this work and am so happy to be here. I´m so sad to be missing stuff at home but I am putting my full trust in the Lord and I know everything will be fine and that even though I´ll be gone, both you and I will be blessed so much more if I stay. Hopefully that's not weird for me to say that.

I love you all, thanks for the emails and prayers.

I go out to the field in a 5 days!! I´ll be able to write on Tuesday I think and tell you where I´m going

Love Elder Franson