continue on with patience

Well hello everyone :)

I trust everyone is doing well, there are always many blessings to be found. We had an interesting week, but also witnessed multiple blessings and miracles.

Toledo has a lot less people out and about like madrid does, but there are still so many people to be found I know. After praying really hard one morning to be guided to some people who would actually have some interest, we ended up finding 5 great people almost in a row, and got their phone numbers! Felt so great. There are other days when you don´t find any one, but I guess the trick is just learning how to be more constant in your patience and motivation. I´m doing alright, there of course are days when I feel like I´m just so tired of walking and that there is no one who will actually stop for a second and listen to us, but somehow I continue on.

We had an unexpected change, Elder Armstrong left and I have a new companion named Elder Jones--also from Idaho! Rigby, and is related to the Simmons, how cool! It was sad saying goodbye to Elder Armstrong, we got along great and had a good time together. But I´m excited to see what these next couple of weeks bring. Elder Jones wants to get a Jamon leg, because he´s never gotten one before, so we´ll probably do that soon haha. We´re going to get a cheaper one though, less money.

The ward is doing pretty good, it was weird being in the Priesthood meeting with only 5 other people, probably the smallest attendance I´ve been in. But they are some great leaders. There is however a big problem with crying babies here. No, let me rephrase that. There is a big problem with babies that won´t quit screaming at the top of their lungs here. Sacrament meeting was the worst haha, for honestly 15 minutes a little girl would not stop screaming! And we´re you know in a sacrament room that´s really small, so it´s just drilling into our ears, and we can´t even hear the guy who´s trying to talk in the microphone. The worst part was that the parents didn´t even take her out of the room for the longest time! I was cringing so bad in my seat. I know I shouldn´t judge, and I´ve never been a parent so I don´t really know, but I was just so surprised that the parents just kept her there without making any move to take her out. Anyway, apart from that the church meetings were pretty good haha. We meet in a small little place here close to our house actually, and it´s been pretty enjoyable. 

The city of Toledo is just amazing, I´m loving every second of it. We went and walked around here for a while and were looking through all of the little shops. Lots of tourists there, today we met a guy from Florida--I don´t think he likes the Mormons haha--but it´s cool to see people from all over.

I love you all so much, thanks as always for your love and support. I hope to be able to return that love to you as well as you have done it to me.

Have a great day, and happy birthday, Dad!!

Love Elder Franson

holy toledo

Dear everybody :)

So many things happened this week, making it a bit longer. For me, the first week in a new area and with a new companion always go by a little bit slower. Not because they´re bad, just I guess getting used to the new things. My companion is just fantastic, doing really really well. He Spanish is pretty good for not having taken it in high school and just starting here, and his desire to be the best he can be are very inspiring to me.

So here is the history of Toledo, church wise. It hasn´t had missionaries in it for a long time, maybe a little over a year and a half or around there. It is a ward but technically should be a branch. The branch I just left, Fuenlabrada, had its record set my last Sunday there with 90 people in sacrament meeting, and Toledo has about 40ish. The members here though are just great, I can tell they are great people and have great testimonies. The thing is though, that they´re kind of appear to be sleeping....What I mean is that some of them don´t seem to be very eager to do much more than the very minimum. I feel like a lot of responsablitiy is upon my shoulders being here, but I do realize that after all, it is after the trial that we get strengthened and are able to learn. There is so much potential here though, there are great people in the street and we´ve got couple good investigators. One of them is Krystina, who is from Ecuador and is actually 15 years old but honestly acts more like a 25 year old. If all goes well, she should be getting baptized in a couple weeks.

There are noticeably less people on the street and less people to talk to. we walk and contact a ton and I usually arrive home with feet that just ache and hurt, it takes quite an effort to find members to use in lessons, but amidst all of that, somehow my companion and I continue super happy and are having a great time.

I had been praying really hard to be able to receive a miracle like we had just a few weeks ago in my last area when we met Jose who was just a made made of freaking gold. He´ll be baptized in a couple weeks. I didn´t want to sound needy to Heavenly Father, but I remember asking for the spiritual guidance that I needed to find those that were looking and searching for Him. On Saturday, I was praying really hard for that during the morning, and after we had been out of the house for an hour or two we saw this guy walking with his son and in my head I just felt like I needed to stop him. I did, and he turned out to be just an incredible Spanish guy, married to a Dominican lady, and is very family oriented. I was just flipping out inside as we talked to him. He didn´t give us his number to contact him, but he´s going to come to english class this week and we´ll be able to talk some more. What a cool and quick answer to our prayers. Sometimes in smaller cities like this, there are fewer experiences like that, but sometimes they seem even bigger than before.

Jess wrote me a really good email this week which really inspired me for these last couple of months. I can´t quote the entire email, but it was all really really good. thanks Jess for that, it was a great email.

I love working in smaller cities and branches so much, I think I´ve said that a lot haha.

I love you all so much, thanks so much for all that you do, I am so grateful for you. Have a great week :)

Love Elder Franson

I know I'm not just here for the view, but it is definitely a plus :)

It's like I'm just living in a mythical world all the time...I mean, you guys know me, I'm a sucker for those medieval movies in castles and old cities, and how lucky am I to be able to live here?!

  My comp and I :)

goodbye to fuenlabrada, hello to toledo

Well hello everyone :)

Big news to start off--I was just transferred this morning to city to the south of Madrid named Toledo, famous for its history and oldness. I actually came here once before on a Pday, last year, but didn´t get to see a lot of the city. Now I´ll be able to really get to know it. My companion is Elder Armstrong, from Pocatello! Grew up on a farm as well :) I´m so excited, we´re going to be able to work super hard and I won´t hear any complaining or whimpering! haha It´s so true what they say, that those hard working Idaho farm boys turn out to be great missionaries. I still don´t know him very well nor the area--I´ve only been here for a couple hours, but we´re going to have such a great time. It's also very likely that he´s my last companion, so we´ll see. They´ve told me there is a great Argentine family here in the ward, and I don´t know if I´ve told you before but I love Argentines haha.

It´s technically a ward, but its quite small, 30-40 people coming each Sunday. Could be a branch. I´m so excited to work here and to put all on the field.

We finished really hard for the last week in Fuenlabrada, and saw lots and lots of blessings. We have this new investigator named Jose, from Peru, who was such a miracle! The story is this--is family lives in Peru, and have been members of the church for a little time now. And they continually have been teaching him and sharing the gospel with him as he lives here in Spain and is working a lot. They did such a great job, and were so patient with him as he looked for the church. Finally he got in contact with it and we´re starting to teach him! He´s said multiple times how great he feels in the chapel and the strong spirit that he´s noticed. He loves this church already by seeing the great changes that it has made in the lives of his wife and daughters. The wife actually called him and talked on speaker phone to us as well, just so excited that we´re here haha, and then said ´Elders, baptize him quick!!´ and jose looked up with a big grin as well agreeing, saying he wants to get batpized now. YES! Thank you Heavenly Father for that tender mercy.

It was sad to say good bye to all of the amazing friends I have now in Fuenlabrada, never easy, but thanks to technology we´ll be able to continue in contact. I´ve found so many amazing people here, and have felt their love and trust in me, which was something that i really wanted to have by the end. 

I love you all so much, thanks for the emails like always, and for the love and prayers. I´ll be able to send more details and pictures next week :)

With all of my love,
Elder Franson

the sealing of pilar, pablo, and luis

Hey everyone!

This week is so full of great things to talk about, And I guess the first is about the crazy fact that Kayla had her baby!!! I can´t believe it, for a while each night as I knelt to pray, having no idea if she had given birth or not, I would pray so hard for the health and well being of the both of them, and the Lord answered those many prayers from a lot of us. I´m so happy for you guys :)

The other huge piece of news is that on Wednesday I got to spend the morning with the family of Pilar, Pablo, and Luis at the Temple, and with Elder Wilson there by me, got to share the special moment together with them as they got sealed together as a family for eternity. There´s no way I can explain how it was exactly over this email, so you´ll just have to wait a couple more months until we can talk some more :) But to sum it all up, I so strongly felt the spirit while I was there, and the true power of the priesthood that binds our families together. Seeing their progression and growth in the gospel is a huge help for and strengthener for me. I think that from now on, when I make decisions in life, they will always be in the back of my mind helping motivate me to make the right decision and follow their great example. I want to stay on the path for a lot of things, and one of them is for them. This was the full circle of the work! Getting to see them go back to the temple was amazing, and now they´re getting their family history work done as well. I never knew that I would ever be fortunate enough to witness that personally. After that spiritual high, we had a great zone training where we talked about focussing more on Preach my Gospel and becoming the missionary that the Lord wants us to be. It´s always easy to start thinking about doing things your own way, or thinking that you know better, but who knows better than the Lord? Our Mission President is amazing, and I´ve learned so much from him over the course of my mission so far.

Enrique is doing really really well, came to 3 sessions of conference! Even though he´s really quiet, I think he likes what he´s learning. He agreed to be baptized as well, so we´ll just need to teach the word of wisdom, which we know he was a problem with (alcohol and smoking) but I have a feeling that he´ll be able to change seeing how he has true desires to change his life for the better. Pray for him please, he´ll need it.

I love you all so much, thanks for making such great examples for me.

Love Elder Franson