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