splits with an old member

Dear family and friends,

The hardest part of writing this weekly letter is the very beginning. I never know how to start them haha. We had a great week, but it went by so fast. It's been the usual rainy and cloudy weather over here, which I love. Today, however, is super nice and sunny. On Friday we did a new fun thing--splits with the members. From 4-6 we had two members come and Elder Wilson and I split up and went with them to cover more ground haha. I went with this guy named Juan Manual. When I called him to ask if he could come do it with us he agreed but seemed super worried about the fact that we don't have a car. And then when he met with us and found out we were going to be passing by some houses over in a place a little ways away, he freaked out on me saying, "I'm a 66 year old man! I can't walk like you guys!" Haha. Whining before we even started. So it ended up that we drove to that neighborhood and then walked to the differen houses. Besides the whining about not being able to walk part, he did a pretty good job.

We were walking and he saw a girl smoking and decided to ask her for directions and turns out he recognized her from probably 12 years ago when she was a little girl. She was baptized into the church here in La Laguna with her dad I think! But when I tried to ask for her number or the option of talking some more she quickly refused and closed off. Pretty sad. I wish we could have talked some more and brought her back to the church. The dang free agency will getcha sometimes.

At Pilar's baptism there was an elder from the Seventy there to have a leadership meeting so he came for the baptismal service as well. He was a really cool guy, super nice, but I found it kind of annoying because almost throughout the whole service he was sitting up there on the stand in front of us all, switching off between his iPhone and iPod. I know he's super busy and got lots of stuff to do but I just wish sometimes people would leave the technology and live in the moment, feel the spirit right there and pay attention. We spend most of the day walking in the street and there are so many people on their phones texting or playing games. I admit that it happened to me as well before the mission. I wasted too much time on the computer/iPod. But being on my mission I've seen the other side and am so grateful.

This world that our Heavenly Father created for us is amazing, so incredible! Everything about it is amazing. Luis and Pablo are doing good. They both want to get baptized (Pablo accepted another date!) but Luis is still wanting to go a little bit more slow. We've been doing our best to reach out to him, showing him we love and care about him, want the best for him. We'll see what happens this week. Pray that his heart will be will be opened and he'll have a desire to be baptized with his son!

Thanks for everything. You all are truly amazing and have helped me out so much. I love you!

Elder Franson