"i hope to obtain the place by His side"

Well heyyyy,

Lots of hard/difficult days and lots of miracles. Interesting how the two always come together.

Our investigator pool here isn´t very big, so we´ve been spending a lot of time in the streets trying to find more people. And even though it was super exhausting, we´ve starting finding a lot of great people. People who actually have lots of potential and seem to be really interested. So that has been a huge miracle, to be guided by the Lord in the street to his children who are ready. Then we´ve just been having some great lessons with Carolina--who is getting ready for her baptism this Saturday! To show how ready and prepared she is, before I had come here they had just started teaching her and only had 2 or 3 lessons! That in and of itself is a huge miracle.

Another really cool experience we had was the mission tour on Wednesday. I guess every year they do a mission tour, where a member of the 70 or whoever comes and talks to us, as well as the president. For us it was Elder Teixiera, who is the president over the Europe area. He is so. cool. So funny, constantly making us laugh haha. It was really motivating and moving, we talked about finding more investigators and how we can go through the members and progressing investigators to find many people. When members give us a reference of their friend or family member, it typically has much more potential becuase that person already has this person who is a member, someone to give them that needed support when the missionaries can´t. They always have that friend to sit by at church and won´t feel so uncomfortable.

One last little thought. We watched the Emma Smith movie the other day and there was a really cool thing she said that I wanted to share with you. Before Joseph Smith goes to Carthage, he and Emma are talking one night, knowing what was to come. Emma asked Joseph for a blessing before he left but he told her to write down the blessings she wanted, then he would sign it, and whatever those desires were would be hers. One of the blessings she asked for was ´I hope to obtain the place which God has given me by His side.´ The Lord loves us and really does want the best for us. He has promised to give us all that He has, if we follow His commandments and do what He has asked. The Lord has a place set apart for us, right next to Him. My hope and desire, like Emma´s, is to do all I can here on this earth, in this life, so that I can rightfully receive that spot next to my Heavenly Father. It is possible, I know we all can do it. Never forget that the Lord is willing to help you and give you comfort.

I love you all dearly and miss you, But I know you are in good hands :)

Love,
Elder Franson