1 year down!

Hello everyone :)

The weeks are going by faster and faster, not sure why, but we´ve been working really hard and are kept pretty busy.

First item of business- it has been getting so hot lately that I just had to break down and hand in a little piece of my man card...I bought one of those hand fans. But luckily it doesn´t look too girly with flowers and everything, it´s got two Spanish bulls haha. My companion thinks it´s ridiculous but I love it haha. Don´t worry, I try not to use it too much in public.

For lunch today, a family that we are teaching-from Peru--invited us to eat at the restaurant that the mom cooks at. It is a Peruvian place that cooks SO good. I had some papa a la huancaina (potatos with a special sauce) and a big thing of chicken as well. One of the girls orderd anticucho which is cow heart--they just love that here. I was kind of scared of it at first but they let me try it and it´s actually pretty good. They served it with chunks of cow stomach though, which just looked so ugly and had the worst texture, but I swallowed it down, tasted alright. Porter, better get practicing now on eating crazy foods! haha.

I got a haircut today! I love it, always feels so nice. Elder Satlzman did as well but was really worried beforehand because he wanted to keep his hair longer on top--likes to comb it back--and the lady ended up cutting a ton off...he was preeeetty upset afterwards.

Every once in a while we do ´exchanges´ with other missionaries and this week I got to be with a guy named Elder Ziane--from France! Super chill and awesome, he was teaching me a little bit of French haha.

Ok I have been anxiously waiting to tell you this story. On Friday morning, between 6:30 and 7:15, I woke up 3 times, just randomly or maybe from a little sound, and without thinking, got on my knees and started praying! Until I would look at my watch and realize I still had time to sleep haha. 3 separate times in the same night! I don´t really know why that happened, but it made me laugh when I was truly awake.

That good old investigator Alberto--with the flares, cowboy boots, and wife beater--is doing great. He has really good desires, truly wants to know more. He´s been marking up his copy of the Book of Mormon like crazy. He doesn´t want to meet with us too often because he feels like he needs time to be able to read and study a lot, so he told us he doesn´t want to meet until the beginning of August...what?? I mean, good that he really is taking this seriously, but I want to meet with him a bit more often. 

We had a really productive week, met almost all of our weekly goals lesson-wise. None of our investigators showed up at church though which was really frustrating.

That sums up our week more or less, I´m doing really good, and yep, about to hit my halfway mark in the mission. I´m amazed at how quickly it has gone by, makes me scared sometimes. This past year has been pretty tough, but by far the most productive (don´t get much time to sit on a couch and stare into space mom ;)), and rewarding year physically and spiritually. I am so grateful to be able to focus more on Christ and learn how to better my relationship with Him.

I love you all and hope you have a great week.

Elder Franson