april miracle

Family and Friends,

Ok we witnessed the coolest miracle this week. I don´t think I wrote about them last week, but we found a family in the street that is amazing. It is a mom and her 5 daughters who are all from Ecuador. It freaks me out sometimes because some of the little girls remind me of our little cousins like Kate and Camille. Their ages range from 3 to 15 which sounds to me like quite a big load for the mom (the dad is working down in the south and can´t live up with them) but they are just the cutest little girls ever. We have taught them once so far and they all seemed to accept it pretty well. The mom is an Evangelist but I think she´ll come around. We gave them 2 copies of the Book of Mormon and when we handed a copy to the 13 year old girl, named Andrea, she immediately started reading the introduction. We found out later that that night she had read all of that and the all of the testimonies in the beginning of the book as well! We at the chapel on Sunday waiting for our investigators but none of them had shown up--punks--but after the meeting had started the door opened and in walked that family! It made me so so happy. I´m pretty sure they had a good time, I´m not exactly sure what the mom thought of it but I know the 3 youngest girls just loved primary haha. We looked in the door and they had the biggest grins on their faces and started waving to us, just makes me so happy to see their joy and the happiness people find here. We are going to make them all their own little bookmark with a scripture or something on it so they all can keep their own place in the Book of Mormon, try to make it fun and cute for them haha.

Elder Galeano and I are doing great, haha we have some really fun times. He loves talking about girls, and without fail he always points out the prettiest ones in the street. Sometimes he gets a little unfocused while we´re in the street...haha but it's alright. He is a great companion, and his helping me with my Spanish a ton.

Oh hey Dad, you´re gonna be super proud of me. A member gave us some lentils to bring home and eat, so I cooked some rice (my first time actually cooking rice by myself) and ate it with the lentils. To be honest, I really like them now, but I remember in the past when I just hated them hahaha, sorry for that haha, they really are good.

Oh tell Stephanie congrats! I´m so so happy for her. I want to see a picture! 

Well, Have a great week! I love you all.

Elder Franson

easter thoughts

Hello Family!

I hope you all had a great week, a great Easter. It was really weird, becuase the branch here in Alcorcon didn´t mention anything about Easter in any of the talks of classes. Weird, right? I´m not sure what happened, But i had some time to think about Christ and his resurrection. It is amazing to think of all of the things he did just for us. So that we can live again, so that we can have another chance. I just watched the video on lds.org that is called becuase of Him. So good. Please go watch it. My appreciation for my Savior has definitely grown a bunch in just these few months I´ve been out here. My eyes have been opened to see all of the things that have come from Him, from His sacrificies. Many things that I hadn´t realized before.

So we went to the temple again this past Wednesday, and it was another great spiritual experience for me. We spent as much time as we could in the Celestial room haha. I think Satan really didn´t want me to stay on that spiritual high, becuase on the metro ride home I lost my wallet. Yep. Residency card, driver's license, debit card, temple recommend. Gone. That was a very stressful afternoon for me. I´m really really sorry, Mom!

Another tough thing this week was that my companion has gotten pretty sick, I don´t know what it is maybe the flu or something. But he is super exhausted and his throat really hurts so he can´t talk haha. We had to got to the apartment a couple hours early last night which was super weird for me haha. Now I know what Jess is talking about when he said it took him a couple tries after his misssion to watch Harry Potter becuase he was still in that mission mode, of always working, always doing something.

Lately, some of our good investigators, like Lucho, and others haven´t been answering their phones! Which is kind of annoying. But we had a cool miracle the other day. This family from Ecuador, that we had stopped and talked to in the street about a week ago, just randomly showed up to English class and we were able to talk to them a bit before English class and they are really cool. Hopefully we´ll be able to meet with thim this week and share a message with them.

Oh I just wanted to say one more thing. So with packages, before you send them ask me about it first. Because I don´t want you to send a package to my piso and then I get transferred right before it comes and then I´ll never be able to get it. Right now we have 3 more weeks left in the transfer so you should be good. I got the slip thing that says my package is waiting but I haven´t been able to pick it up yet becuase this whole week it was been closed for Easter, the ´semana santa´. But thanks so much for sending it! I can´t wait to see what´s inside :)

Have a great week, don´t be afraid to share a little thing or thought about the Gospel with your friend. The Lord will bless you and your friend

Love Elder Franson

lucho, the investigator

Hey everyone,

Well, we had another week of some ups and downs. Like I´m sure every other missionary in the world.

 I want to tell you all a little about one of our investigators named Lucho, I think I might have written a little about him before, but we´ve been meeting with him and he is just the coolest. He is 21, from Ecuador, and me and him will probably be friends for a long time. He is really mature for his age, lots of the 18-25 year olds here are just too busy smoking, drinking, and showing too much PDA in the street that is not appropiate from us missionaries to see. But Lucho is still that really cool guy, but doesn´t do that bad stuff. He really wants to be baptized, we´re just working at meeting with him regularly and setting a date.

During our weekly planning session that we have every Thursday, we have the chance to set personal and companionship goals. My companion and I were talking and decided to set a goal of finding a family, a good family. Well the other day while we were walking in the street, we stopped to talk to a husband and wife as they were packing up their car to leave, and they are super interested! Gave us their number, and said they´d love to hear more another day. What an answer and blessing to our prayers. We are hoping to get something set up soon with them so we can share the Gospel with them.

Ok, well thats about it, the pictures I have atttached are of me and my new comp, Elder Galeano, eating some Ecuadorian popsicle and then in our piso.

I love you all, thanks for everything. I am so grateful for your support and encouragement. Have a good week!

Love Elder Franson

post-conference glow

Hey everyone!

Great start to the transfer. Elder Galeano and I are doing really well. He is from the states, but his dad is from Ecuador and mom his from Puerto Rico. He grew up in a home where they only spoke Spanish, and he learned English from school and friends. Since I really want to work on and better my Spanish, we´ve decided that while we´re out side in the streets we will only speak Spanish to eachother. Its going great; our personalities are a lot more similar than they were with elder mower. We get along really well and he is an awesome missionary.

We got to watch conference (thank goodness!). We traveled to the temple where the stake center is and watched it there. They had a room for the missionaries so we could watch it in english haha. We were able to watch all of them (at weird times though because the afternoon sessons were too late to broadcast here) except for the Sunday afternoon, but we are planning on watching that on Wednesday for district meeting. What were your guys´s favorite talks? I liked a lot of them, but I really liked Holland's as he talked about standing firm and defending your faith. I could relate to it pretty well. We get a lot of stupid comments thrown at us, rude looks, laughs, but when I heard that talk it reinforced my urge to stand strong, to not give in. Satan is doing all he can to get us to back down, but we´re not going to let him. I also liked something what Bednar said about how the Lord makes our burdens light. He doesn´t take the trial away from us, but instead he strengthens us. After all, that's why we are here. To learn and grow and to get stronger. That is why we have these trials. We need to trust in the Lord to make us stronger. We cant turn away from him.

Also, I found out like I´m sure many of you did, that Henry B. Eyring likes the Yankees. Noooooooot okay. Haha. I saw Melissa and Lorenzo in the choir! Had to point it out to my comp that I have an aunt AND and uncle in the choir :) Also, is Brother Hart's wife in the choir?? I thought I saw a lady who looked like her.

We´ve been doing a lot of contacting and finding in the street, don´t have many investigators. The one really good one we had, Libe, who we had a baptismal date with as well for next Saturday, called us and told us not to come by again. Her husband came back (didn´t even know she was married) and is super mad she was meeting with us. It made me so sad, she was so close, so close to something that would change her life forever. I guess it isn´t her time yet. I know God has a plan for everything, we just need to get out of the way and do his will. Even if it is hard or tough of frustrating. It won´t always be the easiest way.

We met a girl in the street the other day, named Fiorela, from Peru, who we came to find out was taught by the missionaries over 3 years ago and was amazing! But I guess something happened right before her baptismal interview and she didn´t pass. So after that it was tough, she didn´t feel as comfortable there and then little by little she lost contact with the missionaries. But we found her again and she seems so ready! Pray for her that she´ll feel comfortable to come back to church and pick back up where she left off, she needs your help.

Thanks for the emails, you are the best! I hope you have a great week!

Love Elder Franson

madrid temple trip, new companion, and a futbol fiasco

Hey Family!

I hope you had a great week, sounds like you all are doing awesome.

So the main news for right now is that Elder Mower got transferred and I have a new companion here. His name is Elder Galeano, I always think of Galileo, probably will just call him that. He´s from Nebraska and is in the same group as Elder Mower, so about 4 or 5 months I think. His parents are Latino, and I haven´t really heard his Spanish yet but I´m guessing and from what I´ve heard, he´s basically already fluent. I´m really really excited for this transfer, I struggled a bit with Elder Mower, he personality was so different from mine. But he was a good missionary, I learned a ton from being with him. I´ve learned how to be a better leader, and how to lead more by example and with love.

So, another big thing that happened was on Saturday we went to play futbol with members/investigators like we normally do, but it was raining and they play on concrete so it can be really dangerous. I didn´t want to play, but Elder Mower was like, well okay but I still want to play. So we went, and I was just watching them play (and keep in mind Elder Mower can get pretty aggressive) and he was chasing a kid for the ball when he slipped and fell on his back. He slid pretty far, close to where I was, and then I heard him say ´Elder I think I dislocated my shoulder,´ but I went over and felt his shoulder and it sure didn´t feel right. I felt the shoulder and right below it you can usually feel something in there, but it just felt super squishy. So the ambulance was called and we went to the hospital where they eventually got it put back place. The doctor was really cool, and of course the whole atmosphere there reminded me so much of going to the hopsital with dad, hanging out there while he does his rounds. I am really grateful for you dad, being a doctor. We always have that inside ticket haha. Ok, moving on. So Elder Mower is fine, little sore I think, but he´s doing alright. It was a big lesson learned though, its important to remember we´re on missions and who we represent.

Real quick to finish up, we have a really cool investigator named Lucho, from Ecuador. He is 21 and super cool, we´re really good friends now. He has a true desire to learn more and has told us he will get baptized! We didn´t set a date becuase his schedule is pretty crazy right now but it will for sure happen.

We went to the temple on wednesday, got up super early and rode the train to the temple. I was so happy to be back there, brought back lots of memories from the MTC and just a peaceful and happy feeling. We did the 8:00 session and when I got to the celestial room I just sat in the super comfortable chair and thanked my Heavenly Father over and over and over again for all of the blessings I´ve received, to live in this dispensation, to be a missionary right now, for everything! I just felt so happy and peaceful there. I like to think of the temple as the pavilliion like Isaiah talks about, the shelter that we can gather in to protect us from the storm. In these days there are so many things against us, if it were a physical storm I imagine it being a huge hail storm only with big bricks falling down, like in Home Alone haha. The temple stands strong and provides perfect protection from the storm. We watched the new movie as well, which I just loved. So amazing, I feel like I understand Satan´s power a little bit more and how driven he is to make us fall. But the Lord is always willing to help us, and his light can never be hidden by the darkness.

Missionary work brings so much gratification, I am so happy, so overwhelmed with joy sometimes because of the things I witness or experience here. I am learning many things, and I have grown spiritually and mentally, and yes physically as well, as much as I hate to admit it haha. The Lord is hastening his work, and he´s got over 15 million soldiers fighting the battle :) 

I love you all, have a great week! 

Love Elder Franson

a fresh perspective on service

Hey everyone!

Well, this week was a tougher one, more humbling. We had some days where different things took up lots of useful hours we could have used to teach and proselyte, so our numbers were a little lower, but i´m excited to start this week new and improve :)

 

Just so you all know, we are starting week 6, the last week of the transfer, today. We´ll find out transfers this Saturday- I´m sure I´ll stay since I just got here, but we´ll see what happens with my comp. 

 

On Saturday we helped a family move to another apartment, starting at 2 we thought we´d be done by 6:30 for when we teach English class but it kept going and going until we had to be back in our piso for the night. So much stuff. And thats not even the best part, they are moving to a piso on the 11 floor...yeah. Haha what an adventure. Thank goodness most of the big stuff fit in the small elevator, but we still had to carry the mattresses, bed frames, wooden drawers, closets, etc. up the stairs. My companion´s still complaining about his back being sore ha. It was pretty tough work but really gratifying, knowing we were able to make something that would have previously taken maybe a week, into just a day. Service is awesome, before the mission I remember being quite to complain about stupid things, but I see it from a different side now. 

 

We have a cool investigator--named Libe. She is from Africa, I know the spanish name of her country but not in English haha. The elders taught her a while ago but then she started to be harder and harder to meet with. But a couple weeks ago we started teaching her again and she is awesome, was raised in a Catholic home and thats all she knows, but likes to listen to us. She came to church on Sunday!!! I was so happy, and also what made me super happy was that so many members went up to her, gave her a beso (the whole kiss on the cheek greeting), trying to make her feel welcome. We have a baptismal date with her in April and she seems pretty strong and set with it. I would appreciate it if you prayed for her in these coming weeks. 

 

Well that's about it for this week, The work is going forward with the power of God, and nothing can stop it. I feel like I´m a medieval knight fighting (with my Toledo sword ha) for my Heavenly Father. 

 

I hope you all have a great great week, filled with miracles and blessings. 

Love, Elder Franson

a visit to sword city

Hey Everyone!

We´re a little short on time today to write because we spent the whole morning in a city named Toledo, which is one of the oldest cities here in Spain, and it's also known as Sword City. There are professional sword maker that make some wicked sweet swords! They made the swords for Lord of the Rings, Eragon (I think), and a bunch of other armor for Lord of the Rings as well. Almost every street has a little shop that sells some. And actually, there is one store, a  really nice one, that has a good relationship with us, so they give the missionaries a 15% discount! Haha what awesome people. They used to make the sword of Laban, and they continue to make a Captain Moroni sword, a mini statue of Moroni on the temple, and a little statue of 2 missionaries haha. So...yes I´ll admit that I bought a sword haha. I just had to. But its not a huge decked out sword that cost over 100 euros--mine was only 30 and it's smaller, so I can fit it in my suitcase. Lots of missionaries buy ones that they have to spend 80 more euros just to send them home.

Ok, I just wanted to mention one of our new investigators named Fausto. He is a super cool guy, reminds me of Leo Dicaprio first of all, but second he just is really nice and loves talking with us. He was a Jehova's Witness but now wants to know more about our religion and the Book of Mormon. He knows the bible like none other and it intimidates me haha. It was a big miracle that we found him. They hard thing is the fact that he just loves to talk and get deep in discussion with us that it is so hard for us to leave haha. I´m working on being more in control in the lessons, that way we can have the spirit with us and he can feel it. 

Well that's about it, sorry for the short email. I had a great week and am so grateful for all of the things this mission has taught me so far. I have grown a ton. I am so happy to hear everyone is doing March Madness, that's awesome! Keep it up. The Book of Mormon really does carry a power with it, and we can get that power any time we open up its pages.

I love you all so much!

Elder Franson