Well here is how my week went!
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| Kirtland Temple |
Last Monday Night: We had a lesson
with a 10 year old kid named Cyrus and he has an autistic brother named Aiden
and while one of us is teaching the other sits on the couch across and hangs
out with Aiden and show him pictures of people in the scriptures or stuff like
that. I had the opportunity to be with Aiden this time and it was super cool! He
has a really sweet spirit and loves to hear when we talk about scripture
stories so I told him scripture stories while my companion taught Cyrus. After
the lesson His mom said that Cyrus is to young to be baptized which is really
sad because Cyrus tells us every time how much he wants to be baptized. So pray
that his mom’s heart will be softened. Anyways, after that we had an appointment
with the Bahia people and while walking to there house we had a guy named Derek
stop us and ask who we are and we told him and ended up teaching the
restoration and then he said he has been looking for a new church for his
family and would love to come to church on Sunday! Really cool experience.
Anyways we had to drop the Bahia people because of other reasons, which are
sad, but they just aren’t ready to hear the gospel yet.
Tuesday: So we picked up 4 new
investigators today and 2 of them were Spanish and we set up other return
appointments with potentials. We have a college in our area and we went and
walked around and got a good feel for the place and had a soccer kid who invited
us back to share our message with him. hahaha so here is a funny story from the
day... Later that night we had just talked with a less active and were walking
down the street when a couple of guys stopped us and asked if we were cops or
with the FBI and of course we explained who we are and then they started asking
us more questions but after about 2 minutes I could tell a couple of them were
drunk and one of the others ended up telling me he was actually on acid and
asked why he couldn’t stick his hand through the metal of his car if there was
so much space in atoms. lol. Well we ended up teaching them about the word of
wisdom and law of chastity and they we dumb struck and asked if we knew what
happiness was and one of them that wasn’t drunk was actually really interested
and took a pass a long card but right before it got sketchy one of the dudes
straight up offered his wife to my companion because he said he felt so bad for
him hahaha his wife wasn’t to happy but we left right after that and my companion
was scarred for life but we had a good laugh about it. After wards I was able
to teach the restoration in a street contact in Spanish for the first time and
it was awesome!
Wednesday: Well we decided to fast
for the ability of our Spanish to grow and for us to be able to find more real
investigators in Spanish. It was really great but it wasn’t made easier by the
fact that we walked about 15 miles in total before dinner but I survived. We
picked up another investigator and talked to lots of people and people are
starting to ask us who we are because they see us walking around so much.
Thursday: I forgot to write in my
journal and so much happened this week that I am not quite sure what happened
this day except for the fact that we invited our apartment manager to take the
lessons and come on a tour of the historic sites in Kirtland with us and she
said yes! And also we talked to one Spanish guy and my Companion heard him
speaking English and I heard him speaking Spanish and it was the weirdest thing
ever ha-ha I think I am just thinking about learning Spanish to much that my
brain isn’t working right loll.
Friday: We gave away 4 Book of Mormons
and ran into a less active who has been searching for the missionaries and
gained 6 new investigators all from just walking around right by our apartment!
But first we started off the day by driving through Cleveland to get to the
mission home for a training meeting and that was super cool to go through the
city! But now we are out of miles so it was walking by our apartment for the
rest of the week, which ended up being a blessing. After that we contacted a
referral and it happened that he had gotten in a car crash the day before and
has been praying all day in thanks to god for not hurting anyone else and for
the opportunity to still be alive so when we came he was so happy and accepting
of our message and we are going back next Tuesday. After that we went and
taught an investigator we had picked up last Friday and he is an 18 year old
black man who loves people and we got to know him better and teach about the
book of Mormon and he is coming with us to Kirtland on Tuesday and bringing
some of his friends!! After that there was a car show in the park with a bunch
of retro 50's-70's cars and it was so cool! We gave away quite a few passes
along cards because we had already given out the other book of Mormons but it
was still a great experience. After that we went back to the apartment and
grabbed a few more BOMs and headed down to a different area on the other side
of our apartment and some kids stopped us and we played catch with them while
telling them who we are and what we believe in and gave two of them BOMs and
they asked there parents if we could come back and both families said yes! So
that was cool but then the guy who lives next door came out and started bashing
on us saying that we a liars and a bunch of stuff like that and I had to
control my tongue or else I probably would have said something I regretted loll
it still made me mad cause we haven’t done anything to him but free agency.
After that was when we ran into the less active named Estaban and we had walked
down a super long road and i had a feeling that we should turn around and walk
back the way we came so I told my comp and he agreed and the next thing we know
these four college aged dudes come out of no where in a dark alley and so we didn’t
think anything good was going to come out of it but then estaban stopped us and
told us his story of how he lost contact with the church after being baptized
in New York and how he wants to come back to church so we got his info and have
contacted him and he is coming to general conference this week with us. Super
cool experience.
Saturday: Not a whole lot of people
answer their doors on Saturday so not a whole lot happened but when we went
back to the two families houses the old guy was waiting for us and started to
bad mouth us again and we didn’t want to cause a scene so we rescheduled with
the families because they also had something come up but it’s sad to see how much
that one guys doesn’t like us for no reason. That night the ward mission leader
invited us over for coordination to have a fire and talk about how to help
build up the ward so that was actually really fun and a productive
meeting.
Sunday: Derek didn’t come to church
but he found us later in the night and told us about his phone and how it broke
and he has a new number and made sure to get ours and call us to make sure it
is all good. We explained how next week is general conference and he said he
thought that sounded really great and he is going to come this week and he had
his family with him so we got to meet them. I know God has a plan for him and
there is a reason why we have run into him 4 separate times this week. Anyways,
at church I met another person who knows the fam! Their names are Anna lee and
Rusty Albrecht. Or formerly known as Anna lee Lund from Gunnison who grew up
with dad! It was super cool to get to know them and all. After church we had
another couple appointments fall through and this was the first time I have
felt discouraged because of how hard we have been working but so much stuff
with the Spanish families has fallen through but right when I started to feel
like that the next house which we have vested a lot and hasn’t been home let us
in and we finally taught our full first Spanish lesson! My MTC Spanish came in
clutch and I actually ended up teaching most of the lesson but Elder Ogle would
tell me what they would say sometimes because I couldn’t understand it all but
they loved what we taught and they both said they felt like the Book of Mormon
is the word of God and they took everything else really well. Which was crazy
because I realized that I had actually just taught real people in the real
world in a different language and they had actually understood everything I was
saying in their language! I was able to understand about 50-60% of what they
said also which was also really cool! It was a testimony builder of how much
the MTC really does prepare us and how the gist of tongues is a real thing.
This experience also built up my desire to learn Spanish by 100x more than how
it was before. We have our next lesson with them next Sunday in between
conference sessions so it worked out perfectly!
Sorry for such a long letter this
week hopefully I will get better at summarizing stuff better!
Here are some things I learned and
saw blessings from: We are pretty much out of miles for the month so we have
probably walked about 50 miles or so this week which made the days long but the
blessings that have come form that are crazy! We picked up 10 new investigators
this week, which are 8 more than the average and 6 more than have been picked
up in the last 6 months. People are recognizing us and because of that they
will come up to us and ask who we are and what we believe in and do. This is
all because we ran out of miles and have had to walk. Also lots of people think
we are Jehovah’s witness which is funny and we get asked what number of the
144,000 that we think we are but then it actually leads into a conversation
about the church and who we actually are.
Everyone
in Ohio smokes! Imp not sure if it is just the area I am in or all of Ohio but
we were told around 80% of the people smoke in this area. Fall hasn’t started
yet but there are so many trees it is ridiculous so hopefully fall isn’t
skipped this year and it just goes straight to winter. My trainer is awesome
and he has already taught me so much. We work really well together and have
been able to do lots of good in this area. All things are possible through the
lord with faith. I love it out here.
Love you all!
Elder Frandsen
Well I don’t have as much time this
week so I thought I would just write about some cool experiences that happened. So on last Tuesday it was raining
really hard all day and we are still out of miles at this point so we had to
walk with umbrellas but about 2 miles from the apartment my umbrella broke and
so did my companions so we got soaked and had been rejected every time we tried
to talk with someone so it was kind of crappy. We said a prayer and the next
thing that happened was that we both felt we should go to the apartment complex
across the street... so we did. We knocked on all 20 of the apartments and 13
out of the 20 let us in and we set up return appointments with all of them!!
The other great part is that half of them were Spanish :) Also the first person
we met said that her family is a part member family who just moved in and her
daughters had been wanting to meet with the missionaries for the last couple
weeks but they didn’t know where to find them and we just happened to show up
randomly so that was a really cool experience! So far we have met with 5 out of
the 13 and have 5 more appointments set up for tonight and tomorrow so we will
see how that goes. Later that night we had a lesson with Doug and Jessica and
he shared with us this super cool experience he had with the Book of Mormon and
right after that I felt like I should ask him to be baptized and so I did and
he accepted!! Right now he is set to be baptized in the middle of November so
pray that he can stay strong :) On Thursday we had Zone Training
meeting so afterwards we went on splits with the zone leaders. I went with
Elder Bowcut, which is cool because I have known him since I was 5 if not
younger! So it was really fun to be able to talk about what’s new at home and
everything. We did serve for most of the night but we had an hour at the
end to go contacting and we made the mistake of sitting by a KFC and every time
we would try to talk to one of the people they would pretty much just say,
"No thanks I need to get my chicken". Hahaha so we finally gave up on
that area and ran into a pizza delivery boy who gave us his address and told us
he wants to hear the message so I guess it wasn’t a complete waste of a night
trying to contact. Conference: I loved listening to all
of the talks and maybe it was that I am just a missionary now or what but I got
so much from this conference and it was really cool :) The biggest things I got
from it were: The gospel is simple and we don’t need to get caught up by the
fact of its simpleness and how important true faith is. God promises us so much
if we just keep the commandments. How much I love my family and how grateful I
am for the gospel and the blessings that it brings to families. Keep the
Sabbath day holy. Also by striving to do the simple things we can always have
the Holy Ghost. Also on Sunday we had our second
lesson with the Lopez family and it went super great! The father really opened
up to us and told us of how he wants to change but he doesn’t know how to and
how grateful he was that we are trying to help him. We have a third lesson with
him this week and our teaching pool of solid investigators grew by three this
week, which was super, awesome! I love serving out here and I love the people!
My companion and I get along great and everyday we see miracles and see how the
lord has prepared so many people to receive the gospel and when we are working
hard and have faith he puts them in our path. I love you all! Until next week,
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| The houses of Ohio |
October 5, 2015
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| The freezing church building during conference. |
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| How many people watched conference with us. |
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