Ohio Week 1

Hola Familia y Amigos!

First Day, this is me at the Kirtland Temple.

Well here is how my week went...

Saturday-Monday: Last couple days at the MTC! It was sad to say bye to my district and zone but I am excited to see where we all end up and what happens. Said bye to friends and teachers and I smelled "The Tree" for the last time I also finally had my last MTC meal which I am not too sad about. Overall I really did love my experience at the MTC and the friendships I made and the lessons I learned.

Tuesday: I woke up at 2:30 am to head out to the bus to take all of us to the airport. We finally arrived around 5:30 or so to the airport and got all checked in and then I got to call home and stuff, which was awesome! Sadly on both airplanes I sat by all missionaries so I didn’t have much of a chance there to talk to anyone but in the Georgia airport I gave away a pass along card to this older couple who asked me why there was so many of us with name tags on and what it meant. Sadly this was right when we had to board the plane so I only had a couple minutes to talk to her but I gave her the card and she said she would go look up the website for ourchurch, so that was cool. Well we arrived in Cleveland and got everything picked up and met the mission president and his wife (they are both super super awesome) And then I found out the craziest thing yet... So all along I heard there was about 20 Spanish missionaries in this mission out of the 210 but there are actually only 7 and I make 8. Yeah. that took me by surprise and also only one of them has been out for 1 year all the rest are younger than that. Well after that we went to the mission home and got acquainted and everything. We had our interviews with the president and his wife which was really cool and he shared how excited he was to be able to work with us because he just arrived in July so we are going to be pretty much his first missionaries that he will have welcomed by himself and will see us all the way through the mission. After that, since we had such a big group, three of us were picked to go and spend the night at the AP's house down the road. So I stayed there for the night and it was all a blur how fast everything had come and gone throughout that whole day and I had no clue what to think of it all.  

Wednesday: We woke up at 4:30 because we had to travel to Kirtland and a bunch of other stuff so that set up for another long but good day. We went up to Kirtland and toured the Kirtland temple and the Newel K Whitney store and were able to start our missions off by saying a prayer in the school of prophets. This whole experience here was just super awesome and made all of us, especially me excited for the next 2 years. Next we went up to the Kirtland stake center to find out who our trainers were going to be. First before I found out I saw Deesh, Mckay Bowcut, Kenzie Saunders and Sister Taylor who are all from Spanish Fork and Salem area. I had no clue that they were all serving in Cleveland, so that was cool. Then I met my trainer whose name is Elder Ogle he is from Chicago and is super awesome! I am serving in Perry West, which is in the Kirtland zone so we take our investigators to Kirtland a couple times a week, which is great. Elder Ogle was with an English Elder the previous transfer so his Spanish is rusty and I also found out that we had 0 Spanish investigators at the time which has been hard because I don’t know how my Spanish is going to progress... any advice? We went back to the apartment and had to get ready for our first meeting, which was with a less active member named Stephen. Stephen is a very interesting man and is probably one of if not the most intelligent person I have ever met but he reminds me more of an evil genius ha-ha. He goes on random tangents and he talked about anti-matter for a while and evolution and about what he is inventing right now and showed it to us it was pretty cool. After that we ate at a member’s house and the crazy thing is that this member actually served his mission with Uncle Kelly! I couldn’t believe it because I am in the middle of nowhere and I meet someone who knows my family. It was a long but awesome day.

This is me with Deesh

Thursday: We did our planning for the week and had to helped with some ward stuff so we weren’t able to go contacting until around 4 but we met with an investigator to make sure he was still good to come to the tour of Kirtland the next day and we read a chapter of the Book of Mormon and he asked a question about baptism and it was crazy because the day before I had studied a chapter in Doctrine and covenants which was the exact answer for that question, so I shared it with him and he loved it! I thought it was pretty cool.

Friday: Super awesome day! We gave away 6  Books of Mormon in two hours and picked up a new investigator and it happened all right by our apartment! In the afternoon we went to Kirtland with  Doug who is 66 and his girlfriend Jessica who is 33 and they went through the tour of the historic sites and they both loved it and both felt the spirit super strong when they were able to pray by them selves in the school of prophets! Doug is an awesome guy who has had some rough times recently and when he found the missionaries he was super interested because he has been looking for something like this in his life. They are awesome people and I am super excited to keep teaching them. Well anyways after that we decided it was time to finally find some Spanish investigators for this area so we can actually use our Spanish. Our apartment is right by "the Hood" and we have a Spanish store right by our apartment so we decided to go try out that area and see how it went. Well we knocked on some doors and the first one to answer was a Hispanic man and we were able to talk with him for fifteen minutes and he read out of the Book of Mormon and accepted it and then I felt like we should go to this random blue house and right when we were walking up to the door a man named José walked out and we talked to him for 15 minutes and he also read out of and accepted a Book of Mormon. Then we walked around the block and met this kid named Manlike who is 18 and we explained who we were and he said he really would like to here more and we have a return appointment set up for this week. Next we went to an ice cream shop and the two girls that were working asked us about our name tags and who we were and then we ended up giving both of them Book of Mormon and have return appointments for this week also. In this one night we doubled the amount of investigators, which was awesome.

Saturday: We did service for some of the day by bailing hay with some of the members, which was really fun. We went to Kirtland again with a less active and watched a program that was going on there and he has been coming to church for the last couple weeks which is awesome. Then we tracted by our apartment again and met some really interesting people of the Bahia faith but they were really nice and we have another appointment with them tonight! It was another really great day.

Sunday: I met my long somewhat distant cousins who are in the ward I am serving in! Aunt Rita is their Aunt as well just on the other side so we aren’t blood related but they are really close with the Gardner family! That is just crazy to me again how I met someone out here that knows my family! He has actually stayed at grandpa and grampus house in Gunnison before! Anyways later that night we went contacting and tracing by our apartment again for a couple of hours and it was awesome! We gave away 8 Books of Mormon and picked up 5 new Spanish investigators for this week and another two English investigators! We also reached the goal of 20 lessons for the week, which hasn’t been reached in this area for like 5 months, so that was cool :) 

Overall this week has been super amazing and I have had so many cool experiences. The only thing that I am struggling with is the language because I don’t have a lot of opportunities to speak it so it isn’t really progressing and my companion is still a bit rusty so it is hard to speak it in the apartment when he has to train me so we are working together to make it better but as long as we have faith I know we will be able to do it. 

I can’t believe how many trees and how green it is here it is crazy! The whether has been great and the leaves are just about to change colors! Also I am right by the lake and right in-between Cleveland and Kirtland. This area is awesome and the people are awesome although a slight bit on the crazy side at times. I have also learned that the people here all have super nice cars but live in tiny not so nice houses. Sometimes the car is more expensive then the house ha-ha. But I love them all and I am so grateful for the opportunity to be here! MY companion is an awesome guy and I am glad for his example. Love you all hope you have a great week! 

My mailing address is 

6720-creek side drive

Unit C Madison Ohio 44057 

Pray for me that I can learn the language and be able to understand it as well :) 

Elder Frandsen

“Two awesome missionaries!!! They just shared a wonderful message with us!!   They are great teachers!”

This was texted to me by an investigator.  :)

In Lafe's letter he mentioned this,         "I met my long somewhat 
distant cousins who are in the 
ward I am serving in!"

This is one of the cousins he mentioned.
We received this post on Facebook.