My last week of being trained! One more transfer done and in the past.

Hola Mis Amigos!                                                                                        December 10, 2015

 Wow lots happened this week... And I am done being trained! It has been 4 1/2 months since I entered the MTC, which seems crazy to me because it feels like it was just yesterday!

Well anyways, here is how my week went.

Monday: We Went with Doug and Jessica (Investigators) back to Historic Kirtland to look at all the Christmas stuff before we had our lesson. President Brown randomly showed up and he was able to talk with Doug and Jessica for a bit! The only thing that is holding them back from getting baptized right now is the big decision of marriage. They know it is true and have shared with us their testimony and we have seen how their lives have changed ever since we started teaching them. They are so much happier now and almost have a glow to them. It is really cool. So the lesson that we had was about eternal marriage and what it means. It was really good! They understand the commitment and this week they are going to fast and pray about it.

Tuesday: Every year The Cleveland Ohio mission has a Mission Conference where all the missionaries in the mission get together for a day. The mission conference is always in the Kirtland Temple as well which is really cool. Something cool that happened was that Elder Ogle and I and a group of like 6 or 8 other Elders Were asked to sing during the conference in the Kirtland temple. We sang away in a manger and it was really fun! The spirit that is in the Kirtland temple is really strong. I am so lucky to get to serve in a place where there is so much church history and to go to a place like the Kirtland temple where the savior appeared to Joseph. The other part of the day was during lunch when we were eating President Brown got permission from the area 70 for us to watch the best two years hahaha. That movie is a lot funnier once you have served a mission or are on a mission!

Wednesday: Well... it is really awkward teaching in a triple up! But we live and we learn right? The cool thing is that even though it is awkward teaching in a triple up, if the spirit is there than the investigator will still learn and grow. Which is what happened! June is an older lady and she accepted the baptismal invitation! She is thinking that she will be ready in 2 months. Another cool story, so we have been meeting with brother salmon a lot. He is a recent convert who is now a less active. His wife is super active and all and she told us that one-day he just said he couldn’t do this anymore and stopped coming to church. He wouldn’t talk to the missionaries anymore and he never came out for when his wife fed the missionaries. The first time that he came out for when she fed the missionaries was the first time that I went over there and it has been progressing more and more since! At first he would never talk during the lessons or even when we were there but in the last 4 times he has really opened up and we are now pretty good friends! So when we met with him this night, Elder Ogle and I had a thought to share with him Elder Holland’s testimony of the book of Mormon. So we did and afterwards we bore our testimonies of the book of Mormon and he then started to cry and told us why he stopped coming to church. He read the book of Mormon last year before he was baptized but he said he still has not received an answer yet. He has prayed and asked so many times but he still hasn’t received an answer. This was a huge step forward. It was so cool to have him actually tell someone why he left. Now we just need to figure out what to do from here....

Thursday: We had Zone training meeting and it went really good! They almost talked me into singing a solo in front of everyone but I somehow changed their minds to having all the elders sing while I played the piano for them... I dodged a bullet there!  Zone training meetings are great because you can learn from all the other people in the zone and you get new ideas of how to move forward with the work. The only weird thing about our zone is that there are more sisters than elders because we are in the Kirtland zone and all the sisters at the Historic sites in Kirtland. 

Friday: we went on exchanges with the Zone leaders and it was great! We were able to meet with a lot of people that have been out of town and we got lots done! Tim is back now and is supering busy but luckily we were able to get to meet with him and he is coming to church again on Sunday! 

Saturday: not a whole lot happened! 

Sunday: We had 5 investigators come to church! And we set a baptismal date with Tim for 2 months from now! Church was really eventful.  This transfer this area has grown a lot and in the next 2-3 months there are probably going to be 8 baptisms which is really awesome to see and watch as all these people come closer to Christ and grow their faith. The other awesome thing is that neither Elder Ogle nor I are being transferred! Which is crazy in this mission because you never get more than 2 transfers with a companion especially with your trainer. Somehow I got lucky.  

Monday: We had our First Spanish lesson with a member present! The one member that is in our ward who speaks Spanish was finally able to come out with us and I went on splits with him while the other 2 elders went out to another lesson. We taught this man named Flavio. Flavio is a former investigator who had a baptismal date at one point but then had to go back to Mexico but has since moved back and we ran into him the other day. It was really nice to have a member who could speak Spanish fluently. We have another lesson with him and his whole family next Sunday! 

Well that is how my week went! Love you all!

Elder Frandsen

We received this from a member working with the missionaries.
He said, "Hello Frandsen's! Here is a picture of your son.
I spent a few hours with hi and his companion.
 He is fun to be around and a good teacher and example."
Oh how we love to hear from people in
Ohio that are associating with Lafe.