Beer, Guns, and a 70

Elder Bennett and I with our Michigan and Ohio State ties on.

Hey fam,

Here is the Joke for the week! (Sorry it is a bit longer)

George W. Bush, in an airport lobby, noticed a man in a long, flowing, white robe with a long, flowing, white beard and long, flowing, white hair. The man had a staff in one hand and some stone tablets under the other arm.

George W., struck by the man¹s appearance, approached the man and asked, "Aren't you Moses?"

The man ignored George W. and stared at the ceiling.

George W., unaccustomed to being ignored, positioned himself more directly in the man's view and asked again, "Aren't you Moses?"

The man continued staring at the ceiling.

George W. then tugged at the man's sleeve and asked once again, "Aren't you Moses?"

The man finally responded in an irritated voice, "Yes I am."

George W. asked him why he ignored him and the man replied, "The last time I spoke to a Bush I had to spend forty years wandering in the desert."

Well here is the story of the beer and the guns, 

One night Elder Bennett and I got back from proselyting at like 8:30 and since we live so far away from anywhere we can’t really go out and do anything in the cities where a lot of our work is so we decided to stop by the only people we teach in Delphos. So we called and they said we could come by... well when we showed up the door was wide open and all we could see is

Ben and Carlene’s friend named Eddy sitting there by himself with a large beer can on one side and 3 guns on the other. Well, we walk in and start talking to him and he starts to say that we are moving too fast with them and that we might be of the devil and that he is confused by the whole Book of Mormon stuff.  This didn’t sound like him and we quickly realized that he was really drunk. Well shortly after that realization he started to tell us of how he is the greatest man to ever live and how he was going to lay his hands on us and heal us right there, all the while there were three large guns sitting right next to him. So then he suddenly stands up, grabs the back of our heads and puts our heads and his head right next to each other and said the craziest prayer I have ever heard. Then he showed us a little pocket bible that had his "saved by Jesus" date in it that was written in pencil... I guess salvation is erasable? So we slowly snuck out of the house before he noticed and ran off. Good times.

This past week we also had Elder Gay of the Seventy come and do a mission tour and talk to us. It was really awesome to have him come and meet with the mission. The day we went to hear from him he focused on member missionary work and talked about how a mission will not reach its full potential unless the members and missionaries are working together. In order to do that and see more success in the wards we have to have the bishop on board and be the one to set the example for the rest of the ward and have the ward council meeting focused on people. Well Elder Cortez got picked to go up for a role play and his companion wasn’t helping him out at all and I felt bad for him So Elder Bennett and I volunteered to go up and help and then Elder Gay decided to make the role play 2x harder for us and at first we got roasted by him until the end we finally figured it out and made it through. But it was definitely a new experience getting roasted by a member of the 70. Some interesting things he said though are:

1. Missionary work is a principle not a program

2. We have three cultures in the church, a missionary culture and a member culture but those both need to be the same and need to be a gospel culture

3. We will get nowhere with out personal revelation in the Lord’s work.

After that big meeting we had a special Mission Leadership Conference and he talked about 3 things there:

1. Culture eats purpose for breakfast.

2. Every breakthrough is a break.

3.The example of the brother of jared in ether 2 and 3 the lord will not tell us what to do in all things, in example of the story of the brother of jared he is given an idea and expected to figure it out on his own and then to bring his idea before the Lord with his faith. 1 nephi 3:7 the lord always prepares a way but it is up to us to find and show by our faith if we are willing to act in faith to find it. Other scriptures that go along with that are John 7:17 and Ether 12:6 and D&C 9:1-9. Just like Joseph Smith leading up to the first vision, he read the scriptures, pondered on what he read, and came to a decision and then went to the lord in prayer along with his faith. Right before the first vision he had a trial of his faith but he continued forward in diligence and did what was right and received a witness to the trial of his faith. 

I can say I am truly grateful for being able to learn from Elder Gay. 

The other things that happened this week were:

1. We set a baptismal date with our investigator Alan for March 19th! 

2. We went on exchanges with the Assistants and learned lots from them.

3. I got to see Charrise again!

Well, It was another good week here in The Ohio Cleveland Mission. I am so very grateful for this opportunity to be serving the Lord full time and for all the many experiences and blessings that I have had on my mission. I know this is the Lords work. Love you all!

Until Next Week,

Elder Frandsen

A picture with Elder Eardly, he was my Zone leader for almost one year.

A picture with Elder Bennett and the assistants

A picture of the trucks we drive.

Finding Joy in the Small things.....

A picture that Rachel gave us

Hey Fam,

in honor of my almost 6 month remaining mark....

Q:  What's the difference between taking a bath in dirty water and dating a returned missionary?

A:  The dirty water leaves a ring. 

:)

anyways, Here is a run down of another week here in Lima Ohio.

Thing #1: Last Wednesday we were able to meet with a Part member Less Active family for the first time. It was actually a really cool experience and I am pretty excited about it.. here is what happened. So we went in and right off the bat the children loved us and were trying to show us all of their toys and the usual run down... Kids are a way to the parents heart (That rhymes right?) So we sat down and explained our purpose of wanting to meet with them and right after that the mother shared with us about how in the last few months she and her husband had felt that they needed the gospel back in their lives, after being inactive for 12 years since moving from California. They have a son who is ten who I asked if he wanted to learn more about God and Jesus Christ and talked a little bit about prophets and he said he would love to. The parents said that they had been thinking about retaking the discussions as well and decided that they would do it together as a family!! Talk about being in the right place at the right time... God truly does lead us to those who are ready and willing to meet. So we will be meeting with them again in the coming week and see what happens from there. 

Thing #2: WE have an investigator named Alan who has been investigating for a little bit over a month or 2 now and we sat down a couple weeks ago and decided to really focus on helping him to progress.  So we focused on helping him to keep commitments and have those spiritual experiences necessary to become converted. Last week we focused on the Book of Mormon and for him to pray about baptism and this week we focused on the Plan of Salvation. Last night when we were teaching him we were talking about the atonement and while they were talking about it the spirit prompted me very strongly to, right at the moment, share Alma 7:11-13 and then to share 14-16 and follow up on baptism. Well even though that wasn’t what we had planned you should listen to the spirit when it comes. So I did just that and first we talked about 11-13 and about the atonement and that led perfectly into 14-16 which are scriptures talking about baptism that I had never shared before in a lesson. So when we read them I asked him if he had prayed about being baptized and if so what was the answer. He answered with a very solid, “yes,” which took both Elder Bennett and I back by surprise because the week prior he had seemed so hesitant. It was another testimony builder of the power and ability of the spirit to change the hearts of those we teach and how important it is to act on those promptings when they come. The member who was with us loved the lesson so much that he has offered to come with us every time we teach Alan! Miracles all around. 

Thing#3: Last week we had members out with us almost every day! This week we are already on track to beat that. We had a different member with us at 6 different lessons yesterday, it was awesome! We met with another investigator last week with a member from the ward and they hit it right off and it was so much more natural for the member to invite the person to keep a commitment rather than us. That investigator made a lot of progress in that lesson in recognizing the spirit. Elder Bennet and I have been focusing pretty hard on effective planning and effective planning with members and we have seen the blessing comes from it already. The members even invited us to teach seminary this morning... let’s just say 6:00 seminary back at home would have been a rough one for me but the lesson went good. 

Another picture that Rachel gave us.

Thing #4: Rachel is doing a lot better this week and we have pushed her date for baptism back till further notice to help her focus on making sure she is stable and getting into the run of things with her new medication. It surprises me how much she knows about the gospel every time we go over.... Hopefully the fire that she has right now will continue. 

Thing#5: Last miracle of the week... So Sunday after church we had a member come out and drive us around to do some stop-bys. We first got into a part member families home and met with the grandma for a bit and it went well and we can visit her now on the weekends. The best part was when she told us of how a young man who is a member that hasn't been for a while and moved next door. Well, the member we had with us had been this guy’s Young Men’s leader before so we went over and the kid was home with his girlfriend. He and the member hit it right off and the kid is really cool and is still paying his tithing but not coming to church and had kind of disappeared the last 5 years... So the member told about how much the ward missed him and how much his grandma missed him and told him to come back. It was bold but it was filled with love.  The kid said yes and he knew that he needed to come back but what had been holding him back was just the fear of it all because it had been so long. WEll then he turned to us and asked us to share something with his girlfriend so we did and she then told us that she wanted to come to church with him because she had stopped going a couple years ago to her old church and they knew they needed it. After wards it was really cool to see how happy the member was from that experience and plus the fact that we were again in the right place at the right time to be able to figure out that he lived there. God is good.

Well that is all for this week! I love my mission... it has been the best thing for me to be doing with my life for the past year and a half. I wouldn’t want to be any where else at this time. I am grateful for the scriptures, prayer, and the opportunity to take the sacrament each week. I love you all!

 Until next week,

Elder Frandsen

Shooting Flares

Hey Fam, 

Jokeeeee

Q: How many Young Men does it take to change a light bulb?

A:One. He holds the light bulb in the socket and the whole world revolves around him

Well here is the update for the week:

So you know that story I shared with you last week? well there is an update to it. Rachel got out of the hospital last Friday and talked with a member and she told the member she was still planning on being baptized and what not. So she calls us Saturday night to tell us she still plans on being baptized and that she was coming to church the next day. She also told us about why what happened last week happened the way that it did. She has really bad anxiety and had been using medical marijuana but the day she committed to baptism she stopped and so her anxiety got worse combined with some other things and it all blew up that Sunday. So it was actually a blessing that she was able to go to the hospital to get the help that she needed and plus she had been fasting for 48 hours before it all went down. She is on medicine now and when she came to church she was really mellow and normal. SO we prayed about it that night to know if she really was ready to move forward with this and we both felt that she was. So we met with her on Monday and set up a plan and she is really excited. The ward doesn’t know the full details of what happened but they know that she got the help she needed and are still very willing to help. just another week in Ohio...

This past Sunday I was able to give a recent convert named William the Priesthood! William was baptized two weeks prior to me arriving here and he is the coolest kid. For some reason he chose me to be the one to give him the priesthood and I was honored to, Pretty cool experience. :) We are also going to the temple with him in a couple weeks and were able to get him started on family history work. 

A member took us out to a farm and we got to shoot his flare gun and it was pretty sweet. I would attach the video but sadly these computers are extremely slow.

Yesterday we had mission leadership council with President Brown and there are some changes coming to the mission with exchanges... and they really don’t affect anyone in the mission too much except for me and my companion because we have the biggest zone, area wise, and we now have to bring both missionaries into our area for exchanges instead of splitting so we will have to figure that one out. 

Elder Bennett and I spent a few hours planning one day on how we are going to help the members do their missionary work and getting them out teaching with us. So far the plan has been accepted really well and the members have been willing to work with us! I am excited to see how it goes and watch the members get excited about missionary work. 

Well that is all for this week! Missionary work is awesome... I have come to know over the past year and a half that Jesus Christ is our Savior  and his Atonement is real and it has so much power to change us. I have come to know that God truly does love all of his children no matter the circumstance. Last, but not least, I have come to know that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints is God’s Church established here on the earth and that the Book of Mormon is convincing evidence of that. I would invite you all to read the Book of Mormon and test the promise that Moroni makes us in the last chapter of the Book of Mormon. I know it will bless your life because it has blessed mine.

I love you all! Until next week,

Elder Frandsen

Melted Chocolate in a Golden Wrapper.... a week in Delphos

Hey Fam,

If you are a high councilor then you can just skip over the next paragraph....

Here is the Joke for the week,

I don’t recommend to try these at home!

Top 10 Ways to Get a High Councilor to End His Talk.

10. Look at your watch  Shake it  Hold it up to your ear

9.   Yawn.  Stretch.  Curl up on the bench and take a nap

8.   Start snoring

7.   Say "Amen" loudly after every sentence

6.   Throw your kids' cheerios up in to the air and try and catch them in        your mouth

5.   Throw your kids' cheerios at the high councilor

4.   Lead your row in a Chinese fire-drill

3.   Pull the fire alarm and lead the entire congregation in a real fire drill

2.   Raise your hand and object

1.   Take out your hymnbook and start singing the closing song

Well here is a story of the craziest Sunday of my mission... Viewer discretion advised.

So we have/had this investigator named Rachel (not actually her name but we can pretend it is) and she was found about a week before I arrived here in the Lima ward. 2 weeks ago she was found and here is a little back ground on Rachel that leads up to how she was found.  Rachel is from California and has had a hard life.  She was abused from the age of 6 to 16 by a relative which led to some other not so great things and experiences growing up, at the age of 16 she got into a string of bad abusive relationships, one after the other. She found one guy who was alright and while they were together, about a year ago, they met missionaries in Oakland and began to investigate.  Rachel learned a lot but had a lot of changes and stuff she had to make and wasn’t ready at that time to do that. Well she left that guy due to other reasons and moved to Kentucy with her mom and while she was there she started to read the Book of Mormon. We also think she started to watch some stuff that maybe wasn’t true so it led her to have some mistaken views but she felt the spirit and when she met some people from Ohio and moved here. She really wanted to go to church and meet with the missionaries again and felt she was ready to be baptized and knew it was all true. So on Christmas Eve she called up Elder Bennett and told him her story and how she wanted to come to church and be baptized. So they met with her, set a date and she came to church.  She was mad it was only one hour cause she wanted all 3, that never happens, lol. But anyway Rachel is very open and will share her story with anyone and everyone.  She is a very kind compassionate soul who really wants to change and has made a lot of dramatic changes over the last year and recently has felt the spirit very strongly. We think that because of the dramatic changes and everything that is going on in her life may have caused for some problems. Well I met her last Thursday and she told me everything I have just shared with you and then we had a lesson on Friday. 

Well, that morning she had texted us and said, ”I am getting rid of all of my worldly possessions because they are holding me back and not letting me be as happy as I should be.”  We both thought that was a little bit odd but if it works for her than it works for us! We were thinking she was going to like let us the stuff or give it away but no... when we pulled up to pick her up that night with a member we saw this fire in the back yard (she lives in a place surrounded by farms).  So I thought it was just a burn pile or something but elder Bennett immediately knew what it was. So when we pulled up we saw her running around with her phone recording the fire. She was burning most of her clothes in a metal cage and she was recording it for youtube.  Now she only has 7 shirts and she burned all the worldly things she doesn’t need, that doesn’t happen very often either. Well the lesson went well and she still seemed golden and what not.  When it is time for church we have a member who picked her up and when he got to church he told us that her roommate had walked out naked when she went back into the house to grab something and it had caused her a little bit of grief. During sacrament she leaned over to me and said " I have a message prepared can I share it?" I told her that there were already speakers and she was fine with that. Well after sacrament she looks at me and says "can you tell everyone to sit back down? I would like to share this message with them." Well I was a little bit worried at that point but I explained to her that fast Sunday would be next week and she could have the opportunity to bear her testimony there. That calmed her down and she was good with that. WEll, next she said she had a present for us and she took us out into the hall and she gave us these paintings she had made which were pretty awesome, one was the ocean and it had a pearl and represented the Pearl of Great Price and then the ocean was everyone in the world. She said within every group of fish there is a Mormon who is a good example. Then the other painting was a representation of the kingdom of God painted with sand, it is pretty great. Sadly I did not take pictures of them this week but they are in the apartment so I will take some pictures and send them next week.  So next we went to Gospel Principles and we were a little bit worried because Rachel is kind of like a little fire ball of energy waiting to explode hahah. In gospel principles she shared her whole life experience with everyone, which I am okay with because I am used to people doing that as a missionary but I don’t know about the ward members. Then she started talking about women and the priesthood, Heavenly mother, garments and the potential to become like Gods and she said that she was fine with all of it. She had mentioned how she was wearing white underneath her clothes to get used to it now and I looked and she was wearing a white undershirt that looked like a garment top. So at this point I was thinking, "You are either really prepared or you are a little bit off today..." Well gospel principles got over and she went to relief society, and there again she shared her whole life story.  After the lesson started she was sobbing and they asked what was wrong and she said "I am just so happy" and then one of the sister missionaries said "we can go out side and talk about this if you would like?" She said okay but instead of going out and talking with the sister she ended up running out of the building. I was in the bathroom when that happened so when I came out Elder Bennett said, "Our investigator just ran away, but she said she would be back in a minute and she left all her stuff here so she is probably just trying to get calmed down.” Well after 15 minutes one of the sisters went to look and couldn’t find her, we waited until church was over and that was when we were a little worried so we went and looked and couldn’t find her. Well someone had mentioned earlier that if they had run off they would have gone to the gas station. For some reason that stuck with me and I looked at Elder Bennett and said, ”For kicks and giggles let’s walk over to the gas station and see if we can find her.” That was definitely inspired because the rest of the story wouldn’t have happened had we not gone there. Well we got to the gas station and I was going to ask the cashier if they had seen a short little blonde girl with a red dress come through but right before I asked the guy in front of us said to the cashier, "Did y'all hear about the blonde girl that was arrested at the end of the street for running around naked?" I thought "There is no way, please no please no.” Elder Bennett and I looked at each other and we both couldn’t believe it so we asked the guy, "Was she wearing a red dress before she got naked?" He said no she was wearing a pinkish type of white shirt before it happened. So that made us feel a little better. We thought that since she wasn’t wearing a red dress that maybe it wasn’t her. So we hopped into the truck and rode down to the other gas station and went in and asked the lady at the cash register about what happened. First we explained what Rachel looked like and the descriptions matched exactly with the girl that was arrested. So at that point we knew it was Rachel. The story that the lady told us was this:  There was another lady driving around the building and saw Rachel sitting by a pole with her undershirt on and when she came out of the drive through, Rachel was completely toppless and ran up to her car and asked for a shirt and the lady told her that she didn’t have a shirt so Rachel gave her a hug and said, “I have forgiven the he person that did this to me ( referring to her step dad who abused her)  and ran off to the front of the building. At this point she had mud wiped all over her face. So she tried running into the gas station and then two cops pulled up, wrapped her in a blanket and arrested her. SO after we heard that we got the police department number and went out to the pole to look for any of her stuff to take to her and we looked at the ground and we found her white undershirt she had been wearing earlier and we saw where she had dug her hand into the mud and then wiped it all over her face. So we go over to the truck and throw the stuff into the truck and we are driving back to the church when about half way down the road Elder Bennett points out a red thing on the side walk and we look at each other and say "there is no way..." well we pulled up and I hopped out and picked it up and sure enough it was Rachel’s dress and it was ripped right down the middle, kind of like what the hulk would do when he rips his clothes off. We threw it into the truck and knocked a few doors to see if anyone had seen what happened but they saw nothing. I guess she was running and about half way in between the church and the gas station she decided she didn’t need clothes anymore. 

After that we went to the church and told the member who gave her a ride he didn’t need to worry about it... and we got all of her stuff she had left at the church and called the police to see if she was at the jail and they told us they had dropped her off at the hospital due to possible drug usage or mental break down. So we head on over to the hospital, I found a bottle of oil that fell out of her bag and it said "Holy Annointing Oil, Blessed by Rachel Evangeline.” Well that was a surprise, lol. Anyway we get to the hospital and have to tell this story to the social worker and everything and the social worker told us that she seemed to have just snapped or something and has some serious mental health issues and will need some intense therapy or meds to fix it. Rachel was also going by like 3 different names and at this point she was put into a safe room so she wouldn’t harm herself or anyone else.  So when we put all the facts together we think that with all the dramatic changes she is making in her life that it caused her to get stressed and with telling so many people her life story in such a short time span and seeing her room mate naked that morning that it cause for her to have like a PTSD type of flash back and she snapped. When she left the church she had no idea where she was and was reliving a bad experience and that is why she ended up getting naked and running around. But if we look at it from another perspective it was actually a blessing for her because now she has the help that she needs to get over all of this, the help that she never had access to prior to all of this and she was dealing with all of this on her own. They have hopes that she will be able to make a full recovery.... but to sum it all up, it was the craziest Sunday of my life, our progressing investigator went from progressing to baptism to progressing to the psych ward in the matter of a day. I don’t think that I will ever have another investigator get arrested for public nudity either... 

Well, other than that, Elder Bennet my new companion is super awesome and a great missionary and I am excited to be serving with him. The new area is massive but it is good and has a lot of good potential and there are people to teach. The zone leader life really isn’t that much different, all we have to do is make a lot of calls and send some texts and plan a meeting or two here and there and then go on exchanges each week. Hopefully it won’t take away from the work out here too much. 

Happy New Years! Crazy to think that I will be home in 2017. 

Love you all!

Elder Frandsen