Sup Fam!
Quick story from the week: We were tracting and contacting in the Hood of south Akron on Sunday after church. We came across this man who was walking down the street. We started talking to him and the first thing he says to us is, " Y'all got some money?,” and right after that I could smell the alcohol from 10 feet away. Neither of us carry cash on us so we told him no and he got this weird look on his face and said, ”y'all can’t come into the hood talking bout Jesus and not be carrying cash on y'all selfs... Jesus woulda gave me some money to buy a sandwich and a beer”. And then all of a sudden he gets an even weirder look on his face and looks at us and says, " do y'all wanna get punched?... I'll knock you out right now!" Elder Rawson responded by saying" yeah, sure why not." So the guy took one look at him and you could see in his face that the thought came, “Man, that guy is way too big, he would eat me for breakfast.” So he looks at me and shys away from Elder Rawson (he is 6 foot 4 and 280 pounds and the dude was like 5 foot 8 maybe 140). He tries to buddy buddy with me and tells us how he runs the streets and he could shoot us right then and there if he wanted to and would drag us off into the bushes and how he is blessed because he has made it to the age of 33 out in the streets of Akron with out dying after being shot like 10 times. We started to slowly back up a little at a time as the guy was tripping over himself and finally he gets another weird look on his face like he had no idea what he was doing there and just walked away. It was sad to see how much that guy had wasted his life on drugs and alcohol. Whenever stuff like that happens I always feel terrible and wish I could do something more to help a lot of these people out of these situations of poverty and no education... but it is hard to try to help someone realize their potential when their whole life society has told them otherwise. :(
Well here is the run down for the week:
Sadly both of our Kirtland trips ended up not panning out because of different things. Peter, the member referral we have been teaching, got stuck in New York and had to cancel but we were able to have dinner with him again over at the members home who is helping us to teach him. Peter is taking the Bar at the end of the summer so he is taking classes everyday to help him prep for that so we won’t be able to meet with him very often :(. But he is going to be texting us questions he has from what he reads in the Book of Mormon and hopefully we are able to meet up every once in a while. The other trip got canceled because the recent convert we were going with forgot it was his daughters graduation so he had to cancel, but we are going with him this coming Saturday.
There is another Part Member family that recently moved into the Branch and the non member husband grew up here and turns out one of the members that grew up here is his same age and they went to high school together! The husband was asking if there were any members their age and what not, so we are taking the member with us teaching this week when we visit them. The husband had been investigating for a while, back where they were at before they moved here, and was pretty close to joining. I am pretty hopeful for this family.
We were able to have another lesson Austin, the boyfriend of a member that we started teaching a few weeks ago, and met with him again a couple of nights ago and it went really well! He kept the commitments we left with him and he had some really great questions. Last night we went and helped out with the youth activity and his girlfriend was there and she shared, for the miracle of the week how austin, who isnt super religious, told her after we left that he felt there was truth to what we were teaching! I have high hopes for Austin as well and hope I am able to see him progress while I am still here.
And last but not least, we found a spanish family to teach!! I am a little bit rusty on my spanish I feel. but when we tracted into the family the other day, I was able to speak just fine with them and it was awesome! The gift of tongues is still a real thing and I hope that they are more than just a one and done deal. We have been doing a lot of finding this past week and tracted probably like 200-300 doors and have tons of potentials now we need to help them all become investigators and we will be pretty busy for a while.
Well that's all for this week! My birthday was yesterday.. the Big 20. It is weird to think that I am 20 already and that my mission is almost over... the things that as you are growing up you are always looking forward to, but they always seem so far away. Life kind of just sneaks up on you that way. It was a good birthday and I wouldn’t have wanted to spend it anywhere else than out here in the mission field of Ohio. Something that I learned this week in my studies is the importance of having a spiritual experience with the scriptures every day. When I apply myself to my studies in the mornings and get soemething out of it, the rest of my day goes so much better and I am able to focus on the work more without getting distracted and thinking about how close I am to going home. It also gives me something to ponder on for the day and helps me to "Let virtue garnish my thoughts" as it tells us to do in D&C 121:45. That has been a big one for me recently is having diligence of mind not just diligence of action. It is so easy to go through the actions of being a missionary and not have your mind be into it. I think the same goes for us as Christians striving to live the gospel. sometimes we are just going through the motions and our hearts aren’t into it and we don’t get anything out of it. I am so grateful for my mission and all that it has taught me.
Well that is all for this week! Love you all :)
Stay cute,
Elder Frandsen
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