The Best Two Years!

Hey Fam,

     I am not sure where to even begin in expressing my thoughts and feelings about the last 2 years of my life. I feel that words cant describe how I feel about what has happened... But I will try my best. 

     I remember the day like it was yesterday, Driving to the MTC with my family thinking how much I would miss all of them and all of a sudden we were there, we got out and I said goodbye and walked away knowing that I wouldn’t see them again for 2 years. Those first three days felt like 2 years long each and I was wondering how I was ever going to do this, but determined to succeed, I went on. All of a sudden I was stepping off a plane into what felt like a wall of water in the mid summer humidity of Ohio, again wondering what I had gotten myself into, nevertheless I was excited for the challenge that lay ahead although 2 years felt like forever at that point. Throughout it all, the days have felt like weeks and the weeks have felt like days. Like I said it feels like yesterday I stepped off that plane thinking two years was a long time and now here I am, 2 years later wondering where the time went? When it started I couldn’t wait to be done, now that its done I would give anything to go back to when it started. At first I missed home, but now I feel that this place has become my home. This is where I have come to find my testimony of and become converted to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I have watched the Gospel in action for the last two years in so many different peoples lives and I can’t deny that there is a God and that his son Jesus Christ lives again so that we also may live again. It is through Him and only him that we can find true happiness in this life and true healing from the afflictions of mortality. I Know now more than I did before that Christ is at the head of this church and leads it through Revelation. I am grateful for God and the person he has made me to be in the last two years. I have learned so much and wouldn’t trade these experiences for anything. These have been the hardest two years of my life but at the same time they have been the Best two years of my life. I Truly love the people here and have loved every minute of my time with them. 

With that being said...

       This week was a great last week to end my mission. Elder McCarrey and I had a really cool experience this past Sunday. A few weeks ago we found this lady named Elizabeth while tracting and she didn’t have a lot of time to talk to us ( If you remember the story of the lady who decided to nurse her child right in front of us, this is the same person) and we committed her to pray to know what God wanted for her in her life. Well, we had a return appointment set for this past Sunday and we went and she let us in and totally surprised us by saying, "I have been praying about it and God has shown me that this is what I need to be doing in my life and that the stuff you left me with to read, is all true. So how do I go about doing this?" So we taught the Restoration and talked about baptism and she told us that is what she wanted before we could even ask. Wow, it was such a powerful lesson. Right before we taught her we were across the street teaching a man we had found a few weeks ago as well and he is awesome! He is a total Gangster, wearing Big chains and tons of Gold rings, but he is the most respectful and sincere person. We had a great lesson with him and he was really excited for us to come again this next week. Then before that Guy we had another cool experience with contacting this media referral. Her name is Evelyn and she is the sweetest old lady and we went and gave her a Book of Mormon and taught her the restoration and at the end she told us she believed it all and was really interested in becoming a member and learning more. Wow, just one miracle after the next... and that isnt all! Dakota had texted us saying that he wanted to talk to us about possibly getting baptized and on Sunday, we taught him during second hour and commited him to baptism and he said yes! His girlfriend is going on a trip to Spain for 2 months and he wants to get baptized right when she gets back so he is planning on us teaching him the rest of the discussions right after she leaves so that he can know that he is doing it for himself and not for her. 

Bye Cleveland ily

I was able to say bye to a lot of people this week.Elder McCarrey, who had a training meeting up in Cleveland and I got to work in Lakewood for a few hours, I saw Willy and Stephanie Holleyfield! We pulled up to their house and got out and they didn’t recognize me from a distance but when they saw who I was they both got super excited and It was so good to be able to sit down and get to talk to them again :) It really was a great last week and I am so grateful to have been able to serve with Elder McCarrey for this last transfer. He is a great missionary and we have worked really well together and he helped me to finish strong. I also gave a talk this week on the relationship between faith and works and I really enjoyed it and learned some good things while preparing it. That was about all that happened this week! 

     I want to thank all of you who helped me to get out on a mission and all of you who have supported me while I have been out here. I am excited to see you all again and I am excited for what life has to offer from here on out. God is good and he knows each one of his children and he knows exactly what to do to help us learn and grow and these last two in years in this place are exactly what I needed to be able to learn and grow. I am so grateful for The Gospel of Jesus Christ. Well, thats all from me for this week and for two years. I love you all! 

Stay Cute, 

Elder Frandsen

P.S. Hello Everyone! My home coming will be This Sunday, July 30th, and the Sacrament Meeting begins at 1:00 and the address is 1150 East 1240 South Spanish Fork Utah. I would love to see all of you there! 

Bye Randy

Tallmadge District

Tallmadge District

Uno Mas Last one, greatest car ever!

Keeping and Eternal Perspective

Hey Fam, July 19, 2017

     This week was full of a lot of lasts for me as my time here in Ohio is coming to a close. But I realized that even though they may be lasts for me that when you keep an eternal perspective on life and what its purpose truly is, then it helps give understanding to the "why" of things. It is bittersweet for me as I have loved the last two years of my life so much and feel that this is the place in where I have found who I truly want to be in life and I know it will be hard to leave. At the same time I am excited to start the next phase of life and see where it leads all the while remembering the lessons that I have learned here and keeping an eternal perspective. 

     Cool story: we were contacting a referral from Salt Lake and the person didn’t answer so we knocked on all the persons neighbors houses in hopes that WE had been sent there for some reason. We knocked a few and then went across the street and knocked... this Lady answered, she was younger yet she was walking with a cane. We asked if she knew if her neighbor still lived at the address we had been given and she said no and didnt seem too interested... well as we were walking around I felt I needed to ask her If she needed any help so I immediately turned around and asked "hey, do you need any help?" She was about to close the door but when she heard the question it seemed like a weight went off her shoulders. She opened up and started talking with us. Come to find out that she had just had a big surgery and was in a lot of pain and she could use some help in a couple weeks or so with different things because she herself would have a hard time doing them. We gave her our number and she texted us right after that and asked a lot of good questions about what we do and we were answering them for quite a while. I am very glad that I responded to the prompting and didn’t let the fear of awkwardness get in the way. 

     Another Cool story: This Sunday Dakota came to church again and there was no one else in gospel principles besides us, Dakota  his girlfriend, who is a member. So we decided to have a lesson with them and we had already taught him the first half of the plan of salvation so we picked up from where we left off. Elder McCarrey asked a really great question about families and somehow that led into us talking about how we are the only church that believes in families being able to be together forever and it is only though the Priesthood and temples that we can make that happen.. somehow that led to talking about baptism and at the end he was able to wrap all of it together in his head and seemed to take it pretty well. We didn’t invite him to do anything yet because the girlfriend wants to take it slow. Well, yesterday he texted us after we invited him to come and play basketball and said that he wanted to talk to us about possibly getting baptized! Good times. We have been praying for that for a while and there we see it came to pass. 

     This week we once again went to another church before ours started. It is called the "word" Church.. it is a mega church here in the Akron Cleveland area. It was different that is for sure. The sermon the guy gave was good but he talked about tithing so much! Holy cow, if I were someone with no money and came there I would feel like I had to give up my house as a loan to help pay for the church or else I wouldn’t be doing enough. It was interesting. I Believe that all churches can be good and help do good but as I have gone to these other churches it has only confirmed to me that The Church of Jeusus Christ of Latter day Saints is truly God’s Church.

     Yesterday was the last time that I will be going on exchanges for the remainder of my mission. It was a good day though and when we went to see Brother Stone he told us that he has a friend that he will be bringing to church this week, all good things. He is doing better for sure. 

     Well I am running out of time for today so that is all I can write about this week. We met and became friends with Carlos’s Uncle who is an alcoholic but he loves us now even though at first he would always tell us to go away whenever we came over, lol. He wants to come home in my suit case... weird how things like that happen. James 2 & Doctrine & Covenants 6:33 have been some scriptures that I have been thinking about this week in preparation for my talk in church this Sunday and the Sunday following that. President Hinckley said "I believe in a gospel of hard work,” and I would have to agree with him %100. Life is hard but it is better if we work hard on the right things. As it says, ye shall reap what ye sow. Well, I love you all!

Stay Cute,

Elder Frandsen

A Nice German Fellow And His Wife Go On A Trip...

Hey Fam,

This week was short, long and in between. It feels like it was just Wednesday yesterday yet, so much has happened in the last week and I am left wondering how it all went by so quick. Well here is a run down of how the week went:

This week our mission gathered in Kirtland for a special visit from President Uchtdorf! 

President and Sister Uchtdorf have a grandson leaving on a mission next year, so they brought him out to tour the Kirtland sites this past week and took some time out of their schedule to meet with our mission. It was such an amazing opportunity. A few of my favorite highlights from his talk include: 

1.We need to set goals for our life. He said that if we don’t have a destination in mind then it doesn’t matter where we go. We need to always be planning but at the same time be humble, submissive and willing enough to change the destination as we go along when God shows us what we need to do. In using the specific goal of serving a mission he said that no matter what our intentions were in coming out, we can make the most of this experience and it will impact the rest of our lives. 

2. Some other brief highlights from the talk were when he talked about how we shouldn’t underestimate the power of prayer especially the power of praying for toher. He mentioned how each week when he meets with President Monson that President Monson never fails to say how grateful he is for the prayers of the members of the church. He talked about D&C 121:45, which is one of my favorite scriptures, saying that if we don’t feel "confident before God" that the solution is right there. We are promised that confidence as we let virtue Garnish our thoughts. We can Judge that by how we feel as we pray each night when we come before God in Prayer, are our thoughts ones that if we were thinking them in the presence of God that we would feel comfortable? Thoughts become actions at some point so why not let virtuous thoughts garnish our mind then our actions will reflect that. 

3.Since we had recently celebrated Independence day, he told us that we can make each day our own independence day. No matter what sorrow the previous day has brought, we can go to bed that night and thank Heavenly Father for how we have grown through our trials, then we can wake up the next morning and thank Him for our blessings--then live that day to the fullest! Then to end it out he gave the mission an apostolic blessing saying, "You will be confident before God and find joy in your service and feel God with you, as will your family, especially those that have strayed as you serve diligently and give dedicated work to the Lord.  He is such an incredible speaker. I also loved the fact that he kept cracking jokes--that helped me remember that he is a person just like us. He explained to us how he felt when he received his calling to be an apostle, and that our responsibility in our callings is just as important in our area of responsibility  as his is in his area of responsibility.

Two days after that we went to all of the available church history sites in the Kirtland area with Brother Stone and a member from the Branch. We first went to the John Johnson Farm which I think is a hidden gem in church history because of the fact that Section 76 of the doctrine and covenants was received there. Sadly, we missed President Uchtdorf being there by one day. He had gone the day prior with his family and had talked with the sister Missionaries there and the whole 9 yards and if we would have decided to go the day earlier we would have run into him! That's alright though it was still really awesome and it was really good for Brother Stone to be able to get out of the house and go learn abut Church history as he is still having a hard time with his wife having passed away only a month ago. I know I have said this before, but I am so extremely Grateful to be serving in this mission where so many events of the restoration took place. President Uchtdorf called this place the "Hub" of modern day revelation. 

Alright last story for the week, we have been doing a decent amount of finding and have seen some good miracles happen! We found 1 new investigator last night and 2 more on Monday and we also picked up a few more potentials so that was good but we had a not so normal experience last night happen to us as we were tracting. We knocked, a Lady answered and at first she seemed not all that interested and said she didn’t have much time. But we testified of Christ and apparently it softened her heart and she told us that Sundays would work best for her and that she needed to write it down on her calendar so she told us to come in while she went to write it on her calendar. While she was doing that she asked if could share something more with her while she was writing so we talked about the importance of prayer and how starting that right now with her daughter will help her have a solid foundation for when she is older.  Well while we were talking about that she just up and says "Hope you don’t mind, I am going to breast feed my baby" and next thing I know she was breast feeding her child with no cover or nothing. I was Grateful that her other child had brought a helium balloon over with a weight tied to the end of it and put it down in front of me so then I didn’t have to look at her as we finished talking about prayer. But poor Elder McCarrey wasn’t as lucky as I was and the look on his face was priceless right when it first happened. shortly there after she stopped and we left her with a word of prayer and a return appointment for a week from now which hopefully will be a little less eventful. 

Well, that is all for the week! A statement that I heard this week has had me thinking and I thought it was pretty good so I will share it as my closing thoughts. The statement was, "This world is full of too many "Christians" that care more about being politically correct instead of Jesus Correct." Oh how true that statement is. There is no spiritual power in being a convenient Christian. There is no power in only keeping the commandments when it is convenient. I hope and pray that we all may stay strong in our testimonies of Christ and not fall into the trap of convenient Christianity. As my time comes to a close out here, I am ever more grateful for the many lessons that I have learned and the habits I have formed. God is Great and his Gift that he gave to us of his Son Jesus Christ is the worlds #1 greatest gift ever. That I know to be true. 

I love you all! Have a great week. 

Stay Cute,

Elder Frandsen 

Blunts, Fireworks, Parades and some big ole rims.

Happy 4th

Hey Fam,   

  This week was interesting to say the least. I'll start off with a few stories to explain the subject of this email. The other day, Elder McCarrey and I were tracting in the Hood of South Akron and came upon this man who was sitting on his porch looking like he was enjoying the weather. So we went and talked to him and the conversation that proceeded was a good one. We asked how his day was going and what not and then we started talking about how faith In Jesus Christ can help free us from so many of the terrible things in the world. And he said "I know all, about Jesus and the scriptrues and what not... but what I really need is someone that can free me from my electric bill!" Then he paused for a second and asked, "Y'all wanna smoke a blunt with me? cuz I'm gonna smoke a blunt here in a bit." Elder McCarrey isn’t quite used to the whole "Being offered drugs as a missionary thing yet" so his reaction was pretty good. I told him no after laughing for a bit and the guy looked at us both and said well if you ain’t gonna smoke a blunt with me, wanna pay my bills for me? And without waiting for a response he said again" yall are probably just gonna tell me to go and pray about it... I cant tell the electric company that on the phone when they call that they need to go and "pray about it" and the money will appear." Good times... needless to say he wasn’t interested in the Gospel but it still made for a good laugh afterwards.

A picture of the car we saw on the 4th.

     With it being July 4th yesterday there were tons of fireworks everywhere all day long with out fail. We tracted into the one guy who said, "July 4th is my least favorite Holiday because I can never tell the difference between gun shots and fireworks... and they are about as common as the other on July 4th!" Well that gave us lots of comfort as we were walking around all day yesterday hearing big bangs the whole day and night. We went on exchanges as well with the Zone Leaders and we found out that there was going to be a parade near by their house so we decided to go and contact at the parade and see how many cards we could hand out. Only expecting to give out no more than 100 we only brought about that many... well within the first 10 minutes of walking the parade route we had already handed all of those out and luckily Elder Van Orden had some extra differnet types of cards stashed in his bag and we were able to hand out another hundred or so cards and combined with the two companionships + the sisters in the district as well, we probably talked to over 500 people yesterday and sadly but not sadly they were all in the Zone leaders area, but either way it is people being found to teach the gospel to. A little bit later on in the day, Elder Van Orden and I were tracting and this convoy of cars drove by and the front car was a sports car with some HUGE tires and chrome rims and luckily they appeared later on and I was able to get a picture of the car. The car sums up how most of the cars look like here in Akron. 

 Merry Christmas from Elder McCarrey and I with our matching ties

      Tony Chirstie came to Church again this week but sadly, Yesterday moring he texted us and said that he has a new project that his tribe (he is indian) asked him to take on and he is going to be doing that along with working 6 days a week and he said he doesn’t think that he will be able to make it to church and that he will need some time to get this done before being able to progress any further. :( Yes, that was very sad to hear that but in place of that we had a really cool miracle happen! We had an investigator from the Kirtland ward move into our area and the  Kirtland Elders didn’t let us know and the guy showed up to church and looked like a member dressed up in a suit and the whole nine yards. Well he came up to us and informed us that he was an investigator and that he was looking for the gospel principles class... well that is a great thing to hear when you are a missionary. He has been investigating for a year and knew the doctrine relatively well. We got his number and hopefully we will be able to pick up where he left off with the Kirtland Elders. 

Thats it for this week! As my time slowly dwindles out here I get this sense of urgency like there is so much more that I have to be doing and get done before I leave and it is a strange feeling to have. It is good and definitely helps to keep me going day by day even when at times I am tired. God is Good and gives that lending hand to all those that reach out to him for his Hand. I am extremely grateful for all the lessons that I have learned on my mission and the time that I have spent out here in the Service of the Lord. I love you all! Have a great week. 

Stay Cute,

Elder Frandsen

Ghetto cars Pt 2.