The week I went to the ghetto barber shop down the road...

Hello Friends, Family, and somewhat acquaintances,

     What goes up but never comes down?

      Your age!

      Well anyways, Ill start out by telling you a funny story of what happened to my hair When I went to the Random Ghetto barber shop down the road.

      So Elder Allen and I had some extra time during lunch before we went to a service project and we needed hair cuts so we were riding our bikes down the road and Elder Allen points out this random barber shop and says, "I have heard good things, Lets go there." So me, trusting my companion’s judgment, said okay. Well that was my first mistake. So we went inside and He went first. The guy cutting our hair is this big black guy with dreads and tattoos all over the place and a sign that says "SPECIALIZE IN FADES AND DESIGN" well we didn’t have a whole lot of time and Elder Allen was already getting his hair cut. So Elder Allen finishes and his hair cut wasn’t bad except for a few things so I wasn’t thinking too much about it. So I step up and he starts to cut my hair and the second mistake is that he didn’t have me facing the mirror the whole time and I should have asked him to turn me around. But before I knew it he was done and he shows me the mirror and I have this HUGE line on the left side of my head of no hair... It is like 2 inches long and 1 inch thick and it is the weirdest looking thing in the world.  But it is the in thing with the kids here. But the thing is that I am not black and I have straight hair. Now that I look back on it I think it is pretty funny but when I first saw it I kind a just sat there pondering about life and wondering what the purpose of life is as I stare at what happened. But hair grows back and life still goes on.  So my lesson learned was to never go to the random Ghetto barbershop down the road.

Also, We (I) broke our phone and lost a lot of contacts but we almost have all of them back after much trial and tribulation... 

   There was a sad story from the week though. There is this 6 year old girl named Nevaeh Willey that lives a couple house down the street from us and she always runs up to us when we are walking back home and asks us for a picture of Jesus So we give her a pass along card and she is the funniest little girl. But Friday night she was kidnapped right from her room while she was sleeping and once they figured out she was missing the whole street filled up with cop cars, police dogs and News stations. There was even a police helicopter flying around. So we were stuck on the street as they were searching. The cool thing was to watch as the street and neighboring streets and the community joined together in the search effort. They found her the next day because she ran from the man at the first opportunity right up to a house with lights on and knocked on the door. The guy ran off so he hasn’t been found yet, but she is back at home now. It is sad to know that there are people out there that do things like that to children. She is probably going to have problems for the rest of her life because of this experience. So pray that this guy is found so he can’t do this to anyone else. 

Dahh police chopper

      Some good news from the week though is that we had another new investigator at church this week! Her name is Amy Kieth and we have been working with her for 2 weeks now. Her daughter is a member and there is no male in the house with them so the sister missionaries were meeting with them previously. Since the sisters got transferred out last transfer we were given the responsibility of meeting with them. But it was pretty cool because they are both willing to learn and work with us. So we invited them to church and they said they would come and they came! They both had a good time and felt welcomed by the ward so it was great. I think that we have had a different new investigator at church for the past month which has been crazy but it has been fun as well. 

      Most of the Stubblefield family came again this week and they filled up another pew! There were 9 of them that came this time. 3 of them are getting baptized this week, so we gave them a tour of the baptismal font and a run through of what was going to happen. The ward was even more receptive to them this week and we had a lot of members offer to help with fellowshipping, which is exactly what we need. That family is a miracle family to say the least. We see changes every time we go over. 

      The Church is true and the book is blue... God promises to strengthen us as we do the small and simple things like reading the scriptures, saying our prayers, keeping the commandments and going to church. ( 1 Nephi 16:29 last sentence) 

Love you all! Until next week,

Sinceramente,

Elder Frandsen

Our Street after the police were  called, this was just the beginning.

The week I rode a camel and Robert Griffin the 3rd came to church in a lambo....

Hey Y'all, El tiempo vuela.

The Beginning of the day with the Elders in my District

The end of the day with my district.

  To explain the heading real quick I will tell you what happened. So first, Today for Preparation day we decided to go to the zoo as a district and we had heard a rumor that you can ride camels at the zoo so we thought we would check it out. About 30 minutes after getting there we asked around a little and found out that we really could ride a camel so we found the place and it was probably the shortest camel ride in the history of all camel rides but I can now claim that I rode a camel. (pictures are coming)

      Second, we share the church building with the North Olmstead ward and they meet before we do. Nate Orchard (Outside linebacker for the Cleveland Browns) is an active member of the ward and his new teammate, Robert Griffin the 3rd (RG3), who was recently signed by the browns to play quarterback came.  Nate must have invited him to come because right when sacrament started he came in the back and sat by Nate and right after the meeting was over they both left before anyone had much of a chance to talk to them. But he did pull up in his lambo, which was pretty cool, not gonna lie. But we all know that Cleveland could use a God fearing quarterback after their recent history with previous quarterbacks...

     Anyways here are a couple of stories from the week.

1.      Greg, Our newly picked up investigator, texted us on Thursday after he had dropped off the map for a couple months saying that he wanted to meet with us and come to church on Sunday. So of course we were at McDonalds within an hour, meeting with him, because it isn’t every day that you have someone say that. It was really cool because about a month ago or more we were able to get into his house and teach the Restoration and place a Book of Mormon, so he said for the last month that he has been doing some studying on his own and he even proceeded to tell us in detail about what happens in the first book of Nephi and how it all makes so much sense and helps with understanding the Bible as well. Then he proceeded to ask us what he had to do to be baptized and if there were some kind of requirements. Elder Allen and I were both still in slight shock from what he had said but when we finally came out of it we showed him the Baptismal interview questions. He passed all of them except for the Word of Wisdom, so we taught a little bit about that and explained to him what church would be like. So he came with us to church on Sunday and he loved it! He was participating in all the classes and he met a lot of the Ward (he speaks both Spanish and English so that really helps with fellowship). After church we were sitting with him and talking about some things and he told us that he hadn’t smoked since Thursday, after we had talked to him about the Word of Wisdom. He also told us that he had decided he wants to be baptized at the beginning of July and he knows that this is where God wants him to be.

2.      Dorothy, the investigator from Liberia that we met 2 weeks ago, came to church on Sunday as well. She doesn’t speak the best English so she wasn’t able to understand a whole lot of what was going on but she said that even though it was long she still loved being in the building because there is a good spirit there. She is also half way finished with Nephi, which is awesome. She said she will be baptized in June if she can understand the priesthood better, so we are currently trying to figure out how to find some pamphlets and materials in her language. But she has been praying about it all and progressing each time we meet with her.

3.     On Saturday Elder Allen and I had to help previous member of the ward move some things out of her old house and lets just say that the house has not been cleaned in a few years and has some water damage and stuff like that on the inside... It was easily the grossest house I have ever been in but the Lord must strengthen his servants in the work because 10 months ago before I came out, there is no way I could have made it through that experience with out throwing up or just giving up. But after two hours of it all we had all the stuff she needed moved out ( please pray that I don’t have fleas or something) hahah. It was good though because now everything else that I deal with in life will be second hand to this experience, lol. 

4. All the rest of our progressing investigators are all doing great. Charrise now has all of the missionary pamphlets framed and hung up on the wall with a couple Books of Mormon opened right underneath them. It was super cool when we walked in the house the other day and saw it. All in all right now we have 18 progressing investigators that have attended church with in the last couple weeks and it has made for a really busy couple weeks. 

All said, it was an awesome week. God is good and knows exactly how to help us and what we need. It is our job to learn to put our trust in him  100% of the time. 

Pray for Cleveland! ;)

Don’t forget to read your scriptures.

Psalms 25

Until next week, (when I will be 19)

Elder Frandsen

3044 west 104th

apt "down"

Cleveland Ohio 44111

Elder Diamond and I riding the Camel around the track

A picture of my shoes on top of Camel Bob.

Camel Bob, up closer and personal.

Another picture of my friend Dan the Donkey

Cavs with the Sweeep

At one time we had 3 phones and an ipad skyping with our Elder Frandsen

Hey Fam,

     I would like to start this letter out by saying that when the Cavs win then the City folks are all happy and willing to let us come into to their homes and teach them the gospel... So if Y'all could send some knee-mails that the Cavs keep up the streak it would be much appreciated. Also, Pray that trump doesn't burn down the city when he comes.

     But in all seriousness this week was another great week in the service of the lord. We saw many miracles happen and We learned lots of great Stuff from president Brown this week in a meeting we had with him. So first I will start off by telling the story of Dorothy the Liberian Refugee that we met on tuesday.

     So tuesday night we were doing our nightly walk to the Stubblefield household when we had this really nice older black lady stop us and ask us who we are in semi-broken english and so we explained and taught a little about the book of mormon and she seemed to be really excited. So before we could even ask for her address and such she was already getting out a piece of paper to give it to us (that doesnt happen to often). We set up a time for the next day to come by. We taught the restoration and invited her to be baptized June 18th and she accepted! we then had another appointment on Saturday with a member there as well and we downloaded the Book of mormon app on her phone so she could listen to it as she read.. So we asked her to listen to the introduction and testimonies and all that great stuff but when we called her today to check up on her and confirm for tomorrow she told us about how she was already on the 3rd chapter of nephi and is going to listen to even more today! Pretty cool stuff.

    next miracle, We had a returning member come to church and meet with the bishop this week! we have been working with him for about a month and a half now and he finally came to church and was able to set some goals with the bishop on getting the priesthood and getting to the temple!

      aaaand another, We finally found out the concern of one of our progressing investigators about baptism after 3 months... he is scared of water... We were stumped for a while on what to do but we had an awesome lesson with him and his family on satruday and he agreed to tour the baptismal font and we had a member explain the whole process of baptism and he finally seemed to feel comfortable about it all. 

     mas, This week I feel like I finally hit a groove with my spanish and all that. It was awesome. I understand what they are saying most of the time and now I can sit down and have a 30 minute conversation and feel completely comfortable. It has been a long 10 months and coming but with the limited spanish opportunities that I have I knew that it would be so.

     And lastly, TALKING WITH THE FAM ON SKYPE! As my understanding of the gospel has grown in my time out here so has my love for my family and for the blessing of having a loving and caring family. I would not trade that knowledge and relationship for anything in the world. ( as a side note, I have the greatest mom in the world too..)

    Well another week has come and gone and here is an interesting thought for Y'all...Time and Eternity are opposites. Isnt that just dandy? 

Don't forget to read your scriptures.

Love you!

Hasta la semana que viene,

Elder Frandsen

Filling up the chapel one family at a time...

Ling time no see......

Hey y'all! 

Well another week has flown by and I dont know where it went but I guess I have some good stories to tell...

1. During the week we have been prepping Charisse and family for church and we thought that there was going to be 10 of them that were going to come. But, come Sunday morning when we drive over to their house to meet them so they can follow us to church, we see that the whole house hold decided that they wanted to come. So all in all there were 16 people from that one family that came that we have been meeting with. It was awesome, we took up almost two large pews once they had all sat down. Not only that but we had 5 other investigators at church and three less active we have been working with. So this week church attendance went from 75 to 100. While it was happening I was pretty stressed out but afterwards when we finally made it home and were able to sit down I was pretty stoked about it. And it helped that the ward welcomed them all with open arms, which was fun to see.  The only sad thing that happened that day was that we finally had to give our temporary car back  :(  But I can honestly say that we made the most of that car. This week we taught 41 lessons, but I do not think we will be able to keep that up now that we don’t have the car, but I am excited to go back to using the public transit again.

2. So about a month back or so I gave one of the less active members in the ward, that is a grandpa,a blessing in Spanish and we didn’t see them again until this week. She told us how after that day when he got the blessing he recovered enough to be able to see all of his family and hang out with them. Before that, he wasn’t talking because he was so sick but for two weeks he was up and active and talking with everyone. It wasn’t until the last of the family arrived and got to see him that he got really sick again and passed away this past week. But from the blessing that is the only thing I really remember saying is that he would be able to see his family. The power of the priesthood and the power of faith are two very real things. God knows and loves each one of us. 

3. The power of prayer is real and God will always answer a sincere and faith filled prayer. This week we had an appointment scheduled with some investigators at 5 o'clock and these people are never late. But for some reason this one time they were late so we decided to go sit in the car and wait a few minutes to see if they got home soon. As we were waiting this lady pulled up in front of us and began to unload her groceries and she was struggling so we got out and offered her some help and she accepted. So after we had finished taking everything in her house we got to talking and we came to find out that about 15 years ago she had investigated the church for a while and had gone to church a lot. She said that she really loved it and the only reason why she stopped was because she got engaged and got really busy and couldn’t find the missionaries again. So she has been attending a baptist church for the last 10 years and she said she wasn’t satisfied with it and the pastor wasn’t the best man in the world. So last week she was praying and asked God to help her to find the right church and know where to go and next thing you know we show up and saw that she needed some help, but none of this would have happened if those investigators hadn’t been late. And right after we finished talking to her, the investigators showed up and we were able to meet with them. God is good.

4. I went on exchanges with Elder Muhlstien from Spanish Fork and it was pretty cool. He ends his mission in a month, so it was pretty cool that we were able to meet up and serve around each other before he left. 

Well that is all I have for this week! But I want you all to know that we are blessed to have the restored gospel of Jesus Christ on the earth again. God speaks to us through a modern day prophet and we can have our own personal relationship with God through prayer. I am grateful for the Atonement and that through the atonement we have a second chance. I am thankful to be here in Cleveland Ohio serving the lord.

The Church is true and the book is blue.

Until next week,

Elder Frandsen