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