The Wicked Comb Over

Stay Tuned for Upcoming Episodes of The Zone

Hey Y'all,

Q:  Why did the home teacher cross the road?A:  It was the last day of the month. 


Well This week was eventful... But the highlight of the week was for sure was that Chet got baptized!! After investigating for over 2 years he actually got baptized! He is such a great guy and I have loved teaching him and getting to know him. He was pretty excited for it and he asked me to leave him under the water for a long time and I only held him under for like two seconds and he was giving me a hard time for not leaving him under longer, lol. When he came up out of the water his hair disappeared and he was bald and I realized that he had a wicked comb over that hid it all up really well and it was the funniest thing ever.

The ward was very supportive and happy to see him finally make the decision to be baptized after 2 years.  Brother Kelly, the member who referred him to the missionaries, confirmed him and you could tell it was a really cool experience for the both of them as Brother Kelly has only been a member for about 3 years now. Other news, Elder Alder and I are staying together for another transfer. I am going to be the one to send him home as he finishes up his mission this transfer and I only have 3 transfers left so, it is possible that I will finish my mission here as well. Weird thought but ya it is getting closer. I am pretty excited we are getting another transfer together! Other than that nothing much else has happened this week and the others we are teaching are doing really well and things are going about the same. 

This week I have really been studying Christ’s life from both the Book of Mormon and the Bible and  every time I study his life I am so amazed at how much his teachings can help us with so many different things. It is so sad to see people reject him and his teaching with out even giving it a chance, they don’t realize the blessings that they are missing out on because of it. I am so very grateful for the gospel of Jesus Christ and all that it has helped me to do in my life. I am grateful for the influence it has had on me and the help it has given me to change. God truly does love each and everyone of us and his plan is perfect. That's all for this week!! Love y'all :) 

CTR,

Elder Frandsen

Elder Alder

Chet

There is a snake (demon) in my boot....

My Boys

Well, it's that time of the week again!                                                                                   March 15, 2017

What type of vehicles do most Mormon Families drive? BMW's (Big Mormon Wagons)

(viewer discretion advised... don’t read this to the kiddos if they are scared of things under the bed at night)

To explain the title, here is the story. We were teaching a less active and his daughter started saying some weird things and saying that there was something that was with her always and that it was telling her to not pray because God doesn’t want to hear her pray (she is like 8). She looked to the side of her and started whispering and then telling us what was going on and I had the feeling to not look and ignore it.  Of course I was dumb and looked to where she kept looking and talking and had this weird feeling come over me and I tried to just forget it... so by the time we left I had forgotten about what had happened and wasn’t thinking much of it and we got back to the apartment and I was getting ready for bed and I knelt down to pray and like 30 minutes (I fell asleep praying... oops) later something grabbed my ankle and pushed my knee really fast and I was in a sort of half sleep state when it happened. So I hopped up and thought it was my companion because we like to pull pranks on each other every once in a while but when i looked back I saw my companion kneeling down at his bed praying, asleep as well, so it couldn’t have been him. Well I got in bed and didn’t think much of it and 5 minutes later I was about to fall asleep again when something at the end of the bed grabbed my foot and pulled me and I hopped up real quick to grab my companion because I thought it was him again but he too was in bed now almost asleep. So I thought it was just a weird coincidence or something and then I tried falling asleep and about five minutes later it happened again, but from the other side of the bed and pulled my leg off the side. This time I got up really fast to catch whatever it was and again there was nothing there so at this point I knew something was up and told my companion and he thought I was playing games with him and being dumb. So I went out in the hall and checked the apartment and what not and I felt this really dark feeling the whole time. When I went back in my companion realized I was being serious and we talked about what it might be and I told him about the experience earlier at the less actives house. He looked at me and said that he had had the same thought to not look and ignore it and he actually did ignore it but he felt that same dark feeling and right then we both felt the temperature drop.... something had followed us home so we knelt down and prayed about it and I don’t have time to relate the rest of the story  so let's just say that I have a really strong testimony of the power of the priesthood now and how God’s power is so much more than the power that Satan has. I also realized another thing that Satan do things like that up to a certain point but in all reality he only has as much power as we allow him to have. And it isn’t just with demonic things but with anything in our life that leads us away from following God and keeping his commandments. The more we give into that, the more power we give Satan in our lives. 

Zone Conference

On a brighter note, Chet passed his interview and is going to be baptized this Saturday! I am super excited for him. Also, the ward has finally picked focus families and is getting more involved with missionary work from the ward council level :))) We had to give a discussion at Zone Conference about finding yesterday and we worked long and hard on this thing to make sure that we would give a good discussion focused on the needs of the Zone and it went a lot longer than expected but it was really good!! I learned a lot from preparing it and I hope that it helped the missionaries in the two Zones that were there. The Sterchaks are still doing just dandy and we have become really good friends with them and their children so it is always really fun to go over and teach them. The ward has rallied around them since they came to church and were able to meet them. Other than that I really can’t remember a whole lot else of what has happened this week.. drawing a blank right now.

Time is short and I can’t believe how fast it is flying by. I am grateful for my time as a missionary and to be able to learn more and more about the Gospel of Jesus Christ each day and all of the Doctrines and Principles contained within. I am grateful for modern day Prophets and Apostles that can help us to more fully understand how the Gospel applies in today’s world and circumstances. 

I love you all! Stay out of trouble and read your scriptures :)

Until next week,

Elder Frandsen

Another week in farm country

Hey Fam,

What do you get when you cross a kleptomaniac and a mormon?

A: A basement full of stolen food!

Well, This week went really well!!

First off, I found this emerald and hunter green suit at good will for 8 bucks so that is always a plus... next, We had 3 investigators at church plus the Sterchak family!! We made sure that the ward knew they were coming so that they wouldn’t just think they were a visiting family for the week and the ward did really great at fellow shipping and helping them to feel welcome!  

Another part member family that we started working with was able to make it to church again along with Chet, and Chet is progressing super well towards his baptism for the 18th. He has stayed strong since we gave him that blessing a few weeks back. 

        Other good things that happened this past week were that we met with that young family that we met last week and had a really great lesson with them!! The cool things that I have seen on my mission with different things is that before we knock on someone’s door or come into contact with them they have usually had some kind of experience that has led them to be looking for God in their life, a church for their family, or just wanting to get more out of their life. This young family is no different, they just recently had a baby and had been talking about how they needed to find a church in which to have their child grow up in. About a month or so after they had started talking about that we got the wife’s records that said she had moved into the ward and felt we should try them out and it was perfect timing! We could tell that she really loved the church and wanted it but was not wanting to force her husband into joining or anything like that so when he said that he wants to learn more and have us come back she was super happy. I am pretty excited about teaching them, they have a lot of good potential. 

      I had another really cool exchange with some Elders in the zone and once again when we went finding for the short amount of time that we had available, we were able to have some really cool experiences and pick up another couple promising potentials. Good experiences for the newer missionary that was able to help him see finding in missionary work in a different light. 

     One weird quote from the week was from a lady asking us a question and it was "can I give birth to my baby in one of your mormon temple pools?" Yeah I was stumped on that one... haven’t been asked that before!!

     Anyways, that is all for this week!! I just realized that I have less than 5 months left before I go home... well I’ll try not to think about that one again for another couple months hopefully and make the most of the time that I have left. We are truly blessed when we are diligent and don’t give up when times get tough! I have gained a real testimony of that through out my mission. 

Read your scriptures and say some prayers!! 

Until next week, 

Elder Frandsen

Freaky fresh faith filled farm finding for fools 101

Hello!

Yeet! The aftermath of exchanges.

Got another one for this week:

The soldier was given guard duty at 2 AM. He did his best for a while, but at about 4 AM he went to sleep. He woke up to find his commanding officer standing above him.

Remembering the penalty for being asleep on guard duty, The young man kept his head bowed for another moment and looked up and reverently said, A-a-a-men!

Well to be brief, here is how my week went down:

We went on two exchanges in the past week and will be going on another one tomorrow in Cleveland with the assistants. So I will share a couple of cool stories from exchanges this week. The first exchange we went on I was able to go with Elder Rawson, who is New and only been out for a few weeks and it was fun to see his excitement for everything that was going on. Well he and his trainer have had to do a lot of tracting the last couple of weeks because their area got split and they don’t have hardly anyone to teach and it is rough going when you are out all day everyday knocking on doors. We had a great day with 4 appointments planned and only about 45 minutes of finding. The cool experience happened not in the appointments but in the short amount of time that we had to go finding and it was just what he needed to help him to see that good things come from finding. We were with our Elders Quorum President and asked him where he thought we should go finding, so he referred us to  a street close to the next appointment and dropped us off. We knocked on about 4 houses and no one answered or were not interested. I was praying that we would be able to have a cool experience to help Elder Rawson out. The next house we knocked on a bunch of little kids ran up and then ran back to get their dad, the dad came up and he was HUGE like a big body builder and had tattoos everywhere. We started talking and focused on asking good questions to help people recognize the importance of what we have to share. He told us about how they had a really good friend who was a member of the church. I asked if we could comeback the following week to share the message with their whole family and at the point where most people say no he paused and he said "you know what, Yeah you can do that. When can you come back? " We got all his info and when he shut the door Elder Rawson was so excited!! The next house we went to the lady who answered and let us right in and we were able to teach the restoration and set up a return appointment. She had just finished her last round of chemo that day and it was really awesome to be able to testify of Christ and his atonement while teaching her. When we got out of that lesson Elder Rawson was super excited to go back to his area and keep trying to find people and try a couple different things. Well Yesterday, we went on exchanges again and I was able to go with the district leader of another district in the zone.  Our Mission President had asked me to talk about a couple things with him that he has been struggling with.  So I was thinking about how I could help the guy and as we talked he shared how he had lost a desire somewhat to go out and find because of all the rejection.  So I looked at the schedule and all we had time for was about 30 minutes of finding time and so I prayed that we would be able to have another good experience to help him build his faith, and once again we were able to pick up another young family with 6 kids to teach and had a guy let us right into his house and we were able to teach him the restoration!! The other crazy thing is that it was on the same street as with Elder Rawson, just on the other side. So we now have 4 new investigators on the same street. After the exchange when I talked with the Elder he shared how he appreciated the things that had happened because it helped him to recognize that that missionary work is fun when you work.

Elder Alder and I were able to find another young part member couple that just moved in and they agreed to let us come back and teach them!! So many great things happened this week. 

Other than that, all of the people we are currently teaching are progressing well. We had a cool miracle where Chet, who is 82 and was smoking, we gave him a  blessing to be able to quit and he hasn’t smoked for a week now!  So many cool things happen everyday as a missionary. I am going to miss this stuff. 

The lord is good to everyone but especially to those who are willing to sacrifice to keep his commandments and act in faith. I am so grateful for Jesus Christ and His atonement and all the power and hope that it brings into my life. I am grateful for the scriptures that we have to be able to learn from everyday. Last but not least I am grateful for the power of prayer and how much it helps us through the ups and downs of life.

Love you all!!

Dont forget to read and pray :) 

Until Next week,

Elder Frandsen

A fire, some cops and a fat guy in a kiddy pool...

Hey Fam,

Got a new one for you this week..,

You Might be a Mormon if...

you have ever used the phrase "bless those that are not here that they can make it next time.." while offering a prayer at a state prison, youth detention center, or other place of incarceration. 

Well to start off I will explain the title of the letter...

So we again, as we were driving home with a member, kept the tradition alive of shooting the flare gun when a new missionary comes to the area. So we pulled off to some of his property and shot the flare gun, except when I shot it this time I must have pointed it wrong or the shot was a dudd. It went like 40 yards not straight up but side ways and it landed in the ditch and all I saw was a tiny flame erupt and let's just say I have never ran so fast in my life... like probably ran a 4 flat 40 to stomp that fire out! Hahaha we got it all on video too and it is one of the funniest videos  watching me run to put it out. The Spirit of God like a fire is burning I guess?

Next story, The two times that Elder Alder and I tried to go tracting this week we got the cops called on us!! Two days in a row and it was the same cop who came to check it out. That is why missionaries are scared of the big rich neighborhoods because the people don’t have to worry about getting food on their table so instead they worry about the person parked outside in their neighborhood for 2 minutes and calls the cops. But it is alright we are planting seeds with the cop that came both times So our plan is to get the cops called again this week and this time place a Book of Mormon!! Good idea?

Last part, We had Mission Leadership Council with all The Zone leaders and Sister Training Leaders Yesterday and it is a pretty long meeting.  Elder Alder and I decided to make things a little bit more interesting by giving each other a sentence we had to use in an answer we gave and make it seem totally normal. I gave him "save 15% or more on car insurance" And he gave me "a fat guy in a kiddy pool" and Elder Alder pulled his off perfectly and it was getting near the end of the meeting and so I had to just go for it. They were talking about better ways to approach people on the street and I said" Sometimes we make it really awkward, Like a fat guy in a kiddy pool..." and I never got the chance to finish my thought because President was laughing too loud, lol. I will miss the weird little things about being a missionary when I am finished. 

Other than that this week went really well. The investigators we have are progressing more and more and we have added some more solid people to our teaching pool. We keep relatively busy and as we know, a busy missionary is a happy missionary. We have made a plan to help Frank Festdogg plan to help him the priesthood by the end of April and baptize his daughter who just turned 9. He is already off to a great start and has come to church for 4 weeks in a row and brought her along with him. Lindsey has been reading the Book of Mormon and is almost ready to make the commitment of a date to be baptized. Chet we set a date with him this month for near the end of next month and he feels that he will be able to make it on this date this time. Alan has gotten over his sickness so we finally got to meet with him again and he is still doing great and progressing towards baptism. Fred in the first 2 weeks has become a lot more excited about coming to church and being able to join the church. The Sterchaks were sick last week so we couldn’t meet with them but we will be seeing them again tomorrow and they are still doing great. I am really excited for everything that we have going on plus we are working with the youth each week on getting there friends to come to things, and so we are getting the ward more involved in that way. We wanted to try a different approach to getting members involved by getting the youth involved and it has worked great! 

Well that is it for the week! My time out here is slowly winding down... :( Missions are great and I am so grateful for everything that I have learned and have been able to experience over the last year and a half. I have learned a lot about the importance of self discipline/mastery, as we improve those then we have more power in our life to accomplish whatever we put our mind too. The more self mastery we have the easier it is for us to fully keep the commandments. But it is a lot easier said then done... A scripture That I Have really thought about recently is D&C 58:26-29

The church is true!! 

Read the scriptures!!

Dont forget to pray!! 

I love you all :)

Until next week,

Elder Frandsen

Another week, another dollar......

Hey y'all,

Wait for it.....

Q: What do you get when you grow marijuana on the Stake farm?

A: High Priests

They get better every week huh?

Well here is a quick run down of what happened this week....,

Elder Alder (my new companion) and I met up on Wednesday and went back down to Lima and that was about all that happened this week.

 Talk to you next week!

Just Kidding. This is really what happened. 

Elder Alder goes home in two transfers ( I will probably only have one more companion after him... scary) and he is staying pretty strong for being so close to going home and is actually a really funny guy. It always makes the work so much better when you have a companion with a good sense of humor, but we are complete opposites. He likes video games and I like sports but for some reason it works out. We found 2 new investigators this week in the form of 2 different part member families and are now teaching them!! We also set a baptismal date with Chet, our 82 year old investigator and Fred, our 18 year old investigator. Alan Stant has been sick the past week but is still on date for next month and still progressing well.   It seems like everyone out here is getting the flu and I think I am getting it now as well, or the chicken that I cooked last night wasn’t quite cooked right, I guess we will see! Other than that I really cant think of anything else of interest that has happened in the past week,  soooo yeah! 

I know I have shared this scripture before but I will share it again. Ether 12:6 has truly come to be one of the most meaningful scriptures to me in the past year.   I have a testimony that God teaches us through our trials and that we grow so much through the trials of our faith and afterwards we see the fruits of it all and realize just how much God helps us through those trials and our faith is strengthened. You see it so much throughout the scriptures and you see it every day in life. The story of the brother of Jared crossing the sea is a good example of this in Ether 6:1-12. Think of the fierce winds from the Lord as the trials that we have and how they push us towards the promised land or to better and brighter things. 

I know God is real And I know that he loves each and everyone of us unconditionally. I know that Jesus Christ is our Savior and that he is walking through all of the experiences we have in our lives, good or bad, by our side ready to pick us up when we fall. I am so grateful for this knowledge and for all the opportunities that God has given me and most specifically the opportunity to be a missionary. 

I love you all! 

Dont forget to read your scriptures and pray :)

Until Next week, 

Elder Frandsen

Changes... :(

Elder Bennett, me, Doug and Jessica
"The Crew"

Hey Fam,

Ready? 

Q: What did king Lamoni say to Ammon?

A: Could you give me a hand?

(Alma 17 and 18)

Don't think about it too hard. 

Anyways, Here is the run down for the week:

     First, Elder Bennett is getting transferred :( this was a big surprise to the both of us and I am actually really sad about it.... I  Hate getting really good companions for only one transfer. We have become really good friends over the last month and a half and have seen lots of good things happen in that time as well. I really hope that my new companion is willing to work hard and work smart and not just be one that is going to bide his time until he goes home.

     Here are some of the highlights from the week: We went to Kirtland on Thursday and we saw Doug and Jessica and got to go on another tour with them, but this time the Sister missionaries had Elder Bennett and I give the tour hahaha. Doug and Jessica are doing so good! Doug has a calling in the Sunday school presidency of the ward a home teacher and he is preparing to receive the Mel. Priesthood and Jessica is a visiting teacher and is set to get a calling here pretty soon and they both go out teaching with the Missionaries, like once a week! They both are still so excited about the gospel and love learning more. It was so good to see them again. 

     Chet, a former investigator that we picked up a couple weeks ago came to church this week! Chet is a friend of a member and he is 82. He almost got baptized a year or so ago and had a miscommunication with someone or something and ended up calling off his baptism and stopped investigating. When we stopped by he let us in and he feels like trying it over again and see what happens this time. He had a good time at church and said he felt great about it. 

      Fred, an 18 year old investigator of ours, who is from a part member family, has been doing great. This week he said that as he was reading about baptism in the pamphlet we gave him that he felt that he needs to be baptized... so we set a date with him for the end of March! It was a pretty awesome lesson.

     Alan is still doing great and is still set for next month. He wasn’t able to come to church due to transportation issues but the lesson we had this week he had both of his daughters at and they both participated and hopefully they will start to investigate more with their dad. 

     The Sterchecks are doing well. The bishop came with us to visit them and it was just what they needed. Sam is only 10 but he is extremely smart... he repeated to us from memory the whole Joseph Smith story in the grove and how the Book of Mormon came to be, from reading about it in the Children's Book Of Mormon! He has been praying daily and reading daily and every time we come over he and his sister are always so excited and have drawn a bunch of pictures for us. I will miss that part of being a missionary one day.... 

      And last but not least, Sharon our other investigator got out of the rehab center and surprised us by reading 30 chapters of the Book of mormon. When We had our lesson with her she shared how she didn’t remember a whole lot but she remembered how she felt and said she knows it is true. We shared Mosiah 18 with her and she has decided that she wants to be baptized once she has finished the rehab she is in. Another miracle.

Those are just some of the cool experiences that we had this week. Hard works pays off, These people are all starting progress now and I am pretty excited to see what comes of it all. the other thing we did this week was have a coordination meeting with the stake president about missionary work... a lot of talking and time but it was a good meeting. Hopefully it was more than just a bunch of words and something gets done because of it. 

Well that is all for this week! I have been studying personal revelation a lot recently and have learned some pretty cool things but it all goes back down to what it says in Moroni 10:3-5 To ponder study and pray with a sincere heart, real intent and a faith in Christ. The Holy ghost will tell us the truth of all things and it is different for everyone but a couple other scriptures that stuck out to me were 2 Nephi 28:30, 2 Nephi 31:3, John 7:17, Ether 12:6 and Doctrine and Covenants 9:7-9 (this is a scripture chase that helped me learn more about Personal Revelation, for any of you who care to try it). I love this gospel. I know that The Teachings of Jesus Christ are real and will help us if we are willing to study them, and live by them. I am so grateful for the scriptures and all that they teach us. 

Love you all! 

Until next week,

Elder Frandsen

Sister Green, from Spanish Fork, and Jones who gave us the tour.

Heavenly Mother Madonna

Elder Bennett, William, and I

Hey Fam,

Here are a couple of new ones for you:

Q: Where is Engagement Ohio? 

A: Between Dayton & Marion

Did you know that if you are not LDS that you belong to a Non-Prophet organization? 

I figured if I started off with a bad joke or two then the rest of the letter wont seem so bad! Anyways, here is how my week went:

We got to go to the Indianapolis temple with William to do baptisms. It was such a cool experience to be able to again go with a recent convert to the temple for the first time and watch as they feel the spirit and how they react when they go in the temple. He was able to be baptized for 5 family file names and then be confirmed for the same 5, what a good kid. The other crazy thing that happened was that I saw Taylor Rowley at the temple as well!  We went to high school together, the odds of that happening are crazy because I am in the only area in the mission that is closest to Indianapolis than any of the other surrounding temples. She just happened to be going to that temple with her recent convert on the same day. it's a small world when you are Mormon. 

Oh and something else crazy is that I hit my 6 month left mark last week... where has the time gone?? 

Here are some of the crazy quotes that I have heard this week either over the phone with an investigator or in a lesson:

"Heavenly Mother is Madonna,”  "I am going to be re-incarnated as a mermaid and then marry a dragon,” "God sent me here to buy some guns and protect the world in the apocalypse,” " I can telepathically communicate with my husband,” “well he is my boyfriend right now but he doesn’t know that he is gonna be my husband and he comes from canada to pick me up everynight in the dream world" 

These are just a few of the awe inspiring quotes that I have heard this week and the others probably shouldn’t be shared over email. But My personal favorite is that Heavenly Mother is Madonna, needless to say it was an eventful week. 

Yesterday another crazy thing happened... we got a call from a former investigator’s mom who is currently out of the country on a trip. While she has been out there her daughter has had some mental health issues and the only number she could think of or find that knew her daughter in this area was some how our number. So she called and told us that her daughter wouldn’t answer her calls after their first conversation, where she had said some crazy things and threatened to kill herself, so she was worried sick and asked if we could get someone out there to help her. So we called the police and luckily we still had her address in the area book and gave them the address and explained the situation and they called us this morning to let us know that she is now at the hospital safe and sound. I am glad that her mom called us though because I don’t know how she could have gotten the help she needs otherwise. 

The other changes from this week are that the Brethren came out and have made some changes to missionary work!! They have changed our daily schedule up so that we have more freedom and agency to choose how and when to study in the mornings and changed the nightly schedule so that we can get more sleep if it is needed. They have also made it so that preparation day will now start at 8 am instead of 10 am. They got rid of a bunch of the key indicators that we used to keep track of and now only have 4 main indicators. There were some big changes there for us old timers that are so used to a regimented schedule but I am actually really excited about these new changes and I think that they will be really good for us as missionaries. They also gave some awesome training on becoming better teachers and working with the wards, which goes along with what we have been doing in this ward. We presented a plan to the ward mission leader that involves helping the ward council to get on track/ board with the ward mission process and having a member of the mission presidency to come down and do some training because none of them have received it yet. So he is meeting with the bishop to talk about it and to set up a time where we, him, and the bishop can meet together and discuss it and how he would like us to be involved with it and to help the ward. I am really excited about it because the bishop is a really good guy who is new to the calling but has a strong desire to magnify his calling. I think and feel that it will be a big help to the ward and the missionary work here. 

We had a really great lesson with the Sterchek family last week and this week. We are bringing bishop with us to teach them. I am really excited to be able to work with them, they are an awesome family and have a real desire to come back to the fold and to stick with it. We weren’t able to meet with Allen due to him being ill but he said that he has been reading while he has been sick and is excited to meet next. We dropped out investigator David because he wasn’t progressing but he did share with us that we were able to help him get out of a suicidal stage in life that he had been in previous to us meeting with him. He now sees more of a purpose to life and is going to take some time to figure out the things going on in his life. Cody and Fred the young men we have been teaching are also doing really well and will hopefully be able to come to church this week.  Fred is getting his license and doesn’t have to rely on someone to get him to church that isn’t reliable. It has been pretty cool to watch Fred progress in the last month from only slightly interested, to keeping all of the commitments that we leave him and excited about meeting. So the work is moving forward down here in Lima Ohio, even if it is a little bit at a time. 

Something exciting for next week... I get to see Doug and Jessica tomorrow when I head up to Kirtland for a meeting. I am stoked to see them again :)

Well my mind is blank right now and I am drawing a blank on what else happened so I guess that is all that needs to be said! I know that this church is true, I know that the Apostles and Prophets were called of God and that God sees the bigger picture and guides the leaders to give us the direction needed to get through life and our perspectives of the little picture that we see here on earth. The scriptures are guides for helping us to better follow God and develop Christlike attributes that will in the long run truly bless us in this life and help us to have the spirit with us and to be happy. I know that as we seek the will of God through the small and simple things that we will have those little confirmations that help us to continue to know that this is the right thing for us... Building up that foundation one brick at a time. I am grateful to be a missionary and to be serving where I am serving at this time. I love you all! I hope you have a great week and tune in again next week for more updates and quotes from Lima Ohio! 

With love, 

Elder Frandsen

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.