September 22, 2014

"Taste of America" and Poptarts!!

Family and Friends!

I am currently sitting in the office and my dad (Elder Echegaray) is here! He's down from the north for a conference with President Jackson and the other Zone Leaders. It is always so great to see him. We always have fun together. Elder Hendricks is down here from the north as well and of course my companion Elder Cahoon. Well, this week has been challenging but we have worked really hard. We survived transfers!! No big problems happened and it was probably the smoothest transfer that has happened. I've been trying to focus really hard on making them go as smooth as they can and this one has been the best yet! I still feel like I have to rely on the Lord a ton but He is always willing to help me. I am so grateful to see His hand in my life so much. 

So we had a pretty good amount of things to do in the office after transfers to get ready for this transfer but we had a couple of really awesome lessons that I wanted to talk about too. 

First of all, Baltazar. It was like a lesson out of the district haha. It went so well! We went into the lesson planning on teaching lesson 2, the plan of salvation but when we sat down with him, we could just feel that he needed something else. We started askng him how he was doing and how his reading has been going. He has come to church 4 times in a row and is loving the Book of Mormon but Elder Cahoon asked an inspired question that changed the whole lesson. He asked Baltazar if he had prayed to know if the Book of Mormon was true and he responded very honestly saying no. Right then we began to testify of the power of prayer. I know that God answers our prayers and I know that if we want to know if something is true or not, we should ask God to know. We invited Baltazar to do so and in his closing prayer he asked Heavenly Father if the Book of Mormon really is the word of God. I know that he is going to receive an answer because I have received my own answer. I know that the Book of Mormon is true. 

Second amazing lesson, Lucy. Emilio left on Monday on a trip to go looking for work in Europe and Lucy is now home with their two kids. The first little miracle that touched my heart was that their daughter Rosa (who's 6) ran up to me right when Lucy opened the door and yelled, "Hola Franklyn!!!" It was really cute and even though I hadn't seen them in a while, she still remembered me. We had a great lesson with Lucy though and she is so ready to continue pushing forward and learning more. She wants to wait until Emilio gets back to get baptized together which is totally understandable but the Spirit was just soo strong. She is an amazing person and I am learning so much from her example.

Elder Cahoon and I had some time to contact this week which was sweet. We got a good amount of references and we are hoping on finding some new investigators this coming week. We are pushing forward and hopefully we will be able to see some great success this transfer. We had a ton of fun and bonded over slurping jello and flan the other night and I can tell that our companionship is growing closer together.

I know that the Lord is watching over each and every one of us. I know that we are all passing through many difficult trials but I know that God loves us and that He is watching out for us. He has a plan for us to return to Him and I am just hoping to find someone willing to accept this plan of happiness and hope. I am so grateful for having such wonderful investigators. I feel like they are finding us sometimes instead of us finding them. I can't wait to see their progression! Keep up all of the hard work and keep fighting for what is right.

I am so sad to hear about Wyatt.  That must be so hard on his family. I can't imagine. Thank you for letting me know.  I am sure the ward is passing through a bit of a hard time with that.  Let everyone know that I am sad to hear what has happened and that I hope the best especially for the Olives.

That's good to hear that Bryan Willie is back and doing good! It feels like yesterday that he left on the mission. Haha -  I am excited to speak spanish with him and make fun of his accent while he makes fun of mine.

We actually went to "Taste of America" today  - which is a store that sells American products!  It was awesome! I bought some poptarts, dr. pepper, rootbeer, koolaid, and mac n cheese. It was the best!

Love you all!

Elder Franklyn