LAST ONE

Well,

This is it. The LAST ONE!!! My last email that I will be writing. 

This last week was really great. We saw a ton of miracles. The biggest of all of them though has definitely been Norma and Marco. We finished all of the lessons with them this week and we had their baptismal interview on Friday. Elder Ward did it of course and they both passed perfectly. I will be having two baptisms on my last full day as a missionary. The Lord has been so good to me. I never asked for anything like this but I am so grateful that I have had the opportunity to be here in Santa Cruz and to have been able to teach them the message of the gospel. Like mostly all of the baptisms that I have had on the mission, I honestly feel like I haven't done anything. Gabriela and her family were the ones that brought them to the Church and Heavenly Father was the one that brought about the change in their hearts. The day of their interview was soo hectic because Norma's cousin was coming from Cuba and she had to go pick her up at the airport. Elder Ward was running a little bit behind schedule and so we got to her house late. The best way to put this is that Norma's flight was miraculously delayed a few hours (thanks Heavenly Father) so that Norma and Marco could have their interviews. Everything went wonderfully and we are so excited for them taking this most important step. I love them so much!

Another miracle that we saw this week was with a man named Candido. He's from Cuba (yeah I love the cubans). We contacted him in the street two weeks ago and he hasn't missed church since. We had a first lesson with him last week and it went incredibly well. He accepted the invitation to be baptized and is progressing wonderfully. On Sunday we had Candido, Norma, Marco, Miguel, Maria Fernanda, and Antioneta (Gabi's mom) all at church with us. All of them are cubans besides Miguel (who is from the Dominican Republic) so we kind of had a cuban party in the chapel this week haha. It was amazing though and we are seeing soo much progression in Gabriela's mom, Antioneta. She basically bore her testimony during the second hour and Norma jumped in too. It was incredible. They love us soo much. 

I wanted to finish this email by bearing my testimony about this experience of being a full-time missonary and also of this Church. During these last two years I have been through good times and hard times. The mission has never been something easy for me to go through. It's always hard but I have seen myself grow so much during this wonderful experience. I have never felt a greater feeling of love in my entire life than I have while serving as a missionary. I love the mission so much. I know that my calling has been of God. I have seen so many people change their lives for the better while I have been sharing this message with them. I know that the Gospel changes lives. It has changed mine more than I have ever imagined. I know that Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world and the Son of God. I know that this Church is His Church. I have no doubt about that anymore. I know that Heavenly Father has been watching over me during my whole life and guiding me by His merciful hand. I know that I am not perfect but I have never felt as close to the Savior as I have felt while serving alongside Him in this work. I love you all and I can't wait to see most of you in just a week!

Love,

Elder Franklyn

Pizza and Mission Conference!

Marcos

"phone home"

Pizza with the Gil Familia

Holaaaaaaaa,

This week was awesome! 

On Monday night we went to the Gil's house (local ward members), we shared a message about sharing the gospel and they bought us pizza! I have a picture that should be attached.

On Tuesday we had intercambios in Santa Cruz! I stayed here with Elder Boone and Elder Koeven went to La Laguna with Elder Ward. It was way fun! Elder Boone is a hilarious kid and we get along pretty well. We had a great lesson with Norma and Marco and they fully accepted the Word of Wisdom without problems (yesss!!!).

On Wednesday, Elder Boone and I contacted in the morning for a bit and then we headed to La Laguna to meet up with our best friends, Elder Koeven and Elder Ward. After that, we went to the airport, boarded a flight and WENT TO MADRID!!! We were all soo excited. We got there, realized we had no food and took an unsuccessful food hunting trip that ended with us running into the Las Palmas missionaries aka ELDER PRIEST. It was awesome to see him! I don't have any pictures with him because my camera is dead but I will also be seeing him in a week so I will be sure to get one then.

Thursday was the day of the big conference and it BLEW MY MIND APART. It was without a doubt the best conference I had ever been at in my mission. Elder Dyches (Area of Seventy) spoke and Elder Allen (Managing director of the missionary department) also spoke. It was soooo good and I learned soo much about how to use technology wisely and how to use these tools to bless the lives of others. Turns out that I'm not going to be getting an ipad because of how soon I will be returning home but I learned a tooon about how to use technology after the mission. We got back to Santa Cruz at around 10 at night on Thursday and then just hit the pillow hard.

Friday was good. We planned the week and then had an indexing activity in the afternoon. Before the activity, we were contacting in the street and Elder Koeven was kind of whining about going to an indexing activity (he's such a girl haha juust kidding). We go to the church and let's just say that 45 minutes later Elder Koeven was hooked on indexing and was sad that the activity had ended. I love my companion.

Saturday went well and when we got home I was covered in milk. Wait... what?? Yeah let me explain. We had a good lesson with a new investigator named Hilda in the morning. In the afternoon we had our ward talent show! I played Let It Be by the Beatles on the guitar with Gabriela playing on the clarinet (she is a beast). Our second act was an interesting explanation of what a missionaries morning routine is. I sat down in a chair with a desk in front of me and Elder Koeven was kneeling behind me covered in a blanket and his arms looked like they were my arms. The first task was eat cereal (here's where the milk comes in to play). He spilled a ton on my shirt and almost ruined my missionary handbook! After he tied a tie for me and made a few phone calls. It was hilarious! And I walked home covered in milk.

Sunday was great! A few awesome investigators came to church and then of course, SKYPING WITH THE FAMILY! It was awesome. I miss my family a ton and every time I see them I love them even more. I kept my record for not crying during a skype sesh so I'm proud about that. We Skyped at Gabriela's house and they fed us some bomb cuban food before we left. Gabi's mom (Mama Cuba/ Ationeta) is the best and my mom cried a little when she said hi to my family in english. 

I know this Church is true. I know that Jesus Christ is my Saviour. I am so grateful for this time that I have had to be here in Spain and especially here in Santa Cruz. I love the Lord and I know that He is my Boss. I will miss this place so much. It is so strange to me to think that I will be home in only 2 weeks. I am excited to see all of you! Know that I love you all and that I am praying for you. 

Elder Franklyn

Opposition: 5/4/2015

Wellllllll...

This week was pretty good! We saw some awesome miracles and the week flew by like always. We also saw a lot of opposition which was kind of hard but we are missionaries right?

Great and wonderful things: Norma and Marco now have a baptismal date for the 23rd of May and they are progressing wonderfully towards that date! Yes, that will be my last weekend in the mission. Heavenly Father loves me. And all of you too. They are great though and they came to church again this week. That makes 4 weeks in a row and they seem pretty happy with continuing that streak. Sorry if my spelling is rough. I'm just confusing myself over here.

Other good things: Gabriela's mom wants to get baptized! She told Norma she wanted to and then she told Gabi and then she told us too! She is incredible and is definitely going to be a president of something someday. She came to church again as well and is doing great but she just doesn't have any time to meet with us. She works from 9 to 2, takes an hour break to eat and then works 3 to 9. Every. Day. Besides Sunday mornings which is when she comes to church. I'm sure she will get baptized but it will most likely be after I leave. 

Opposition: There have been like 4 days out of the past week that were holidays and so we saw a toooonn of rejection in the street. We also lost our phone and my missionary agenda, breaking my two records for never having lost either one, but we don't have to talk about it. Really the last record I have on my mission is not throwing up in 2 years but let's try not to jinx anything here. 

Elder Koeven and I are doing well together. He is totally trunking me out but I'm doing a good job at resisting it. He usually ends up just trunking himself out and I'm the one that is focusing in the street haha. We get along really well though and enjoy each other's company as companions. 

We had another investigator named Andrés come to church on Sunday. He's a really great guy and seems to have true desires to investigate the church and our message. Hopefully we can continue to see some growth with him!

Life is good though. The mission is great. It's hard at times but I still love it. We are heading to Madrid this week on Wednesday to be trained on iPads so we will see how that goes. There are lots of rumors going around that my group will not be receiving them and I am totally fine with that.  Just pushing on and doing my best to stay focused!

Elder Franklyn

4/27/2015

Banana writing

Come cards we made

chinese food

Elder Franklyn gets a new suit

transfers

Family and Friends!

This week has been great! We have been able to see a lot of progression in our investigators and at the same time we have found some great new investigators. Marco and Norma are still doing really good. They came to church this week too even though Norma was a little sick. We haven't been able to set a date with them yet but hopefully this Tuesday we will set one with them. They are awesome. Our 19 year old Guatemalteca investigator Karla also came to church and enjoyed it! She told us that her mom was NOT happy with her going though and so we are still working on that. We had an amazing lesson with an investigator of ours named Gimena as well! We went over to her house when she is normally home and she let us in! Her husband was there with three of her friends (Bolivians) and we got them all to sit down and listen to us. We taught an amazingly powerful lesson on the Restoration. At first we could tell that they weren't all very interested but by the end they were paying atention to every word we said. They all accepted the challenge to read the Book of Mormon and we are going to go over to their house this coming Thursday. It was a huge blessing for us and we are so happy about it! 

Elder Koeven is feeling a lot better now but he was pretty sick on Monday and Tuesday. A member in the ward (Los Manzano) gave him some medicine to take and that has helped a lot. 

Not much else is new. I'm a little bummed because I have less than a month left in the mission and I got an email from the office explaining what I have to do before I go home. Lame... Oh and our mission is getting iPads so that's cool! I'm not sure if I will actually get them before I get home but there is a big possibility that we will be getting them on the 7th of May. Not sure yet. I hope all is well back home! Shout out to Jacob Mayans for killing it until the end! I hope you enjoy the land of eternal P-Days.

Elder Franklyn

April 20th, 2015 Chicharro!!

Chicharreros verdaderos y chicharreras verdaderas...

This week, I ate chicharro!! The people here are called Chicharreros because back in the day the majority of the people here were fishermen who fished for a certain type of fish called chicharro. So I ate some chicharro heads and my companion didn't feel super good after. I was okay though and it actually tasted pretty good! Let's just say that that was definitely not the weirdest thing I've eaten in the mission. 

All is well out here in Tenerife. Sometimes I think that I'm just stuck out on a rock in the middle of the Atlantic ocean and then I realize that I am and that makes me smile. The work here is going good! This week we walked a lot in the street which is always fun but we also had some bomb lessons! Let's take a look and see...

(I'm gunna do this investigator by investigator)

Norma y Marco - Cubans. Mother and son. Bossesssss. They've come to church twice and we had a great lesson with them this last week. After they came to church yesterday, a Cuban family invited them over to their house to eat and the Cuban members (Gabriela and Nanda) told us that they were talking to them about the Church and about baptism and Norma said that she wanted to get baptized with Elder Koeven and I because we were the first ones to teach them. Máquinas.

Karla - Guatemalteco. 17 years old. She is doing good. Her mom is not letting her get baptized though but she loves the Church and feels the Spirit really strongly with us. She doesn't turn 18 until January so hopefully she can stay strong until then! Oh she also said that she wanted to go out contacting in the street with us.

Sula - This is a weird story. I'm not going to go into all the details here. She is a friend of a member and she's really nice but we aren't sure about how much true intent she has. In our second lesson she said that she wanted to meet with the sisters instead of us because she "can't understand anything that we say." Talk about pride check to the spanish skills. We passed her to the sisters to say the least.

Daniel Cabrera - Boss. Semi less active. He is doing really good. He didn't come to church this week but he has been reading in the Book of Mormon everyday since we made a contract with him that he signed haha. He is awesome though and we feel that he is progressing alot.

Well we have a lot of work ahead of us and I am excited to keep working here in Santa Cruz. Elder Koeven is down for the count after eating some Chinese food and fish heads but hopefully he will be recouperating quickly. I love this work and I know that this is Jesus Christ's Church on the earth. I love being a missionary and I will miss the good times and the bad times out here. I love the mission.

Elder Franklyn

My last transfer

Santa Cruz Friends

Elder Koeven and Elder Ward

Family and Friends!

So last Saturday the transfers came out!  I'm staying in Santa Cruz!  And I'm staying with Elder Koeven! Strangely, today is actually the first day of my last transfer as a missionary. The time has flown by but there is still more ahead of me! 

This week was good! On Tuesday I went on intercambios to La Laguna and I was with Elder Smith! It was really fun and we had some good lessons there in La Laguna. Meanwhile, Elder Koeven and Elder Ward had a lesson with Karla. She is doing great but she told us that her mother is not okay with her getting baptized or coming to church... Karla is soo ready but we just need to help her over this little but important obstacle! We are going to try and meet with her mom sometime to present ourselves and help her have a better understanding of the church. Poco a poco.

We also had this booomb meeting with a less active kid named Daniel Cabrera. His parents are worried about him so we went over to their house when the parents weren't there to see what we could do. We started reading the Book of Mormon with him and ended up getting him to sign a contract with us that we made on a piece of paper that if he reads everyday we will come over every Tuesday and Thursday to talk with him. He really likes us but is just struggling with a few things. It seems to be working though because he came to church on Sunday and that was the first time that I had seen him at church! He is a great kid but just needs a little help. 

On Saturday we had a wonderful day! A lesson with a less active kid named Airán in the morning and a lesson with Richard our investigator. Richard is doing good but he just doesn't want to accept that what we teach is true even though he knows it is. Poco a poco. In the afternoon we FINALLY met with Antonio the dominican again! We had a suuper good lesson with him but he told us that he can't go to church on Sundays because of work. He is still fantastic and actually gave us a basketball. Love that guy! After that lesson we went to the church for Susana's baptism! The sisters were teaching her and she was golden! I'm not sure if I told you about this but we actually received her reference twice but the sisters had already gotten in contact with her. It was a wonderful baptism though and we had a really good lesson with Gabriela after.

Sunday was awesome too! Great day at church and then we went to Gabriela's and Maria Fernanda's house after! Gabi is the only member of the church in the family and is such a light to everyone. I looove this family so much! The mission is soo much better when you just fall in love with the people you are serving. I love the mission and I love Tenerife and I love Spain. I am so grateful to be able to serve here as a missionary. I know that God Himself has sent me here and I know that this Church is true. I miss you all and I love you all as well.

Elder Franklyn

Blessings

Un cortazo de la vida de Elder Franklyn

I wanted to start with apologizing for not writing a weekly email last week. It was a mixture of signing up for classes at BYU (yeah I know... totally trunked me out) and the myldsmail website having some problems. This week was pretty good though and I wanted to touch on some highlights that happened.

First of all, I've got to go back to last week and tell you all a wonderful little story about my companion Elder Koeven. Some important background information to this story is that Elder Koeven has a big fear of terminal illnesses. I think we all do but he is a little over the top sometimes about it. Well the story starts with Elder Koeven and I walking on the sidewalk. We were talking to a few people in a dark street in Santa Cruz when we received a phone call from a less active father of a less active family. He explained to us that his brother-in-law was lying in the hospital and wanted a blessing of health. We changed our direction and headed to the house of this family. We met up with the parents and made our way to the hospital. On our way there, we found out that this man in the hospital was suffering from bone cancer and was given just a few months to live. As we entered into the hospital I was working on mustering up the faith that I would need to lay my hands on this man's head and call down important and life saving blessings from heaven. When we reached the door, they gave us hospital gowns and gloves to put on. As I tied the gown of my companion, I realized that this was a little more serious than I thought upon entering. We went in and the man was eating some food in his deteriorated state. We left the room to let him finish and the less active member explained to us that apart from having bone cancer, he also had a stomach virus that was highly contagious. That was why we were wearing the hospital gown and gloves. I entered back into the room and noticed that Elder Koeven was lingering at the door. He told me that he was going to hang back for a bit. I entered into the room with Elder Koeven still in sight and talked with the man for a bit. I glanced out the door and saw Elder Koeven leaning against the wall looking a bit pale. I went out to see how he was doing and he said to me, "I can't go in there. I don't feel good." I replied, "Alright well let's go take a walk and see how you feel." As we were walking away, he told me that he wanted to get out of the hospital clothing that he was wearing. I helped him take off the gown and he told me that he really wanted to wash his hands. I could tell that he was acting a bit different. As he washed his hands, he stopped and stared at me. I looked back at his even paler face and watched his lips move strangely slow as he said, "I don't feel good Elder." I rushed over and caught him under the armpits right as he  fell to the floor! He was still concious but barely. I helped him walk away from the sink and around the trash can that he bumped into a number of times. I helped him slide down the wall as he struggled to stay concious. We got him some juice and water, and he ended up recovering in a few minutes but that experience scared me a ton! I went into the room with the less active member and we gave a great blessing to that man lying in the hospital. I almost had to give two blessings that night!

Well I thought you all would like that funny/scary story. The rest of the week was filled with contacting a lot of people and having some great lessons!

Our investigator Karla is doing great! This last Tuesday we had a wonderful lesson with her on the Word of Wisdom. It was one of the most powerful lessons that I have ever had in my mission and I felt the Spirit extremely strong. 

We also found a new investigator named Antonio. He is dominican and great! As we started our first lesson with him, he asked, "Who is Nephi?" Elder Koeven and I were stunned! We hadn't even talked about how God is our loving Heavenly Father! Apparently he had met missionaries in the Dominican Republic and had read half of the Book of Mormon but never went to church! He is great and has a beautiful family as well. We are going to try to meet with him more often this week.

Elder Koeven and I are teaching wonderfully together and I feel like we really teach with Power and Authority. I am loving the work out here and all of the great times that the mission brings to me. General Conference was also wonderful this weekend and I learned soo much from our Prophet and Apostles during all of the sessions. I know that this is the true Church of Jesus Christ on the earth today. I love this work and it will be hard for me to leave it all behind. I love you all and I am so grateful to all of you for the love and support that you show to the many missionaries around the world. We feel your prayers.

Elder Franklyn

An awesome Miracle

Family and Friends!!

This week was pretty good! There were some ups and downs but all in all, I feel good about the week. One challenge we faced this week was tropical storms! It has been raining on and off all week! It has been a little difficult to contact in the street but we have been making the best of it and we saw some great miracles too! 

Last Monday, we went to Monkey Park! It was super fun. I think I already told all of you that I got spit on by a gorilla but yeah that happened.

The rest of the week was good! We had a really good lesson with our recently new investigator Nelly but we haven't been able to get in touch with her since. Maria Fernanda is doing great and her and Gabriela actually got in contact with my mom. Gotta love technology. 

One awesome miracle that we had happened to do with a woman named Gimena (pronounced Hee men uh). We had received her address in the street and went to pass by. When we knocked on the door, two little kids opened the door and told us that no woman named Gimena lived there. We were kinda bummed but as we were walking down, I looked back at Elder Koeven and said, "Do you want to knock the building?" He replied, "Ehh yeah I guess." We went up stairs and the first door didn't want anything and the second door didn't open up. When we knocked the third door (yessss, third time is aaaalways the charm) a woman opened the door. Elder Koeven immediately recognized her (yeah my memory is still pretty bad) as GIMENA!! Her husband was home and so we went inside and had a suuper good first lesson with her! I know it wasn't a coincidence that I wanted to knock that building. We almost never knock buildings here and the first time we do in a long time, we are led right to the person that we were looking for and that may have been waiting for us. 

I know that God loves us. I know that Jesus is the Christ. I love the mission with all my heart and I am SO grateful for the opportunity that I have to serve. 

Elder Franklyn

Monkey park

Family and Friends,

Not too much time this week but I just wanted to jot down the most important things that have happened this week.

First of all, today we went to a place called Monkey Park in the south end of Tenerife. A large gorilla definitely spit a mouthful of water at me from behind the gate. Sneaky monkey.

This week, we focused it a little bit more on finding some new investigators. And we had some success! We found 4 news this week which was awesome and they all have a great amount of potential! We are really excited to keep teaching them and help them come closer to Jesus Christ. 

Maria Fernanda is doing good and gets one step closer to baptism every time we teach her. We ate at her house with her sister Gabriela and their parents who just looove missionaries. We call their mom, mama Cubana. She's the best.

We also had a cool experience with a lady named Olga. She's a friend of a member here who has come to church twice but I still haven't taught her yet. On Sunday, her member friend told her about blessings of the priesthood and she asked us if she could receive one. We were more than willing of course and so with the help of another member we gave her a blessing of comfort. I was the one speaking and it was amazing to feel impressions of things that I needed to say while blessing her. The words that I said literally were not words that I would have normally used and it was amazing to see how the Spirit was able to guid me in that situation.

Life is great down here in the Canary Islands and I am just trying to do my best to work hard and live it up while I still can. Thank you all for the birthday wishes and also all of the comments on my Facebook wall (my mom told me!). I love you all so much and I am so grateful for your support in this most important work that we have to accomplish.

Elder Franklyn

Birthday Week

     21 YEARS OLD!

           
 This is in a city called Candelaria.                 

This is the awesome theater that they have here in Santa Cruz. Not as cool as the sydney opera house but I think its pretty impressive.

Here's near the port of Santa Cruz

Add Elder Koeven and I today! Yeah I'm getting a haircut...

      


¡Agüita!

I think we all know exactly how Elder Franklyn is doing in the Canary Islands...

FLIPPING GREAT!!!

The weather here is awesome and it reminds me a lot of Newport beach. The people in the street are pretty nice actually and the ward members are the bomb! We've already eaten a few times at a few people's houses and a family also left food for us in the chapel last night. I'm serving in Santa Cruz de Tenerife and I invite all of you to search in on Google maps if you want,  to see exactly what I'm talking about. I am loving it here!

Work-wise... It's pretty similar to everywhere else in Spain to be honest, haha. My companion and his last companion had dropped a good amount of investigators right before I got here, so I basically got transferred into a heap of work in the street. Its a good thing that I just absolutely love contacting in the street for days on end! I'm getting a little bit of a suntan too, so that's always nice.

My companion and I are literally best friends. If anyone knows my brother-in-law Jordan Brady, just imagine he and I  together as companions and you'll basically have a good idea of the magical things happening in Santa Cruz right now! 

Investigators that we have are pretty great. We have a sister of a recent convert named Maria Fernanda who is sooo close to getting baptized. She is awesome and her sister, Gabriela, is a rock in the church out here. Gabi's 18 and Maria is 15. There is another girl named Laura who is 9 and her family just got reactivated and she is getting baptized on the 1st of April. Technically she is our investigator but the ward is doing everything. The members here are awesome!

Well I love you all and I am loving the work out here in Tenerife (that's the name of the island I'm on). Its a blast!  Thanks for the birthday wishes!  

Elder Franklyn

Tenerife - Canary Islands!

Family and friends,

First of all... TRANSFERS. I have been assigned to serve on the beautiful island of TENERIFE!!!!!  I am in Santa Cruz and with one of my really good friends from the mission named Elder Koeven.  I'm literally living right on the edge of the island and I can not waaait for this transfer to just be amazing. I am soo stoked! It was really sad to leave Oviedo and I am going to miss a lot of the great people there but I am really excited for these next two transfers.

This week was super good and an awesome part about it was that I got to do intercambios with Elder McWhorter! It was great to be with him again and basically a Dominican family fed us a ton of food randomly. It was great and we had a blast together. 

Elder Esquen and I worked suuuper hard this last week and we actually had a really good week. We killed it honestly and had some really key lessons with some great people.

Our twin investigators Amparo and Begoña are doing great and we had a suuper good lesson with them and they both ended up going to church on Sunday.

Vasilio is doing good and just trying to quit smoking basically. He was really sad to see me leave and I honestly felt really sad to have to leave him. We had a great time together.

Saying goodbye to everyone on Sunday was hard but good. We passed by three families with the other elders to say bye and everyone was just sooo loving and soo nice. I honestly love the members in Oviedo and I will never forget them.

Life is good on the island so far. It basically looks like the hills of Guatemala or something epic like that. Hopefully I will have more photos next week. Love you all!!

Elder Franklyn

Oviedo & Trip to Madrid

Jesus the Christ.

Great sunset during the train ride.

 Valentine's Day package....

Elder Echegaray, Elder Esquen and I in Madrid!!

Elder Emmett and I with Elder Ward in the background playing the piano.

Random picture of myself.

 On the way to the Christ statue!

Elder McWhorter came too!

Elder Esquen & I

Family and Friends,

This week was awesome! Lots of great things happened and I'm going to try and hit as much as I can! We will start with Monday...

On Monday night we had a great lesson with Amparo and Alba who are new investigators of ours who came to church together. Amparo's twin sister was there, Begoña, and she was also really interested in our message! We had a great lesson on the Book of Mormon and they taught us about a product that they are selling called Kyani. It was great and Amparo said she was going to come to church!

On Tuesday we passed by Vasilio's house in the morning. He had some damage to his apartment and a lot of his plates and cups were destroyed (long story). Anyways we thought we would share a little spiritual thought with him at least because there wasn't even room to sit down. We read in Helaman about making a sure foundation. He was staring at the scripture we read and all of a sudden he said "What do I have to do to get baptized?" In my head I was like "Uhhhhh what???" Haha but we went to Doctrine and Covenants and read in seccion 20 about the requirements of baptism and I asked him why he had asked us that question. He began to explain that he just always felt good around us and always felt good when he comes to church and when he talks to the members. He even told us that he had made the decision that he was going to change religions! Epic! We set a baptismal date for the 14th of March!

On Wednesday we left for Madrid for the mission tour! It was super fun and we had a great time! I got to hang out with Elder McWhorter and Elder Echegaray again so that was really great. We learned a lot too and hopefully we can apply it to the work here!

Another great miracle happened on Sunday. First of all, a tooonnnn of people came to church! A lot of less actives and recent converts were there and Amparo and Begoña showed up! They also brought their friend Angelica! The Gospel up here is literally contagious! Angelica had a great time and stayed for the 2nd hour. We have a lesson set up with the three of them tonight so hopefully we can bring the Spirit and have a good lesson with all of them. 

I am loving the work up here in Oviedo. At times it can definitely be somewhat of a trial but I am learning a lot from it and I know that I might be in another area in just a week. I will definitely miss this place. Thank you all for all of your love and support and know that I am praying for all of you! I know that this church is the true Church of Jesus Christ on the face of the earth. 

Elder Franklyn

photos from trip to Madrid!

February 16th

Interchanges with Elder Sargent who is serving in Leon and was in my group in the MTC!

We also took a trip to Gijón for our P Day today and it was super fun!

Back on the ocean in Gijón.

 A selfie of Elder Emmett and I!

Here's Elder Ward stricking an epic pose on the bluffs of Gijón.

Hey!

Well this week was pretty decent! We didn't have a ton of lessons but we worked really hard and tried to do our best. The cool thing was that a ton of members invited us over to eat with them! We had like 4 meals and it was great! The members here are awesome. I love them so much and I fear that I might have to tell them good bye on the 1st of March!

Well we found two new investigators this week! The first one is named Alex! He is only 18 but he has a ton of interest in learning about the church and he also wants to invite his girlfriend to read the Book of Mormon with him! He is from Romania but has lived here for 7 years.

The other one is named Daniel! He is super cool. He is from Austurias and he is 19. We seem to be able to find some really young investigators! Daniel doesn't believe in God but he has a lot of desires to see if he really exists. We had a great first lesson in his house and I almost started crying while bearing my testimony to him. It was a really powerful lesson and I haven't felt the Spirit that strongly in a while. 

The rest of the week was filled with contacting, door knocking and intercambios with Leon. I feel really good about what we are doing here in Oviedo but I just feel like the time that I have here is too short! Exciting news is that we will be heading down to Madrid this Wednesday for a Tour of the Mission and we are going to hear from Elder Dyches! 

I know this church is true and I know that God himself has called me as a missionary to share this message with everyone. I love you all so much and I am so grateful for the sacrifices that you make in your lives to believe in God. I know that He exists and I have felt His Spirit with me.

Elder Franklyn

Investigators!

Che fatch? Uhhh I mean ¿Qué tal?

Recently I've been really interested in learning different languages. I made a list of what I know in other languages and it includes Gallego, Romanian, Swedish, German, and a tribal language from Ecuatorial Guinea called Fan. I've been trying to use it a little bit more in contacting and knocking doors and I actually kind of scared this guinean lady who replied "I've never met a white boy who wanted to learn Fan." I was like "Puueeesss ¿yo non vua? (Welllllll, how are you?) Haha she told us we could come back another time. Score! 

Other exciting things that happened this week...

We have finally found some new investigators! We have been working soo hard through the rain and snow and hail and we've finally found some really awesome people who have a lot of desires to learn about our church and the gospel. 

Let me list them and give a little background info on them...

1. Adela! She's a Spaniard who has been studying with the Jehova's Witnesses for a long time. She has two sons and an atheist husband but wants to know if the Book of Mormon is the word of God.

2. Juri! He's from Brazil and basically speaks portugues. It's a good thing I served in Galicia because I can understand almost everything! He regularly attends an Evangelical church but is super cool and loves missionaries.

3. Mohammed! He's from Egypt! What?!?! Yeah! And he is super cool! He wants to learn a lot about christianity and came to a branch family home evening last week and loved it!

4. Amparo and Lucas! This is a couple that lives out in a town about 40 minutes away. Amparo is from Columbia and Lucas is from Spain and they are really great! Lucas has a ton of good questions about spirits and the plan of salvation and Amparo just loves following Jesus Christ.

5. Jesus/Moreno! He is from the Dominican Republic and is really awesome! He has 3 children and 8 grandchildren. He has a strong testimony of the Bible and wants to find an answer about the Book of Mormon. He also accepted the invitation to be baptized in the first lesson!

6. Teo! He's from Ecuador and is a super chill guy. He knows that God lives and wants to learn alot about our church. He's super great and we are excited to help him with a few problems that he is going through right now in his life. 

Basically this whole week was filled with finding new investigators but we also met with Vasilio again! Our investigator from Romania. He was feeling kind of frustrated because he wants to understand the Book of Mormon more so we showed him the Romanian version on the church's website and I think he's a little happier now. We also had a great indexing activity on Sunday and it went really well! The branch was pretty excited to index some names. 

I am really enjoying this time in my mission. Oviedo is a wonderful area and I honestly can't complain one bit. The work sometimes is hard, but the miracles always outweigh the hard times. I love the mission and I know that this is Jesus Christ's Church. It bears His name and it has His priesthood authority. I know that God lives and that He answers our prayers. I cannot deny that He has answered mine. I love you all and I hope that you have a great week!

Elder Franklyn

More Hail... and miracles.. and pizza

Some italian members made us a few amazing pizzas!

There was also a hail storm that turned a good part of the city totally white!

Elder Esquen and I playing with the hail haha

Queridos amigos míos,

Well this week has been pretty awesome!! Some super cool miracles went down and a ton of hours were spent in the rain. Something new that we experienced this week was HAIL. And looooots of it. 

On Tuesday we did intercambios with the missionaries in Gijon and I went to Gijon for the day! For those of you who don't know northern spanish geography, Gijon is a city above Oviedo and it touches the northern coast of Spain. We had a suuper good day actually with two lessons in the afternoon and we broke Gijon's refferals recieved record and received 10 numbers contacting in the street! I was with Elder Guerra, who was born in Sweden but his parents are from Peru. Let's just say that I came back to Oviedo saying du arre grotbabis and other weird swedish phrases haha. It was a great day though and Elder Esquen was with Elder McWhorter in Oviedo and had a few good lessons as well! 

Other miracles... An italian family named Los Morace fed us on Thursday night and they made us the best pizza I've ever had!! They made like 5 or 6 huuge ones too and we destroyed the place haha. It was super fun though and they are an awesome family that is helping us so much with the missionary work here in Oviedo. 

On Friday we had one of the best lessons that I've had in a long time. It was with Vasilio, our romanian investigator. He has been progressing really well recently and is in I Nefi 16 now and so we decided that we were going to try to set a baptismal date with him. We taught him about the importance of reading, praying and going to church and at the end, right when I was tying it into baptism, Vasilio brought up one of his doubts about attending church. He was worried that the members of the church were going to look at him weird and judge him for being romanian. We reasurred him that no one at church was going to do that and at the perfect timing, our branch mission leader Manuel told Vasilio about the family home evenings that we have in the church on Friday nights. Vasilio was interested and so we invited him to come that very night. He agreed and to say the least, he loved it!! He made a lot of friends as well and the YSA of the branch did a great job of getting to know him and making him feel comfortable. 

Sunday we had a sweet miracle too! On Tuesday we contacted this columbian woman named Alba. I called her on Friday to see if she could meet on Saturday or Sunday. She told me that she was kind of busy but that she would come to church and bring her friend. Yeah that was probably like the hundreth time I've heard that in the mission. I told her that we would be there waiting for her though and on Sunday, SHE CAME!! And she brought her friend! It was fast and testimony meeting and they absolutely loved it!! Her friend, Amparo, decided to stay for all 3 hours as well even though Alba had to leave for work. It was a suuper awesome miracle that we saw and we hope to meet with them some time during this week. Amparo also told us that she wanted to come to the family home evening activity on Friday night!

All in all, it has been a week full of rain, hail, and miracles here in the wonderful land of Asturias. I am loving the mission and I know that the work that I am doing is actually having an effect on the lives of others. I love to see the true desires of the people that we teach. I know that God lives and that He loves us. I know that Jesus Christ is His Only Begotten Son and that He gave His life for us. I am so grateful for the gospel in my life. I also received news today that Patricia, Jose, Shaine, Shaila and Sharon (a family in El Ferrol that got baptized while I was there) are preparing to go to the temple in March to be sealed as an eternal family. There is no greater joy or love that I have felt in my entire life that the joy and love that I feel while serving as a missionary. I have learned so much. I love you all!

Elder Franklyn