January 26, 2015

Rain and Hail....

We played soccer today with the Elders in Gijon. Elder McWhorter was there!!

Aaand here's some more food we made haha

Buenas tardes desde Oviedo,

Well this week we have seen a lot of....... RAIN!

Its pouring here! My shoes are getting destroyed! 

This week we set like 15 lessons up and confirmed most of them and 12 of them ended up falling through. Super crazy!! It got to a point in which we sat down to make some calls (inside of a building because it was hailing outside) and I just thought to myself, I don't think I've ever seen this much opposition in trying to have some lessons with people. And then it hit me: something big is coming. I don't know who it is going to be or when it is going to happen but something big is going to go down here in Oviedo. Satan seems to be working overtime against us but we are pushing forward and I can just feel like something huge is about to happen. I'm super stoked about it! 

Most of the time this week we were contacting and knocking on doors and on Tuesday we ended up receiving 10 references in one day which is like unheard of here in the north. I actually broke a lot of my Oviedo records this week which was cool and we worked hard until the very last second. 

We saw a lot of really cool miracles on Sunday. We had a good lesson with a Muslim family from Senegal on the Plan of Salvation and it turns out that the Muslims believe most of the same doctrine that we do-  They are super awesome. That afternoon we met this ecuatorian kid named Byron knocking doors who was so excited to meet with us that he wanted to set up a lesson for the next day! Super sweet! 

We were busy this morning cutting our hair but we are meeting with him tomorrow. After that we found a whole Portugues family and the mother really needs the gospel in her life right now. She is passing through some hard times but seemed really interested in meeting with us again! 

I am amped for this coming week and can't wait to see what the Lord has in store for us. Elder Esquen and I are getting along really well and we are making a ton of super bomb food together. Loving the north and just loving all of the rain and hail that we are having! Brings me back to the good times in El Ferrol! 

Love you all and I know that this Church is true! Never lose hope. The Lord is always watching over us.

Elder Franklyn 

Week of January 19, 2015

Elder Esquen taught me how to make a peruvian food called salchipapas!

 This is where we play soccer...

I'm realizing that most of my pictures are just of the food that we make together. It's actually kind of the thing that we bond over. Cooking. Who am I?

Buenas tardes!!

This week was pretty good and we saw a decent amount of opposition but also a few great miracles! 

First of all, an inactive member named Alberto called us up last Monday I think telling us that he had 2 weeks of vacation and that he wanted to meet with him. We literally went straight to his house and had a super awesome lesson with him! We met with him a few more times during the week and he ended up coming to church on Sunday! He has a bit of work to do until he becomes fully active but it was a super sweet miracle that we saw. I've never seen an inactive member with desires that big to come back to church. 

Another miracle we saw (and also a shout out to Elder Mayans) is that we found a Romanian in the street last Sunday night named Vasilio and we had two lessons with him throughout the week. He is awesome and would have come to church on Sunday but his phone was on silent and he slept through his alarm. He seems really sincere although he smokes quite a bit. He also came with us today to play soccer with some local members and he's a boss! He showed us up big time and it was really fun.

Transfers came out and I am staying here in Oviedo for one more and I've been switched from Zone Leader to District Leader. I'm really excited about it! It will be super fun and my old companion Elder McWhorter is coming to my district! 

I love you all and hope you have a great week!

Elder Franklyn

P.S. Funny insight on the mission life. Right now there is some random lady basically yelling on a phone behind me in some random language. She started out yelling, switched to crying and now is laughing. Spain...

January 12, 2015

The Calatrava... Local Mall

New shoes! 50 euros.

Manuela (investigator), Elder Esquen and I.

Elder Esquen and I having some p-day breakfast

My home ward youth sent me notes!

My new Austurias hat too.

Hola!!

Well this week was bomb!! 

On Monday, I headed down to Madrid with Elder Parkinson, my Zone Leader companion. He is hilarious and we had a super good time together. We played futbol and just had a blast. 

On Tuesday we had the mission leadership council which was awesome. I feel like everything that Pres. Jackson said was inspired. It was awesome and he showed us some videos of some great "finishers." (Secretariat included) 

That afternoon we headed back to León and had the Zone Training Meeting on Wednesday morning. I think it was my best one yet! It was suuper spiritual and very inspiring. At the very end we watched the Secretariat viedo of him winning the triple crown (sooo epic) and Gracias a Él (Because of Him). It was super good and I feel super excited to finish my mission working hard everyday. 

The rest of the week was really good and we saw some miracles on Sunday night especially. A less active member called us up out of the blue asking if we could meet with him and so we did and he has a ton of desires to keep meeting with us so hopefully we will see some success there! We also had this awesome crazy lesson with a few Nigerians. At first, everyone was running around and the T.V. was super loud and it was just chaos but we started and it all calmed down and we were able to bear some solid testimony about the Restoration of the Gospel. It was awesome and I think that that is my favorite thing to do. Just testify of the truth. It always brings the Spirit and its one of the most efective ways to teach. I love this work so much and I know that my spelling is bad but I'm trying! Being a missionary has taught me so much and I just love it more and more each day.

Love you all!

Elder Franklyn

January 5, 2015 HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Buenos días!!! Felices fiestas!!

Well this week has been really good! And we have been finding some new investigators. We played futbol on Monday which was really fun and there were a few investigators there as well that enjoyed it. I got some sweet goals too and had a lot of fun. The really cool thing this last week was that Heavenly Father answered two of my prayers really specifically and it grew my testimony on the power of prayer. I know that He is there listening to us when we pray to him.

Well New Year's eve was awesome!  3 lessons failed and so we went out contacting for 5 hours in the cold weather but we received 7 references which was great! The Lord knows what we need to do haha. We also found a new investigator named Julio on Tuesday from Cuba! I love Cubans to be honest. Shout out to the Mayans family! We've been continuing to meet with Manuela and she is just amazing. She can't get baptized until June or July because she isn't married but we gave her a hymn book and she was soo excited. She has been inviting her friends to church too. She's the best. We found a few more Nigerian investigators on Friday. It was a super cool experience actually because I contacted Kelvin in the street and he told me that his dad had just passed away. I bore my testimony to him about the plan of salvation and he wanted to meet with us! He is travelling back to Nigeria soon but we had a first lesson with him and his girlfriend and it went really well! They have a ton of potential. It was a great blessing for us to be able to meet them. On Saturday night we met with the Morace family. Their dad is from Italy and so he made us some amazing pizza! It was really good. Sunday was great too and we had 11 non members at church which was a huge success! The chapel was full! I love to see growth in the little branches up here in the north. Its the best! I love the mission and feel so blessed to be able to serve for two years here in Spain.

Love you all!

Elder Franklyn