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