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

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