May 26, 2014 Zone Conference and a Monastery

Zone Conference in Vigo

Visited a monastery

my 2 companions

my shoes are beat

Gato

3 of us

Elder Schmidtlein

The Trio

Gonna miss these guys

Family and Friends!!

This week has been a blast!! I don't have too much time but I'll try and do the best I can here.

First off, on Monday and Tuesday we were in Vigo for our zone conference. It was awesome!! We stayed in a hotel down there for the night and the talks during the conference were amazing. I am really loving our trio as well. Elder Schmidtlein is a great addition to El Ferrol.

We had a great day on Thursday and we even got to do splits with our branch president to cover more area. Elder Nickerl and the president went to the hospital to give a ward member a blessing while Elder Schmidtlein and I went out to contact. English class was a hit too and we invited a lot of the students to come to church. After we had a great lesson with Goyos, Irina's husband and he is reading and praying to recieve an answer!! I am so excited for him it's ridiculous!

On Friday we visited Angel at his house and we had a great lesson with him on the plan of salvation. He liked it alot! We found out that he is going to be leaving for England on the 9th but we are going to teach him as much as we can while he is here. He also came to church on Sunday again and is really ready.

On Saturday we went to Ortigueira which is a neighboring town to visit a few investigators. They loved the message of the restauration and the daughter loooves the church. Gotta love seeing potential!! We went with Hermana Dolly and on the way back she contacted someone at the train stop and we got her reference! Her name is Guadalupe and she  was interested in our message! We gave her a Book of Mormon and she was very receptive. Way to go Hermana Dolly!!!

Sunday was great although Elder Nickerl was sick. We stayed in the piso for a while to let him sleep but he is feeling better today. We went to a monastery today which was awesome and took a lot of photos!

This will be my last week in El Ferrol and I am having mixed feelings. I have spent more than half of my mission here and I am really going to miss it. I love the people here and I hope that I have had an impact on them. I am excited to work in the office though with Elder Ward. It will be a great experience!!

I love you all!!

Elder Franklyn

Mother's Day Week and Transfer!

Monday, May 12

Queridos míos.

Well I just realized that I hadn't written a big email yet so this will have to be quick but I'll try to make it good. Some miracles happened this week and it was great!! I am pretty pumped and we got the transfer calls on Saturday so some of you don't even know where I am right now...

Well the big miracle that we have seen this week has been through part member families. We have two amazing ones and both of the fathers are not members. The Goyos family is like my second family and the father has been participating a lot in our lessons recently. On Thursday we had a great lesson with them and invited Goyos (the dad) to take the missionary lessons and he said yes! We are so excited! A few days later we were talking to Hermana Dolly, Wendy's mom, and her husband is also a non member. He lives far away for work but he has been visiting often and we have gotten to know him better. The other day they were talking and Dolly literally just told him to get baptized and he said he was actually thinking about it!! We are going to try to meet with him this week and see how things go. I've never seen any progress with part member families until now but its so amazing to see the joy of the members when their loved ones accept the Gospel. 

The exciting news about transfers is that I am staying in El Ferrol! And we are going to get another missionary tomorrow!!  Buuuut only for three weeks. Then I am going down to Madrid and I am going to be the mission secretary! Exciting stuff! I know that this church is true. For me, honestly, it doesn't matter if I am in Galicia, the Canary Islands, or Madrid. The most important thing above all is preaching the Gospel. There is a great quote from Paul in 1 Corinthians about his view on missionary work and I will try to quote it. This isn't exact but he says: I was not called of Christ to baptize, but to preach the Gospel. Not with wise words, lest the cross of Christ be made of none affect. I love that! We are called to preach the Gospel. Baptisms or not! That is my goal in these two years. I know that Jesus Christ is our Saviour and our Redeemer. I know that my english is not the best now but that is just because I'm trying to focus everything on this short time I have. I love you all and hope you have a great week!!

Love,

Elder Franklyn

ps: this is Elder Nickerl and I knocking down some percebes.

and talking to my family on Mother's Day....

Lots of Photos of P-Day and Percebes!

May 5, 2014

Some photos of the men. Elder Nickerl, me, Guillermo, and Bruno.

Some mini ramp trash cans in Galicia. Sweet.

Mid-trip-chapa-selfie.

We visited a place today called San Andres de Texiro. It was awesome.

Elder Nickerl and I in front of a city called Cariño.

Here's the percebes. Still not exactly sure what they are. Some sea animal that sticks to the rocks.

A super sweet old house we found

Some photos of the men

Aaaand an awesome light house we visited. This is the most northern part of all of Spain.

Family and Friends!!

This week has been killer hard not going to lie but we never quit and I feel good about that. I love Galicia and the people here but sometimes I feel like the people in the street just really don't like us very much. They see us walking down the street and they cross the road to avoid talking to us. It's like we smell bad or something but I think we smell great! And it can't be that we look weird because we are basically public models. The world may never know.

Well we were in the street a ton this week but I'll try and hit the highlights again.

On Tuesday we helped the Bringa family move. They lived on the second floor and we took all of the stuff out of their apartment and had to bring it down to a big truck. Then we loaded it on to the truck and went to the new house. It was on the fourth floor. And yeah there was no elevator. I probably lost like 10 kilos and Elder Nickerl and I were full sweat by the end. Lets just say we are both still sore but it was a good experience and the family was very grateful for our help. We actually are going to their house tomorrow to help them with some more stuff!

On Wednesday we had intercambios with the missionaries in A Coruña after our zone training meeting. The meeting went really well and then I headed off to A Coruña with Elder Smith, the same one that was with me in my first district and the CCM with me! We had a great time and I interviewed two of their investigators, Josefa and Cindy, for baptism. They were so ready and their testimonies were so strong. It was amazing to meet them and they were both baptized and confirmed last weekend.

On Thursday we had a sweet miracle go down. We had a lesson with Victoria, Angel, and Angel about the restoration and it went really well. At the end, Elder Nickerl invited them all to get baptized with probably the most confusing and difficult invitation ever but they said yes. He then set a date with them as well to be baptized and they accepted it too. Elder Nickerl and I were dying laughing after because of how crazy of an invitation he threw out but thanks to the Spirit, they were able to understand exactly what he was saying.

On Sunday we had a decent day at church. In Spain, yesterday was Mother's Day so the third hour was dedicated to the mothers in the branch. It was awesome even though it made me miss my mom a little bit. Elder Nickerl bore a great testimony on how much he loves his mom and a lot of other great stories were told of some amazing mothers but I've got to say that I have the BEST mom ever! Thanks mom, love you!

Today we visited some awesome sights around north Spain and we actually went to the most northern point in all of Spain, which is in our area, and took some photos. We also ate something called Percebes in spanish which were really good! They look disgusting but we both loved them.

Amidst all of the trials that we are passing through right now in El Ferrol, I can always notice the rays of light that our Heavenly Father casts down to his faithful missionaries. I know that He is watching over us and that He loves all of us so dearly. My testimony of Jesus Christ has grown more than ever as I work alongside Him in this great work. I know that this is the true church and that it was restored on the earth by Joseph Smith. Anyone who says otherwise can just read the Book of Mormon and try to prove me wrong after that. I love you all so much!! Keep up the missionary work in your own areas across the globe!

Love,

Elder Franklyn

Weirdest Week and My Sister's Gift

 April 28, 2014


Family and friends!!I don't have too much time because we have a lesson with a Spanish family in like t-20 minutes but I'll see what I can throw down in that short time. Here it goes...Well this week has been one of the hardest in the mission so far. We saw little success but worked our tails off talking to everyone we could. Lots of rejection. I was pretty down on my self honestly but I learned a good lesson.Lets see. Well main things are that we met with Jose again. He hasn't been able to meet with us for a while and so we changed his baptismal date for the 10th of May and he is pretty stoked.On Tuesday we had intercambios and I went to Santiago for the day for an entrevista. Sorry for the spanish but its gunna happen because I'm writing fast. Google translate!! So I had the entrevista with Miguel and I wasn't exactly sure if he was ready at first because he has a past of smoking but the entrevista when really well and I felt the Spirit a lot. He bore his testimony and everything and it was awesome. He was baptized and confirmed a member of the Church last weekend. Great to see some success over there in Santiago. After we contacted for a while. I was with Elder McKeigan and he is basically a legend. His spanish is so good that the natives think he is from Uruguay. He's awesome. I learned a ton from him because he has been out for around 22 months now. If anyone out there is from St. George, tell him I say hi in a few months when he comes home.The rest of the week was just difficult. We set a lot of lessons, and a lot of lessons fell through. We contacted in the street for hours and received a few references so we will see how they turn out this week. Walter (the new argentinian) wasn't able to meet with us last week but we have high hopes for this week. One strange story was that we were knocking pisos a while back and met a woman named Alexis (name has been changed). We taught the first lesson to her in the doorway and she seemed really interested. She is from Brazil and told us we could come back another day. We came back last night to visit her and she was super stressed out and we caught her right as she was coming home. She invited us up and before entering we asked if there was a male home (missionary rules require it). She said no and we told her that we have a rule that says we can't enter into the house of single women. She went off and got really offended for some reason and she asked us who we thought she was as in a man or a woman. I responded politely saying that she was a woman and she responded with "NO." We were completely blown away and did not know what to say. Yes, I had a lesson with a transvestite. She told us not to come back any more and we left.So the week was kinda like that. A little bit on the difficult side. Saturday night was rough and I just felt like I had been working sooo hard and hadn't seen anything. I remember praying and just trying to receive comfort. I went to write in my journal about it and noticed that my sister Lauren had written in the back of it when she gave it to me for my birthday. I had read the message before but I decided to read it again. Her words filled my heart and gave me so much hope. I was relieved to realize that the Lord was still with me and that I didn't have to be discouraged. Thanks Laur. I'm back and hungry for another week and my testimony is as strong as ever. I know that this Church is true. I know that the Book of Mormon is the word of God and that it really was written by ancient American prophets. I know I am fighting on the Lords side. I wrote an inspirational 2 liner of the day and I thought I'd share it with you guys: Fight till I die, Preach till I fly. I will never give up because Jesus Christ never gave up on us.I love you all!

Elder Franklyn

A Horse and an Octopus...

April 21, 2014

Elder Nickerl's Birthday Party

Octopus or "Pulpo"

Guillermo helped us cook it!

Yum!

Helllllllloooo!!!

Well this week has been good but crazy. In most hispanic cultures, before the Easter holiday, they celebrate a week of holidays called the Semana Santa. Many people leave for vacations and here in El Ferrol, there were many parties and parades in the cities main square. They usually start after we get home so they didn't affect us too much but many of our investigators were out of town or plainly did not want to meet with us during this week.  We made the best of it though.  No sign of egg hunts or bunnies or anything over here! 

On Monday we had a lesson with Jose, who has a baptismal date for the 10th of May, in a park and it went really well! He is such a great kid and has a lot of desires to get baptized. After we headed to Armando's as usual and had a great time there. They are so nice and are always so grateful for what we do. Oh sorry if my english is bad this week; we only spoke spanish this last week and it went really great but sometimes I get confused on my english rules and such.

Tuesday we had a toonn of people bail on us haha. Like everyone actually. But we had some octopus or pulpo during medio dia with Wendy and Guillermo and it was Elder Nickerl's birthday so we threw a party in the chapel and invited a ton of people. It turned out well because a ton of the hermanas took over the planning and made it fun. Elder Nickerl gave the speech of his life and it was awesome.

Wendesday we had district meeting which went really well! I think I'm getting better at it haha. After we had intercambios and the zone leader, Elder Fausett, came with me. We had a great time and found a few lessons in the street.  That night we had a noche de hogar with Amanda and Julio and watched some of the videos from General Conference which was great and I could feel the spirit really strongly.

Thursday morning was heeectic. I didn't know that it was a festival day and that the bus schedules had changed and so switching back was hard. We went to the bus stop in the morning. The bus never came. So we headed to the bus stop and Elder Nickerl left from Lugo to come to El Ferrol. We met up with Emiel, a cuban member, and Elder Fausett left for Lugo later on. We were waiting for Elder Nickerl to get there and his bus didn't come... So we had to wait another hour in the bus station and he had managed to catch another bus that arrived later. In the end it all worked out but I was stressing. After that, we planned the week and then met up with Andrew to help him prepare for a lesson he had to teach in church. After we had english class which went really well. We have a family of 3 who are coming right now and they seem pretty interested! Hopefully we can meet up with them and get them to church! They are really nice.

Friday was awesome and we had a little miracle go down. In the afternoon we had a few people cancel on us so we went out to contact people in the street. There was like no one so we went to knock some buildings. After 3 or 4 doors of nothing, someone let us in. We went up to the apartment and a man opens the door and is super friendly! He explains that his name is Walter and that he's from Argentina. He lets us in the door and we have a lesson right then on his couch! It has been a while since that has happened and he was soo open to everything so it really made my week. We ended the night at the Calderon's and had a great time with them like always.

Saturday was decent. We had a lot of people bail on us as well but we managed to find a few lessons. At the very end of the day we met up with Zorkan finally after like months of nothing and he seems like he's still a bit interested so we will see where that goes. He really wants to learn english too so we'll see!

Sunday was a good day. We had a lot of members in church which was great and Luciano and Jose came as well. We taught the second hour and helped Andrew teach the third hour so we didn't have much time to relax and listen to others haha. The talks during church were so inspired though and I felt the Spirit really strongly. It doesn't matter where you are, it always just feels great. We had two solid set set set set set set set set lessons cancel on us that afternoon too which was a bummer but we visited some members and grew our relationships with them. Last night Hermana Dolly, Wendy's mom, fed us hamburgers and french fries which was awesome even though it reminded me of home a little haha.

All in all I think it was a great week. We worked hard and I am really excited to start teaching Walter. Miracles are everywhere. We've just got to look.

Love you all!

Elder Franklyn