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