Week 17

This week was great! We taught more lessons this week than any other
so far! Our teaching pool is starting to grow and the work is starting
to pick up! Hopefully we can continue to improve and maintain our
level of dedication and diligence, because we have a lot of potential
for this ward over the next 7 weeks of Elder Cook's training.
Despite our incredible successes, this week it was really hard to find
motivation to stay hard at work and continue in our finding and
teaching efforts. There were some days where I did Not want to go out
and find haha, but I can say that I pushed through it and did my best
to work as hard as I could! I might not have had the best attitude the
whole time haha, but we worked hard and it paid off!
Angie Bainbridge accepted the invitation to be baptized this week!!!
She and her mom have decided on December 12!!! How great is that!?!?
Angie is like the smartest 9 year old ever! She just paid attention so
well and answered all of our questions perfectly. She just emanates
the light of Christ, and readily accepted the invitation to be
baptized. Her father, however, is Catholic, and might not approve her
being baptized. So please keep her in your prayers.
So we also had zone conference this week! It was great! I learned a
ton and decided that I need to be more dedicated, diligent, and
consecrated to my missionary purpose! So I am going at it with a
renewed vigor!
And another highlight of the week is that we got to go to the temple!!
There was a temple tour and Mark and Lyndsey came! So we got to go
too!!! I just love the temple soooo much. And even though we just
toured the grounds, the spirit was so strong and sacred. They have
olive trees on the grounds and I got a short opportunity to sit in the
shade of an olive tree and ponder and just feel the spirit. I loved
it. I can't wait till the next chance I get to go to a session. Go as
often as you can!
And that's pretty much how my week has gone! Here are some pictures from our Pday hike and the temple.
-Elder Francis

Week 16

This week was pretty slow, up until yesterday. We didn't have much
success at all in our finding efforts. It wasn't til yesterday that we
were able to meet with Jorge Flores, and give him the first blessing
he has ever had, and also the Bainbridges, where we set up an
appointment to come teach their family the restoration for this
Wednesday. Hopefully at that appointment we will be able to get Angie
on date for baptism! We also received a referral last night, and they
are already progressing, so we are going over tonight to meet her.
Awesome!
Something that was NOT awesome, was that I got super sick this week.
Tuesday morning I woke up and just felt awful. It was the first time
that I've been sick and had no mother figure to comfort and care for
me. We also had no medicine at the apartment, so I had to wait to go
get some. That day we got up, had elders Dube and Durney come give me
a blessing, and I fell back asleep while my companion studied. After
studies we went out and taught a lesson, came back for lunch and I
took a nap. Then we went out and did finding for several hours, came
back for dinner and I took another nap. Then we went out and taught
some lessons and finally I could come back and sleep. So we have
stayed busy all week despite my sickness. I've been loading up on the
vitamin C and am finally feeling a lot better. It is not fun being
sick on a mission.
We went over to the Cannons last night and shared a message and had
brownies and ice cream! It was a lot of fun haha, they are an awesome
family. Sister Cannon also referred me to a barber shop, which I went
to this morning. She texted the lady in advance and paid for most of
my hair cut so it only cost me 5 bucks!. I also was
able to teach the salon lady a lesson while she was cutting my hair,
and she wants to come to church! Coolio!
My companion is getting better and better at talking to people. Slowly
but surely. We are now 4 weeks into his training, and things are
starting to pick up hopefully. This week should be an awesome one.
Well my 4 month mark was yesterday! Time sure flies! But it also feels
like an eternity haha. I am 1/6 of the way through my mission, and
that feels good to say, but I still have 20 months left!!

Week 15-Bonsai!!

This week wasn't very awesome. We walked a lot, did a lot of finding that wasn't very successful, and had like 4 investigators drop us. It was rough, but I have been obedient and have been working really hard, so I feel good about it despite how things turned out.

Although, we were visiting an inactive lady and it turns out she has a 9 year old daughter that has not been baptized! She said that they want to start coming back to church and that she wants her daughter to be baptized! Neat! So we will see where that takes haha, hopefully into the waters of baptism once again!

That was a pretty cool experience.

Something pretty amazing happened on Friday of this week. Through some of Elder Dube's connections in Anaheim, each of our companionships got a bonsai tree this week! A BONSAI!!!! I have secretly wanted my own bonsai tree basically my entire life, and now I finally have one! We named it Mr. Myagi. It is 12 years old already! It is a mini tree! And we set it back on our balcony, along with a bamboo mat we picked up at the store, and I like to go sit on the mat and center my chi and ponder the scriptures and the universe. We pruned it and wired it this morning, so it looks even cooler than it did before.

My companion is a very skilled juggler, and because of that, I've actually gotten pretty good at it myself. We have been using it in our finding! It's worked pretty well actually, so that's cool. We also have been using family history a lot this week and that has been pretty successful also.

I've put a lot of thought into how a mission is like a mini life and it's so true. We leave our parents for a season and get a new father, have our own sons, learn and grow constantly as we are faced with new challenges and callings. We learn lessons and principles that will bless us long after we depart, and we help others in that same quest for truth and knowledge. We face trials and adversity, but learn to turn to the Lord and rely on Him. All the things we do on a mission are the goals and challenges of a lifetime! It's awesome!

-Elder Francis

Week 14- Thelma's baptism!!

This week has been so great!  Street contacting is definitely more difficult than tracting haha, but I have been working on it a lot. Elder Dube is sooooo good at it. He is great at talking to people, so I have been watching and learning from him. But we have been doing it a lot more this week and I feel like I am getting better at it.

 Thelma got baptized!!!!!!!!!! Barely.... We got a call on Thursday telling us that Thelma was in the hospital. My heart dropped into my stomach. We rushed over as fast as we could! We get to her room to find tiny little Thelma laying on a big hospital bed. She had lost 10 pounds overnight, putting her at like 90 pounds. We walked in, and she gets a huge smile on her face and shouts, "Elders!" I walked over to her, she took my hand in hers and said, "thank you so very much. I just knew you would come." And that just melted my heart. I sat down next to her and held her hand while she told us what happened. She had collapsed in the middle of the night due to a blood pressure spike or something like that. We gave her a blessing and left the rest to the Lord.

She got released the next day, just in time for her baptismal interview, which she of course passed with flying colors. Her baptism on Saturday went perfectly. All of Beulah's family, the Theobalds were there. And they are amazing. After being best friends with Thelma for over 50 years, they never gave up on her! Everyone was quite emotional haha, especially me. I was crying practically the whole time. Because I know how much this baptism meant for Thelma and the Theobalds. I felt the spirit so powerfully, and the veil was so thin. I knew that Clyde was watching with approval and love from the other side. 

I have never felt as much joy and happiness as I did on Saturday. It was eternal and Godlike. Thelma will be able to be sealed to Clyde now, and the unimaginable sorrow and pain she felt just weeks ago for her lost husband has been replaced with the hope and love of Christ. She now has the companionship of the Comforter, and she will never have to feel that sadness again.

And all because we acted on a prompting to go knock on a door and reminded a daughter of God that she has not been forgotten.

Love

-Elder Francis

Week 13 - Temple trip

The temple this morning was AMAZING!! I have been waiting for the chance to go since I left home, and have been preparing myself for it since then. And man, it was one of the most spiritual experiences of my life. Walking into the celestial room, being showered with light through windows that shimmered like the sun's rays on the ocean. The walls were trimmed with gold, and the crystal chandelier shined like thousands of diamonds. I was just so overcome with the spirit. It filled me with love and light and I tried to imagine what the celestial kingdom will be like. I sat and prayed and read the scriptures and received so much comfort and strength. I was so sad to leave, even though I was the last one haha. I wish we could go more than once every quarter, but I am so so grateful that we get to.

I got my new missionary this week! His name is Elder Cook, and he is also from Idaho haha. He is also a big guy, and his voice sounds just like Russell from UP except a little deeper hahahaha. To be blunt, I have been going crazy trying to figure out what to do with all of our time while also teaching him what he needs to know. I realized like a slap in the face how I literally have no idea what I'm doing out here. It's awful haha I go to bed every

night completely wiped. But we somehow made it through the first week. Booyah. And, crazy enough, Thelma is getting baptized this Saturday.  I know, I can't believe it either! And for the most part, everything is
pretty solid. We already have the program lined up. So I will be sure to let you know how it goes!

Week 12-transfers

I hope all of you guys absolutely loved conference as much as I did!
I loved SO MANY of the talks given! I'll just talk about a couple.
First, PONDERIZE! I'm definitely going to start doing that. As we do,
he said that it will provide a higher place for our thoughts to go,
and that was an answer to my question of how I can better train and
master my thoughts. 
I loved the talks of the first presidency sooooo much. They all did an
amazing job. I especially like President Eyring's, and I applied to
myself as a missionary and the callings I will receive as one! I also
got a lot out of Elder Cooks and Elder Oaks. How about those new
apostles?! I secretly kept on thinking dad might get called hahaha. I
am really excited to hear from them more. I especially liked Elder
Renlunds testimony.
We had an awesome last week of the transfer! On the 1st I got a
package from Moroni and Deb and that made my week! It had letters from
all of their kids and some candy!
We got leadership and transfer calls this past week, and I have been
asked to train next transfer, and so has my companion. I will be
staying in P1, and he will be moving to Yorba Linda 3rd, which is
right next door and is in our zone. We get our greenies tomorrow, and
I'm excited and kinda nervous! But I know that it is all in the Lord's
hands. I'm really glad that I get to stay in the ward for at least
three more months!! I love the ward so much! More good news, we got a
call from Buelahs son this last week, and we scheduled the date of
Thelma's baptism for October 17r! Less than two weeks away!!
How amazing is that?! I am sooooo excited for her!! Even MORE good
news, Mark and Lyndsey are getting MARRIED!!!! Ahhhhhhhhhhh!!!
 On Dec 19th! So I will be able to go. And more importantly,
 they are getting sealed a year from now!!! And I will be able to go to that
too!!!! Oh my gosh that is going to be the best day of my life!
We realized at the beginning of last week that we were at 78 lessons
for the transfer, so we thought to ourselves, "let's go out with a
bang". We were able to meet our goal of teaching 22 lessons last week,
and ended the transfer with exactly 100 lessons taught. Mr. Monk
would've liked that haha. More importantly, all of the lessons were
really meaningful, not just numbers.
 I love you!
-Elder Francis

My Zone

My district

Week 11

This week was pretty great, we met most of our goals and got 20

lessons this week. We have some pretty fantastic news! So  we found
out that on Oct 10th Thelma was going to go to st George and be
baptized there, which was absolutely fantastic! BUT Beulah and her
family surprised Thelma and said they are ALL coming here so that she
can be baptized in her home ward!! So Elder Burks and I can go! It
might be a week or two after the 10th, because there are a lot of
people that have to get work off, but it should be in October for
sure!! Isn't that incredible?!
I also witnessed some miracles this week, which you will take comfort
in. I was on exchanges with our zone leader, and we were
visiting a former investigator. We knock on the door and we hear two
big dogs barking on the other side, she opens it up, and two huge pit
bulls come bolting out right at us! I thought they were gonna jump on
us, but they stopped right at our feet! Then they started barking and
snapping their jaws at us, we had our book of Mormons in attack
position haha. They barely missed my fingers a couple times. I could
have sworn one of them bit my companion's leg, but neither of us were
touched. The lady, who was just watching all of this go down haha,
eventually called them back in. We were able to have a good
conversation with her and she invited us to come back next week.
Well this is the last week of my training! Next week is a new
transfer! And I'm excited for a new chapter in my mission! I would
absolutely love to stay in the ward. I love the members so so much.
But I will go and do whatever the Lord asks! I'll know by next week!
I'm super excited for conference this weekend. Probably more excited
than I've ever been in my life. It's basically the coolest thing ever.
Anyways, I'm excited to hear from you! Love love love you!