Week Ending April 28th, 2014

Wow This week I realized how quickly time is flying!!!! I can't believe how quickly it is going. This week was really good! Sister Payne and I decided to try something new this week and that was LOTS of service. We tried to gain the trust of the ward this week through service and we tried to turn them into opportunities for our investigators to come to, but it didn't really work out that way... so back to the drawing board. But it was a lot of fun to serve so many people. We are going to work on having a service project planned out far enough that we can invite our investigators to it! We are hoping this method will work better.But at any rate this week we got to weed, pressure wash a driveway (and get covered in moss and mudd ha ha) deep clean a bathroom, Scrub shutters, and so much more.... I LOVED IT! I actually ran out of clean service clothes ha ha but it was OH so worth it!

We had exchanges this week and I got to be with my lovely Sister McEntire. Oh how I love that sister... She is such a great example to me. I learned a lot from her and I am working on applying what I learned about "raising the warning voice to ALL people"

We had dinner with two of our investigators on exchanges. mmmm authentic Indian food! Sooooo good. and apparently you eat Indian food with your hands ha ha even if it's soup. you dip a bread into it and try and scoop up as much as you can. Sister Payne missed out... :/

Oh I met a woman named GENEVIEVE! That is the first person I have met other than Great-grandma with this name..... It was nice to have something remind me of her out here. :D 

We had a New member fireside on sunday (a Meeting where people who were just baptized, people who are looking into the church, family members, and people who have been members for a while... so basically everyone come and share their testimonies about how the message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ has blessed their lives. ) Here was the cool thing. We had the ASL branch there and 5 or 6 Deaf and Deaf/blind people got up and shared their testimonies while a missionary translated for them. It touched my heart so much to see missionaries translate for the deaf, the blind, Spanish speakers, Russian speakers, and Korean speakers. Our one little mission has so many languages and it is because the Lord is truly having us reach out to ALL people. I loved hearing the testimonies of everyone. No matter their language they were able to share their love for the Lord. And.... we had a family reunion! Sister Mullins was their as well as Sister Nudd, and sister Argo. okay so it's super complicated but basically Sister Payne (my comp.) trained Sis. Mullins, Nudd, and Argo. But sister Mullins and Argo were "born" together or came out together. and Sister Nudd and I were "born" together... but Sister Mullins trained me. so..... My "mom" and my "grandma" had babies at the same time but the babies are sister.... get that? ha no? it's okay it's really complicated. But we got family photos ;) 

Oh our Neighbor Sister Frankenfield gave us Flowers this week. She is so sweet! I will attach that pic too. 

Okay So interesting story of the week... We got Anti'd... hard core. We had an meeting with an Inv. and he had a very sincere desire to know what we believe. Then he got into some anti material. He is friends with one of our Less actives we have been working with and this week he started tearing her and her faith down in a big way. She called us crying more than once. So we went and consoled her and thankfully she told us that even when he tells her anti material her heart keeps telling her this church is true. We met with them on Saturday night to "clean up" and help our Less active remain strong.  We had a lot of answered prayers from the spirit. we were able to stay calm and testify of our savior Jesus Christ and We found out that he does not believe that our Heavenly Father always answers prayers and he does not feel that baptism is something that needs to be done. We did invite him to be baptized and he is thinking about it. The worrisome thing though, is at the end of the lesson he gave us a paper that had "43 things that are wrong with the Mormon church".  Our ward mission leader took a look at it and is trying to help answer some of the falsehoods about the church. At this point we do not feel that our investigator is still sincerely interested in our beliefs, but we do feel that if we don't keep meeting with him to answer his questions he will continue to tear our less active down.He went on to tell us we have been brain washed and that we ask people to pray to Hypnotize them and make satan make them feel good because we are part of the devils church. He really understands so little about the Book of Mormon and how it adds to the testimony of our Savior, it doesn't take it away at all. :/ We are sincerely hoping his heart is softened. I will be the first to admit that there are worrisome things in the past history of the PEOPLE of the church. And that is the exact problem. The bad things are with PEOPLE not the Gospel of JESUS CHRIST. So let people give us "bad examples or stories" of the Church.... With that I want to challenge everyone that does that to also bring forward a "bad example" of Christ's Doctrine. I promise you that you will not find one in our Church. We follow Jesus Christ our Brother and our Savior. We try to emulate his life everyday. People make mistakes that has been seen throughout all of history and it will continue to be seen, but God does NOT make mistakes. I testify that this Church is true it is set up on the same foundation that Christ established on the earth in his life. If you have questions on this I encourage you to read the following attached talk, it is a wonderful explanation of the blueprint of Christ's church. Of the truthfulness of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day saints I testify in our savior, brother, and friends name, even our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.

I love you all

Love Sister Jenn Franzen

PMG followup: Did anyone get a question answered in Ch. 5 of Preach my Gospel? I highly recommend 2 Nephi ch. 31 as a way to answer lots of questions. If any of you do not own a Book of Mormon and you would like one please do not hesitate to ask me for one. I would gladly send one your way. I know that it testifies of Jesus Christ and I know that it helps us grow closer to our Savior when read Along side the Bible. Both testify of his life and ministry and both are vital to understanding the Savior's sacrifice and atonement for us. 

Much love to all!