Week ending December 9th, 2014

Tis the season...To be oh so Jolly! this was an amazing week! Jill was BAPTIZED!

Ah! Look how happy she is!!!! THIS IS WHAT IT IS ALL ABOUT! I Love seeing the joy on peoples faces from knowing they are making a promise with our Father in Heaven! Jill has wanted this for so long! So this was a crazy last week... I will do my best to fill you all in:

Monday- We met with 6 people and that is crazy in itself with walking and getting rides to places. We started Jill's family history this night... We found out a week ago that we now get to go to the temple with recent converts if they take their own names to the temple... so we have been working hard on that. 

Tuesday- On Tuesday we went and saw a lady in our ward that was in the hospital... It was super sad. She was in-abated so she could not talk or anything... She got double pneumonia.... she made it through and is doing much better now though! Miracles! 

Wednesday- Sister Bunker and I have got a new investigator her name is Felicia and she is awesome and so sweet, we found her through Sacred finding using He is the Gift (which I hope you all have watched) anyways she told us about her life she met with missionaries over 10 years ago but that was for her kids. she is 10 years clean of being a Heroine addict and 2 years clean of being an alcoholic and she is working on getting off of cigarettes, anyways we knocked on her door and she said: "are you Mormon Missionaries?" and Sister Bunker and I are like yes and she told us to come right in, we showed her He is the Gift video and she loved it, we  also taught her parts of the restoration and the Plan of Salvation she then asked us for a Book of Mormon. she then gave a us a referral for Gigi her neighbor who is moving she asked us to come back and to teach her because she wants to know more. that was on November 29 we have now met with Felicia and met her neighbor Gigi, Gigi asked us to help her move so we did Friday and Saturday before Jill's Baptism so Friday we went over there and started to help her move. Gigi's parents were there and they are 80 years old and lifting boxes and we were trying to help them and telling them both to sit down because they have both been through surgery recently (Gigi's mom had surgery on her back Gigi's Dad had surgery on his knee) SO... we were cleaning and sticking stuff outside and Sister Bunker looked in the window and saw this spider that was massive! She took a closer look at it and it was a Brown recluse... We went inside and started to move plants where she had seen the brown recluse and Gigi's mom is picking up stuff left and right and I was like: "Mrs. Gardener you might want to be careful we saw a brown recluse"  She is the sweetest old lady in the world and she said "what's a brown recluse" Sister Bunker told her is was one of the deadliest spiders in America and she like "ohhhhhhh well where is it" and sister Bunker was the like "I don't know it moved but please be careful" and well she moved the plant and low and behold there is this huge brown recluse sitting there it was massive so I grabbed the dust pan for the broom and I whacked it as hard  as I could it took that spider 10 hits to die and Gigi's is like oh yeah I have had these spiders showing up all around my house Sister Bunker and I look at each other and we said: "they're not just any spider its a brown recluse Gigi they are super poisonous" well we lifted up the rug where the brown recluse was and guess what this time it was not a brown recluse but a black widow... great Sister Bunker and I are trapped in a poisonous spider infested house..... We cleaned her place well and that Friday night we killed 4 brown recluses and 3 black widows oh the things missionaries do out here for service is crazy!!!!!!!!  so we went back on Saturday and helped finishing moving we killed 6 brown recluses and 4 black widows we said a prayer asking Heavenly Father to keep us safe in the spider infested house ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

after we had done service we went to the church and prepared for Jill's baptism it was amazing seeing her finally be baptized it has been a long time in the making it was great we filled the font and made it warm and tall enough so that we would not have the same mistakes that happened at Doug's baptism hahahahah

 Sorry I just sort of skipped from Wednesday to Saturday will all the info on Gigi and Felicia... Anyways it was an awesome week! Sunday we went to the first presidency devotional and it was WONDERFUL! If you did not get a chance to watch it... do it!

So today we went to the temple! So cool... Sister Bunker, Myself and a brand new sister got to go for Minnie, Clara, and Forrest Risdon... Three Sisters. It was cool that they all got to get their temple work done together as sisters even though they are not able to do it on their own now. After the temple we went to down town Edmonds with some other sisters and took some pics... it is a WINDY day! whew! It has been an awesome week! This is the last week of the transfer... I am praying so hard that I can stay here in Edmonds and continue training Sister Bunker but if not I understand. I can feel so many changes happening. I am loving walking everywhere, Sister Bunker and I are reaching more people and we are doing things that have never been done before! It has been difficult but so rewarding... ha we both have talked about how we could spend the rest of our missions in Edmonds with no car and be perfectly happy... there are so many amazing people searching for the gospel on the streets and now we get the opportunity to talk to them more!
This week in training we really focused on effective planning and time management. Sister Bunker took the lead in contacting the Ward mission leader, leading planning sessions, as well as teaching opportunities... She is really coming out of her shell. She is becoming bold with a part member family we have been working with and she really connects well with them. I really believe that reviewing effective planning really helped us out this week. We are continuing to have many members help us with teaching, but this last week was different. We did not just take members to lessons with non-members... we took members to lessons with members, recent converts, less actives, and non-members... This is really helping us to be accountable for our work as well as helping build the members trust in us. It has been So fun to see Sister Bunker grow so much in the last 6 weeks... I really pray I will be able to see her progress through the end of training.
 I love working with Sister Bunker and I am learning so much from her. She and I have both felt so blessed and protected this last transfer and our faith has grown a lot. We have 4 recent converts we are working with to get to the temple! So there are Lots of miracles happening in Edmonds!!!! 

More pics to come later! 

I love you all!
Love 

Sister Jenn Franzen

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