Dear Family and Friends
This week was so amazing! I LOVE working with Sister Thinn. She is such a hard worker and she loves the Lord so much. We saw so many miracles this week. We worked hard and saw miracles while tracting every night. We still had the usual "not interested" and door slams that I have gotten the last 7 weeks here in Duvall, but this week was different! We taught 35 lessons and 16 were other lessons! We got 4 new investigators and two of which accepted a baptism invite. Only one is on date currently and we put her on date this morning in an apt. Duvall is on fire! We received 6 referrals from members and this morning another member asked us if we may come have dinner sometime soon with her and her non member Father. The ward is trusting us and the work is moving forward.
Training is going great! I feel like Sister Thinn came pre-trained. Before we would even discuss training and her focus areas she would bring them up and ask questions. She is so eager to learn and she has such a love for missionary work. I love hearing her testimony of the Book of Mormon and baptism. She is so powerful. I learned so much about the importance of keeping and extending commitments this week. We have people to teach and I have been brought to tears of Joy more then once this week. Miracles are happening and I know it is the hand of the Lord. I love serving here in Duvall. Here is some insight into some of our miracles this week:
Katherine- So while we were out tracting this week we knocked a street with no sucess... We had about 30 min. left of our finding time and we were finishing up the street we were on. We talked to a lady and she told us she was not interested in learning about a church but she gladly accepted the offer to pray with her and let us pray for her sick mother. While we were praying with her her neighbors came home. So after we left her house we decided to go and talk to her neighbors as well. I am SO glad we did! We met this amazing woman named katherine. She is so sweet and so prepared. She told us that she has many LDS friends, one of which has a son on a mission right now. She talked to us about how the family is so important to her and she has noticed a huge focus on families within our church. We shared the Family: a Proclamation to the world with her. https://www.lds.org/
Collinwood Family- so a good half of our area is in the "boonies". Sister Thinn and I have decided as a companionship that when we go finding at 5, we spend the first lit hour in the boonies and when it gets dark we go to lit streets. At first we were scared of this prospect because dang some of those houses look like a man is going to run out after us with a rifle... not to mention there are no trespassing signs and mudd up to our ankles... everywhere... oh ya duvall is an ADVENTURE! Anyways we were tracting and we walked up to this house with a super long driveway... and before we can knock on the door a man answers and he is straight hippie.... first thing out of his mouth: "girls come in, get out of the rain!" Next thing we know his wife is rushing forward with handmade lotions and soaps and telling us "Here is a gift from one christian to another" So not what we expected. We started talking to them, and low and behold... they are looking for a church to go to! They are starting out a farm and building it and we are going back this week to help them build a pen for sheep ha ha awesome... never a dull moment here.
Temple names- Mom gave me names to take to the temple a few months ago and to be honest,.... I lost them. I have been searching for weeks for them with no luck. I really felt pressed to find them today. I searched everything I could think of. I said a prayer and continued to search. Finally I decided to go back to my personal study and search after. I opened the Book of Mormon and started reading about a war of all things and instantly knew where to look for the temple names! Talk about revelation through the Book of Mormon! Booyah! (I will get you the names soon mom ;) )
Mcbride Family- So there is a family in the ward here that I have been praying so hard to see. The mom died suddenly of a heart attack in september and she was in her early early 40's... devastating... anyways, in order to visit them we needed to take a woman over 16 and things have just not been working out for that. Last night we were at a different members for Sunday dinner, and who should join us, but the MCBRIDES!!!! I instantly knew my prayers had been answered and we got to share a message with the McBride family ;) God is so good!
Kassi, Robyn, Gail- These are 3 of our new investigators!!! Best part? They all three met with missionaries before. We knocked on their doors to see how they were doing and without saying hardly anything they all three ASKED for us to come back and teach them more! GOD IS PREPARING PEOPLE FOR US TO TEACH! P.s. we had an apt. with Gail this morning and she accepted a baptismal invite... WAHOO!!!!! Miracles ;)
Ukrainian Family-So this miracle is sort of bitter sweet. Sister Miller is originally from Ukraine and speaks fluent Ukrainian as well as Russian... We knocked on a door and got a 15 year old girl. We introduced the Book of Mormon to hear and we sang her "I am a child of God" We asked if we could come back and she hesitated and then told us her dad was a pastor of a "church of Jesus Christ". Her dad then came down and invited us in.... to tell us that we were drinking posion and damnation to our souls. Mind you all of this was being translated to us because he did not speak english.He said he was a prophet and if we read just the new testament (no old testament) then God would tell us who our husbands would be, and we would not need to wonder... um.... hmmm.... He told us that we don't read the bible and that we did not know what we read.... I tried to explain our Love for the Bible AND the Book of Mormon, but he did not understand. He kept saying that when we read the Book of Mormon "mormon's spirit is behind it and telling us what to do, not God. We tried to share scriptures that talk about how truth comes from God and that He will not ever deceive us... but he would not listen. He finally asked us to leave the Book of Mormon and never pick it up again. Sister Thinn and I realized that trying to explain things to him did not work, and he would not let us share anything from the Book of Mormon... The miracle you ask? We turned to the only thing we had left... our Testimony. We both bore powerful testimony of the Book of Mormon and how it has blessed our lives and our family. We talked of how it testifies of our savior and Brother Jesus Christ. We were able to testify that because of the Book of Mormon we know that our families can be together forever and we know that God's plan is for his children. When we bore testimony it was the only time he looked us straight in the eye and did not need translation from his daughter. I can't explain it but he understood. He thanked us. He then sang us a song and had a prayer with us asked our Father to watch over us and keep us safe. It was a very sweet testimony to me that the spirit it the best teacher. My explanations and historical knowledge of the scriptures can do nothing... but my testimony can. The spirit helped him to know that we do know our Savior and that we love him. He understood that we were not there to tear down his faith but that we wanted to remind him that he is a beloved son of God and that God has a plan for him. It was a very sweet experience.
Dan Vann- Dan vann is an awesome man that we met tracting. We had another night with no success... We had 10 min. left of finding and a dark street. We decided to knock on the doors anyways. Got one door slam and then kept moving. We knocked on one and no answer... so we rang the door bell... Dan answered and he was one of the most pleasant and prepared people I have met. Right before knocking on his door we asked our Father in Heaven to guide us to someone that was prepared and we asked him to fill our mouths with his words. As we talked to Dan we were able to ask him about what Christ's atonement means to him and we had an amazing conversation with him. This led to introducing him to the Book of Mormon, The restoration of the gospel, we talked about the doctrine of Christ and we invited him to be baptized... and... he accepted! He is reading the Book of Mormon and He and his wife plan to come to church this next week! MIRACLES!
AH DUVALL IS NOT DEAD! 6 weeks of door slams has finally paid off! We are teaching and miracles are everywhere!
I have this joke that I have been telling myself and it is coming true... I love it... "I want to finish my mission like abinadi...on fire" ;)
I love my mission and I cannot wait for what the next 4 weeks bring!
I love you all so much! May God bless you all and keep you safe!
Love Sister Jenn Franzen
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