Week Ending December 16th, 2014

Hello Friends and Family,

This last week in Edmonds was wonderful. We saw a lot of progress with our recent converts that we are working with. The only down side was that we had to drop all of the other investigators that we are working with.... but that is okay we are here to find the elect and there will come a time when those individuals will actually be ready. We had a lot of fun this last week. We had our mission Christmas party and that was a blast. We made videos with our zone about Christmas. We got to watch them at the Christmas party. Some videos were meant to be super goofy and some were serious. Over all though they were super good. President and Ssiter Choi gave us Christmas presents and they were super kind. The sisters all got little pencil bags made in Korea that are super cute. The Elders got special "Seattle Washington" ties... such a cute idea! I tried to see if there was extras to get one for dad... but there wasn't :/

So before I talk more about my week let me answer the long awaited question... was I transferred? Yes... Sadly I was... Oh I miss Edmonds already. BUT! I am in an area where there are HORSES EVERYWHERE! So that makes me pretty happy! My companion and I white washed our area. Yikes... this should be fun. We are in Redmond, Duvall area. My companion's name is Sister Miller, and I am no longer training. :( Super sad about that but that is okay! Sister Miller has been out for 3 months and she is actually a Russian speaking missionary. She is reassigned to English for right now with me. She is also short... like me ha ha. oh another fun note.... She had Gall-stones! What are the chances? She had to have her gall-bladder out a week ago though... poor thing.  We have no clue who is in our area or anything ha ha but we are going to find out... new adventure right? Heavenly Father really likes keeping me on my toes.... Sister Bunker is an amazing missionary and I am so thankful that I got to be her companion. I am sad that I won't be able to continue training her... being a trainer really helped me understand so much more about my call and it really pushed me to be the missionary that I have always wanted to be. I am going to do my best to have the same mindset in Duvall. I want to remember that others are always looking to me for an example... so what kind of example am I setting? I am excited to work with Sister Miller. I am excited to help her to get excited to participate in English work. I know that is makes her nervous but this is going to be a good transfer... I can feel it. 

So my last week in Edmonds was heaven. I love Edmonds so much... that place is really special. I have loved Seattle, Bellevue, Shoreline, and now I will learn to love Redmond :)

Oh on another side note I went to the back doctor and physical therapist this last week for my back from the crash... new fun development... I have a gap in my spine and I pulled a muscle in my neck and strained a disc... so I am going to physical therapy to fix it. I thought my back was stiff because of muscle tightness... turns out there was a pulled muscle... weird. I have to sleep on my stomach, use a lumbar support when I sit, and I am not allowed to bend at the waist for three weeks... apparently that will fix it... Since then I have noticed that my posture is getting MUCH better ha ha. (hidden blessing?) The pain has gone down and life is returning to normal! Hallelujah... 

Sister Bunker and I sang in church on Sunday! We sang O holy night acapella and last minute ha ha... some lines we messed up a little bit but over all we did well! The ward seemed to really love it! Speaking of music...

We got to go see the Ensign symphony last night... We went to a performance called "what child is this"... SO GOOD! We got our transfer calls while we were there... Jill was with us. Her son Ryland talked to me on the phone this morning and said "Sister Franzen, I don't want you go to... I will miss you!" Oh my heart broke... cutest six year old ever!

Another one of my favorite families in Edmonds came over the minute we got home last night to give me my Christmas present since I won't be with them :/ I am always cold at their house so they got me a super fuzzy and warm blanket.. so cute! This is a part member family and the mom's daughters are not very religious. One of the daughters went to Deseret book and got me a necklace that says "Forever Sisters, Forever friends" She about killed me. I love that ward so much. I almost spent half of my mission there... hard to think my time there is up. It was hard for me to pack ha ha I have not done it in so long that I almost did not know where to start. I had an entire suitcase full of Gluten free food from the ward ha ha (They love me!) Oh Edmonds... I will dearly miss it... but Duvall is great... I mean there is horses! I can't ride them... but our white handbook says nothing about petting them!

I can't think of what else to say right now... My planner is in my suitcase at our new apt.... so I will have to see what else I missed. Okay so Christmas is next week.... so I will not be emailing on Monday... So sorry for all my friends and family that are not my parents... Mom and Dad I will be skyping you on Christmas day... Since I don't know the ward yet, I don't know what time. Just know that I will call one of your cell phones before hand... It will most likely be the afternoon or evening ish... I love you all so much and I hope that you have the most merry and bright Christmas possible!

Merry Christmas!

I love you all so so so much!

Love, 
Sister Franzen

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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Week ending December 2nd, 2014

So this was a great week! I learned a lot this week. This was a week full of so many lessons. The week after the car crash I really wasn't sure how we were going to make this area successful.... It was pretty disheartening at first and I was trying very hard to not get discouraged. I knew that I needed to be a good and strong example for Sister Bunker, so instead of letting myself get upset I tried to do something new. We really went sacred finding... not just walking from 5-7 and knocking here and there... but really putting zeal into it. We sang as we walked from door to door and talked about spiritual things. We practiced what we had learned in training and really made it an effort to be a missionary 100% of the time... Training was very helpful this last week. Everything we learned this last week fit right in with what we are teaching our inv. and recent converts. We really focused on the temple and family history work. I am so excited to be able to go toe the temple this next week in behalf of my ancestors who are dead... I love FAMILY HISTORY! So we had a visit from a member of the 1st quorum of the seventy this last week named Elder Falabella. I loved Elder Falabella's visit. Here is what I loved: (These are three questions we were asked to follow up with and I thought I would share them with all of you.)
1. What is the thing you learned? Something that really stood out to me was that obedience isn't the motivation for success... obedience is the result of motivation to be successful... Now I will explain why this was important to me.
2. What is your special feeling about the thing you learned most? So above is the statement that Elder Falabella made about obedience but what I got from it was not his words... It answered one of the questions I took into the meeting... I have been praying really hard to know how to be a good trainer and help Sister Bunker to be a great teacher... It hit me with Elder Falabellas comment that we just need to work. I don't need to get worried about how to help her become a good teacher... all the role plays and time with the two of us will do nothing if we are not teaching. We just need to continue to be motivated and talk to everyone. The more we talk with EVERYONE the more her teaching skills and our teaching together will improve. So that was really comforting to me, it helped me to see that I am on the right track and I just need to keep listening to the spirit and taking the opportunities to talk to everyone.
3. What is your commitment cased on your learning and feeling during the conference? My commitment to myself is to not let people walk by.... The Lord has given me an amazing opportunity to talk to more people. I want to take it. I don't feel unsure, scared, bitter, or anything else about the crash... I am grateful that I have the chance to walk where Christ walked and to open my mouth to all who will hear me. I am also grateful that we are able to involve members more in the work.
Sister Bunker is really growing a lot, she led teaching the plan of salvation this week and I could really tell that she has a deep passion for this gospel.
I know all things are in the Lord's will and I actually see us walking as a blessing. We got a new investigator this week that lives close to our home (We used to drive away from home for finding) We also contacted her using He is the Gift and She loved it and wants us back this week! We are already seeing miracles from Walking the path of Christ. So On Thanksgiving we all met together and sang songs... Sister Bunker and I sang a duet for the mission acapella... who knew I would do that??? ha ha I will sing just about anywhere now ha ha We sang How great thou Art... oh I love that song. Our mission president told us we must be really sure of our voices to sing acapella ha ha... um .... just didn't have anyone to play the piano...
We had a great thanksgiving dinner with a family in the ward... then we had another dinner... and then another.... ugh sooooooo full! but It was a great night... This week we learned about a new imitative the church is doing called HE is the GIFT. Here is a link to it... I encourage all of you to watch it so you can be reminded of why we truly have this Christmas season.
http://www.mormon.org/christmas
I love the Christmas season. I love the reminder we get to focus on the true Gift of Christmas.. our Savior.
Our Inv. Jill gets baptized this saturday and I cannot wait for her! She has been waiting for this for so long! it will be a great week
I love you all and I hope that you all stay warm.. ps. it snowed here this week... brrr....
Love you!
Sister Franzen

Thanksgiving Day... We all matched... (one of my fav. Members... Blanca Abrego! Put her on the list of people to meet mom!

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Week Ending November 24th, 2014

God is so Good.... It is so simple, and it simply comes down to that.... God is good. This week was another one of those trying weeks of my mission. Thankfully it was not caused by Kidney stones... Instead this time it was caused by a car accident. Last Monday right after emailing all of you, my companion and I were in a not so wonderful car accident. Thankfully everyone walked away from the crash... except carl (our poor car). The Car we hit also did not walk away... :/ But the Lord is good and every child of God DID walk away! There were a lot of miracles seen in this. Since the crash we have had 4 people confide in us that on the day of our crash they felt that they needed to offer "extra" prayers specifically in our behalf, and for our safety. From how badly our car was crunched... I'm going to go on a limb and say we definitely needed those extra prayers.

So that was our Monday... A good chunk of our week was spent trying to recover from the crash... unfortunately. We did get to teach a lot though and our Investigator Jill is all set and ready to go for her baptism interview! Ah Miracles!!! Other then that we are kind of starting from scratch.... We have a lot of finding coming up in the next few weeks... So here come the fun little side note to our car crash... We no longer have a car... and we won't either... Both of us aren't allowed to drive now so... we are bus missionaries as long as we serve together ha ha wahoo! Thank goodness I took the bus all those times in DC! phew! 

We are working with the ward a lot to be effective in our area... It is really big and no one really lives by us ha but it will work out! We have members that are taking us out 7 and 8 pm each night which is good. (our mission pres. told us we are not allowed to go out on our own after 7... so we HAVE to have members with us.)

So we have a lot of things coming up and I am about to embark on a new kind of missionary work.. I will keep you all posted...

In Lieu of the Holiday season I thought I would share what I am most thankful for:

I am thankful for:

1.Family

2.The Gospel

3. priesthood blessings

4. my education

5. A roof over my head

6. A living Prophet

7. Electricity

8. Angels protecting us

9. My friends in DC

10. The scriptures

11. My ancestors

12. sunsets

13. my health

14. Trials

15. transportation

16. Food

17. The Holy Ghost

18. technology

19. my sight

20. My savior

21. Rules that keep us safe

22. Religion

23. Freedom

24. socks

25. my CTR ring

26 Email

27 Music

28 Cellos

29 babies

30 art.... preforming and visual

31 my testimony

32 my childhood

33 work

34 examples

35 patience

36 guidance

37 protection

38 my hands

39 books

40 clothes

41 cameras to capture moments

42  hot chocolate

43 changing leaves n the fall

44 snow

45 Christmas lights

46 the Nativity

47 Hope

48 Doctors

49 chances

50 opportunities

51 history

52 the future

53 Sister Choi's cooking

54 science

55 temporary family (ward members)

56 My companion

57 sleep

58 a chance to study each day

59 learning

60 listening

61 Flowers

62 laughter

63 cats

64 Dogs

65 Allergies? ha ha came to my mind

66 family car rides

67 vacations

68 reunions

69 fasting

70 prayer

71 communication

72 highlighters

73 notes

74 chocolate

75 MINTS

76 my bedding made by people I love

77 hospitals

78 caroling

79 games

80 letter writing

81 libraries

82 testimonies

83 My Father in Heaven

84 My siblings

85 My parents

86 my feet

87 pajama pants

88 Coats... lots of cute coats

89 pain

90 joy

91 love

92 sorrow

93 eternal life

94 baptism

95 Repentance

96 teachers

97 faith

98 expression (freedom of)

99 my identity

100 The little things

What are you thankful for? I love you all SO much!

Love Always,

Sis. Jenn Franzen

Happy Thanksgiving!

Week ending November 17th, 2014

This was an amazing week in Edmonds! I have so much to tell you all!

So I wrote a stickie note because I have so many things to say ha ha so bare with me... 

1. So our Recent Convert Doug had a tough week this week.... His wife is sick in the hospital with 3 different staph infections... and this week she also got pneumonia.... :( The poor guy his late wife Shawn had an infection worsened by pneumonia and that is how she passed away :( So it was a bit close to home.... I felt so bad. This man that I have come to know and love was going through so much pain and he was crying... hard... and all that Sister Bunker and I could do was stand there and tell him we were there for him :/ I learned a lot from that experience... Satan fought Doug hard the day of his baptism... All of his family cancelled coming to see him getting baptized at the last minute and one of his cats passed away that day... So the poor guy had a rough day but he was determined to make his promise with God and so he was baptized.... I realized this week though that Satan DOES fight us to not make promises with God... but not has hard as he fights us to break our promises with God. It is so much worse to break a promise and curse God then it is to never make a promise... So even though we do our best to follow God and make promises with him that DOES NOT mean we will be trial free! Satan will CONTINUE to try and tear us down and we cannot let him! We have to hold to the strength of our promises with God and Not let Satan win! Doug was an amazing example to me... while he was standing on his porch in tears he kept saying : "I am just one man.... one soul... why does Satan feel that he must fight me so hard? I know he wants to tear me down... but he isn't going to... I just want to stand up and fight him" I hope that we all get the strength that Doug has and choose to stand up to Satan and not let him win. \

2. Our Investigator Jill quit Coffee this week! She told us that she prayed to know if it was something that she needed to do... and she quit a week ago and never told us! She told us that she is "ready" for baptism and she has been waiting for this for a long time and she can't wait for December 6th! Aw i love her and I am SO excited for her... She deserves so much happiness in her life and home and I know that the Holy Ghost in her life will really help with that. 

3. So we were in an appointment with a new investigator on Saturday and we were answering his questions. We let him know that we do tours of our church and he asked when... We let him know that we can take him on a tour whenever he wants and he then said "can we go now? " we were so surprised ha ha no one has ever asked to go on a tour right then and there... so we got in our car and he followed us and we gave him a tour of our church! He loved it and really felt the spirit. It was a great opportunity to help others to know more about what we believe and what our Sunday services are like. 

4. So We have a sister in our mission named Hermana Pier (Spanish sister) Her Father Passed away on Saturday night... She is the third sister in our mission to lose a parent. I can't even imagine what she is going through and feeling.... We were in a meeting though and she stood with confidence in front of a crowd of 700 people and testified of the importance of families and how she know that she truly will see her family again because of the restored gospel and the authority given to bind families together for eternity. She spoke powerfully and with so much love. It really touched me and It made me think a lot of my family and how grateful I am to have them I know that I truly can be with them forever and I know that God is watching over them while I am away. I love this Gospel. I love that no matter what happens to my family while I am on my mission, they are mine forever. This is a promise and gift from my loving Heavenly Father and I truly will be able to see them again not only in this life, but for all of eternity. The strength of Hermana Pier and the two other sisters that have chosen to STAY even though their families are going through a difficult time is such an example to me. I am so grateful for my family and I am so grateful that Death loses it's sting and has no power of families.... Death is temporary.... Eternal life is not... I am thankful that this will never be the end. 

5. so... training is hard... ha ha so good but hard. Training really pushes me to be so much more diligent and obedient... i really honestly think this is the most obedient I have been on my entire mission... I have tried to be obedient my whole time... but training and being the first example a missionary sees... has really pushed me to be on my best behavior.

6. Johnaton Fellah Tengbeh!!!!! I got to see Johnaton last night! I have not seen him in over a year! Oh it was sooooo good to see him! If anyone wants to know what Heaven will be like I will tell you! Think about your family.... now think of those people who are not blood relatives... but you love them so much that they are without a doubt your family.... now think of not seeing them or having any contact for quite a while.... Now imagine them walking into a room full of people that you also love..... you can't help but so loved and so full of joy! AH!!!! Heaven will be the BEST family reunion ever! With no drama... just Joy :) I found out that Johnaton is doing sooooo good! He is now TEACHING a Sunday school class at church! Oh I am so happy for him :)

7. I am learning a lot about helping my companion. I have not ever felt homesickness before and it is very difficult to know how to help with something you have never felt but I am turning to the Lord and we are having a great time! 

8. I am learning A LOT about Christ and how he taught... Christ did not have to say much... He was an example to all. I have a quote on my planner that I love right now... It says : "At all times proclaim the gospel... and when necessary... use words" That is what I am trying to apply to my life. 

Okay funny things that happened this week:

1. So Sister Bunker and I were headed to an apt. We got there early so we were waiting for the member that was coming with us... and well our inv. came outside got int heir car and left.... We were confused so we texted them to see if we were still meeting. well we told them we would be a little late since the member was not there yet.... 2 min. later our inv came back... Because we told them we were going to be late we tried to hide in our car. We were hiding behind books and we had our hoods up... well it did not work ha ha oops... they saw us and just laughed and laughed that we were hiding. 

2.So also in the car... Sister bunker left her water bottle in the car over night. She pulled it out to get a drink and it exploded all over her.... The cap built up pressure and when she took it off... water.... everywhere... Way funny. I felt bad but she just laughed it off ;0

3. So apparently I have a second cousin out here... and Elder Hillman... It is Aunt Sally's Nephew... He came up to me and said :"are you sister franzen? I'm your second cousin... you have cousins name Tyler and tori franzen at u-dub?" I was so shocked... so that was fun. 

4. I got asked if i was a nun.... again.

So this week was awesome! i love you all and I hope you have a great week! 

I love you all!

Love Sister Franzen

Week ending November 11th,2014

HELLO!!!!! SO Sorry that you did not all get a great letter last week... I will do my best to make up for it this week :) You will all at least get plenty of pictures this week :) So like I mentioned last week... I am a trainer! Being a Trainer is a LOT of fun... but it is also a LOT of hard work ha ha. I don't think I have ever had to be so careful about what I do or say ha ha... I don't want to explain something wrong and then have her do something wrong the rest of her mission ha ha... Not likely because she is awesome... but that is my fear. 

I miss Sister Vander Hoeven a lot  But sister Bunker is a lot of fun. She just turned 19 in sept. and graduated from High school in June... I'm So OLD! ha ha but she is a lot of fun. :0 this will be a good transfer

This was a wonderful first week of the transfer. Sister Bunker is an absolutely amazing missionary and she is so on fire and ready to get to work. She really taught me a lot this last week about recognizing the spirit. While completing 12 week (our training program) this week I really thought a lot about how every missionary can benefit from the principles in 12 week no matter how far they are into their missions. We all need to go back to the basics to become better teachers.... and honestly all members can benefit from going back to the basics of how to share Christ's gospel with others.  I hope to study from 12 week the rest of my mission. Being a trainer really has made me think a lot about what kind of example I am being and it has pushed me a lot. We are using role plays more in companionship study and I love it. I am able to see the benefit of them at this point in my mission, and when you have fun with the spirit it makes the whole difference. I feel as though what we are learning in training is not only helping Sister Bunker to become familiar with what goes on in the mission field, but I also feel as though it is re-igniting my flame as a missionary. I have not felt so energized and powered up since a few months ago. I have not lost my flame but her excitement for the work is so contagious. I love that each conversation is so spiritual with Sister Bunker. She doesn't focus on home even though she is homesick, but instead wants to know everything about everyone in Edmonds. She is a fire ball missionary. 

We saw so many miracles this week... our Investigator Doug got baptized! I want to share a message he sent to us..."My confirmation and receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost in today's service was very powerful... To the point of overwhelming. I definitely felt the power of the laying on of hands on my head. i am so excited about the journey I have embarked on with our Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost. I am ready to live the life and spread the word of god by my words and actions. Its been a very intense two days ni my life. I want to say i am at peace fore the first time in a  long time. I thank you for your guidance and your continued support. I feel so good.- your Brother Doug "

AH He is soooo amazing! I am so sad that Sister Vander Hoeven could not be here to see it but I am happy that she is serving in my greenie area.. that is an awesome place to be. Sister Bunker feels a little out of place with week because no one was expecting Sister Vander Hoeven to go.... But The ward will come to love her just the same and the work will continue moving forward :) 

Our Investigator Jill is on date to be baptized in Dec. and I am so happy for her... She wanted to choose a date that was important to her and us as well... so she picked dec. because she loves the month. Dec. 6th will be her baptism, Dec. 7th will be her confirmation (the 6th is sister bunker's mom's Birthday... and the 7th is my dearest grandma's birthday :) Special all around) She came to Doug's baptism and she feels so ready and excited for her own! Ah miracles... I LOVE being a missionary... I love seeing peoples lives go from so awful to so extremely happy. The Gospel of Jesus Christ truly heals all wounds... Jill and Doug are both testaments to that! 

So sorry I am out of time... again... i don't know where the time goes! Just know that I love you all and I am so excited to write you more next week!

Love you all!

Sister Jenn Franzen

Week Ending Nov. 4th, 2014

So sorry I did not email this week.. I have to make this soooooo short... 

so... God pulled a fast one on me. We had transfers yesterday and I did not get a phone call saying I had a special assignment or anything so I didn't prep for anything... got to transfers and my name popped up on a board saying I would be training a new missionary.... I was NOT expecting that one ha ha but I am really excited to see how this next transfer goes... I was the only trainer that did not get a phone call ha ha you should have seen the look on our assistants face when I stood up... He realized he never called and got soooo red it was hilarious but there is a reason i'm sure and God has a plan.... 

My trainee's name is Sister Bunker and she is awesome! We had a great lesson with one of our inv. last night that wants to be baptized but is scared about quitting coffee and so she has not set a date... well my awesome greenie took charge, promised her blessings and BAM she is on date! oh miracles! Also we are having the baptism of a lifetime on Saturday.... We have an inv. named Doug that has not been with organized religion in 30 years... has changed his ways came back to God... is so committed to the Gospel now and is waiting till sat. He chose sat. because it is nov. 8th and the number eight is an infinity sign... and he wants it to represent his "infinite promise to God" .... ugh GOLDEN! best part... he has 11 cats... 11! my last recent convert had 9 and they are now best friends! The one with 9 cats (todd) has been showing doug the ropes and is helping him prep for the priesthood! Miracles.. I am in the same area... At the end of this transfer it will be 7 1/2 months of HEAVEN! I love Edmond sooooo much! I could stay here the rest of my time.... So that is my quick update I love you all and I will email more next week! I will send Halloween pics next week too.... Sister Vander Hoeven and I are... Hillarious... so stay tuned. 

Love you all!

Sister Jenn Franzen