Tornado Lane

Howdy y'all!! Last p-day was pretty busy and I didn't get a chance to write my email so I'll quickly sum up last week. Monday was a normal pday and we had a lesson with casey. Tuesday we passed out flyers and tracted for a while. Wednesday we had English class but we missed it, Thursday We did more tracting, and on Friday and Saturday we did a whole bunch of community service at a super old farm that was sick! I'll put pictures down below. Sunday was insane!! So usually tornadoes don't touch down in the DFW metroplex, but this time one did! The wind started at 25 miles an hour and the rain was torrential! Lightning was striking at least twice every second! We had to stop working and head back home, but the weather was messing with our power so we'd have like split seconds where the power would go out. Luckily the tornado didn't hit Grapevine. And that's about it for last week.

This week has been pretty crazy too! We got our transfer info yesterday, and I'm gonna be leaving Grapevine and heading up to Fort Worth with my new companion, Elder Sheets. I'm gonna miss grapevine, but I'm really excited to go to Fort Worth and speak spanish and teach there.

This week we tried to find more people to teach and started saying goodbye to everyone. Y'all have a great week! I love all y'all so much!

Love,

Slder Francis

1. Tornado _4062

2. The OG Farmer and I- 1283

3. The squad -2359

4. Pumpkin Patch kids -7017

Crazy week

This week has been pretty crazy!!! We went on two exchanges and got 3 more baptismal dates! The lord is really moving the work along here in Fort Worth Texas! I don't have a lot of time this week, so I'll just bare my testimony to y'all about the book of mormon.

I know the book of mormon is true, I know that joseph smith translated it correctly, I know that the more we share the gospel with others and the more we teach people about the book of mormon the happier we will be in our life! I love this gospel, and I love being able to share itwith others.

I hope y'all have a great week, and I love y'all so much!

Love,

Elder Francis

1. Exchange with my man Elder hunter!

2. Zone Leader on preperation day

3. Another exchange with THE Elder Peterson

Texas!

I MADE IT!!!! I don't have a lot of time to email today, but I just wanted to let you all know that I made it. It is so beautiful here! I'm serving in Grapevine right now, and it's half english half spanish kind of deal. We go tracting in Spanish, but we have most of our lessons in English. My trainer Elder Galmeister is awesome! He really knows how to teach and love these people. I know I will learn a lot from him. The work here is cruising! We are teaching around 6 people which is pretty good for this area I guess haha. I'll have to write more next week, but I have some pictures I'll put down below. I love you all so much! And hope you have a great week!

Love,

Elder Francis

Me and elder ashcraft

A mop that Mexicans use to sweep there porches. If you see a mop outside you know they're Mexican.

And me and my new companion Elder Galmeister

Letter from the office

Hello Parents!

Thank you for sharing your missionary with us! We love them already! We are excited to get to know them better as we work with them and visit them.

We will have a wonderful evening eating a great Texas meal of brisket creamed corn, baked beans, rolls, green salad and of course Texas sheet cake and ice cream!

They will spend some time getting to know President Chapman and his wife.

You will hear from your missionary on Monday, which is their Preparation (P) day.

Thank You,

Sister JoAnne D. Davis

Drago

It has been a pretty great week here at the Provo MTC!! I don't know what the weather has been like at home, but it has been beautiful here! The days are like low 90's, and the nights are like 70 or 80, sadly we go to bed before most of the stars come out, but right after our 9 p.m. class I look up at the sky and see 1 star every night as I walk back to my dorm. I absolutely love stars because it helps me think and know that God exists and He is out there and He created everything. All things support that there is a God.

This week has actually been pretty crazy! My companion, Elder Ashcraft, has had stomach problems for a year now, but they have started to get worse at the MTC. So he asked President Durrant for a blessing and I was able to participate in that on sunday, which was an awesome spiritual experience. But President Durrant said that he should still get it checked out at the MTC nurse, so we went. The appointment felt really long because I had to sit out in the foyer but it was only like 30 minutes haha. The doctors didn't really know what it was though so they gave him a perscription that wasn't available at the MTC so we got to leave the campus for a while, which was way cool!! But the doctors also said that if his stomach doesn't get better this week he might have to stay at the MTC for an extra week and if that doesn't work they said hr might have to go home, which would be the saddest thing. Elder Ashcraft and I have grown to become really great friends and I would hate to have to see him go home. I know the Lord has a plan though, and I know that whatever happens Elder Ashcraft will be able to help many people come unto Christ. 

Besides that nothing super exciting has happened, but I did make a new friend named Drago... it's a spanish name... But Drago followed us around one day and would just come sit by us haha, at first the hermanas in our district were creeped out by him, but they later learned to love him because he ws way cool and super funny!! He just gave the funniest looks and it would kill us hahaha. Love that guy, but he's gone now, so I'll attach a picture of him for all of you that want to see him, he's like the coolest dude ever. 

Elder Ashcraft and I also got stuck in an elevator hahaha, but you'll have to email me personally if you want to here that story, because if my mom finds out she'll kill me hahaha.

That's all for this week, and I probably won't be able to email next week because I'll be getting to the Field on Tuesday!! I'm way excited to get out there! And I will write all about it in like 2 or 3 weeks! 

I know this church is true and I know Joseph Smith saw God and Jesus Christ, I know he translated the Book of Mormon correctly. I know the book of Mormon is true, and I know that we will come closer to God by reading and studying this book more than by reading or studying any other book! I love you all so so much and I know God loves you. Have a great week!!! and I would love to here from you!!

Love,

Elder Francis

These first three are of Drago!! The second one is me and elder langton with him. 

And the fourth one is is of this awesome chandelier that has the earth in the middle of it!!

NBA Star Devin Durrant shook my hand!!

Well, it has been an amazing week in this beautiful place!! The weather has been really really nice, its been in like the high 80 or mid 90's all week! It's actually kind of hot when you wear church clothes all the time haha. This week our former Branch President, President Bankhead, was released after 4 years of serving in our branch, which was sad but I'm glad I got to meet him.

Our new Branch President is The Devin Durrant, for those of you who don't know who that is he's a BYU basketball Hall of Famer, who served a mission and played in the NBA for the suns and the pacers! But coolest of all he spoke in general conference three times!! do any of you remember the Ponderize talk that was given a couple years ago? Yeah that's him!!! He is honestly so awesome and so humble. He is a great man, and I hope I can learn a lot from him with the rest of my time here! But he's seriously like 7 feet tall, I am already kind of short, but when I stand next to him I look like I'm his 2 year old son haha. 

So have you guys ever seen Nacho Libre? Well We're teaching this Luchador from Mexico right now for TRC! haha. His name is Benji and he is so cool!!! His spanish is way fast and is way hard to understand, but he's so cool it makes up for it haha. His hair is like 3 feet long and I can just see him wearing a mask and a cape to fight in a ring hahaha, honestly tho he's way cool and I'm glad I can help him learn of our father's plan

Thats all I'm gonna write today, if you want to hear more you can email me. I love you all so much and I know this church is true! Have a great week! :)

Love,

Elder Francis

These pics are awesome haha 1 is my comp sleeping and the other is mission pride all of us with our flags. The last is of Ronald our investigator. 

Ronald Weasley?

What a week!!! Well... Not a lot actually happened this week, but at the same time a lot of stuff happened... It doesn't really make sense, but if you think about it like really hard for a couple of days then it'll make sense. But Elder Ashcraft and I had the opportunity to teach Ronald this week for TRC!!! I mean it wasn't Ronald Wesley, but it was this guy named Ronald Brito who is like at least 10 times cooler then Ronald Wesley. Anyways we were teaching him The Plan of Salvation for our third lesson because our second lesson was actually surprisingly good!! haha. But this one did not go as planned. We got stuck trying to explain to him what the plan exactly was and when we had finished explaining it we had 10 minutes left so we had to either hurry or cut out some of our lesson, so we decided to cut out some stuff from our lesson, but by doing so we got the Giggles!!!! For those of you that don't know what giggles are, they're these terrible, tiny, little bugs that tickle your stomach and make you laugh.. how they get in your stomach??... I have no idea, but they're terrible! We started laughing and I couldn't stop! I knew that if I kept laughing then the spirit would be taken from the room and the whole lesson would be ruined!! Haha. So I said a quick prayer in my mind asking for the spirit and right when I said amen the giggles went away, and we were able to teach the rest of the lesson.

After the lesson Ronald thanked us and complimented Elder Ashcrafts Spanish and his native tongue, and I'm sure he felt obligated to compliment me on something because he turned to me and said, and you're... learning. So I laughed, but he was nice and assured me that my spanish was coming a long and that I was learning fast. Which definitely helped, because my teachers tell me that Spanish people are really nice and love hearing from missionaries that don't speak the language very well, probably because it's really funny to listen to somebody butcher a language haha, but they also said that they appreciate it when people try, but I'm pretty sure they just think it's funny.

This last devotional we were privileged to hear from Elder Walker, a member of the 70's who served his mission in Japan. He told us how we can become better missionaries and shared a lot of scriptures that I know will help all people come to the Lord. I am so grateful for all of you and the great examples you are to me, and to all others that meet or even see you. I know this church is true, I love it with all of my heart. I am so grateful for the sacrifice that God and Christ made for us, I am so grateful for the opportunity we have to repent of our sins every day, and the opportunity we have to partake of the sacrament every week. I can't wait for the Spirit to testify this to the people of Fort Worth Texas, and I also hope that the Spirit has testified this to all of you and if it hasn't don't worry, if you study have faith and try hard it will come in the Lords time. I love you all so so much and I know God loves you. I hope you all have a great week full of service and fun! I can't wait to hear from all of you and I will try my best to respond. Peace out for now, stay cool.

Love,

Elder Francis 

President Nelson touched my shoulder?!?

Okay, before you guys get super excited in wanting to hear my story with President Nelson, I need to tell you that it might not be exactly what you think it is.So this last Sunday we had a devotional given by Elder Zwick, and before it started I had to get a drink of water, So Elder Ashcraft and I went to the top of this chapel area and got a drink. On our way back to our seats we got distracted talking to each other and I had to slide past these two older gentlemen. When we passed each other one of the men put his hand on my shoulder and in a soft loving voice said, "Nice to see you again." Or something like that, I mean I had never met him before so that's probably not what he said. So I whipped my head around and looked at his bright blue eyes, nothing came out of my mouth so I turned around and continued to walk away. Finally I could speak again so I turned to Elder Aschraft and said, "Was that President Nelson!??!".... It wasn't president Nelson, but it was Elder Zwick!! He had touched my shoulder and talked to me, and I had just stood there like an idiot haha, but it was okay because he gave an amazing talk that filled the room with the spirit.

How was your guys's 4th of July?? Here at the MTC they late us stay up late and watch the fireworks, which was a little disappointing, IF's fireworks are amazing and they made this show look so small haha. But it was okay, were celebrating our countries freedom so all is good haha.

Now I am going to tell a story that I want all of you to read as if you were reading a scary novel that was written in the 1700's... It was a dark and stormy night! The wind was blowing and the stars were shinning! I lay there in my bed asleep until the unfortunate happened. I hear a shriek!! it was my companion Elder Ashcraft. He yells in Spanish as if he was in a dream! With a look of terror on my face I ask in a timid, childish tone, "Elder Aschraft? are you okay?" to my surprise he answers! "Yeah, I'm fine. Are you okay?" The room fell silent and we all slumbered once more... we woke up the next morning and all was fine, except Elder Ashcraft was dead!!....... asleep, he was dead asleep, but the alarm woke him up and all was fine once again.
I hope that story didn't scare you too much because it was actually pretty funny when it happened. The moral of this story is that Elder Ashcraft will sometimes yell in Spanish while he sleeps, which makes two sleep talkers in our dorm! Elder Hughes is the other sleep talker. But I think we can liken this story to a scripture... I mean I don't know how we could, but I'm sure we could, so if you guys think of anything email me and let me know.

Now to more Spiritual things.This last week I had the opportunity to do my first TRC, which stands for.... actually I'm not sure what it stands for haha, but it's where we get to go and teach a member or a non-member in Spanish. Elder Ashcraft grew up in Cali so he's almost fluent in Spanish and I am so bad at it hahaha. I remember trying to participate in the conversations but I couldn't keep up with there native tongues. There was one lady that we met that started talking about Forrest fires, but I couldn't understand her very well, so I would look at her mouth and if she smiled I would give a little laugh and nod my head, and when she had finished talking about the fires she gave us a pity smile, so instinctively I laughed and nodded my head, which I quickly learned wasn't the right response because she gave me the weirdest look and the room became quiet for a bit. Luckily Elder Ashcraft could understand her and started the conversation again, but I think that lady might think that I'm some kind of pyrotechnic serial killer. Other then that the TRC's were great!

Even though it's really hard to be here learning a new language, it is soooo worth it! And I wouldn't trade it for the world! I have met so many people that I have come to Love as Christ would love them, and I am so excited to share this gospel with others. Like Lehi when I feel the spirit I want to share it with my family, or my spiritual brothers and sisters, so they can come back to there God and Savior, and so they can feel the spirit and know these things are true just as I know these things are true. I want all people to live with there families together forever and I hope that the Lord will soften there hearts so the spirit can witness to them the truth of this wonderful gospel.I love you all so so so much and I think of you all every single day, I hope you all know that, but more importantly I hope you know that your God loves you, and He knows all of you and cares about you. I hope you guys have a great week, and I'll write more later.

Love,
Elder Francis

Also If you guys want to email me, I can read emails any day so feel free to send those because I would love to hear from you, but I can only respond to you guys on my p-day which is Wednesday. Also sorry for all the pictures and there quality, I didn't know how to send them last week so there are a lot hahha

Hola Y'all

Holy Smokes!!! it has been one exciting week!! The first moments here were pretty scary, but I got the hang of it after a couple of hours haha. I remember getting signed up, putting my bags away, and going to my first class, which was pretty scary haha. When I walked into the class, the teacher came up to me and said something in Spanish, and I had no idea what he said so I muttered something like "bien" which I guess was the wrong answer because everyone started laughing at me haha, but after that it got a lot better. I'm definitely not the best Spanish speaker, like guys I'm not even close haha... but I know the Lord has a plan and he'll help me learn Spanish so I can say what I need to say.

Anyways I have an awesome district and an amazing companion! he's from Fresno, California and his name is Elder Ashcraft. He is also the district leader so I guess that makes me the Vice district leader haha. We have language study for 8 hours everyday and spiritual study for about 2 hours which really isn't a lot, so I'm way excited to dive into to the gospel and lose myself in the service of others! I really can't wait to go to Texas and be among them, and feel the love that the Savior has for them! 

As newbies we're the subjects to all of the pranks haha, which stinks, but it's honestly kind of funny. The older Elders told us about an Elder Barron who had anxiety issues and who also spoke no English haha, so he would yell at us and get mad at us if we spoke any English to him or if we pronounced his name wrong. They also told us that he would call a shower without anyone knowing and if you woke up and got into his shower before him he would just climb in there with you haha. Which was pretty scary, but I din't think  it would happen to me. And the next morning in the shower room Elder Barron walked in on someone and they yelled so loud!! and it scared all of us greenies so bad! we were so scared to take a shower the next morning haha, but that night Elder barron came up to us and was like hey guys I'm popping popcorn does anyone want some haha. They got us sooo good! Another time we all left our room to take a shower and somebody closed our door and locked us out! So we had to put on our dirty close and walk to the front desk to get a new key. which was super embarrassing, but it's good haha.

Honestly though the spirit is so strong here and I love it so much! I try so hard to be exactly obedient and feel the spirit. And I try to study as much as I can. There's one scripture that I've been thinking of lately that I want to share with you guys. It's Moroni 10:5 it's really short, but super powerful! And I hope you guys take some time to read it. I just want to end by baring my testimony.... I know this church is true! And I love it so much! I know Jesus Christ lives and I know that he is the son of God. I know Joseph Smith really did see our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. And I know the Book of Mormon is true. I love and miss you all so much! And I can't wait to here from you and see you guys again.

Love,

Elder Francis :)