More Franklin style miracles

Aloha!

This week has been wonderful. We were able so see miracle after miracle and felt that God truly was using us as instruments in His hands to do His work. Elder Dodd has a week left of his mission and it is admirable to see that he is trying to give all he has to the work before he heads home. I pray that I may follow his example and give the Lord all I have when that time comes.

Anna came to church on Sunday! We met with her on Friday night at the church with John Woodbury (best member missionary on this planet, he is a YSA), and her daughter who we are all trying to work on (including Anna). We watched the Restoration DVD and Anna was crying half the time. She felt the Spirit very strong and we committed her to come to church again so she could take the sacrament and prepare to renew her covenants when she gets baptized. Well she ended up coming to sacrament meeting with Sister Woodbury (John's mom) and she was crying half the meeting! It was the father's day program and it was just perfect for her. She knows now that this is where she needs to be and she can feel the Spirit when she comes to church. She is making progress on smoking a little each day. She has almost completely quit coffee (fist pump!). We are predicting she will be baptized in about 2 months from now.

A Miracle we had this week:
For the past several weeks, when we have appointments set up with new investigators and bring a member out with us, the investigator never is there or doesn't answer the door. So we take the member with us to several potentials and hope we can teach with them so it isn't a waste of time for them to come out. Well this week we took a youth in our ward (Jake Johnson) who just sent in his mission papers out with us to teach a new investigator who, of coarse, didn't answer. So we started to take him to a list a potentials to hopefully teach and while we were on our way to on of our potentials I looked over at a another potentials house who I thought wasn't super solid and his door was open and his trucks were in the drive way, so we decided to give it a shot and try him first. 

Well he came outside to talk to us and we ended up chatting with him for about 50 minutes (about 35 of those minutes we just listen to him tell us about the chaos that was going on in his life). Turns out he had been sent home from work for the next 6 weeks due to anxiety attacks that he was having. He had never had it before so he was really distraught about it. He is one of those guys who is never not moving and working so he expressed to us that he felt that God had allowed this to happen to send him an important message. Well as we talked and taught him he told us that he felt that God had sent us to him to tell him what he needed to hear and agreed to be baptized and learn more. He told us to come back whenever cause he has six weeks at home. It was great because Jake was able to bear his testimony a couple of times and see an awesome miracle in his own community.

If you could all keep Crystal Smith in your prayers this week that would be much appreciated. She is having heart problems right now and is pretty down. She is suppose to be going to the temple with us this Saturday, so we are praying the doctors can get her well enough that she can go.

Also another amazing miracle that happened this week. One of my favorite investigators from Crossroads (Amanda Culvahouse) has been battling addictions for the past three months and this Saturday she will be getting baptized with her three beautiful girls (Sierra 11, Selena 11, and Clarissa 13). Amanda and I have been texting and calling each other from time to time to keep her motivated and keep her going on the right track. We both struggle with anxiety so we were able to really connect and I am able to help her with her thoughts cause I have gone through the same things. 

On Friday night I received a text from her saying the following: "I'm not sure what y'all's rules are, but I know I seriously need to talk to you in person. I have prayed about this and this is the second time God has said I need to turn to you for help... I don't feel that I can get baptized Saturday before I talk to you." So on Saturday we went up and talked with her and it turns out that she was just having anxiety about some doctrine she was confused about, and she needed to understand some things. 

So we talked to her and the coolest thing happened. As we taught her some of the doctrine, it finally clicked with her and she said she now felt that it all made sense. She told us that for too long she had been ignorant and just listened to what the missionaries had to say because she felt that God had sent them to her but never really put in the effort to learn for herself. Those past few days she decided to really study and search for herself and in response to that she felt her prayers answered. She is ready to go now and is bearing her testimony with vigor. 

I am a witness that there are certain people that God puts in our path to help. I have been given weaknesses so that I can relate to individuals on a more intimate level. God loves His children and if we can be faithful to Him and listen to His promptings, He can use us to do His work. God led Elder Dodd and I in that meeting with Amanda. He was there speaking through us to her and it was a memory that will be burned in my mind forever. Glory be to God, for He is creator of all things and the Father of our Spirits. I know He lives and loves us. Christ is His Son and has given us life. He hasn't left us alone. He uses each one of us to help each other and lift them.

Well I love you all so much! Thank you for your love and support.

Sincerely,

Elder Young

Franklin 2.0

Hey Everyone!

WE FINALLY GOT TO TEACH A SECOND LESSON TO SOME PEOPLE!! :D The famine seems to be passing and we are now teaching two families and an awesome young man. We have seen some amazing restoration lesson miracles with these families we are teaching. You can feel the Spirit so strong as we teach and the best part is seeing their reactions to the Spirit and the change that takes place in a 20 minute visit. Without a doubt, it is the Spirit that does all the teaching, conversion, and changing. We are simply the vessels in which the Spirit can do it's work.

This week we had the opportunity to do some service at the Woodbury farm. They have a beautiful property and John (a YSA who has been our biggest help) has his farm on the property and sells fresh produce. He was out of town so we helped his mom harvest different plants and get them ready to sell, it was a great time :) The cool part about John's farm is that he does a thing called Aquaponics which is a system of aquaculture in which the waste produced by farmed fish or other aquatic animals supplies nutrients for plants grown hydroponically, which in turn purify the water. So he has these huge tubs of fish who fertilize his plants and in turn his plants are actually super fresh and organic. 

Anna is doing well, she is struggling with smoking but we keep supporting her and she keeps giving her effort to quit. She went to church last week but didn't like it... The more we talked to her about it, it turns out that she has been have such grand spiritual experiences the past several lessons and during a church tour that she was expecting something even bigger. So when she went to church and didn't feel like she was being translated, she was disappointed... So we talked to her about how we aren't always going to have those great special spiritual experiences but we should continue to be faithful so that they can continue.

Well I love you all and thank you for all you do.

Sincerely,

Elder Young

Continuous fun in Franklin...

This past week has been a whirlwind. To tell you of the irony we have experienced I wish to quote my lovely companion on the ride home from transfers:
"Hey, maybe this transfer we won't have such a rough start! (Talking about me having a TIA warning stroke, living in Greenwood for two weeks due to the sisters taking out apartment, and having to move everything around with apartments).

Haha we let me tell ya... on the way home about 20 minutes after he said that we got rear-ended on the free way (not our fault) and it was a hit and run... so we had to deal with all that fun stuff and then about two days later I got really sick and thought I was experiencing similar signs of another TIA so we went to the hospital at 2 in the morning and they informed me that I never had a TIA but that I was experiencing sleep paralysis the first time and the second time I had inner ear congestion from allergies which caused me to have some vertigo... So they put me on meds for that but I feel like my head is as light as a balloon and I feel nauseous all the time. THEN two days after the first car accident after transfers, while I was picking up my meds from Walgreens, I backed up the car and as I closed the door and Dodd started to pull forward an old lady backed into our car....also not our fault. 

THEN on preparation day while at a zone activity, I went to lunch with a good missionary friend of mine who is one of my district leaders and he told me of some disobedience that went down in the zone. So we called President and he ended up ending their preparation day early (ours too) to have us all change and meet him in the city for a meeting. So we lost most of our preparation day to hear President chew out some missionaries in our zone. hahaha it has been a CRAZY week :)

Right now we are working with our investigator Anna. She was also another miracle who has come along slowly but is making great strides and is shooting to be baptized on June 20th. We found her our first day in the area and she was the first door we knocked. Today she told us in our lesson that she had actually prayed that day that God would help her because she was having a hard time and was at her wits end. She has progressed slowly but very steadily and it has been so cool to see how receptive she is to the Spirit. The change that has taken place in her is amazing. She is working on quitting smoking and if you could all pray for Anna that would be awesome. She needs all the prayers she can get.

This work continues to move forward, we notice that the Lord leads us from day to day and we are right now "pruning the vineyard." We do lots of finding and stopping by potentials trying to get people to progress past the first lesson. We are excited to see some of these people progress here soon.

Thank you for all your love and support, if you could keep Anna in your prayers that would mean a lot!

Sincerely,

Elder Young

A picture and sweet text!

We got this text from a family in his area yesterday: 

(Elder Young) is such a good missionary! He does the right thing at the right time! He is very good!!! Elder young is very serious and diligent. He is recognized for his hard work here In Franklin. But today and during off times he is silly and fun! What a great boy you have raised!

Continual fun in Franklin

Hello Friends!

Last Saturday we got to witness the baptism of Crystal Smith. There was such a strong spirit felt there, so strong that the members that got up to speak were brought to tears just talking about it. It was so great to see that the Lord is preparing His elect all over the earth to come into the fold of Christ and aid Him in the final stages of His great work. Crystal has also been doing some family history and almost has some names all ready to go. President Hilton talked to her at the baptism about temple work and after that she was so excited to go and you could tell she felt a sense of urgency to help bring salvation to her deceased ancestors. We are in the works of setting up a temple trip with the ward mission. We will probably go in the next 4 weeks. Elder Dodd and I were so happy for her and it touched our hearts and made them soft and mushy ;)

Speaking of Elder Dodd and myself, we got transfer calls and we will both be staying. Elder Dodd will spend his last transfer in Franklin before he goes home. We have set some awesome goals that will stretch us this transfer, but we can already see that Heavenly Father is laying the groundwork for us to accomplish those goals as we focus on them and pray about them daily.

It was great to be able to talk to my wonderful family last Sunday night. I sure love those goof balls :) We talked about the mission and some of the great lessons we have learned, but the majority of the time was spent talking about all the girls my parents wanted to set me up with from my dad's campus ward he is the bishop over... haha. I was pretty nervous when my parents said they had girls for me to date, but I must admit that they have pretty good taste! :D

Well I love you all so much, thank you for your faith and prayers. Keep serving the Lord and giving it your all. I know Christ lives. He is my Redeemer and King.

Sincerely,

Elder Young

No email this week because...

We had such a great visit with Jake on Mother's Day! We didn't get to facetime until 9:00 pm his time, 7:00 pm our time but we got to visit for a couple of hours and it was great! We had some great laughs about the girls we want to line him up with, some serious talk about life post-mission, and some really great spiritual insight about the spirit of the Law and the Holy Ghost.

He is doing GREAT! He only has 4 months before he is released but he promises he isn't trunky. If anything, he's scared. :) He loves being an ambassador for the Lord.

This is a tiny recap of one aspect of our conversation: He's doing so great!! He did express to us that at the first of his mission he needed to live the letter of the law and as he grew and matured as a missionary and learned the true purpose of the law, he can now live the spirit of the law as guided by the spirit. And just recently this was confirmed to him by his mission President. So that was cool. :)

More fun in Franklin!

Hello Everyone!

This week we have seen great miracles and at the same time been tested and tried. I am in awe of the mercy and love of God. He knows His children so intimately and even more so He cares for them amidst all their shortcomings and struggles. If we can open our spiritual eyes and go out into the world, we will see that God is everywhere and is working with great "urgency" to save His children. 

There are so many experiences we have had this week concerning this concept but one I would like to share. We had another busy day of appointments and things that needed to be done and so we set aside some time to have some "power finding" which consisted of us setting hourly goals for our finding so we could get the most out of our finding with what little time we had. The previous, we set a goal to teach three lessons for one particular hour and get a new investigator. We set a goal for 3 total new investigators for that day. 

As we went out and started tracting, we only had about 25 minutes to accomplish our hourly goal before our next appointment. We prayed for divine help and then began knocking. Within 20 minutes, we were able to teach three lessons (including showing the "Because He Lives" video) and get three new investigators with return appointments for the next week. Elder Dodd and I were in shock and elated to just witness such a compact miracle. We thanked God for His great power and mercy.

Concerning some of the people we are working with, Crystal Smith is doing awesome. She didn't make it to church yesterday because he knee gave out when she got up and had to spend a good portion of the day in the hospital getting everything taken care of. She is doing much better and is still blazing down the trail to baptism. 

Our other investigator who was going to get baptized on the same day ended up flaking out yesterday. Armando is from Honduras where it is part of his culture to drink coffee. He has been a beast in overcoming drinking and other addictions but when it comes to quiting coffee he just isn't ready to quit yet. As we talked to him we could tell he is scared to commit with the fear that he will mess up in the future and drink coffee again. So he didn't come to church yesterday, and instead went to another church down the street from his house. He still wants to meet and we know that he will get baptized soon, it will just take time :)

There are amazing people we are meeting almost daily here in Franklin so we are excited to see these amazing individuals progress towards baptism here this week. On Sunday we definitely had a refining day. Everything that had been set up had fallen through, we had three people who were suppose to be at church but only one came, and we had received bad news after bad news. 

Also amidst all of that, both Elder Dodd and I are still recovering from our sickness and Elder Dodd got a huge burn on his leg from sliding on gravel into 2nd base in Kickball at MLC. So we had a great day :) It was cool to see though, that once everything had fallen through, we could have easily just went and taken a nap to help mend ourselves, but we felt this was the Lord testing us and so we went out and tracted and contacted some individuals and we had an amazing evening! We definitely felt that the Lord had people He wanted us to contact that night and because of it we have some wonderfully solid new people :)

Well I love you all and thank you for your love and support. Your examples and loving encouragement keeps me going.

Sincerely,

Elder Young