LOVING IT!

Hey everybody!  Another week in paradise and helping other people to get there!

So.  I got a new companion.  He is the greatest.  Here's some background:

Elder Flores is a Marine!  He's 18 years old.  He came on his mission like 10 days after being in Iraq for 6 months!  How bizarre is that!  He told me about boot camp and stuff and they put you through hell there!  He's got so many stories.  I just listen to all of them with my jaw on the floor.  So anyways, he was baptized at age 13 and went inactive ever since.  He joined the Marines and he had to choose a church to attend and as he looked down the list he saw the Mormon Church.  He thought "I think I was baptized Mormon..."  So he went there to the branch and the branch president told him he felt that he needed to give Elder Flores a blessing.  When he did so, the branch president said some things that Elder Flores hadn't told anyone and he and the branch president started crying. The experience kind of freaked him out and so he never went back to the Mormon Church after that.  He was then deployed and he forgot about it all, but his branch president found his number and called him every day he was in Iraq.  After a particularly hard mission a catholic priest found out he was Mormon and gave him a book of Mormon.  He opened it up and the first things that he read were Moroni 10 verses 18 and 19.  They spoke to him and changed him.  He told his branch president and they ended up talking about missions and he decided he wanted to serve.  He approached his commanding officer to tell him he wanted to serve and it turned out that his commanding officer served one too!  He was mormon!  So in the end some strings were pulled for him and here he is with me serving in Kerman California to bring other souls to Christ!  He is so great and full of energy!  He loves his mission so much!  Haha he's just on this spiritual high all the time and he loves the environment!  I have loved being his companion so much!

So yeah.  There you go!  We've already had some crazy experiences together and we are planning on many baptisms and a lot a lot of finding the prepared!!  Haha I am so excited!  Elder Flores is like I just got a shot of caffeine straight into my veins! Everything is so spiritual and fun to do now!  Man, I hadn't realized how different companions affect different parts of the work!  I'M LOVING IT!  We'll let you know how our adventures continue to roll!

Love you all! Thanks so much for the continued support!  Christ lives!  He loves us!  He is in the details of our lives!  Find Him in your everyday lives!

Elder Frame

"sprinting to the finish"

Another great week on the greatest adventure of a lifetime!

 We had a great baptism for Jose Luis yesterday!  He finally got baptized!  It's been 8 months coming!  We had a great lesson that morning because we received a call from him that morning with him saying that he felt really sick and that he wouldn't be able to make it to church and his baptism.  We went right over after he told us that and we talked to him about his situation.  He said that he hadn't been able to walk straight because he was dizzy and queasy since his baptismal interview the day before.  We talked about faith with him and then asked if he wanted a blessing.  He said that yes and I anointed him and Elder Matienzo gave him a blessing.  Elder Matienzo told him in the blessing that God would take away the pains from him if he showed faith and went to church and to his baptism.  After the blessing we talked again and he kept telling us "but what if..... or what if...."  I told him after hearing a few of those that having faith would mean going to church and just moving forward with what he committed to do:  be baptized.  He decided that that was right and told us that he'd see us at church.  At church we waited to see him and when he walked up he beamed at us and told us that he didn't feel sick at all anymore.  Then he blamed it all on the chamuco(devil).  Haha it was a great day for him and it'll be an even greater day next Sunday when he receives the Holy Ghost.  He's great and he just wants to go to the temple, so we're working on getting that to happen next week after he receives the Holy Ghost!  So great to be in the service of the Lord!!

Transfers also happened this past week and Elder Matienzo will be leaving me in Kerman.  AND I'LL BE TRAINING!  I wanted to do that so bad!  My last two transfers will be with a brand new missionary and I'll be able to help him see how his mission can be such an amazing life-changing experience for him and those he serves!  It's going to be my "sprinting to the finish" for my mission! Just going crazy trying to help this missionary become better than I ever was!  I'm so excited and I hope he's coming ready to work because that's all we're gonna be doing!  So great!!

I love my mission! I love this church! I love my companion!  I love my investigators! I love my members!  I love Jesus Christ!

Elder Frame

Cool Members here in Kerman!

Jose Luis's baptism!

A few photos!

This was a service we did!  It was pretty sweet!

Dear Jackson,

THANK YOU!

From myself and all of the staff here at the Red Cross I want to thank you for the hard work and dedication you showed this Saturday at our Home Fire Campaign Event in Madera.  Together we made a huge impact that morning and I want you to know that your work is greatly appreciated.  By visiting 80 households we were able to install 120 free smoke alarms and replace 14 batteries to families in need.  That means that we assisted 250 people on Saturday, and all with a workforce of 34 volunteers!

Of course, I must nod my head to the most amazing team from Saturday, Team 3, who were our Golden Smoke Alarm Winners!

Congratulations to Lonnie, Alejandro, Jackson, and Jerry—you guys rock!

Temple pic of the zone!

This is when we high centered our car going through a vineyard to find a member's home...  So yeah.

That's Tlayuda.  Mexican pizza original from Oaxaca.

happy birthday carter since it won't get to you until after your birthday!!!

Hey everybody.

I've been thinking a lot lately about what the purpose of life is.  Deep right.  So anyways here's some study things that I've been chewing on all week long.

1- John 17:3  "And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent."  The only thing that we need to worry about in life is getting to know Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ.  How do we get to know who they are?  By learning about them.  By being like them.  Experiencing what they do and what they think is how we become more like them.  That is why it is life eternal.

2- So why is it so hard to just be like them?  We should just be constantly reading, constantly upping our "be-like-god" game.  Why can't we just always choose to be better, be like Him?  Two reasons: First reason: Satan. Second, "The natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the Atonement of Christ the Lord......" (Mosiah 3:19)

3- Mosiah 3:19 connects my first two study points.  The Atonement. AT-ONE-MENT.  Literally the joining, the at-oneing, of two things that were estranged.  We can never on our own "at-one" ourselves with God.  You see these parallels.  We needed someone to ATONE for us. We needed someone to AT-ONE us with God.  Jesus Christ.  We all want life eternal with God.  Jesus Christ made that possible through His Atonement.  We just have to choose through our obedience and repentance that we truly do want it.  Think about it.  Repentance is the process through which we access the Atonement to intercede for our bad actions.  As we repent, or in other words change our actions and will to be more like Gods, we use the power of the Atonement to at-one us with God.  Each time we repent we get a little more closer to God.  Not only spiritually, but in who we are too.  This is what Hugh Nibley has to say about that: "It should be clear what oneness is meant by the Atonement-- it is being received in a close embrace of the prodigal son, expressing not only forgiveness but oneness of heart and mind that amounts to identity, like a literal family identity as John sets it forth so vividly in chapters 14 through 17 in his Gospel."   We literally are becoming as God is as we repent.  It not only cleans us but exalts us through the process.

I could go on for a lot longer and I did have more I wanted to say, but I'm out of time!  I love you all!

Elder Frame

1 My companion was bored during planning, thus this pic was born.

2 A small tortuga that I held.

May 2, 2016