Franco, Matthew

Dear Friends and Family, This week a lot of miracles happened and I do mean a lot. for the big one, we were able to baptize Ravi and be able to confirm him a member of the church of Jesus Christ of latter-day saints. We were also able to invite one of our investigators to watch the baptism and be able to attend church. We set some strong goals from branch council and we are excited to help and grow the branch. The end goal is to have a temple here in Guyana and allow the members here to do temple work for their families. Overall, it has been a week of miracles, we were able to travel to zone conference this week safely. Sister Lamprecht made us Cafe Rio-style food and it was so delicious! then we had the actual conference and President Lamprecht gave a wonderful council about the "why" of everything we do and how Jesus Christ is at the center of it all. His talk stood out to all of us we wrote a lot down. Then we rode on the Battle bus and head back to home. Everyone in t...

Dear friends and Family!   This week has been a week of miracles for us here in Guyana. We have been working hard and with the spirit to move the work forward and seeds are starting to grow! First, we were able to put a kid on date for baptism on the 29th of this month and we are super excited. His name is Ravji and he is a super nice kid and wants to be baptized. Next, we found an entire family of people who want to learn more about the restored gospel. That's a miracle that we are super happy it happened!   We traveled far this week and it was worth it. Guyana is beautiful and I love it every single day! I'm able to understand what people are saying now, so I feel confident more in lessons and in teaching. I have felt the spirit strongly this week. I have been studying a lot and I have gained a new perspective on the basics that I already know in my heart. One common thing I found here in Guyana is that it's hard for people to forgive one another. One of my fa...

Dear friends and family,   It has been a CRAZY week here in Guyana and I'm ready to spend a year and two months here! So me and Elder Jenson have been working in the area a bit and founded some strong potential people who are interested in the gospel. the Branch here in Rose Hall and Port Mourant is big but still needs a lot of strong priesthood leadership in the Branch so we are working to build up the foundation. A lot of the members here are super nice and like to feed us a lot. there is this nice sister named Patsy and she makes great food, like SUPER great food! I had to take a lot of it home to the apartment because the portions of food in Guyana are massive, I was only able to finish half before I had to stop and take a moment haha.   I think the craziest story though is on Wednesday when I feel in the trench. Before I go any further into detail, Mom, I'm okay and all of my things are okay, the trench wasn't deep. anyways, back to the juicy details, we we...

Dear friends and Family, It's been a wonderful weekend here in Guyana and I never could be more excited to work in the vineyard. a lot of changes from my previous mission in colorado springs so I will give some interesting facts about Guyana today! facts- 1.) there is a lot of mosquitos here.- lots and lots of mosquitos. Combine that with a lot of lizards and spiders! Thankfully I have bug spray and the Lizards are pretty harmless. don't know about the spiders though.  2.) We only use one Phone for now.- So some of you know that they recently allowed missionaries to bring a personal phone. your personal phone is used only for studying and listening to music. we use a phone that the mission gives us to do all of our work on! the new mission president said that could change in the future but we will wait and see. so when my personal phone connects to a wifi source, it automatically blows up with a tone of messages and notifications LOL! 3.) the mission covers multiple ...

Dear friends and family,     Hey guys, sorry I didn't write on Monday! I was preparing to travel to my original assignment which is the trinidad and tobago port of Spain mission! My area is currently in guyana ( thats where all the English elders go) and its been a wild ride so far!     I was kinda stress through this entire day but looking back on it, I'm not prepared to wax even stronger in the lord and willing to help the people in guyana who are very nice and kind!     This was a short report but I promise a bigger update on pday ( which is still Mondays!) I can't wait to spend 14 months in my original assignment to cap off my 2 years of service to the lord, fingers crossed we can get a stake in guyana, its mainly just branches.     Talk to you all soon! Sincerely, Elder Franco