Franco, Matthew

Dear family and friends, This past week has been incredible. We had an amazing mission conference where the area seventy came and talked to us. His name was Elder Villaneuva and he has an amazing spirit! His wife, Sister Villaneuva is amazing as well! Elder Jenson said I look a little like him and that we are related lol.  Also this past week, I celebrated my year mark with my companion. We had pizza for dinner and I made a post full of pictures. I don't have a lot of them but I will take more pictures! I will close with my testimony that missionary work is hard but the most rewarding work we can do on earth! We like to go Onward always Onward to bring the spirit into more peoples lives! I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ Amen. Pictures: Me with the Villaneuva ( are we related? You decide) Me and Elder wright. This is his last transfer and he's been an incredible example to me, Elder Jenson, and all the other missionaries.

Dear friends and family, Another week has flown by and it has been incredible! The biggest highlight of the week was towards the end when our friend Daniel was baptized on Sunday. We have been teaching Daniel since last month and he has been prepared by the lord. The challenge was to put him on date! We met with him a week ago to finally settle on a baptismal date for the 19th (which was yesterday). the baptism happened and it was amazing. I was able to confirm him as a member of the church as well. Later that day, President Hussain was able to give him the priesthood as well, so we have more priesthood in the branch! we still need to find more to help the branch grow and be able to become a ward. miracles happened all around us this week and we were so happy. One final thing is that I'm hitting my 12-month mark this coming Thursday, hence the title of the email. I want to tell my testimony of my mission as I make my way to the halfway mark. Missions are super hard! You have t...

Dear friends and family, It has been a big minute! A lot has happened this week, some of it was amazing and some of it was sad. Let's get the sad out of the way first. We were going to have a baptism yesterday and I was going to do the baptism, but sadly the person who we were going to baptize fell into bad habits at the last second and it was sadly canceled. But make no mistake, there was a lot of good this week! First we found a lot of people for our teaching pool and I'm excited to see many of them progress. Majority of them live in a small village called Kildonan and others live in the near by town call bush lot. The people here are so humble to hear us, it felt really good teaching all of them! I want to end with my testimony that I know that the gospel is restored on the earth and that through latter day prophets, we can be guided. I know the adversary exist but God is mightier and will do many miracles unto the children of men. I testify that the book of Mormon is the so...

Dear Friends and Family,     I'm going to keep this email as short as possible so I won't make you guys bored lol. This week has been great and weird at the same time. Let's start with the great, we were able to put 2 people on a date for baptism. It's super exciting for me and my companion Elder Jenson because we strongly feel that the branch needs to grow in order to survive and turn into a ward by 2025. Next great thing is that we caught another alligator! Well not really caught one, the zone leaders were given this alligator from a member so they decided to cook it. The thing is it was still alive and they didn't know how to gut it. So they gave it to us! We named him Luke ScaleWalker and he was our short-lived pet until we killed him and stored the meat.     That was all the cool stuff. Then the not-so-cool stuff happened. I got a flat tire on my bike and took an hour and a half to fix. we invited a lot of people to church but only a few came. Its okay though, ...