Franco, Matthew

Dear friends and family, Last week was the last week of the transfer! The transfer sheet dropped Saturday and Elder Sheffer and I are staying! Linden has been a wonderful experience and I can't wait to have more adventures. We had a okay week. Elder Sheffer got sick so we had to stay inside for a few days but it was all good because we were able to work through technology. The district leaders of the Georgetown district came up and spoke on Sunday and it was a cool experience to hear their testimonies and be able to help our branch leaders.  Spiritual thought: we were listening to the previous general conference talks and today we listen to a faithful search rewarded. Its really good talk and it focuses on people finding the fulness of the gospel. It made me think of how I'm contributing to these people's searching and how I want to help them so much to take them to the next level. The gospel does wonders! Overall it was a good week, love yall! Sincerely Elder Franco

Dear friends and family, This week Eon was baptized! Eon is a young boy who was found through a part member family and Elder Sheffer and Elder Bailey were teaching for awhile. I had the privilege to set his date with Elder Sheffer for the 19th of February when I got to Linden. Watching this young man's progression was so incredible and he was no doubt prepared by the Lord. It was a great week because we were able to find our new friend, Leslie. He is an elderly gentleman and we taught him the restoration and he had a good experience when he prayed to know what we shared was true! This week also had a few challenges come up. Our branch president, President Ramdeholl and his family got sick so it was for them to help us. We were able to give them blessings and they were happy that we were there to support them.  President Ramdeholl and his family invited us to their family home evening tonight, I will let you know in the next email How it goes! Spiritual thought: my studies were focu...

Dear friends and family, This week has gone by super fast! First, I found out that I got an ingrown toenail! I was surprised because it wasn't my big toe but my ring toe. So I had to go to the doctor and get it taken care of. My toe is looking better now. I had to stay indoors for a couple of days.  On the big bright side, we got to listen to a Devotional for the carribean area! It was done by Elder Nielsen of the seventy and Elder Soares! They gave great council and they shared with us lessons they learned on their missions. The highlight for this week was definitely our branch bush cook! We held it at a family's backyard with the youth and we cooked hot dogs and smores! It was an amazing experience and I got to connect with the youth. Spiritual thought: President Nielsen shared so wonderful council that stood out to me. He quoted President Thomas S. Monson: "Who the Lord calls, He qualifies." and "When we are on the Lord's errand, we are entitled to his hel...

Dear friends and family! Another week in Linden Guyana has come and gone! We are seeing a lot of progress in our area and I'm super excited to talk about it. First I want to give everyone a quick update about phones in my mission. President Lamprecht has received direction from the mission department that we can no longer use personal phones and we needed to give them to President to hold on to them when we go home. So the phone that I will be using for now on is the area phone. I wanted to let you know because there might be days where I only have a limited time to call and such. Don't worry, I will still be Alive!   But coming back to my area, we have 5 people who are preparing to be baptized! It's super exciting and seeing their progression is a wonderful experience. Two of them are kids, Eon and Aqueema. They are so alive in the spirit and want to come closer to God! The other three are adults: Keoma, Paula, And Kathleen.  Keoma is struggling with a few bad habits but h...