Painesville

Thanks for everyone's emails. I wish that I could reply back to
everyone but it would take all day and we only have a short while at
the library. So the reason I am emailing today is because yesterday we
had Zone Conference and that pushed our p-day back to today.
 Everything is going really good here. At conference yesterday
they told us about a website that the church has made for the month of
December to help get us missionaries in the doors of people. It's
www.mormon.org/chirstmas. Seriously check it out. It is so cool. You
can dowload free music and send e-cards. Will each of you tell people
about this website? Attatch the link to emails that you send, put in
on Facebook... I sound so much like a missionary. Gross! haha. Do all
that you can to get the word out on the website. You can say to people
"Do you like to download free music? Well if you go to this website
you can download free Christmas music." and then they will wander
around the site and get interested in the church and sign up for the
missionaries to come over and then they will get baptized! Perfect!
Also when we are at sites we spend a lot of time calling and
contacting people that are nonmembers and asking them if we can send
them the Church's Christmas DVD Joy to the World. Will each of you
send me names of nonmembers that you know so I can help bring them
closer to Christ? Don't forget to do that! Ok so here's what's been
going on this week:

Tuesday November 20
We had a district meeting most of the morning. I had to play the piano
for the hymns. Stress! After that we went to meet with these awesome
less actives that we've been meeting with. Besty Rodriguez and her two
sons- Manny and Anthony. Love them!! She is really interesting. She
sits and complains to us for like 30 mins about how crappy her life is
and how she needs direction in her life but tells us that she doesn't
need church. Um...hello! She's missing the connection or something.
She will not come to church or read the Book of Mormon. She wants to
take it "slow." Well then the Lord is going to bless you slow. Her
sons are also not really interested in coming back to church. I made a
deal with Anthony that if he reads the BofM for a week straight and
prays for a week straight and keeps a journal of any spiritual
feelings that he's had and he can honestly say that he hasn't felt
anything then we will leave him alone for a bit. So... pray for
Anthony because it's gonna be pretty awkward when he tells me that I
lost the deal. After the Rodriguez family we went over to this awesome
guy's house. The sister's in my area before me found him and we were
going to give him his first lesson. His name is Tommy. He is a 24 year
old CrossFit trainer. (sound familiar?) He also has a cute weiner
puppy named Dirks! Ahh he is so cute!! He isn't fat like Rubes. We
can't meet alone with a guy so we brought along a girl from the
Single's Ward. Tommy wants the gospel so bad. He wants to not feel
guilty anymore. He wants to "get out of the darkness." We tried to
teach him but he spent the whole time asking questions and talking.
The lesson went alright-not great though. The good points were 1. He
invited us to come back and 2. He has a desire to learn more. Oh also
HE HAS A CAR!!!!! That's the biggest problem here in Painesville.
People don't have cars so they don't come to church. We spent way too
long at Tommy's like an hour and a half. He just has so many
questions. After Tommy's the bishop and his family had us over for
dinner. He is really cool. He ran into a deer last week and is looking
for a car. I couldn't remember Dad if you had a store out here or if
it was in a neighboring state or if you had any connections out here
but I gave him your number for help finding a car. After dinner we
went to teach these awesome kids. My companion and her last companion
found them. All they did was give them the Bof M. When we called to
set up an appointment they have already been reading it and were
loving it. The kids are Cynthia-13, Marcos-14 and Maleik-14. They are
great. They want to learn from us. During the lesson Cynthia felt the
spirit and she couldn't even handle it. She kept saying "what is
happening to me?" She was loving it. Maleik said the closing prayer
and it was so cute and so perfect!!!!!!!!! We love them. They also
comminted to being baptized Dec. 29. Pray for them! We want them to
follow through on this. After their lesson the worst thing happened...
Our super solid investigator that has a baptismal date- Kathy called
us and told us that she doesn't want to meet with us anymore. We tried
to figure out what happened (maybe she got anti-ed) and why the sudden
change and she just kept saying "Ya I don't want this." It seriously
felt like someone was breaking up with me. It was so sad. We have been
trying to contact her all week but she wont answer her phone.
LAME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Also remember Misha and Miracle that had a
baptism date? Yep they bailed as well. Oh well. Life as a missionary!

Wednesday November 21
Guess who strolled into the sites today? Erin Blackwell!!! Such a fun
little surprise. She still thought I was in the MTC and she actually
came to see Kylie. Too  bad for Kylie that she isn't at sites on
Wednesdays. I don't remember if I had told you this but each Christmas
sites puts on a huge nativity exhibit. There are like 600 nativity
scenes set up. It's so cool. (whenever I get the chance to send
pictures check out the nativities from Kenya. So cool! They have a
whole Masaii warrior nativity set. They have a building that is just
international sets.) The exhibit has drawn so many people. The sites
have been crazy with tours.

Thursday Novemember 22 a.k.a. Thanksgiving!
Weird, weird to not be at home for Thanksgiving. We were invited over
to the Mcintosh's to eat. It was really nice of them. They had both
parents and then a 30 year old daughter that still lives at home. They
had us write down things we were grateful for and we hung them up by
the window. It was really nice that they had us over. They have the
ugliest dog that kept trying to jump on my lap during dinner.  For the first time 
I felt a bit homesick. It wasweird. I was thinking about how we would all
 go to a movie after we ate and dad would get his popcorn and Austin 
would get 10 sprites.Fun!! After we ate they sent us home with sooo much food. Score!!!!
They had a huge party at sites for all of the site missionaries and
sr. couples. Me and my companion made constuction paper indian
headresses and the other girls we live with were going to be pilgrams
but they backed out. It was fun though to act like kindergarteners and
be indians. We played games and watched the Emma story. The sr.
couples are a lot of fun to hang out with!!!

Friday November 23
Basically everyone that we had appointments with bailed on us. Welcome
to the mission. We tracted A LOT this day. It was a blizzard. I had
all my gear on- puffy coat and boots included. We seriously looked
ridiculous! I looked like an eskimo. No one was interested. Two really
funny things happened while we were tracting 1. A lady opened the door
and then hurried and closed it. We didn't even say a word. It all
happened too fast. It was so funny for some reason. At least we tell
them that we are missionaries for the church before they deny us. and
2. We ask a guy how he is doing and he said " I was doing good until
you showed up on my porch" and then he slams the door. We seriously
couldn't stop laughing. Oh did I mention that Rico and his family
dropped us. Lame. After we turned into popsicles from tracting we met
with Cynthia, Marcos and Maleik. They are amazing. They were all
totally feeling the spirit and they were so excited about baptism.
They have a 20 year old sister who was listening in the kitchen. All
of the sudden she pulled up a chair and started answering questions.
Guess what? He baptismal date is now Dec. 29th. Score!!

I don't have much time left so I will just get to the good part of the week...

Sunday November 25
We met with Tommy again. Best lesson ever of my whole life!!!!!!!!!!!
We taught him about repentence and we read the story of Alma the
younger with him. He kept saying "I want to feel like that." At the
end of the lesson we asked him to pray. He has said the prayer with us
before but he got super weird this time. He wouldn't say it. It was
super awkward. Then I said "I'll pray first and then you'll pray." He
said the most amazing prayer. He opened his heart to the Lord. He even
started crying. He is this huge, buff guy and there he was kneeling on
his floor crying. He said "God please don't give up on me. Please
don't let the sisters give up on me." After he prayed we sat in
silence for what it seemed like 5 mins. He looked up with tears in his
eyes and said "I feel a warmth. God loves me." Yep his baptismal date
is now Jan. 5. Please please please fast and pray for Tommy this
Sunday. He would be a really solid member if he joined. We love Tommy!

Yesterday Monday November 26
At Zone Conference we made a goal that each week we will try to find
one really good solid investigator and that we should be praying for
that. So if you could please pray that we will find one solid person
to teach.

I'm sure there is lots more that I needed to say but I can't really
think of anything. Everything is really good here. I'm loving it!! Keep writing people!!!

Love you all and miss you all!!
Lacee

November 12-18, 2012

Family:
It was good to get emails from mom and dad.That's good to hear
about Austin's surgery. Hopefully he will be better now. Have fun in
St. George for Thanksgiving. We were invited to a members house. We
are a bit nervous because they are really gross and sloppy and I'm
pretty sure they are hoarders. President and his wife and the Edmans
are doing a big dinner at the Visitors' Center. We are also going to
be able to watch a few church movies. We are planning on hurrying and
stopping by they members house and "eating" and then heading over to
the Visitors' Center. Tell the Bain lady that I'm at the Visitors'
Center Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays. Here's what went down this
week:

Tuesday November 13:
We had a Distric Meeting most of the morning. After we decided to go
tracting. It's not one of my favorite things to do. We went to a
really ghetto part of our area. Seriously Google Painesville, Ohio.
You will die. It is so sketchy. We tracted for a bit on the street and
then when we were walking back to the car we had a feeling to stop at
a random trailer. The guy's name was Donny Loonie. He was a less
active member (however, he's not on our ward's records). He told us
his whole story- He was a faithful member and then one day he just
decided that he wanted to be Catholic. Weird. He's in his 60's. He
left him with a Book of Mormon (he wasn't too happy about that).
Hopefully we sparked something in him. Then when we were getting in
the car two police cars pulled up to a different trailer and were
pointing their guns at the door and when a guy came out the handcuffed
him and off they went. Good old Painesville. Gotta love it. We had
dinner with this super cute family from Utah. We love them. They are a
young family from Cedar City. After that we stopped by an
investigator's house. His mom is a less active and he just never got
baptized. He's about 40 years old and still lives at home. His name is
Alex. He's one of the gems here in Painesville. He's only got a few
black teeth left. Yum. We had a baptismal date set for next month
until we found out that he's on parole for the next 5 years. As he
started telling us what he had done we both yelled "STOP!!" We did not
want to know what Alex had done. All we know is that he's on the Sex
Offenders registry. He was mad that he can't get baptized for the next
5 years.

Wednesday November 14:
Wednesday is our Sites day. Not a whole lot goes on at sites. People
don't come in during the winter. On Friday, when we were tracting, we
met a man named Rico. Did I tell you about him? He seemed super
interested but his wife not so much. We called Rico on Saturday and
his wife answered and said that they were not interested. Rude! We
decided to try and get a hold of Rico. We called him and he answered
and said his wife wasn't happy and they he hung up on us. Boo!! Then
like 10 mins later we get a call from a number we didn't recognize. It
was RICO!!! He said that he talked to his wife and they were really
interested in us coming over. AHHH!!!! I could not believe that had
happened. We seriously sat there for like 5 mins after the phone call
in shock. We set up an appointment for Friday with their family. They
have 4 kids. That does not happen in Painesville. Families do not
exist.

Thursday November 15:
This was a very interesting day. An investigator named Kathy needed
help moving. All of her things were at a friend's house. This friend
just ended up and jail and the owner's of his apartment were just
going to throw out all of his things. She was stressed because those
things were hers. She doesn't have a car to move all of the stuff.
(Why is this our problem? The people here in Painesville need to learn
how to take care of themselves!!) We called a guy from our ward that
has a truck and we helped her move. Picture this: me and my companion
trying to move really huge awkward items into a tiny truck- dressers,
couches, tables... It was not a good idea. It took us nearly 2 hours.
Kathy has COPD (which everyone has here) because she is a smoker so
she just sat back and watched us move all of her junk. After the move
we had some good solid appointments set up- Misha and Miracle was one
of them. Every single appointment canceled on us. Even the meeting we
have with our Ward Mission Leader canceled. It was really annoying. So
we just went home and made calls from home.

Friday November 16:
We had a training meeting with all of the new missionaries. It lasted
most of the day. After we had out meeting with Rico and his family. We
were so excited. When we got there she said that Rico was having heart
pains and was just taken by an ambulance to the hospital. She was a
mess. We aren't allowed to be alone with kids or else we totally would
have watched the kids so she could have gone to the hospital. We went
and grabbed the family a pizza and sat down and just got to know them.
She is a former J DUB (Jehova's Witness). Nice! It was good that we
had that chance to get to know her and the kids better. Now we have a
better idea what they need to be taught. After that we stopped by an
investigator's house. Her name is Marissa. She lives with her
boyfriend (she is 16 and he is 18) at their grandma's house. When we
got their I seriously could not go inside. Everyone here is hoarders.
There was crap everywhere and the grandma was in the corner smoking.
You guys would have died. Marrisa and her boyfriend weren't home so we
sat and talked with granny. Good times.

Saturday November 17:
This morning pretty early we got a call from Rico's wife Kristine and
she said that last night she threw out her back and Rico was still in
the hospital and she really needed help. We told her that on Saturdays
we are at Sites and we couldn't help her. I started to get a really
weird feeling about her. Ya we offered to help her but this was just
weird. We called the elders that are in our area and they said they
would go over and see how they could help. They stopped by unannounced
and said that her back was not thrown out, she was fine. What the
heck!!!!! She was seriously trying to use us and mooch off of us. Now
we don't even know if Rico is really even in the hospital. We were
super frustrated after that. We thought we had found a golden family.
This week has been really weird. We are trying to figure out how to
help these people the best way that we can. No one here is self
sufficent. It's weird. A 30 year old man asked us if we could call him
and wake him up for church on Sunday. He told us that he has an alarm
but that he needs someone to make sure that he actually gets out of
bed. Does he want us to come over and make him breakfast as well?
Haha. Anyways.. at Sites today we had a tour come in. I got to give my
2nd tour. It went really well. However, we didn't find out until half
way through that they were FLDS. Yikes! They totally were saying
things that made us think they were LDS. It ended up being a really
weird tour towards the end. Did you know that the women in the FLDS
church can have the priesthood? Weird. Hmmm... We set up our Christmas
tree when the 4 of us got home. It was so much fun. We blasted
Christmas music and put on all the ornaments. We also drew names for
Pixies! They were all stoked about that. We are even going to go to
Rite Aid and by 5$ presents on Christmas Eve.

Sunday November 18:
We were asked to do sharing time for Primary. It was so fun. We taught
them ways that they can be a missionary now. I had missed being with
kids. After church the elders asked if we could take home two of their
investigators that had come to church. They were both teenage girls.
They asked us where we were from. We told them Utah. One of the girls
said " How do you like the food here?" We were so confused. We both
were like "Uh.. it's the same." She then said "Isn't Utah by Brazil?"
BRAZIL?????? I thought she was joking so I started laughing. Nope she
was not joking. She had never heard of Utah. The senior missionary
that was driving us said she was from Idaho and asked if they knew
where Idaho was. The girl said "Oh ya isn't that in Hawaii?" You've
got to be kidding me. It seriously was so awkward. These are the types
of people that we get to work with here in Painesville. We seriously
cannot stop lauhging about that.

Well life is good here in Ohio. I love it. It's been a lot of fun.
Some people you can pray for are: Misha and Miracle, Rico and Kristine
and Kathy. Also pray that we will be able to find new people.

I love you all and I miss you a lot. I got all of your packages mom.
Thanks so much!!! I love the coat and the mittens! You da best!

Sister Frampton

Dorthy ain't in Kansas no more...

My first email! Hip hip hooray! I have successfully made it to Ohio. Let's start from the top:

 

Tuesday November 8:

Our bus to the airport left at 4 am! Yikes. I had to wake up at 3 and finish packing. It was not fun. My eyes were burning. My travel group consisted of me and my companion, Sister Ence, and 3 elders. I had made a goal the day before that I was going to talk to 4 people about the gospel and hand out 2 Book of Mormons. When I told this to my travel group they were shocked. They could not believe that I already wanted to start missionary work. I was kind of bugged that they didn't want to do it with me. I decided to go ahead and do it on my own. It's really awkward walking up to random strangers, but I did it! I talked to 6 people and gave out both Book of Mormons. I got their information and I've been staying in contact with them. The missionaries in my group couldn't believe how much success I had. It was really cool. When we got to Ohio the mission president and his wife picked us up. They are both really fun and they love to joke around. When we got to their house the senior missionaries had a FEAST prepared for us. I was so sick of the MTC food and they had the best meal for us- steak, potatoes, salad, carrots, rolls and pie. It was so nice of them. After dinner we had interviews with Sister Vellinga and then President Vellinga. I spent my whole interview laughing with President. He took the picture I mailed in and colored my hair brown with a marker and added bangs. It was really funny. We were able to go to bed really early that night because we were dead! I got the letters that Mom Dad and Dallin sent. It was really cool to have those my first day in Ohio.

 

Wednesday November 9:

We wont up at 5 am and we were off to Kirtland by 6. They first took us to the Kirtland temple. It is so cool!!!! The Community of Christ owns it and they were nice enough to let us get in for free (it's usually a $3 charge). We were able to see the whole temple. It's basically a large chapel with a few small rooms upstairs. Karl Anderson (I don't know who he is but I guess he is famous) taught us all about the temple. After about an hour in the temple we walked across the street to the sites. At the visitors' center Sister Neslen was waiting for me. I jumped out of the car and we both ran to each other and screamed and hugged. Everyone else just stood there starring at us. It was great. They took us to the Newel K. Whitney store. Upstairs in the store is the room where the school of prophets took place. They took us up there and Karl Anderson taught us for about an hour. He told us that the Savior and Heavenly Father have appeared in that exact same room. It was really cool. He also showed us in the scriptures about how we were called to come to Kirtland. When the saints had to leave Kirtland and go to Missouri they were really stressed that the church would die in Kirtland. Joseph Smith told them that one day their ancestors would come back to Kirtland to build up the church. He then asked if any of us had ancestors from Kirtland- all of us raised our hands. Not one missionary, as far as they know, has been called to this mission that didn't have an ancestor that was from Kirtland. How cool is that???? I thought it was pretty sweet. We were then told that we would have 15 mins in the school of prophets to start our mission. We all kneeled down and said our own prayers telling Heavenly Father that we are ready to start our missions. It was a cool experience. After that we went to the church to meet our companions. I'm OBSESSED with mine. Her name is Haley Hansen. She is from Sandy and went to Hillcrest-Mccall she knows all your friends from Winner School that were on Drill. We had to get up in front of the whole mission and introduce our new companions. After I introduced mine everyone kept coming up to me and telling me that I am twins with Sister Hansen. She is super super cute. She has a Betsy Johnson coat and I have a Betsy bag. We were meant to be. I felt really bad for Sister Ence because she got a really quiet companion and everyone was saying how lucky I was to get Sister Hansen and no one told Sister Ence how great her companion is. I could tell that she felt bad. After all the new transfers were announced, the sisters ate lunch at the Edman's. They were excited to know who Grandma and Grandpa were. All of the sisters here are so nice! After lunch two sisters gave me and my companion and Sister Ence and her companion a full 2 hour tour of the sites. I can't believe how much information we have to learn in order to give a tour. Yikes. It was our day at sites so after the tour Sister Hansen gave me the run down on how everything works at sites. After that it was already time to go home and FINALLY go to bed!!! We are living in Hyrum Smith's house.

 

Thursday November 10:

We didn't really do too much on this day. I unpacked and we had a 3 hour planning session. We had to plan for the whole week. After that we went to the hospital to visit a lady names Kathy, she's an investigator. We had dinner at a member's house. They were a young family with 2 little girls. As missionaries we aren't allowed to really touch kids. I basically died because I wanted to hold their baby SSSOOOO bad!!!!!

 

Friday November 11:

We had sites this day. No one comes on tour anymore so the missionaries just sit upstairs and call people and email. It's not as exciting as it sounds. It's actually really, really boring. Sister Hansen took me out to the Newel K. Whitney store and had me practice giving a tour of a few rooms. There is sooo much information we have to know.

 

Saturday November 12:

This is when missionary work really started. We tracted for 3 hours. I had tracting. People are so mean! I am in a tiny town called Painesville. It is soo ghetto. Everyone is a hill billy. We literally had people yell at us to go away. For lunch we met up with the elders in our area and had really good mexican food. The elders are spanish speaking and they know the owners. After a short break we were off to find people. I had to go to the bathroom so we went to Rite Aid. Outside of Rite Aid we met a mother with her 2 daughters. We talked to them and set up an appointment to come over on Friday. I guess our bathroom break was inspired. There is a less active sister in the ward named Sister Silvis. We thought that a way we could fellowship her would be to do some type of service. We went with our rakes over to her house and started raking her lawn. She ran out her front door and told us to go away and that they church is sufficating her. Needless to say- we did not see her at church on Sunday. We decided to track 2 more hours on her street. The people were equally as mean as Sister Silvis. We said a prayer and asked if we could be directed to a nicer street. We decided to head over to a street called Sanford. On this street we were able to find 5 people that would set up appointments with us! Jackpot!!!! We had an appointment with a less active so we went over there and watched a conference talk with her. The people here are struggling so much with the gospel. Sister Wheeler is in the Stake Primary but yet she is a less active. They don't have enough members so they start calling unworthy or less active people. It's weird. We then were prompted to go visit a less active family, the Rodriguez family. They live in a tiny apartment. I was super surprised that they were home and they answered the door. My favorite thing so far has been going to a less active's house or an investigator's house and seeing them hide from you. I want to yell at them "hello I can see you" but I'm serving the Lord and he prob wouldn't do that. Right? The Rodriguez family let us in. It's a mom and her two teenage sons. LOVE THEM!!!! She is a huge Puerto Rican lady. They are straight from the hood. So ghetto. We talked with them for an hour. The boys explained to me all of the "ghetto talk" that I will hear here in Painesville. I'm now prepared to serve here. For instance a "hood rat" is the name of a teenager that lives in the ghetto. Good to know!

 

Sunday November 13:

Wow!!!! The Perry ward is not the 28th ward. No Sir!!!!!!! They have about 50 members in the ward. Everyone smokes. It smelt so bad in sacrament meeting.

 

Well... My internet time is up!!! I guess I will continue next time. I love you all and miss you. I'm doing great here! I love it so much!!

 

Sister Frampton