October 20, 2014 – Happy birthday, Brody!

Dear Mom, Dad, Lauren, and Ian,

Firstly, Happy Birthday Brody!!!!! I don't know about you, but he's feeling 22!! Lol, I'm silly. I've been waiting to use that one!  XD But yeah brody! Do something awesome for your birthday! Unfortunately, for me, as you already know, it'll just be another day in the office for me. I'll party with you on the inside!!

Mom, thank you for sending me the pictures of the funeral. Everyone looks great even though it was a somber occasion.  Tito Chuck was a loved man I can tell. There’s a ton of people who attended his funeral!  I'm glad that they liked my letter. To be honest, I wasn't sure if they were the right things to say but I'm glad that Tita Jackie and Cameron appreciate it.

Well anyway, this week has been a little less than interesting. The work this week has been a little slow. We went 2 days without a single cita because they had all fallen through the whole day. We planned out so that we can avoid that from happening again. And so far, it's working pretty well. But it will be this week where we make it or break it because Elder Zivic wants to meet our investigators, and we haven't had an investigator at church in a while. We have investigators, and we're going to make a big push to try to get them to church. Oh that's right! I mention Elder Zivic because he will be attending our Stake Conference this Sunday. Should be a good conference!

Unfortunately, other than this, there isn't much else to mention. My companion and I are getting a long well and he's a great worker. Still working on Spanish of course, but that comes with time. Oh, and our investigator, Kelvin, moved away all of a sudden. 

Everything is ok here.  Weather is cooling down a little, and no, they don't celebrate Halloween here.  They sell the candy though! 

Send all my love again to the family when you meet up with them again on Nov 1! That's all I have for this week. It's a little short, but hopefully this coming week will go better! Love you all! Until next week!

-Elder Froude

October 13, 2014 - Things are looking up!

Dear Mom, Dad, Lauren, and Ian,

Last week went pretty well for a change! We're starting to get a good groove going on and we're doing more and more stuff every day. Our little strategy with the members is starting to kick-in. We're getting a better relationship with the ward and Bishop, and are working with a lot of the ward's less-actives. Hopefully, this'll show the ward that we're here to work. We're trying very hard. Elder Tillmond, whom I'm training, is adjusting well too! We're still on Spanish of course, but as soon as he learns to talk without mistakes, he'll learn two times faster. He's got a great spirit about him, and I'm glad, this is exactly what this area needs!

So in a few weeks or so is Stake Conference and Elder Zivic will be present and has forewarned us that he wants to meet our investigators. So, we better get cracking! Luckily, we do have a few new ones that we're teaching! Four teens that, actually, are very well instructed in the gospel and like what the Lord's message says! One of them actually read the pamphlet a few times before we came back the next day because he liked it so much! We have bright hopes for these boys.

President Corbitt also told us that he'll do another mission interview tour, and on Wednesday it's my Zone's turn! That should be fun! President Corbitt has been doing so much since he got here. I've seen him more times in just a few months than I did with President Hernandez in like 8 months.

Welp! That's about it for this week. But this coming week I feel like a lot will happen, with the work and the interview. We'll see what happens! Mom, the email to the family will come right after this. I love you all! See you soon!

-Elder Froude

Hermana Cuevas, one of the sisters in my district, was called to Aruba to replace a sister that was sick, so they essentially switched places. She's an awesome missionary and SO funny!

October 13, 2015 – Rest in peace, Tito Chuck

Dear Family,

I hope that these past few days the Holy Spirit has touched you and brought you all comfort in this time of great sadness with Tito Chuck’s passing. I felt a good deal of sadness out here, too, especially since I won't be able to go and mourn with all of you. Thankfully, I've also found a great deal of comfort. You all have heard it once or twice from my parents, sister, brother, and I about the LDS gospel. That we believe that there is a happy life after this earthly life. Now, I won't use up this letter to start preaching, but I feel that I should share with you all how much peace this gospel has brought me. Out here in the Dominican Republic, I've already attended 4 funerals, and recently, I was asked to speak at one, to a boy's family, who were not members of our faith. Understandably, these people were found in an almost inconsolable sadness. But when I started speaking, I felt a very special spirit fill the room, and I think that it had, maybe for a moment, helped this family to feel warmth, the love of our Heavenly Father, in their souls.

If anything, I hope that this letter does the same for you all. Tito Chuck may be gone, but it is only for now. I promise you that we will see him again one day, along with Lolo and Lola, the world's best Darl and Darl. I know that when that day comes, we'll all feel a happiness that we won't be able to describe. I hope that this letter was able to bring some of the feelings that I have felt out here to you; feelings that the Lord is watching us, and that he mourns with us when we mourn, and also rejoices with us when we rejoice. I send all of my love to all of you, and you are all in my prayers. Until next year, family…

Love,

-Elder Ryan Froude

October 6, 2014 – General Conference

Dear Mom, Dad, Lauren, and Ian,

First of all, I want to send my condolences and love to the family about the passing of TIto Chuck... especially to Cameron and Tita Jackie. I'll be praying hard for them. I never thought it would happen so soon! I honestly don't know what to say any more than that. I am as shocked as you are. Feelings about Lola's passing comes back to mind. I remember how difficult that time was for all of us. As sad as we were, the gospel of Jesus Christ brought me much comfort, knowing where Lola was going and what would happen afterwards. That same comfort comes back as well at this time. Expect a letter from me to the family next week.

I suppose I should start talking about this past week now. First though, it's awesome that you all went to conference! I'm glad you got to see all the general authorities and hear their voices live. You probably heard Elder Hugo Martinez talk in Spanish. I met him personally a few weeks ago at a zone conference. He told me that I must write my testimony to Laney and Hannah after talking to him for a bit. A really nice guy!

Well, General Conference  was awesome as always! ^_^ Don't ask me who was my favorite, I loved all the talks, haha! I was able to watch it in English this time around in a little tv. It was a lot of fun! Not only conference, but watching it with the other Elders and Sisters in my zone made it a lot better as well. It was an awesome experience! ^_^

The work is progressing in its own way. We've decided to help out the ward before we make a push for a lot of investigators. What we're going to do, with the help and approval of the Bishop of course, is prepare members to share the gospel with friends and associates whenever the occasion permits. This would be a huge help because we'll have more people doing missionary work instead of just us two. We won't be around for every single opportunity to share the gospel, but with more people around, ready to share something, it will be more efficient. We spent the week meeting with the bishop and working closely with him, and now we're starting to put into effect this little strategy. Wish us luck!

Hopefully, the work will progress at this pace. I'll write you all next week with how that is all going. I love you and miss you all! Send my regards to the other family members, please! I'll send pictures and a video next week!

-Elder Froude

Watching General Conference with the Zone Missionaries

September 29, 2014 – New companion, new mission

Dear Mom, Dad, Lauren, and Ian,

Boy, I've got quite a bit to write about. Well first, I have a new companion now! His name is Elder Tillmond, from Las Vegas. Man, he’s a greenie, fresh from the MTC, but he's pretty ready to be here! He's got a great work ethic and is super excited to work here. He also listens to the Holy Spirit really well, so that's super helpful. His sensitivity to the Spirit has actually helped out a lot here.

Finding people in this area has become really hard recently. Not only that, the people we're teaching has become really flaky. Not the best way to start a mission :P But we fasted on Sunday and Elder Tillmond thought about trying to help the ward become more involved. The ward is cool, but they're pretty complacent when it comes to helping the ward grow. They also rely a little too much on us to grow the ward. What Elder Tillmond and I want to do is to help them realize that the growth of the ward is their responsibility too. So, for the next few weeks, that will be our biggest focus; visiting members and ward leaders and training them a little bit on how their calling can help the work. We're also going to get Bishop to start the Preach My Gospel class started up. This ward has no ward missionaries. We want to teach the ward that we need their help, and with it, the work can advance 10 times faster. Maybe our numbers will be a little lower for a bit, but this will help us in the long run here. I'm just glad I have a companion who is ready and excited to work as I am!

Well, the Family History Fair was this past week and I gotta say, it wasn't as successful as I hope it would be. This is partly what we had planned to focus on helping the ward. The Stake made 4000 invitations for this activity, and divided them among the 6 wards to invite people. Each companionship of missionaries was given at least 200 to invite, and we gave them all out. The rest went to the members. Well, the night of the fair, there were only about 80 or less people there, and most of them were members. My companion and I invited more than 200 people and NONE of them showed up. My new companion and I talked a bit about how we felt about that and we both agreed that there needs to be a change. So, we'll be focused on how we can improve the work ethic of the ward. We're both excited to get started!

Hopefully, we can get some good work done here! If we're able to get the ward to work better with us and if we can have better meetings with the ward about the missionary work by the time I leave this area, I'll be satisfied. It's a personal goal of mine to leave an area better than I found it. I'll write you all again next week! Thank you so much for all your support and love! Miss you all!

-Elder Froude

September 22, 2014 – Transfer week

Dear Mom, Dad, Lauren, and Ian,

First of all, Happy Late Birthday Lauren!! I didn't get a chance to write it last week, but last Thursday I kept it in my head to write it today. Wow, I'll already be home for the next one!

Anyway, as tough as this past week has been, there are big pieces of good stuff that made up for it. First, Hermano Jorge Nuñez was baptized and confirmed this weekend! The first baptism I've had in this area! My companion and I didn’t do the actual baptism, but a nephew of Jorge's, who just returned from his mission about 3 months ago baptized him. It was a nice service.  :D  He was already super prepared to be baptized though.  He was what we call a ''Mormón Seco'' or a dry Mormon. He's basically a member, just not baptized yet, hence, dry, lol! We're all really happy for him!

Hermano Jorge Nunez and his family

So this week, we're going to spend a bunch of time at a Family History fair that the stake set up. Our job, of course, is to invite and bring as many people as we can. It's set up a little differently from the Family History youth conference that I did a few years back, but it should be a success! I'll let you know how it all goes next week. We spent a good chunk of this past week inviting people and handing out invitations. Like you said, Dad, it's a numbers game at this point. We handed out something like 200 invitations, if we're lucky, 20 or so people will come and out of those 20, 3 or so might become investigators, and maybe even 1 baptism.

Well, just like that, 1 transfer has passed by! And surprisingly, my companion who just got here this last transfer is already transferring. I'm staying in Ralma to train another missionary! As excited as I am, it's pretty funky that my companion who just got here is already leaving the area. I guess I still have something to do here.

Well, that's my letter for this week. Quite a few changes going on, but maybe it’s for the better! I'm excited to train another missionary. There's a huge group of Americans coming in too, about 24 or so. It may not seem that much, but for here it’s a big group! Until next week! Love you all!

-Elder Froude

The sister missionaries gave me this on my 1 year anniversary.  They were sweet!

My district!

September 15, 2014 – The area is improving!

Dear Mom, Dad, Lauren, and Ian,

This week has been nice. The baptism for two of the sisters in my district went through smoothly on Saturday! The area is starting to improve with the number of lessons we have and finding more people to teach. We're also, as a stake and zone, preparing for a Family History Fair next week. It should be really cool! It's going to be from Tuesday to Saturday and we're all going to be doing something about Family History. But for this week, it's the last week of the Transfer. I don't think there will be too many changes with us. Half the zone just started training. One Elder is finishing his mission, though, Elder Palacio, and is going home this next Tuesday. The Elders in my zone all came over for lunch to say goodbye to him. We ate Mexican food because today supposedly is Independence Day for Mexico.  XP  Other than that, things are going ok.

This week our Zone went to the temple, and it was, as always, really nice! ^_^ I also forgot my temple recommend but President Corbitt is so awesome; he signed me a "replacement" recommend so that I could get in. Did you know that the temple here is one of 12 out of all the 140 something temples that has a Room of Solemn Assembly? The Temple President and President Corbitt both spoke to us in this room. It was a really cool experience! Then they fed us pizza from Papa John's afterwards! Oh! Cool story now that I think about it! There's a less active member named Erikson and he's never been too active in the church before. He didn't drink or smoke or anything like that but it seemed like he just wasn't interested in the church. His mother, who's very close to us, confided in us back when I was with Elder Pronk, that she prays and fasts very hard for her son. That night I felt the need to share with her about Divine Providence. I think I read a talk about it from David A. Bednar. That was about 2 months ago. Well, just a few days ago, she told me that out of nowhere, Erikson said that he wants to serve a mission! So, we'll be working with him to help him get back into the swing of things and prepare him for his mission.

Jorge Nuñez passed his Baptismal interview last Saturday! We're so happy for him! The process would have been much longer if it wasn't for his wife, who is already a very strong member of the church. That reminds me…his young daughter, Jasmin, who's only 5 years old, was sick one day when we came over. Brother Jorge asked us to give her a blessing. When we blessed her, we asked if she believed that the blessing will help her feel better, and in the cutest response, she said "You already sent it away!" As adorable as it was, that response also amazed me, in a way. If people these days could have such an innocent and pure faith like tiny little Jasmin, people would be so much happier.

So, Jorge's baptism will be this coming Saturday. It will be our first baptism since I arrived in this area! I hope we can do some good here, if not baptisms, then reactivating the less-actives. Encouraging less active members is just as important to the Lord. Wish me luck!

Mom, remember that memory card you sent me three months ago? Just last night I finally saw the videos in it because Elder Aguirre's camera reads the video files, so I watched all the videos and I loved them! Finally! Dad, my companions and I loved that you started saying the Padre Nuestro in the video at Tita Jackie's house!  They were also impressed with Tita Lit’s Spanish! XD  Laney and Hannah are so cute!

Hey I gotta go now, clock's run out.  :( I love you all! Thank you so much for your words of love and support and prayers!  Talk to you next week!

-Elder Froude