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

September 8, 2014 – Seguimiento…Follow-up

Dear Mom, Dad, Lauren, and Ian,

It's nuts to think that I have been here almost a year!  I just got here!  

It seems that these last few letters has been me about how I have been struggling in this area. Well, I think I finally figured out what it is I had to learn here!  Follow-up. It's much easier said than done, quite honestly, and in my last areas I've had fixed appointments most of the time so I haven't had to work too hard on following up with investigators. Well, being here sure taught me otherwise! XD  It helped out a lot following up. Our numbers may be a little lower than usual, but we are working on it! Following up also helps to sift out promising investigators.  So far, the fruits are good! We found our first family here, and they're all super nice! The family is a good-sized one too, a mother and father, 2 daughters, and a son. They all seem pretty interested but are busy all week long. Seeming interested is interested enough!  Haha!  We'll do our best to continue with them. Also, our baptismal date, Jorge Nuñez is progressing well and has so much support from his family! His interview is this Saturday, so we'll be spending the week preparing him for it.  His bap date is Sept. 20.  We're still working on Kelvin...he just needs to come to church!

In other news, we're finally going to the temple tomorrow! I haven't gone since February, so we're all excited for that. Also I did my first baptismal interview this past Saturday. It is an investigator from one of my districts, Mi Hogar. His name is Rafael, and he's a solid one! Super ready for baptism! It was a really cool experience! I also decided personally that it would be something I take very seriously, interviewing people for baptism. Sure baptisms are important, but how much easier would it be to be sure that that baptism was still active 3 weeks after his baptism? The recent converts here were baptized the week before I arrived, and so far, we're still working with them to keep them active and to help them keep reading the Book of Mormon. Now I'm not going to ask these people super difficult and deep questions, but I'll be listening very closely to the Spirit during the interviews. And the interview I did, I felt that the brother was ready for baptism!

Still no changes about what we can and can't do on our P-days though. Missionaries here are starting to get a little unsettled about it. Not accounting for the fact about the strictness of things, it's a pretty steep change for us here, so I would say that that would be the biggest reason. We're still waiting for word from President, and he'll either say things will stay the same or he'll tell us what we can and can't do.  I hope he says something sometime this week!

Ok, well the clock on this thing is running out, so I gotta get going soon. Thanks for the advice, Dad! It's hard to make these people commit to stuff but yeah, sometimes we have to be stern with them.  XP

I'll write you all next week ok? Love you all and miss you!! Stay strong! I'm praying for you all!

-Elder Froude

Zone picture with Area 70 Elder Hugo E. Martinez and his wife and Pres. Corbitt and his wife

Happy 1 year as a missionary, Elder Froude!!!

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September 1, 2014 – Ups and downs

Dear Mom, Dad, Lauren, and Ian,

Happy anniversary!! I'm glad that you finally had some quiet time to enjoy together.  The rain let up a little bit now, but there's still a bit of storm passing by. About P-days, well, Pres. Corbitt is deciding what we can't and can do during P-days with a lot of prayer and fasting. He relies a LOT of revelation from the Lord to help him in his calling. But until he gets and gives us an answer, things are pretty strict as to what we can and can't do.

Well, this week hasn´t been one of my best. Thankfully, it was the little things this week that kept it from being my worst.  ^_^  Well, our numbers have become a little low. Our citas and back up plans this week have been falling through much more than usual. To top it off, our investigators that we have aren´t keeping up with commitments, not even our baptismal date, Kelvin, (which, as well, has fallen through) has gone to church yet. So, that adds to a bit of frustration.  :P  What´s more, we went contacting to look for more people to teach, with no success.  A lot of people here are Jehova´s Witnesses and they won´t give us the time of day, usually.

On the positive, however, some cool stuff happened this week. Just this past Tuesday, the mother (not a member) of a youth in the ward passed away and just hours after she died, I was asked to share a spiritually comforting message to his family who also weren´t members. When we got there, I saw the young man whose mother just passed away and he looked at peace compared to his other family members who were understandably sobbing. The first cool thing is that this young man has incredible faith in the Plan of Salvation. He knew where his mother was going and maybe even felt that she would accept the gospel there. The second cool thing was how I came upon sharing the message. While looking through the scriptures for a comforting message to share, I remembered a short section in D and C that I had found just that morning, section 137 verses 7 and 8. It was perfect! I shared those verses and bore a very spiritual testimony about the Plan of Salvation to this family. It was a very special experience for me.  ^_^ I had gone to 3 other occasions like this before, but this was the first one I had formally spoken at.

Well, the things about not finding people to teach have gotten a bit better as of yesterday. We went on a splits with the ward and our zone leaders came and helped out. We now have a lot of less-actives and some references to visit now! If not investigators, reactivating less-actives are just as important.

I sure hope that we can improve this week! I haven´t given up yet. Also, good luck in all your new callings Mom, Dad, Lauren, Richard, and Ian! I guess the Lord has lots of plans for us! Talk to you all next week!

Thank you for everything!  Love you all!!!

-Elder Froude

P.S.
Finally! Pictures from last week's zone activity where there was a storm and it flooded.  Best zone activity ever!!!  The hermanas are in my district.

My dream of playing in the rain and flood was fulfilled!

August 25, 2015 – Crazy storms

Dear Mom, Dad, Lauren, and Ian,

This week has been full of rain! A tropical storm has hit this part of the DR and it's been raining hard lately! I love it! It's the first time I haven't been sweating in almost a year! We also had an awesome zone activity today and we all played in the rain. So awesome! It was one of my dreams to play in some hard rain. I have awesome pictures too! Thanks to the waterproof camera! It' starting to flood here though. The sewage here isn't the best and in some parts it comes back out when it floods. We didn't cross any sewer water on the way home though, so that's good.

Anyway, as for the work here, we have a new promising investigator! It almost counts as a family, but the wife is a member and the 3 kids are too young to be baptized.  They’re the Nunez family and the guy’s name is Jorge. But he's really awesome! He's really receptive and likes the church a lot. We hope he can progress well; he has a lot of support from his wife. As for Kelvin, he's progressing very well.  He only needs to come to church!! He's still reading the Book of Mormon and loves it, but it's like every Sunday something comes up that keeps him from going to church. We aren't giving up on him yet! He has so much potential!!

Oh, a cool bit of news. This week we're going to be visited by the 2nd counselor of the presidency of the Area 70, Elder Hugo Martinez. It should be interesting! He's going on a mission tour and checking out all the zones, so we'll see how that goes. Other than that, we're still looking for more people to teach. They're out there; they're just a little tough to find. I hope we find them!

Well, I hope this storm doesn't keep us in for too long. I'll write you all next week and send more pictures! This internet doesn't have a USB port to send them, bleh. But until next week everyone! I love you all!

-Elder Froude