Christmas Skype!

Although Jacob has only been gone a couple of months we were still waiting on pins and needles to be able to visit with him through Skype on Christmas Day.  Being new to this program and coordinating with different days and time zones across the world did have it's challenges.  We waited patiently on Christmas Eve thinking that would be the magic day but unfortunately went to bed that night a little disappointed.  Christmas Day came and we celebrated as a family going about our regular traditions which included going to a movie that afternoon.  As the movie ended I turned my phone back on and panicked when I noticed 11 missed Skype calls.  Within seconds the magic 12th call came in and I thoroughly embarrassed myself by practically yelling at my phone, "Jake, we're here...hang on!"...We unceremoniously worked our way out of the theater, (gratefully the movie had ended) and stood out in front of the theater trying to crowd around my phone.  We must have truly been a sight! Next step was to head to the car and "plug him into" the car speakers for about an hour and then finally we drove home and transfered to the computer for a final few minutes.  What an adventure!  It was so good to talk to him and to see him.  I have attached some pictures and a couple videos.  Enjoy!

Things Jacob shared about where he lives and what he's doing...

  1.  No running water means...a walk into the village with his companion and their buckets to bring water back to the apartment...they ride a "Jeepney" home to shower and wash clothes in said bucket.
 
2.    McDonald's menu is not quite the same....rice, noodles, chicken (no chicken nuggets) and no Big Mac.

3.    Umbrellas aren't much good in the rain...the locals only bring them out for shade when it's sunny.

4.    He's invested in cheap rubber shoes that look just like dress shoes.

LOTS AND LOTS OF RAIN!

5.    When trying to approach someone's door to share a message the missionaries holler out a hello to the door through the gates and a classic response is, "My mom says she's not here."

6.    The very best mangoes in the whole world.

7.    He loves the people!!!!

Merry Christmas from the Philippines December 28, 2014

First Christmas in the Philippines and first Christmas away from home. It was hard but we stayed very busy. On the 23 we went to a ward Christmas party in Mandurriao. It was a lot of fun. I got to meet a few members and eat a ton of food! The Philippines really know how to throw a party! Christmas Eve we went to Sister Teresa's house and she fed us a lot of food! And wouldn't let us leave till all the food was gone. She made us each drink a whole liter of 7up. I was so full! After that then we went to the Sorilla's home for a big Christmas Eve dinner. They are super rich! They also fed us a ton of food! They were super nice. After that dinner Elder Staples and I went to The Zone Leaders home (Elder Cabatuando and Elder Kimall). This is both of there last area. They are great Elders and leaders. We slept over at there home that night because it is to dangerous to be out at night on Christmas Eve. We woke up on Christmas day. The zone leaders had to go to a White Christmas (Huge Baptism) that morning so Elder Staples and I just went home. We went and visited Sister Geraldean. She is a recent convert to the church. We talked to her for awhile about things she is struggling with then gave her a blessing. She is a super strong person! She is awesome! For lunch Elder and Sister Robinson (Senior Missionaries) invited us over for and American Christmas meal. It was sooo good! We had cheesy potatoes, ham, rolls, and cake! Then we played farkle with them for a little while. They made us feel right at home. When we got home from there house Sister Teresa wanted us to come over again. Of course she had more food. Haha We had a great visit with her and ate more food. So I think i'm going to name this Christmas The Christmas of Damo Food! (damo=a lot) I also had the best Christmas present ever! I got to skype the family back home! I miss all of you back home a ton. Hope everyone had a great Chritmas!

Ps If you can't tell by the pics there are damo Rice Fields here!

-- 

Elder Jake Frandsen

Philippines Iloilo Mission

View from Jacob's first apartment in San Miguel

A few pictures from Jacob's current home is San Miguel.  Sounds very rustic but looks beautiful.  Also including some pictures of the local flora and fauna.

First letter from the Philippines December 21, 2014

Wow. Okay so this has been a crazy week! We arrived in Iloilo on Wednesday. We were picked up by the mission president and his APs. (Assistants to the President) We went by jeepney to the mission home where we did some orientation stuff. That night we slept in a hotel (no showers or flushing toilet or drinkable water) But it was alright. Then the next morning we went back to the mission home where we got our assignments. My companion is Elder Staples from Utah. I am in the Iloilo central zone in San Miguel. It's a new area that just opened 3 months ago. My trainer has only been here for 12 weeks. We are the only missionaries in this area. We don't quite have a branch yet because we only have 4 members. But we hope to grow quickly. On Sunday I got set apart as the 2nd assistant to the group leader and my companion got set apart as a group leader aka bishop. So yeah it's interesting to be the person running the group (small version of a branch) here. 

The language is super crazy hard and it gets really frustrating at times like when I am trying to talk to talk to little kids and I just can't understand them :( The language in this first area in ilonggo mixed with Tagalog and karay-a. But I will just keep praying for the Gift of Tongues and work hard and I know I will get it. 

We are teaching the Cemral Arogona family. They have tons of kids! I love them so much. Hopefully they will be a family baptism pretty soon. The members here are great! 

I am so grateful for everything I had at home! Here there is no running water. No dishwasher. No shower. No Washing machine. No air conditioning. But yet the people here make up for all that! They are so amazing! 

It's kind of funny. So my companion and I are both Americans. So anytime anyone see's us they yell "Hey JOE!" or "Hey friend!" or "KANO!" Haha They are just trying to be funny. 

But yeah so that's been my first week in the Philippines! :) Thank you everyone for all your prayers and have a MERRY CHRISTMAS!!  

-- 

Elder Jake Frandsen

Philippines Iloilo Mission

Elder Frandsen's first area Iloilo Central Zone in San Miguel with companion Elder Staples.

Jacob is always making new friends.  Looks like the kids love him there too! :)

A Quick Update

Over the course of the last 10 days Elder Frandsen has sucessfully traveled to the other side of the world and is now in the Philippines.  He had a brief stopover in Manila of about 5 days and stayed at a local hotel with a group of the missionaries he traveled with.  During the time he had the opportunity to do some proselyting and begin sharing the gospel with the locals.
On Tuesday the 16th of December he flew to Iloilo on the island of Panay which is the  general area he will be serving in during the next 2 years.
Attached is a picture of Jacob in front of the Manila Temple during his time there.
This brings us up to date and the next post will be his first letter from the Philippines.
Thank you for all your love, prayers, letters and support.

Julie Frandsen
(Jake's Mom)

A surprise from fellow missionary parents

What a fun suprise when we woke up at our hotel in Manila and found it full of missionaries. Wonderful! We are her to pick up our daughter on Monday who just finished her mission in Olongapo. We love tender mercies and thought we'd share one with you. Tim & Becky Taylor Murray, Ut

Last Week in MTC December 5, 2014

Well nothing super exciting happened this week. It's kinda hard to compare to last week. We've just been going all out in our language study till we leave. Yesterday we skyped a member in the Philippines. We understood a lot more then I thought we would. Which was awesome. They just talk SUPER fast there so you are always trying to listen super close to understand them. She lives in Iloilo and she kept talking about the typhoon. Sounds like it's a kind of a bad one. So when we get there we will be doing a lot of service. (building houses, repairing houses, cleaning the streets,etc) Everyone just keep the Philippine people in your prayers. Salamat! (Thank you!)

We leave for the Philippines early Thursday morning. When we get there we will be staying at the Manila MTC for five days. Then we fly to Iloilo :) It will be interesting to see what happens when I get there. There is a good possibility I won't even be speaking ilonggo. We could speak waray waray, akyonon, aklonon, tagolog, or cebuano. But no matter what happens I know Heavenly Father will help me along the way.

I have seen so many blessings here in the MTC. I know it's just the start of the next two years. I wouldn't trade this experience for anything.

Well this will be the last email for a couple of weeks. But I just want to thank everyone for your support and prayers. Palangga Taka! Have a great week!

-- 

Elder Jake Frandsen

Philippines Iloilo Mission

"Happy Thanksgiving" November 28, 2014

Hello Everyone!

Wow! Where do I start!? This week has for sure been the best week of the MTC this far! Tuesdays devotional was amazing! Elder Oaks came and talked about being an exact representative of Christ. Everyone was super excited that we finally got to here from an Apostle! So that was just a great way to get our week started of. 3:30 Thanksgiving morning was kind of sad because we had to say goodbye to one of the districts in our zone as they left to Cebu Philippines. They're going to be some great missionaries! 

This week we got our travel plans! So the plan is we leave here on Dec 11 at 3:30 in the morning to fly to LA airport from there we fly to Hong Kong then from Hong Kong to Manila! We are all so ready to go! Haha :)

Thanksgiving was the best Thanksgiving I've ever had and you'll find out in just a second why. We woke up at 6:30 went to breakfast. After breakfast we went to the Thanksgiving Devotional. Much to our surprise Elder Bednar was the speaker. He gave a super great talk. He started of by talking about the Holy Ghost. And that whenever we teach about the Gospel that we aren't the teachers. The only teacher is the Holy Ghost. So during his talk they handed out about 100 cell phones to the missionaries. They gave us a number to text and we could ask any question we wanted to an Apostle and we would get the question on his iPad and answer it. By answering the questions he was using the Holy Ghost to answer them. It was super spiritual! 

After lunch (which wasn't that great) me and an Elder from our District, Elder Coronel started walking back to class and as we were walking we saw Elder Bednar about to leave so we walked up to him and shook his hand. We walked him out to his car and just talked to him for a little bit. When we got to his car it was just me Elder Coronel and Elder Bednar. As we were saying good bye Elder Coronel asked if we could get a picture with him. He said that he isn't supposed to take pictures but he said "Elders you lucked out" so we each took a picture with him. Haha. When he started to talk to us the spirit was so overwhelming! It was like nothing I had ever felt before. That was the reason I will never forget this Thanksgiving! :) 

Then we got to do service where we made 366,000 meals for less fortunate kids around the world. It was so a great experience! 

We finished out the day watching Meet the Mormons with all the missionaries. Super cool experience. They gave us all popcorn to eat while we were watching the movie. So all in all an amazing week! 

Love you guys! Hope everyone had an awesome week and Thanksgiving! :)  Week and a half left!! :)

Elder O'brien  - American Samoa Champion Boxer

Elder Lapepe - Australian National Rugby player

Elder Lele - Tongan National Rugby player

Elder Moffatt

Elder Bednar with Elder Frandsen

Week 4 November 21, 2014

Hello everyone! Another week down. This week as we have been teaching investigators I feel like the language is finally getting a little easier. Its crazy to see that if the Lord wants you to say something to an investigator, even if you don't know the words he will put them in your mouth. This week I have grasped the feeling that I will never be alone. That Heavenly father will always be with me. It's the best feeling ever! It's to bad I didn't fully grasp that till now, but now I will never forget that. And I will watch myself better so I can always be doing what he wants me to. 

It's weird to think i've been here for almost a month already and that in two and a half more weeks I will be headed to the Philippines ready to put this training to work. 

This next week for Thanksgiving the rumour is that an Apostle is coming to speak to us. So everyone is pretty excited about that. But we'll see. Everyone take lots of pics during Thanksgiving and send them to me. :)

Im sorry for the not so exciting email. It's pretty much the same thing every week. Three weeks from now the emails will be way more exciting I promise. :) Well everyone have a great week. And have an awesome Thanksgiving!!

Heres a pic of some of the zone at the temple. Haha ;)

-- 

Elder Jake Frandsen

Philippines Iloilo Mission

First Sunday in the MTC November 2, 2014

Every Sunday the Missionaries in the MTC get to "take a walk" up the hill to the Provo Temple.  His first Sunday there, his district and Grandpa and Grandma Frandsen's district just happened to be walking at the same time.   Got a chance to snap a few pictures his first weekend in the MTC.  
Sure is nice to have family so close and "working on the inside" ! :)

Week 3ish November 14, 2014

Hello Everyone! This week has gone by so fast. We spend about 8 hours a day in class learning mostly the language. We did this thing called TRC this week, TRC is where some members come here to the MTC and we teach them kind of like a home teaching lesson. The only thing that's different is it's all in Ilonggo. We taught this elderly lady that grew up in Bacolod Philippines. She was one of the nicest people I've ever met! We talked to her for a solid 45 minutes! It snowed here yesterday and the Polys went crazy because they had never seen snow before. It was hilarious! We are supposed to get more snow on Saturday so we'll see how that goes. The food here is starting to get kind of old but it's fine. This morning we went to the temple early again so we ate there and the food was amazing! :) Being able to go to the temple every Friday is one of my favorite things about the MTC. At the end of everyday we have a zone song and prayer. The spirit is super strong when we do that. I love it when one of the Samoans say the prayer in there native language. The devotionals are fantastic as always amazing. Well that's about it for this week. Have a good week everyone. Love Y'all

PS mom just FYI we got notice that if anyone wants to send anything to me for Christmas that it needs to be sent to the MTC here before I leave because this time of year the mail in the Philippines is no bueno. So i would just take what ever to the Philippines with me thanks 

Elder Jake Frandsen

Philippines Iloilo Mission

  

Week 2 in the MTC November 7, 2014

 Jake sent a few pictures of MTC life in the classroom and with his district at the Provo Temple.

Elder Frandsen & Elder Swanton (District Leader)

 Hey Family! 

This week has been great! I weighed myself yesterday and well the scale read 146 so that's that haha. Anyways We have been role playing with an investigator everyday this week. He only speaks and understands ilonggo so it gets kind of hard sometimes but he committed to baptism yesterday finally. But turns out that was the last time we teach him because now he is our new teacher. haha So now we have two teachers they are the BEST! Brother Winfield who went to Bacolad from 2010-2012 and now Brother Waggoner who went to Iloilo at the same time. They are super spiritual but also really funny. They teach us to SYL every day. So in other words they want us to speak our language all the time. Its super fun! I never thought learning a language could come this quickly but I know without a doubt that it is Heavenly Father blessing me everyday with the gift of tongues. We pray, sing, and pretty much communicate 80% in ilonggo. The devotionals here are fantastic! This is truly a blessed place. I'm so grateful for the opportunity to go to the temple every friday. Keep the letters coming. Palanga ako mo! Have a great week. 

My p-day is every friday justin case ya'll wanted to know. By the way mom my teacher said "fixin" the other day just like you do it was to funny.   

Elder Frandsen's MTC district at the Provo, UT Temple

October 31, 2014 Kumusta!

Jake went into the MTC this last Wednesday the 29th of October.  We sent him a Halloween "Care Package" with favorite treats, including Pringles and fun notes from the whole family. This is his first letter home...


Kumusta! Yes I got your care package this morning. My district and I loved it! Things are amazing here. The spirit is so strong. Learning the language is hard but it is coming so easily to us. The teacher is amazing! We pray in our language now and and its fantastic! It really brings the spirit! Our district is truly being blessed with the gift of tongues. Last night we met our branch Presidency and there wives. They are so comforting. President Pierce interviewed us all individually, he is truly called of God. After the meeting he called my companion Elder Swanton to be our district leader and me to be his senior comp. I cant wait to start serving my fellow elders here. This morning we went to the Provo temple. It was a great experience and I cant wait to go again next week! So there are two districts that arrived here on the 29th. My district has 6 Elders and 2 sisters. Us 6 elders are all in the same room so it gets kind of crazy sometimes but the spirit is so strong with us. Then in the other district there are six more elders. So in all we have Eight Elders and two sisters going to Iloilo and then four of the other elders are going to Bacolod. But we all fly out the same day together. We cant wait! Oh yeah and just to clarify We are all speaking ilonggo. The don't call it hiligaynon. Haha. One thing that President Pierce has said that stuck out to me is "Obedience brings blessings but strict obedience brings miracles" Well that's all I have so far so I just want to say I love you all and keep doing what you're doing. And by the way you can write me everyday if you use Dear Elder.com and I will get those letters everyday. If you can tell the byrds and carmacks and caleb that it would be awesome to get letters often :) so have a good week and ya'll are in my prayers! I'm in District 45a.
Elder Jake Frandsen
Philippines, Iloilo Mission