Missionary

Elder Mitchel M. Franks recently came home from a mission and reported this story to his ward.

My name is Mitchel Franks and I recently returned home from my mission, and I was fortunate enough to serve in two of the best missions in the world, Ukraine Dnipro, and Canada Edmonton! I did 10 weeks of home MTC, left during a pandemic, was evacuated from my area and took shelter in a temple, saw my entire mission be reassigned, saw the fall-out and carnage of war, served in two missions with three mission Presidents and served the Ukraine refugees in Canada coming full circle.

I feel a lot like Nephi when he says “and having seen many afflictions in the course of my days, nevertheless, having been highly favored of the Lord in all my days, yea, having had a great knowledge of the goodness and the mysteries of God.” My mission, like most, was very difficult, but I felt highly favored of the Lord because during these last two years my testimony has grown more than I ever could have thought possible. God had a plan for me like He does for all of you. I can testify that God’s plan for us is perfect, and if we turn to Him and trust in His will, even when things do not make sense, He will bless us.

Today I’m mostly going to be talking about the “Will of God” and I’m going to attempt to tackle this topic with examples from my mission. I started my mission in the Ukraine Dnipro Mission which is the entire eastern side of the country sharing a border with Russia. I could not have been more excited about where I had been called to serve and even though it came right out of left field, I can remember the distinct impression I had from the Spirit that this was my call. I still get that impression every time I read my mission call letter. As unexpected as the call was to serve in Ukraine I could never have anticipated the events that followed after I arrived.

At the time it seemed like the worst thing to be asked to serve in two missions, and I did not want that to happen to me. Home MTC was a great experience, but after 10 weeks, I was dying to get to Ukraine! Things got real, real quick and after a few long days of travel I found myself in Ukraine! Without the MTC as a buffer, I was shocked and extremely scared at what lay ahead!

When we landed in Kiev I discovered that both of my bags were lost. I had prayed for my mission to be hard. The Lord answered this quickly. Taking another leap of faith, I left the airport with no luggage and got onto a bus for the next 13 hours, arriving in my mission at around 4 in the morning and waking up at 6:30 in the morning to go to our areas and meet our trainers.

When our President announced our areas and trainers, he said something nice about each area and when mine came up all that was said was “there is work to do”… I was confused until I was pulled aside from everyone and told that Krivoy Rog (my area) was reopening after many years of having no missionaries. I had a new area of a million people, and as one of four missionaries there, and a trainer right out of training, and now my mission president was telling me I basically was given the armpit of the mission!

Well, that massive city became my home, and I loved every minute of it. From no clean water, to red snow from the pollution, and a companion with whom I couldn’t speak English, I loved it all! We were in dangerous areas with four hours of daylight a day and the people were not super friendly. We met on Sundays in a hotel room with our one member. I learned to rely on my Savior, a lesson that would save me many times!

After a few months in Krivoy Rog, we all discovered that the threat of a war was now on our doorsteps, and we were evacuated out of our areas on Christmas Eve. We were given eight hours to clean out our apartments, give away all our food and Christmas packages and turn the keys into the landlords. Christmas Day we spent packing our belongings and saying goodbye to our one member and all of our friends we had met.
People were now scared that we were leaving and it was a hard thing to see. When the 45 missionaries were evacuated, we were all sent to the temple in Kiev!! My testimony of temples grew during this time and being able to go do all the ordinances in the temple, feeling the Spirit so strongly even though I barely understood the language was a big testimony builder. The temple is the house of the Lord where we can seek refuge from the storms life throws at us. I know it truly is the house of the Lord. We continued to see miracles at the temple and had a baptism for a gentleman in our branch. He drove all the way from our area to the other side of the country to be baptized, get the priesthood and go to the temple the next day! It was an amazing experience getting to go through with Pavlo!

However things continued to get worse in Ukraine. The US embassy had closed, and they were telling all US Citizens to leave. The day that happened, we received the message: “expect sacrament meeting to be longer today”. We knew what was coming, and we were devastated. My nightmare was now becoming a reality, and I was once again going to have to evacuate to who knows where? Where was I going? When was I leaving? Are they sending us all home? So many questions ran through my head and a lot of tears were shed. I was confused and frustrated at God. How could He do this to me? What was the point of my going to Ukraine for such a short time? I was bitter, and in my bitterness, it reminded me of a video I loved called “The Currant Bush”.

I managed to get my hands on a copy of the talk and for those of you who don’t know it’s a story from Hugh B Brown when he bought a farm in Canada and saw a currant bush all overgrown, and so he trimmed it back so that eventually it could grow bigger and produce more berries and fulfill its purpose, but as he was about to leave, he saw a drop of water looking like a teardrop and he thought he heard the bush say

“How could you do this to me? I was making such wonderful growth. I was almost as big as the shade tree and the fruit tree that are inside the fence, and now you have cut me down. Every plant in the garden will look down on me because I didn’t make what I should have made. How could you do this to me? I thought you were the gardener here.”

“That’s what I thought I heard the currant bush say, and I thought it so much that I answered. I said, ‘Look, little currant bush, I am the gardener here, and I know what I want you to be. I didn’t intend you to be a fruit tree or a shade tree. I want you to be a currant bush, and someday, little currant bush, when you are laden with fruit, you are going to say, “Thank you, Mr. Gardener, for loving me enough to cut me down. Thank you, Mr. Gardener.”’”

What he says at the end really touched me and it changed the trajectory of my mission, President Brown closes by saying:

“Many of you are going to have very difficult experiences: disappointment, heartbreak, bereavement, defeat. You are going to be tested and tried. I just want you to know that if you don’t get what you think you ought to get, remember, God is the gardener here. He knows what He wants you to be. Submit yourselves to His will. Be worthy of His blessings, and you will get His blessings.”

The Spirit bore witness to me to trust in the “will of God” and things would work out… I still didn’t want to leave, and it didn’t take the sting away, but it was exactly what I needed. We then had our sacrament meeting and at the end our Mission President stood up and with great emotion read our names one by one and assigned us to new missions. This was late in the afternoon when the sun had already set for the evening, but as he began to reassign his missionaries all over the world, the clouds broke and sun filled the room with light all around him. A lot of tears were shed, and I was told that I would be one of the last missionaries to leave and that I would be going to the Canada Edmonton Mission. I had no idea where Edmonton was or what the next part of my mission would be like but I kept repeating the words to the hymn I’ll go where you want me to go in my mind

“But if, by a still, small voice he calls
To paths that I do not know,
I’ll answer, dear Lord, with my hand in thine:
I’ll go where you want me to go.

I had to learn how to trust in the Lord and it was hard, but it’s a lesson that I’ve found to be the most valuable, and it’s something that I continued to learn throughout my time in Canada. Arriving in Canada was a crazy adjustment. We landed in Canada early February and it was -40 and we almost froze to death many times to say the least. It is a very large mission with 140 missionaries and multiple languages.

Canada has some of the most beautiful tree covered mountains with stunning National Parks and I even got to see the Northern lights on multiple occasions. My first few months there we had a lot of success with our friends, and I knew it was the Lord blessing me for my willingness to go where he wanted me to go.

I spent the next long months working in small branches in Eastern Alberta/Saskatchewan. We covered two tiny branches at the time, so we often spent hours in the car traveling each day from branch to branch, giving me the opportunity to study my Russian in the car and I know it was a blessing from God.

I was confused at times if I should continue to study the language or if I should give it up, but time and time again the Spirit kept telling me to continue. One other elder, Elder Driggs, came with me from Ukraine and we each had noticed the huge Ukrainian base of people growing there in Canada. Over the next year and a half 40-50 thousand Ukraine refugees would come.

We tried tirelessly talking to our leaders to show the need for two Russian speakers to work together, but we had to wait for the Lord’s timing. Looking back now I can see it was for my own testimony to grow and my language to get stronger.

Being in a town of 4,000 people with 23 different churches was difficult. We were challenged and mocked constantly, and it caused me to begin serious studies of the doctrine and history of the church. If I didn’t know the answer to a lot of things, I went and found the answers! God was preparing me to be ready for his will! One fast Sunday, I opened my scriptures and read in the 26th chapter of Alma. it changed the course of my life for forever.

27 Now when our hearts were depressed, and we were about to turn back, behold, the Lord comforted us, and said: Go amongst thy brethren, the Lamanites, and bear with patience thine afflictions, and I will give unto you success.

28 And now behold, we have come, and been forth amongst them; and we have been patient in our sufferings, and we have suffered every privation; yea, we have traveled from house to house, relying upon the mercies of the world—not upon the mercies of the world alone but upon the mercies of God.
29 And we have entered into their houses and taught them, and we have taught them in their streets; yea, and we have taught them upon their hills; and we have also entered into their temples and their synagogues and taught them; and we have been cast out, and mocked, and spit upon, and smote upon our cheeks; and we have been stoned, and taken and bound with strong cords, and cast into prison; and through the power and wisdom of God we have been delivered again.

30 And we have suffered all manner of afflictions, and all this, that perhaps we might be the means of saving some soul; and we supposed that our joy would be full if perhaps we could be the means of saving some.

When I read this, I got a distinct prompting from the Spirit, telling me that I had gone through all of this so that I could be the means of saving some. How could that be possible though? I marked a little Ukraine flag in my Book of Mormon, and I did as the scriptures said–I had to be patient and trust in God’s timing and He would give me success

After months of missionary work in the outlying areas, I was placed back in the city. Our mission president said that if I and the other elder from Ukraine wanted to work with the Ukrainians. we had to show him there was work to do. So that’s exactly what we did. Finally, we were put together to do exclusive Ukrainian work. The purpose was to help the refugees in Canada, and we knew the importance of the work we had begun, and it was going to be hard, but the love we had gained for the people, culture, and country all started with our time in Ukraine.

Love was our motivator and it was hard work starting an area from the ground up, but soon we had a super successful English class, multiple member families supporting us from Ukraine, and friends all around Edmonton meeting with us. Ukrainians live in a black and white world. They have so little joy and happiness and have suffered extreme loss, but when they came to Canada and saw “color” and a different way of life, they started asking questions, and the Lord had us there ready to help them. We had more success with these people than we ever would have had in Ukraine. We had lessons from early morning to late at night.

One person who will always have a special place in my heart is Inna. We met with Inna at the library in the mall to teach her some English with her son. They had moved there two days prior and after English, we taught her about the gospel and she loved it. We continued to meet and to teach English and gospel and her interest was slowly increasing. It led up to her coming to church with us on Easter but there she told us she would be moving back to Poland in a few days.

I was really sad because I could feel something so special with Inna, and I didn’t want her to leave because I thought our contact would die off, so for our last lesson the next day, we taught her about the Book of Mormon and the restoration of the church and she glowed. When we handed her a Ukrainian Book of Mormon, she promised she would read it and we both could feel her genuineness about it.

We said goodbye thinking it was over and we were sad until a few days later when she sent a text saying she wanted to meet online. We were thrilled and instead of English, she only wanted to talk about the gospel. She had read so much about the church and said, “I want to be baptized”. We were overcome with joy but then doubt because she was on the other side of the world. We continued to meet and her desire grew and grew and we eventually had to try and find the missionaries closest to her, but she lived in a small polish village with the closest church being four hours away.
Through a connection with a friend, my Dad was able to connect with the mission president in Poland. When we told him of the situation, he said, “Elders this is wonderful news, we had transfers yesterday and the missionaries that live closest to her just received our only Russian speaking elder!” My heart exploded with joy and I got on my knees to thank God for this miracle!

The elder sent there was assigned to Ukraine, but never got to go due to the war. I am sure he wondered what the point of that was as well. We worked for months with Inna, all teaching her together online with the three of us until she was baptized. When she came up from the water she jumped and clapped and the Spirit was so strong! She has seen so many miracles in her life due to her decision and her testimony is so strong She knows so much and has the strongest desire to learn more. That desire has led to her sharing the gospel with many others including her son and her friends who are still in Kiev.

God’s plan was PERFECT. it’s something I can never forget or deny, the fact that we met her the 2 weeks she was in Canada and that even when she returned to Poland there was an elder there waiting for her, who never would have found her because he still lived four hours away, but it was only because of God that this happened. God loves his children enough to leave the flock to find the one.

Inna was one story of many amazing Ukranians, and Russians that entered the waters of baptism while my companion Elder Driggs and I were together. God’s plan is perfect and looking back now, having been patient and faithful, I can shout “Thank you Mr Gardener for loving me enough to cut me down, for caring enough to hurt me.”

I wouldn’t change my mission for anything. Canada is one of the most diverse places on the earth, and I was fortunate enough to have helped many different people from all over the world accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. I saw the literal gathering of Israel in my city of Edmonton Canada.

I want to close with a scripture in Alma 26:36-37 Ammons words here are my words as well

36 Now if this is boasting, even so will I boast; for this is my life and my light, my joy and my salvation, and my redemption from everlasting wo. Yea, blessed is the name of my God, who has been mindful of this people, who are a branch of the tree of Israel, and has been lost from its body in a strange land; yea, I say, blessed be the name of my God, who has been mindful of us wanderers in a strange land.

37 Now my brethren, we see that God is mindful of every people, whatsoever land they may be in; yea, he numbereth his people, and his bowels of mercy are over all the earth. Now this is my joy, and my great thanksgiving; yea, and I will give thanks unto my God forever. Amen.

God is mindful of every single person, I saw first-hand His love for his children and His desire to gather them and comfort them, His plan is perfect beyond comprehension and sometimes we need to struggle and suffer so that we can help someone else with our experiences! Trust in him and the blessings will come

The gospel is true. I’ve seen horrible things and been a witness of people’s tragic stories and I’ve seen the most broken vessels become filled with light and joy and happiness because of the gospel, I’ve seen changes that only come through the atoning power of Jesus Christ No other gospel can do this because it is the only true Church centered on Christ.