Game constantly freezing, acnl specifically.

I have the special Animal Crossing: New Leaf version of the 3DS XL and I got it right when it came out, with ACNL already loaded onto it. A week or so in I had my first freeze while playing the game (had to power down and on again to "resolve") and it got continually worse as time went on. I was reluctant to send the 3DS in for repair because I didn't want to miss any of the events in the game, but finally caved in when it just was so awful I was losing time/items/etc constantly. At this point it was already over a year since I'd purchased the 3DS and service/replacement was no longer covered, and with the 150-200 USD I'd have to dish out for them to fix it I may as well just by a new one, yanno? Not like I can afford either, lol.

Anywho, has anyone else experienced this terrible freezing and perhaps found a solution? It's pretty much only with this one game. ):