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Hola Familia,

I´m going to say right away that this email will not be one of the more happier ones that I have sent. Transfers actually happened this morning, but before I get to that, I will jump back a couple of days.

My old companion got a call on Thursday and was told that he would be training. I however did not get this same phone call. President called me the next day on Friday to ask me to come to the Trainers meeting, because he wanted to meet with me. Clearly I would not be getting my "kid" (missionary I train). Anyways I had an interview about 45 minutes long with President. In this Interview he told me that he had a special task for me. That job is to revive a dead missionary, or in other words, motivate a missionary who no longer has any desire to work.

So now I am with my dead companion in Zona Industrial, the most dangerous zone in all of the mission. Luckily my area is the safest, but we are close to Tepito, the most peligroso (sorry I forgot the word in English) area in all of the mission. President was not kidding. He is DEAD. He only has three months left in the mission, and he just kinda follows the crowd of the rest of the dead missionaries in this area. I´m not sure what I am going to do yet, but I have to figure out something quick, because one slip up and President is going to send him home. I am just super stressed about what to do. But I know that president knows that I can do it. He told me that instead of giving me a kid, he needed me to do this.

To be honest, I did not have a favorite part of last week. My favorite part was the end. Last week was hard, because we dropped basically all of our investigators. Now I am in a NEW area (to me) and have to find people here. I do not have any pictures with me this week, and don´t know that I will have any for the next six weeks, because it´s not a good idea to carry my camara around in this side of town. I have to be really careful about what I am doing.

Because stress has kicked back in, so has my insomnia, so I have not been able to sleep, which can be dangerous here. Because if I fall asleep on a bus or something, this is a target for people to rob me. Exciting no? Anyways, sorry for such a short letter this week. Hopefully I will be able to update you on how everything is going in a week.

Love,
Elder Scott Donner

Stuff To Ponder

HI dur family!!!!!

Those this week has been freakin nuts. We have had meetings all week, so most of our time has been spent travelling and out of our area, so we have not been able to work ALMOST AT ALL!!!! Overall this week was super hard, and we really weren't able to find anyone new. We have transfers in a week, and I don't think that I will be staying in this area unfortunately. We had interviews with president this week, and he basically told me that I would be training in a different area. That will be fun, but I will be sad to leave all the members here who I have built a good relationship with. I guess I will live though. Thus the life of a misisonary.

Itzel's baptism was great! Her mom is now on date to be baptized on the 28th of this month. Unfortunately, I don't think that I will be here :( But its still great that she will be baptized. Itzel is going back to Taluca for school, so she will not stay in this ward. Anyways, she was asking us if we knew of any chapels that we close to the college she goes to. We wil have to find out.

We do not have a date for Gabby and Vanessa. It looks like they will probably be dropped. We went to an appointment with them, and they had two boys there, who were makin obnoxious comments the whole time.

We are teaching two new families right now. Neither of them have desires to change religion, but they have much desire to learn about the Church of Jesus. Little do they know, that once they feel the spirit and they know that the spirit only testifies the truth, they'll be TOAST! Baptized for sure jaja!!!


Me and Elder Romney are fine right now. I figured I would just let him do what he wants, because I will not be with him for much longer. We work hard, but he still does not want to learn anything that his trainer did not teach him. Funny, but that is the common problem amongst many new missionaries. They don't understand that their trainer was not always right.

Anywhoo.... I am going to talk about some things that I have learned being here in Mexico so far.

Racist slurs do not exist here. When they call you "guedo" or "gringo", its a friendly term, unlike in the United States.

The people WILL stare at you if you are tall and white.

No matter how much spanish you speak, some places will try and charge you more, just because your white and apparently know NOTHING about money in Mexico.

When borrachos try to rob you, they will try to "drop" the price if you refuse to give them money. If you threaten to rob them, some will actually give you money, because you are a tall white person.

The "f" word does have a spanish equal. DO NOT say words, which meanings you do not know, that other mexican missionaries tell you to say. Just because you hear it said in the United States does NOT mean its Ok to say in Mexico.

Just some fun stuff for everyone to ponder :)

Anyways, I have 4 pictures this week :)

The first is of one of the 100's (yes mom hundreds) of spiders that live in our apartment. I was wondering Dad if you could tell me what kind of spider they are.

The second is of the font filling with water. The elecricity shut off in our chapel so it stopped filling right there. We had to go to a different chapel to baptize Itzel jaja!!

Third is baptism picture. I baptized her.

Forth is a fun picture :P I think I'm hood. I'm holding $3,000 pesos or the equivalent of $250 dollars. Kinda fun :P

I love you all!!!!

Love,
Elder Scott Donner

Love Referrals!

Hiya!

I am doing great this week. The work is really starting to pick up, and we are receiving more and more referals for families. It is very exciting to get someone new, because I can´t tell you how much I really hate knocking doors. We do it alot in my area because we are kinda in the suburbs, so there isn´t alot of hustle and bustle that goes on out here. To answer Mom´s first question, I really don´t know jaja!!! We find all nine of them pretty much in one day. Alan, we baptized. Itzel, she is on date for this next Saturday or Sunday, we haven´t decided. The Cornejo family (5), we are still teaching them, but they can´t be baptized until they show up to church. Gabby and Vanessa, we are going to put them on date tomorrow for baptism, as long as their mom doesn´t throw a fit, because she believes heavily in Virgin Guadalupe (which is totally ridiculous because like 60% of the people here that believe in the Virgin know absolutely nothing about her).

So I have to tell you something funny that happened last night. We were on our way home from a meeting and we ended up taking the wrong bus (because my companion flags down every bus that drives by, and I feel bad because they have already stopped). The bus took us somewhat in the direction that we needed to go, so we just got off when it started going down a different street. As soon as we get off, this borracho (yes theres alot here, the drinking age is 12 here) approaches us and tells us, "Soy mormon, pero mi Padre Celestial me dijo cuando estaba preparando que no podria ir a la mision." Interesting enough already, he tries to go and buy us coffee, then coke, then beer, then hamburgers, then tacos, etc. Another man had approached us by then and had wanted to talk to us, so the borracho left us to go buy us something while we were distracted. This man said that he had seen us alot and had wanted to talk to us because he knew we were missionaries. Turns out the mafia killed his son 5 months ago, and he was wondering why God let that happen and if he would ever see his son again. All the other churches told him that his son was a sinner or that he wouldn´t see his son again. We ended up leaving him with a pamphlet about the Plan of Salvation, and told that him that God had put us in his path, and that we could answer his questions that he had. We will be teaching him this Saturday. After the man left, the borracho had returned with some tacos for us jaja!!!! He gave us is phone number and wants us to call him so we can come over and help him clean up his act. He also wants us to stop in at the bar that he works at for a drink jaja!!!!! Now I know that at times, God uses borrachos to do his work jajaja!!!!!
Pictures....
1st is Alan and his family and us :) I baptized him.

2nd is me and Alan.

3rd is me and Alan again :P

4th is me and Totis!!!!! Its really popular here. :D

Anyways, I haven´t received the packages yet, but I´m hoping to in a couple of weeks :)
I love you all.

Love,
Elder Scott Donner

Happy New Year

Hi dur,

So my new years celebration was good. We couldn't be out very long because there was a TON of borrachos (drunks). So we had to be careful of where we went because it was really easy to run into trouble. We ate with Obispo (bishop) Valdez and his family. It was really nice. We had something really good, but I don't really remember what is was called jaja!!!! We also played Uno Spin with is family. Lemme tell ya what, its definately different playing games in spanish jaja!!! It was a good night, but we still returned to the apartment on time and got up and worked the next day. It was very normal on Saturday to walk down the street and see borrachos passed out on the street or sidewalk somewhere. We didn't really take any taxis or buses that day but they were kinda all drunk jaja!!!!

Its funny you should ask about Elder Franco. We actually received a phone call today from President Tervort. He had to make a few emergency changes to the mission and move some missionaries around. Elder Franco got moved and now I am with Elder Romney, from Utah. He has less time in the mission than me. I guess I really shouldn't have been talking to the President in spanish on Saturday, cuz now I'm pretty much the big man in this area >.< Also more exciting news.... I will be training this next transfer jaja!!!! No joke, the President told me that me and Elder Romney need to prepare ourselves to be training this next transfer, which is in less than 3 weeks. Oh goody :P Its ok though, I'm definately ready to do it.

As for goals, we are have a goal to baptize 5 this month, but if all goes well, we will baptized all of the investigators that we have, which are 9 :D So hopefully we can reach that goal. Not very much more exciting to talk about this week. I don't have any new pictures either, but next week I'm sure I will have more to write about our fun adventures that we have :P

I love you family!!!

Love,
Elder Scott Donner