Climb Every Mountain...

Hola Familia!

So this week was pretty freaking nuts! Easter is not a holiday here. Its a "holiweek". Its a week called the Semana Santa or Holy Week. They remember the whole week in memory of the "death" of Christ! How horrible is that! On Saturday they do a reinactment of the crucifixion of Christ. It is absolutely horrible! And its tradition to soak anyone you know who is walking down the street! So everyone we met this week decided to soak us... it was wonderful walking down the street completely soaked. Especially because now nobody wanted to let us in their houses! The week was really good though. We started out with absolutely nobody because the other elders did not want to pass on the investigators they have in our area. Everything is all good though because we found 16 new investigators.

A little frustrating because we were so busy looking, we forgot to invite people to church.... and the rule is if you don´t have investigators at church, you leave right after you take the sacrement.... how embarrassing is that.... being the new missionaries and having to leave because we didn´t have investigators there. So we really didn´t even have the chance to meet any of the members nor do we even know who our ward mission leader is. Doesn´t matter though. We are just going to work on baptizing a ton of people, that way we don´t have to worry about it.

So the hill.... ya I´ve pretty much destroyed my knee already on the hills. Theres nothing I can do about it because I told President that I would work this whole transfer to baptize. I will mention to him that I have problems with my knee, but I won´t let him move me after all the hard work we did this past week.

It´s interesting because we aren´t allowed to do our laundry at the houses of members anymore, so now we are washing laundry in the lavadero, or sink made for washing laundry by hand! Fun stuff huh! Not complaing though! I can say now that I´ve been there and done that, so no one can pull that "when I was your age, blah blah blah....".

Anyways, now for pictures.

The first is literally only a third of our area. It doesn´t look steap until you try walking up it and you realize you are slowly sliding down the mountain jaja!

Second. We were being a little dramatic. But it is seriously a lot easy to crawl on all 4´s up some of these streets.

Third. I´m now down a shoe. So I really only have 3 shoes left jaja!

Fourth. A look at our new apartment...jaja!

I love you all!
Elder Scott Donner



Kids sliding down hill on water bottles.

I'll Go Where You Want Me To Go Dear Lord...

Familia,

President moved me.... I am now in a white washed area with the kid of Elder Pope, Elder Cervantes. Elder Cervantes is a great missionary and has learned alot. Thank goodness he has the desires to work. We are both kinda bummed out. We were in the same zone in Industrial the past 2 transfers and now we have been moved out of the city and back into Mexico State. We both had a ton of good things going for us in our zones and now we have been dropped to basically ground zero. Both of our old companions are going to be training. We are in a brand new apartment and we have almost nothing. We have to go out and buy everything today. We dont have the luxury of using the metro anymore either, because its not in our area. My new area is an area called Cuautehpec.

So right now, Im in an area Im completely unfamiliar with. Guess what else..... its on a huge freaking hill! Alot steeper and worse than the one in my first area. Its going to be really interesting to see how we get along this week. Clearly most of our time will be spent meeting the members and knocking doors. Its going to be a LOOOOOONG week....

A little about Elder Cervantes. He only has 3 months in the mission. He comes from the state of Sinaloa, here in Mexico. He was actually the state boxing champ for his weight class. He really is a hard worker, which is good, because itll probably keep me going.

I dont know anybody in this zone. Havent met a single one of these Elders before. Ill just baptize a ton and not worry about it :P

One of the members in Tlatelolco took us to Carls Jr. for food the other week. I was really cool so Ill attach pictures of that.

Anyways, I know this letter was kinda a mediocre sized letter. I really dont have too much to say except that I got moved and Im bummed out about it jaja!

Love ya all!

Elder Scott Donner

Busy...Busy...Busy

These pictures actually came from the Mission President's blog which is maintained by one of the his daughters. She visited the mission this past week. These were taken on Sunday. This is what she had to say:

"Sunday evening we had the opportunity to meet the zone of Industrial at the temple and tour the visitor center with 20 of their investigators. That was awesome!! I wanted to take pictures, but the spirit was so strong so I decided to not pull away from the spirit. One of the investigators was a family of four that the missionaries had met 4 hours before the tour. As the sister missionary was showing them all the different languages the Book of Mormon was translated in, this sweet woman raised her hand and said, "what is that book?" The sister missionary told this lady that the missionaries would come to her home and teach her all about it. At the end, they showed the movie "On The Way Home." It was neat to see missionary work happening right before my eyes. After the tour, we went back to a church and witnessed the baptism of eight wonderful people. It was amazing!!"

"After the baptism, we were able to meet the Zone of Industrial. My dad spent a minute talking to all the missionaires and telling them what a good job they are doing and giving them some instruction. What a fun day!"

Scott's email....

Hola!

So this past week was awesome and not jaja. We had 3 baptisms out of all the baptisms our zone had. It was really cool. We went to he visitors center before and we invited a family of four that we had met a couple of hours before (yes they were the ones talked about in the mission blog). We are going to work on baptizing them this weekend. Also the grandparents of some members want to be baptized too. So we are going to hopefully have a lot of success this month.

The bad news is president called us this morning and basically let us know that our bishop asked him to leave us together, but we are receiving 15 new missionaries and won't receive more for a year. Elder Moss really wants a kid and also stay with me. We are hoping that president will just give us a gay kid (put the new missionary in a trio with us). We will see though.

I don't anything about the new area except that it will be called Sureste. We know some of the missionaries that will be taken from our mission but still not all.

Sorry I didn't write much this week. :P

Love,

Elder Scott

Nopales

Hola Familia!
This week was super good! We found a couple news and we set up baptisms for this next Sunday. President is going to be doing something special with our whole zone. We are going to be visiting the visitors center in the temple and afterwards have a zone baptism with all of the investigators we have right now. Its pretty sweet because we have three solid people and one possible. Their names are Alejandra, Doris, Nanci, and the possible is Argeli (daughter of Alejandra).
Alejandra has a cool story behind her. We found her the Friday before our baptism. That Sunday she had let me know that the morning before we showed up at her house, she had been praying and told God that if he didn´t give her a sign of what religion she needed to follow or what to do with her life, she was going to end her life, and didn´t care if she ended up in heaven or hell. She said that ever since we showed up, she has kept receiving signs that we were her answer. Yesterday she told us that she has never felt this way in her entire life, and is more than willing to do anything to be Mormon.
Doris is a funny story. Missionaries have been teaching her for 13 years, which we just found out last night jaja! We have been just hammering with baptism and she finally caved in and wants to do it jaja! Nanci is an interesting story. So basically I´m going to start somewhere with this story that seems to have no relevance, but trust me it does :). So we ate with a family last Sunday and they cooked a lot of nopales (cactus), which are really good, and the food was really good. Nopales do something to people who haven´t eaten them much in their lives. They make them poop straight liquid. Lovely right? Well when your a missionary and walking around all day, sometimes you think you need to pass gas, but when nopales has turned your poop to complete liquid, you cannot pass gas. Know why? Because you will pass liquid instead of gas. Wednesday, me and Elder Moss were working down in Tepito and I went to innocently "pass gas". I didn´t pass gas. So I made a mistake, but it wasn´t the first time this week jaja! We had to go to a members house so I could clean up. We went to the closest member, the Manzanares family. While I was in the bathroom, the family let us know that they had found a hermana that had been inactive for quite some time, so her daughter never got baptized. Through a series of events, this hermana decided that she needed to go back to church. This is how we found Nanci, her 10-year-old daughter who really wants to be baptized.
Great story no?
I did love conference this weekend. I was running around hectically with investigators, so most of the time I didn´t get to listen, but I did love the talk by Richard G. Scott. That talk made my companion super "trunky", because now he thinks his girlfriend is going to get proposed to a lot this week jaja!
I have received all of your white packets up till the one you sent in March. I don´t know if you´ve sent anymore after March, but that's what I´ve received.
Transfers fall on the 18th of this month. I´m really crossing my fingers I can stay with Elder Moss at least one more transfer.
Oh BTW, here in Mexico, they celebrate Mother´s day on the 10th of every May, and not on the first Sunday, so I don´t know when I will be calling home jaja! I will try to let you all know.
We listen to the music every morning and night and free time. We really enjoy it jaja!
What I ended up doing is buying the biggest and widest pair of shoes they have, then an hermana is going to take them to a friend who is going to stretch them out even more so I can use them :)
Love, Elder Scott Donner