Happy 21st Birthday

Hi ther,

So it sounds like you all had a very very crazy week. Personally I think Cody should stop putting needles in his arm jaja!.... ok probly not too funny. Anyways, I had a super eventful week this past week. Definately nuts! But a very rewarding week!

So lemme tell ya about it! So we start out Tuesday with an awesome referral from the zone leaders. They said that they were contacting and that a lady had talked to them and wanted the missionaries over. They are in our area, so they passed it off to us! We went over there and they had a ton of questions for us. We taught a really good lesson with them. We were kinda of embarrassed because they wanted to read the Book of Mormon and come to church before we had even invited them. So we set up an appointment to return on thursday. Not everyone was there on thursday, so we just checked up to see if they had read, and they had. They said they had prayed too and felt the spirit. They had also noticed that the husband was having more success in work since we had showed up, which he was out working at that moment. We just kept reminding them of the spirit, because we didnt want them to forget that feeling. We set up another appointment for Saturday, and the mom saw that my companion wrote in huge letters that it was my birthday that day. She turned to me and told me that her husbands was the day before that. We thought that was cool, but even cooler when later that night, the husband called and invited us to an appiointed with them the next day, so we could also celebrate our birthdays together. We went there and shared with them some more, but not only that, but they had prepared dinner in honor of our birthdays! The daughters boyfriend was there too asking us a ton of questions, so we taught a little bit to him. Then comes sunday, and we were running late because our alarms didnt go off and we have church at 8 in the morning. We are just walking out the door when the family pulls up and says ,"Elders! You´re running late! We´re gonna miss church!" I was so embarrassed but so shocked at the same time! We cant wait for our next appointment with them!

Also saturday, we ate with the relief society president, and she bought me a cake. I have pictures of that :).... which dont want to upload!!!!!!!!!!!!! Did I mention I hate computers here? Well I do!!!!

I will see what I cant do about sending them tonight after our meeting!

Love,

Elder Scott Donner

Reality Is Setting In...

Hi,

So this week is already the start of a new transfer. Crazy huh? Im definately not ready for it, because that means I have somewhere less than 7 changes left. NOT EXCITED!!! I might extend when the time comes. Anyways, I really enjoyed general conference alot! Although I only got to see them on Saturday and the priesthood session because we were given the wrong times for the Sunday sessions, so that was a bummer. I really enjoyed the priesthood session this year though. This was probably one of my favorites, especially when Holland talked and President Monson talked.

Anyways, this last week really zipped by. We met a really neat family who we are hoping to baptize soon. They had a ton of questions for us! When we explained to them that we dont get paid (after they had asked), they felt so bad that we lived alone and paid for anything we needed, so they gave us a bunch of food and bathroom stuff. It kinda made me laugh, because we´re not suffering, but they felt that it was very hard to be away from the family, because they are very obviously a really close family.

So I started Christmas shopping for the familys this week. I´m actually very excited to send some of the stuff. Mom you will have to help me out with the distributing part :) Everying here is so very cheap but such great quality for the price. You will all be receiving stuff that you can only find in Mexico :)

So I´m still losing weight, and see that I am going to have to invest in some new pants again. I found a place here that sells them cheap. BTW, I received my package :) I love the fact that there are 21 ties :D and the shoes are actually perfect! I am pretty sure these will last for the rest of the mission. I was actually borrowing some shoes from another missionary who gratefully has my shoe size. I only have my shoes that I wear to church that will fall apart if I wear them anywhere else jaja!

Anyways, working on taking some pictures and am going to be sending home a flash drive with all of my backed up pictures on it. :)

Love,
Elder Scott Donner

New Approach

Hola,

Well this week was just a week of searching. We talked to alot of people this week, because the mission is really focusing on urgency while we are working. We are also focusing alot more in using the Book of Mormon when we contact people. I really like the method because its really peeks peoples interest when we ask them questions like, "Do you ever wonder what was happening here in America when Christ was in Jerusalem?" I am enjoying using the Book of Mormon approach very much.

We have 2 colonies in our area, one of them being "super catholic", meaning they arent open to discuss religion. We have only been working in that part, because we dont have any members in that area. Well we finally got tired of being rejected by most of the people, or having people give us false directions. So we decided to start working in the other colony finally. The first street we knocked in that area, we found 2 families that let us teach them. Frustration terminated!

We also have a Circus that is in our area right now, so we are going to see what we cant do about visitng it :)

No new fotos this week, sorry!

Love,

Elder Scott Donner

Moquitos!!!

What it looks like outside the apartment window

Rainstorm

Sheep near their apartment

Mosquito Damage

So happy about the bites

Not even the legs were spared

Ahh the joys of mission life!

Hola,

So this week was pretty crazy. It was the week of Mexicos independence, so alot went on. Unbeknownst to me, we were required to stay in the house ALL DAY on Friday. But the 2 days before that ended up just flying by! So Tuesday we had a full day almost of lessons that we had pretty much filled in with people we met. Alot of them werent there, which is ok because we always need to be weeding those people out. We contacted one man who was moving dirt around in his house, so we offered to help him. He declined but said that we knew who we were. This seemed weird to us because most of our area has never been touched by missionaries. In fact, one whole colony doesnt have but one member living there. But the man explained to us that his first wife was a member of the church so he knew a little about it, mostly that we dont drink. He has a second wife, who is japanese, and has 2 kids with her, who are now older. Im glad we contacted him because he told us that his daughter actually really wanted to talk with us, because she always sees the missionaries walking from afar, but never talks to them, I imagine because she is super shy. Anyways, she shows alot of promise and we are going to see if she will be baptized this weekend.

Wednesday was a little bit slower. We knocked alot of doors. We didnt contact as much as we should have. We met a man named Gregorio who is actually studying with the Jehovas Witness. He seemed like a hard cookie to crack at first, until the point that we told him that we didnt want him to believe a single word that we had said. He was confused until we told him that it was God that we wanted him to believe, so he needed to pray to ask him and not ask us. Of course we shared our testimonies with him.

We receive alot of referrals from the members here. Most of them are part-member families where only one or two of six are members. Im excited to be able to work with those families. Alot of them are inactive families, but that is the fun part about missionary work.

I was eaten by mosquitos this week. BTW, fun fact. Mosquitos are called "moscos" in spanish, but they say "mosquitos" to say that they are "little moscos". Almost everyone here reffers to them as "mosquitos". So mosquitos is actually a name we have taken from the spanish language :) But ya... they ATE me this week. And yes I will finally send pictures, because I can :)

But ya so after almost 2 boring days in the house, we went back to work. It was really cool Friday though, because the members brought us breakfast, lunch, and dinner because they knew that we were going to be stuck all day in the house. Ya... we have a really sweet ward!

The pictures are all bug bites. I will send more in another email because, yes, I know I owe you quite a few.

Love,

Elder Scott Donner

Emergency Transfer...?

Hey Family,

So some pretty surprising news. Im definately not in Cuahutepec anymore. I got emergency transfered back to my first zone. But Im not in the ward I was before. I am in a ward that now has 4 missionaries called Real Hacienda. Anyways, it still happens to be quite a large area, but it is all flat :) Anyways, because of that, I dont really have much to say. We are also at an internet right now that doesnt allow me to hook my camera up to send pictures, so I definately cant try that, but I will be looking throughout the week. Also, I did receive your pictures.

My new companion is Elder de la Cruz. Dont know much about him yet, but I will tell you next week.

Sorry,

Elder Scott Donner

Still Searching...

Hey guys,

So I´m still waiting on the letters and pictures you´ve sent. I haven´t received anything just yet. Anyways, just another week of searching searching searching. I´m really just trying to work on finding a family. Using the spirit plays a big role in everything we do as missionaries. We keep learning more and more about how the spirit testifies to everyone about the truth. The only difficulties we seem to be having are getting into peoples doors. Ya we have found a few people, but not alot. Not like we need to, because the sad thing is we know some of these people won´t continue to meet with us. But we are going to continue to work.

Our zone ended up breaking the record for baptisms in a month. We are really excited and want to break our record again. Things here having been getting really nuts though. Its close to Mexico´s independence day, so everyone is buying flags and getting ready to have parties and stuff like that. Apparently it gets super nuts here, so president doesn´t want any missionaries outside or setting appointments for that day. We´ve actually set up a mission conference that day where we are going to review everything that we have learned in the mission. Afterwards, we are required to go back to our houses and stay there. I´m kinda excited to see what goes on. I won´t be outside or anything, but everyone tells me it gets super crazy with a ton of fireworks and a bunch of people in the streets just partying. I´ll have to see if I can´t just take a couple of fotos from the apartment.

Anyways, I´m really enjoying the work. It´s getting close to the day that I entered the mission field, so it´ll be wierd to thing that I have almost been in the field for a year. Time is flying by, and now I almost feel like I don´t have enough time. I´m going to be scrambling!

Sorry, still having trouble with fotos...

Love ya guys,

Elder Scott Donner

New Door Approach...?

Hi there,

Well it was an interesting week this week. So we were pretty much struggling this entire week. We weren´t finding very many new people, and if we did, they weren´t there when we returned. Try and try as we might, it was still a struggle. Also the zone leaders don´t share the ward with us anymore, so there are 2 new Elders to take their place. It has also been a little interesting with them. I recognize I am the only Elder who stayed in the ward. So they all kinda depend on me, and right now, the members only know me. So they only like me. The other Elders didn´t quite understand what was going on. I went through the same thing and really haven´t been in their area, so I kinda had to let them know that they were going to have to figure it out.

Anyways, like I said, this week was interesting. Saturday, the zone leaders came to my area and we did divisions. They are trying to help out all of the companionships with their areas. I can tell you that they definately helped us out in our area a ton! Saturday we were able to find a bunch of new families. The zone leader that was with me really helped me out a ton. I was able to recognize what I could do even better. He kept asking me what I was learning. What a humbling experience it was for me, but the most humbling are the ones where we learn the most.

Something funny happened this last week on Saturday night. So it was 3:00 in the morning, my companion was asleep, and I had just gotten to sleep. We awoke to our neighbor screaming for her mom to help her. She was outside with 4 friends and screaming super loud. We didn´t want to get out of bed to investigate, but then they knocked on our door.... Wonderful! I wasn´t even about to open the door, because it was way too late for that, but you can sure bet that I decided now to get out of bed and start spying through the window. I saw her, still yelling, and four guys with her. One of her friends was passed out on the floor. Everyone was clearly hammered (intoxicated). I couldn´t help but laugh. They continued to knock on the door, and I couldn´t think of anything we could do to help, except let them throw up in our toilet, so I didn´t open. Finally, her mom opened the door and they carried her friend inside. For the rest of the night, we could hear them each taking turns throwing up in the toilet. Funny story right? I thought so jaja!!!

I still haven´t received anything that you sent after the beginning of July, so I am still waiting jaja!

I´m still working on the camera problem. I can´t seem to get any computer to recognize it or the card, but I can still take pictures, which I am doing.

Love you all,

Elder Scott Donner