Modern Technology

Hello,

Sooooo, not sure what the reason for changes were but it doesn't really matter because today is the end of the transfer. Anyways, things are going good here in my new area. When we talked about all of the 50 investigators we had, we decided that we needed to do one of 2 things: prepare them for baptism, or drop them if they didn't want to. Therefore, we started the process jaja!!! We have at least 1 baptism set up for this weekend with a lady named Guadalupe. She is quite interesting, but she hand knits some really cool purses :P There are a possibility of six people that live with her that could get baptized, but she is ready right now, so we are doing it.

We have received many blessings through something called the "ley de cosecha" (I'm not sure how it translates to English). Basically, it refers to not receiving the blessings for which we are searching, but receiving them later from something completely unexpected. For example, Saturday we were working our butts off trying to find people in their houses, and also contacting people. Time came around to go to lunch, so we started heading there. While on our way, 2 girls called us over, and me and my companion thought that they were just going to ask us who we were, where we are from, and then tell us how cute we are, because, yes, it happens quite a bit here jaja! But they were actually genuinely interested in what we did as missionaries. We explained to them our purpose, and one of them asked that if we had to, could we teach a lesson in 10 minutes. Of course we can. So they told us, " Well.... teach us". It was pretty sweet.

Also same thing happened, only the guy that contacted us seemed a little drunk, but we couldn't really tell because he didn't really smell of alcohol. He told us to pass by his house, but we weren't too sure about it because we thought that an hermana had mentioned that the house where the man lived was a drug house, so we told him the next day we would pass by. The next day, we went and asked the hermana if she knew him, and she said no. Rather than deny the guy the opportunity to listen to us, we left all our stuff with the hermana, and decided just to go check the house out and bare our testimonies at most. When we got there, he was waiting for us with his entire family. It turned out pretty sweet.

I get along really well with my companion, and we probably goof around a little too much, but I enjoy working with him, because we both want to work really hard, and we do. A little bit about him. His name is Elder Lozano and he comes from Monterray. He comes from a family of 4. He only has a younger sister and mom and dad. He said his parents weren't really active when they were growing up, so it was up to him and his sister to stay active in the church. I am proud of him, because there really aren't that many youth as strong in the church as him.

Anyways, now for pictures. To explain what I am doing, I will give some background. In our house, there is a tank above filled with water, which we use to bathe and wash and for dishes. There is no such thing as water pressure here. Below the house is a big empty space that fills up with water once a week that we can use. In order to get the water from the big empty space (called "sistena"), we have to turn on a water pump so it can pump the water from below the house to the tank above. What happened was the fuses for the water pump had blown, so I had to change them because my companion was afraid of getting electrocuted. So I had to climb in the little space and, hovering over the giant opening where the water is, change the fuses jaja!!!

Scott

Another Change...

Hey Family,

Once again Im in another area. More changes were necessary. Anyways, now I am in a zone called Xalostoc (ha-lo-stock). The ward I am in is called Jardines. It seems like a really sweet ward, and my companion is pretty cool. His name is Elder Lozano. He has less time than me in the mission, as do almost all the missionaries in the mission now. I am excited to be in the area because we have a really high goal set for baptisms. We have reviewed all of the possibilities we have for baptism, and have decided that we have about 50 people we could baptize this month. Now we just have to filter through them really quickly to find the elected and work with them.

Its funny because a year ago I heard that Xalostoc was the worst baptizing zone in the mission, but now it is one of the highest baptizing missions. The ward only has 10 active priesthood holders, so the majority of the members are women. Its our goal to find some men to baptize so we can have more priesthood holders.

I was kinda bumped having to leave my area, but, looking on the bright side, I know I can do some good here. I am definately going to visit that ward again when I have the opportunity. Hopefully it will be when the family I baptized gets sealed in the temple that I return to visit them.

Mom, if there is one thing that I can ask for for christmas is shirts. I need more white shirts, because the ones I have are either almost worn out, or way too big on me now.... I am a size 16 1/2 and I will need the TALL PLEASE!!!! I am still growing and if they are not tall, I cannot tuck them in :S

The picture I am sending is of me and Elder Lozano.

Love,
Elder Scott Donner

Happy Halloween!

This is me with the zebra I sleep with :P Seriously though..... I sleep with that zebra :)

This is of our journey to the temple this Saturday. The Family we baptized drove us there because they wanted to go to the visitors center. They treated us to REAL flautas :)

So in this picture, we decided to compare my feet to others, and we realized why it is difficult/impossible to find my shoe size here in Mexico jaja!!!

Hey everyone,

So I forgot to tell you about something really awesome. This past Saturday my companion got sealed to his family in the México City Temple. So guess what I got to do? That’s right! I was able to go through the temple with my companion’s family :) It was really a neat experience and was sooo stoked to be there with him. The also asked me to be one of the witnesses, so I felt pretty honored, because the mentioned that I will remembered by them forever. His uncle also came from Sonora, which borders Arizona. He said that when I finish, anytime I want to visit, I’m more than welcome there :)

So this past week was more of just a filtering process for investigators. We basically just visited everyone that we were teaching, and those that weren’t really progressing, we let them know we could no longer continue with them. But we are excited, because the family that we baptized has another family they want us to teach. Our ward is going to the temple this weekend, so the family wants to bring them along. And of course, we are going too.... AGAIN!!! :D Super stoked for that. I really hope I don’t get changed from this area because Im really enjoying it and we are having success.

Love,

Elder Scott Donner

Really Good Week!

Dads name is Jorge, Mom is Lucia, Daughter is Monserrat (Monse for short), son is Oscar :)

Sooo,

This week was really good. We did divisions with the zone leaders on Tuesday. That was a pretty sweet day because I got to know one of the zone leaders better. It was a nice opportunity. The divisions were all day so I didn’t have the chance to go to the lesson with our golden family. But when we got back together after the day had ended, the dad from the family took us home from the divisions. He dropped us off and my companion said that they wanted to get baptized the next day and would call to confirm us if the daughter could do it.

We received the call and went ahead with the plans! We had interviews right before the baptism, and they all got baptized!!! It was a really neat experience! Each one of them has strong testimonies and they are so excited to go to the temple in one year to get sealed! I told them that if they let me know that I would be there, and they told me I would be the first to know :)

They got confirmed yesterday. The daughter argued a lot with her boss to let her go to church to get confirmed jaja! She ended up working at night, but was very upset because her boss had promised her to give her Sundays off now. They are already strong and are looking for ways they can help out in the ward jaja!

Me and my companion were bustin our butts after that working hard, and we found some potentials, so we will have to see what happens with them :)

Love,

Elder Scott Donner

Birthday Pictures!

The Birthday Cake

The Challenge...to blow out the candle.
It's hard to blow out a candle when you're 21.

Hey Family,

So I will be able to send fotos this week. Just so you know :). This past week kinda zipped by for us, so i didnt really pay much attention jaja! It seemed like alot of time was spent with the family we are working so hard to baptize. One thing after another always comes up that seems to push them away or make them doubt. They unfortunately had a death in the family, and had the normal question of why. We have really been focusing on the Plan of Salvation with them and helping them to feel the spirit. We watched one of the church movies with them and afterwards they expressed to us how grateful they were that we were there with them.

We are now hoping this weekend we can baptize them. We received alot of referrals this week too. Some of them fake addresses but we are still excited to see what becomes of these referrals. Its exciting to be in the mission right now, because we are seeing amazing things happen here. President Tervort is also very excited, and he expects alot of everyone. We are still suppoessd to be receiving 30ish missionaries EXTRA before the end of the year. This will mean that almost every ward in the mission will have 2 sets of missionaries, some even 3! President saw one of the mission presidents from another Mexico city mission, and said that he had lost 3 and only received 3, where as we lost 4 and received 18 americans! Who knows how many from other countries.....

Im going to try a different method of sending the fotos, and just send them in a zip file. The one with the Moth is what I found this morning and my clothes that were out to dry.

Love,
Elder Scott Donner

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