8 weeks to go and check out christmas.mormon.org

WOW this week is going to be fantastic. This past week was great. I am also getting super stoked to be a missionary this CHRISTMAS! Why? Because the church is awesome and way smart....

christmas.mormon.org

It is a new initiative that the church is coming out with. They are even going to rent out YOUTUBE on December 7th to fill up all of their advertisements with this new video that came out about Christ being the true Gift of Christmas. I ammmmm stoooooked. Haha as missionaries we are going to focus on this being a way to get the attention of people to find out WHO God has prepared for this time to be taught, baptized, and nurtured as a member of His church for the rest of their lives. I was thinking about how amazing Christmas is. We tend to focus on the tree, the gifts, the hot chocolate, the peppermint shakes from Chik-fi-la, etc, when we truly should be focused on the divine gift that a loving Heavenly Father has given to all of his children - Christ. Prophets of old anxiously awaited his birth, and they taught the people that a Savior would be born. His life gives us THE example, and his sacrifice brings purpose to all that we do. As members of His church, our attitude towards Christmas should change. We should internalize the true meaning of Christmas and think about WHAT gift WE would like to give to Him. I feel so blessed to be one of His missionaries at this time to see history happen and be a part of it in some small way. The church is even going to show this video at Time Square in NYC. It is a small, short, and simple video that reminds us that HE is Christmas, not the bows, or gifts, or lights. We need to share it with everyone to spark an interest in hearts and minds of all to teach them the truthfulness of the Restored Gospel. AH. I’m stoked. DOOO ITTT PLEASE. 

Anyway. It hasn’t even been Thanksgiving yet and I’m already jumping the gun and singing Christmas music. Hahah. 

This week was spectacular and difficult. The trials from last week passed. And I felt soooo relieved. But then other trials were made present. But hey, that’s the name of the game.

WE had one baptism this week because G. didn’t pass her interview with the President. She was crying. It was sad and a little disappointing. But I LOVED what she told me.... She said "I am sad. But I now know that I can’t go about things how I would like to, rather how the Father would have it." And she left. That night a couple members from the church ran into her not knowing that she didn’t pass the interview, and they told her that they were super excited for her baptism this week. And she explained that she had to wait some more time. And the members were a HUGE help to her. They hugged her and testified that sometimes it DOES take more time. I am so grateful for the example that she has given me. After a hard couple of days, she is stronger than ever, joyfully awaiting the day until the President tells us that she can. I have no idea what happened. I just am praying that everything can be resolved FAST. But if it doesn’t, I trust that God knows why. I don’t have to understand completely. I know that this is the process of repentance that she needs. So she was like so stoked about the new hope she found and starting reading the scriptures until 5 in the MORNING. What? I know that she is truly repentant. That’s why I just keep praying so that it can be sooner than later. I would’ve liked to have been here to baptize her. But it’s okay. Her daughter had a wonderful baptism and everyone loved it. It was glorious. 

The children in the primary had their program. It was adorable. 260 people went to church. WOWOWOOW THAT IS A LOT FOR HERE. So we were stoked. 

E. is doing fantastic. She already stopped smoking and I am shocked but very pleased at the same time.

M. didn’t go to church so we are waiting for him.

O. and M. had a cita with us in which we called the Bishop to accompany us. When we finished I asked her to talk to him in private to resolve her problems. And guess what?. EVERYTHING IS RESOLVED. SHE IS NOT GOING TO LIVE with her boyfriend/ father of her children man anymore. YAyaya. And she received a calling. TALK ABOUT COOL.

L.’s are finally not sick anymore. And they are going to celebrate my birthday next week. Yay!

C. didn’t go to church but she is super stoked to get baptized. She just has had lots of work. 

C. went to church this week with 4 days without smoking. I sure hope she keeps that record going. We are finally seeing some progress with her. 

We found 2 new families this week that are promising. An 83 year old man was waiting for us to go to church but we got there a few minutes late so he started walking on his own. The good thing is that he walks slow so we caught up to him super fast. HAHAH. He loved church so much and was gung-ho to go next week. 

Everything is going wonderful here. We are finding, teaching, baptizing, and retaining. I love this work and I can’t believe that I get to be a missionary right now in this time. I am super blessed. LOVE IT. I know that this church is true. I know that we need to share this knowledge with everyone we know...

OH FUN NEWS. The family C. is preparing themselves to enter the temple!! AHHH. HAHAHH I am so happy. That makes me so happy.

Okay, well, I am outta time. I still got 8 weeks family. Don’t get too excited just yet. 

Con Amor, 

Elder Macdonald

The Zone

I make good rice

The baptism

Learning to keep on keeping on

Well this week was super great and stressful. All of the amazing people that we have baptized recently are going through the craziest trials and they are disappearing and it is frightening. However, I want to start with a fun story.

So we are teaching E. L. She is awesome. All of her family is members except for she and her husband. She has gone to church activities with her family for ten years. But she has never wanted to accept the invitation to talk with the missionaries. About 2 months ago, she finally softened her heart and made it to one of our baptisms. She bawled the WHOLE time. It made her remember about her brother who is serving a mission in SPAIN. So I found out this past week that her brother is about to finish his mission. He is serving as an Assistant to the President, and his companion is the one and only Elder Skousen. Hahahaha. I saw a picture of them that her brother sent on his email day. I am going to send you guys the photo. Super cool how Elder Skousen and I have connections to the same family in Mexico City. It’s a small world when you're a Mormon. She is progressing soooo well. She is going to get baptized the weekend I get home so that her brother can baptize her. But no one knows. It is a secret. So don’t tell Elder Skousen.

G. and D. are going to get baptized. D. passed her interview. G. needs a special interview with the President. But last night, we visited D. and she told us that is isn’t sure about getting baptized anymore. And I just thought - SATAN Please stop touching my investigators. She is letting the doubts and worries get to her. ayyy no. So we are in communication with the members to communicate with her and get her excited again. I am worried about her. Hopefully G. passes her interview to be able to get baptized this weekend. I will be stoked if she can. Yayay. But we will be patient and wait and see.

O. and M. are disappearing from my sights because she never works at it anymore. Her dumb brother is verbally abusing her and her mother. She is stressed out about her kids because they are rebelling against her because their dad doesn’t live with them. So she is thinking that it would be better to get back together with the dad of her kids.... (they aren’t married) so that she can leave the verbal abusiveness from her brother and start to better her family again. But she doesn’t have money to get married and she is afraid to talk to the Bishop and I just see Satan destroying her life by giving her half truths to make her break the commandments and covenants she has made with the Lord. Ahhh my gosh. It is stressful. I am freaking out because I did not have the intention to baptize people that would eventually become less active. So please pray for her to make the right choice. We taught her well. She understands the doctrine. But now we have to let her decide. 

The L.’s got sick this week and weren’t able to go to church so that scared me. 

M. de J. and her daughter C. finally got home from their vacation. She is staying strong against the cigarettes and hasn’t smoked since she dropped the habit.  Her daughter is preparing herself to be baptized on December 6th... my last weekend here in Iztacalco. WOOhooo. She doesn’t live with her boyfriend anymore, so that is a plus. She is ready to change her life so she can have the spirit more abundantly with her. 

M. M. A. is freaking lazy and not going to church, but I love him.  However, I do have to  battle with him. I think we have come to the conclusion that he is not ready. But we will let you know everything that happens this week.

C. still can’t drop her smoking habit. She has tried and tried. But she just doesn’t do it. We are praying and praying and visiting her every day to help her stop. But she WON’T. The problem is the whole world knows she smokes so she isn’t embarrassed about it. But she is finally starting to feel badly when she smokes. She is down to smoking 1 cigarette every day. But the great thing is she doesn’t even smoke all of it. She does like 2 or 3 smokeys and lets it die out. It is silly. I KNOW THAT SHE WILL DO IT SOON. She honestly doesn’t need it. Crazy. Her daughter E. is a recent convert from before I got here. And she has a dumb boyfriend that is ruining her spirituality. She hasn’t gone to church in more than a month. And we are trying to get her active again, but she is honestly so not worried about it right now. Her poor children cried when they didn’t go to church... but now they are used to not going. So I am stressed for her. Her other sister and brother in law that are my converts are still doing good but they didn’t go to church because of a dumb commitment that they had with the Catholic Church a long time again.... rrrr. 

Needless to say, everyone and everything is working against us. It is so classic. So I am just going to get over it and work, work, and work some more, because soon we will see the light.

We had a cool Stake Conference that was a transmission from Salt Lake. Elder Anderson, Sister Reeves, and two seventies SPOKE IN SPANISH. HAhah What? It was pretty adorable to watch them give their best effort. They got super nervous. I loved it. It was so fantastic to see that they love these people so much that they gave their talks in Spanish. They actually did a really good job and the spirit was very much present. I learned a lot about sacrifices. We give away something good for something better, or even something excellent. We had only 2 investigators go... it was in the Stake Center, so that had a lot to do with it because it is farther away from my area.

Well - The mission is the mission. It can’t all be happy go lucky. But something I have learned is that I need to be grateful in any circumstance. And I am. I am grateful to represent the Lord Jesus Christ. I know that if no one else lives what I am living or feels what I feel, it doesn’t matter, because I am living it and I am feeling it. It produces happiness in my life. And that is all that matters. I keep on swimming like Dory said (Finding Nemo), and the Lord with help me be strengthened in my trials and weaknesses. He has done it my whole mission. I am so grateful that I decided to come on the mission. I don’t even like to imagine what my life would’ve been without it. This church is true. I have come to this knowledge through fervent prayer and scripture study. The little things in this life count. And as long as we keep on keeping on, we will be victorious in the end. Love you all.

Love,

Elder Macdonald

Washintong

Hamburgers for lunch

Elder Skousen with Elder R. The sister of Elder R. is my investigator.

Choosing to be happy and knowing where your blessings come from

Hahaha. Your emails kill me... dad had ten comps?... 2, 3, then 2. That is 7... or am I just bad at math? 

So glad the ward fasted for the family this week and now that makes so much sense to me now. It was a rough week, but by Saturday everything changed. I received many blessings because of that fast. THANKS. 

I sure hope Zach keeps getting better. I will be sure to keep him in my prayers. I love you brother! Stay strong. I will see you sooooon! 2 months and a week. Yikes. But how exciting that we will get to hang out soon!

I am in shock that everyone is home. Hillary, Nate on Thursday. But now I am leaving that shock and getting used to it. It is starting to feel like “that time”, even though it hurts. All I can do is keeping working till the end. 

My new comp is a funny guy. Always happy and laughing and it drives me a little bit insane, but I can either look at it as a blessing or not. I do like him a lot, and I am learning much from him. He is super white and from California. We have a Zone Training that we have to give tomorrow. Woohoo. This should be the last one that I give as a Zone Leader. The Pres doesn’t leave missionaries as Zone leaders in their last change in the mission. So yeah. Lots of changes will be coming up.

I am loving this area. I love my assignment. I love my Bishop. I love my zone. I am very happy in my circumstances. Even though this week proved to be a weee bit of a challenge, I learned so much and am now able to testify more of the Atonement in my life. 

Our investigators are doing fantastic. M. A. is an addict to about every little thing you can think of. No joke. And because of his many addictions and life style he used to have, he stopped feeling bad about his sins. We were able to find out that need this week. I had no idea until one lesson that Elder G. and I had with him (exchanges). So now we are trying to make him feel bad... in a very loving way. Haha. We started with making new GOOD habits. Our habits can either be our best friends, or our worst enemies. So we told him to start getting rid of his bad habits and that he needed to change them for good ones. He has read everyday this past week in the Book of Mormon. And when we saw him yesterday, he hasn’t had any more desires to do what he used to.... He used to feel sad about leaving his sins behind. But now they are starting to make him feel sick and useless.... KA-CHING. He has been with the missionaries for a year, and just now he made huge progress. Hopefully he gets baptized on the 29th of this month...! 

G. and D. are the ones that were going to get baptized this week but now that we have a Stake Conference on Sunday we are going to wait a whole other week so that they can be baptized and confirmed on the same weekend. But they are fantastic. Seriously. We taught them about temples and the work we do for the dead this week and G. started shouting for joy... literally. It was like taking a child to Disneyland. It made me so happy to be able to be part of that lesson. She is so prepared. So elect. Yesterday we invited her to the Bishop’s house for a family home evening that just turned into a mission lesson... But she is awesome. She said that when she is in the metro she just starts feeling so weird inside and she wants to starting grabbing and hugging everyone to bring them to church with her. She is honestly so close to the spirit. She invited her uncle and he is going to get baptized with them toooo! And D. invited her boyfriend, and he went to church and LOVED IT. He is so getting baptized next month. This work is moving forward.

Some of our new converts and investigators went on vacation,.... ugh. So we haven’t seen them.

C. is the lady that had her family get baptized recently, but she is still waiting for her smoking problem. She is FINALLY DROPPING IT. Right now she has 3 days without a cigarette. WHAT?! She went to church and all day the speakers and classes were exactly what she needed. She starting laughing and crying because she thought it was a practical joke. She also has so many other health issues, and she starting reading that smoking is what has caused all of her other illnesses. So basically she is angry at the cigarettes and they are making her gag. So that was the miracle we were praying for. She is getting INTO the water soon. So happy. The Bishop came with us to visit her this week and she felt so special. YES.

Our Bishop is my biggest role model. He is the best Bishop ever. He truly loves the Savior. He is working day in and day out to provide for his family in hard economic times. But he still finds time to teach seminary every day at 5:30am, come with the missionaries on visits every week, go to school to finish his career as a lawyer, teach English classes on Wednesday, teach the BEST GOSPEL PRINCIPLES CLASS IN THE WORLD (it is full every week) and so many other things. He is a workaholic. I am so grateful for the things he is teaching me - Such a good man. And his son is named Mateo and he is the cutest 3 year old you every did see in Mexico. He goes to church every Sunday in a bow tie. Hahaha So classy. So those are things I learned this week.

We found some less actives that are mad at old Bishops. But they came to church! SUCCESS.

This week I was better in my health.... but then I got food poisoning and have had lots of diarrhea. Hahaha. I am just not worrying about it. I just accept it and will get home in 2 months to start taking my vitamins again. I won’t die. I am just used to being sick. But I do feel a lot better right now. 

Oh my. I am afraid for my dentist appointment. My teeth have got to be dirty. I brush everyday like 3 times. But, I stopped flossing.  uhhhh. 

I am happy. We are working hard and seeing results. The L.’s are going to celebrate my birthday a month early on December 2nd because of the changes..... HAHAHA THEY ARE THE BEST. The people here are honestly angels - All of them. I love them all. 

We are teaching lots of other people but those were basically the highlights of the week. Hope you all have a fantastic week. Tell Nate I say HIIIII. Love you all.

BAIIIIYEYEYYE

CON AMOR,

ELDER MACDONALD

Helping the sick and needy, Dia de los Muertos, and 11 weeks to go!

Happy HALLOWEEN. 

I can´t believe another Halloween passed by. This Halloween was super memorable.

So I was on exchanges with a super awesome District Leader. We had an awesome exchange and learned so much together. As we were finishing and going to meet our other companions in the Metro, the Assistants called me and told me that the Elders from Jardines (the Elder I was with) wasn’t answering his phone. They didn’t have signal in the Metro. So I told them that I was with the Elder they were looking for and they were like PERFECT come to the mission home because they are getting an extra companion and you two have to take him to the hospital right now because he is sick... hmmm. I love being in charge of the sick and needy.

So we went to the yellow house (mission home), we got the companion, who basically wasn’t able to walk because his legs and body were going throw weird convulsions, and we took him to the Policlinica (the hospital for the missionaries). Luckily I know how to arrive. We had to walk super slow because the new missionary was in so much pain. He had just gotten to Mexico this week and got here from Peru. They sent him to Ajusco, a little pueblo right next to Topilejo, which is full of mountains and COLD AIR. So his bones were killing him and he basically died (jk). So they took him out of there. We got to the hospital trying to make the missionary happy because he was super distressed, and the doctor starting joking around with him that he was going to die. I thought it was hilarious because I know the doctor and he is super sarcastic and really straight forward with people. He has a very dry humor. But the Elder didn’t like it and started getting scared. The doctor says he is a dry Mormon because he hasn’t been baptized but he believes the church is true. He just doesn’t want to get baptized yet. Haha.. He is a hilarious dude. So the District Leader and me were cracking up all day and the other new missionary was so scared and confused and not sure if he needed to laugh or cry. It was just a big practical joke the whole day. We ate food. The sky was cloudy. Everyone was walking around in costumes and face paint. It was one of the strangest Halloweens I have lived. But I finally got home at like 8PM with my real companion and we were exhausted. 

The next day I got to go to the temple. AHHH. I was super stoked because exactly a year ago to the day I went to the temple. I remember because it was Dia de los Muertos and I thought it was fantastic to do work for the dead that day. It was very special. This year I got permission from the President to do exchanges with a missionary from our ward to take like 8 investigators to the Visitors Center. It was one of the most spiritual experiences ever. I loved it. The investigators were all crying as we learned about the importance of the Book of Mormon. One of the investigators lost her legs and is in a wheelchair. The week before her father passed away. We watched a Mormon message of a woman that lives in Guatemala that lost her legs in an accident and she testified of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon and what that it teaches about the resurrection. Super powerful. Then we watched the great movie about families. We learned about prophets. We taught them about the temples and the work for the dead. It was all just so awesome. E. was there and she loved it. She is so ready to get baptized. But she is going to get baptized the week I get home because that is when her brother comes home from Spain from serving a mission. 

My new companion is great. He is a funny guy. It is super fun to be with him. So that is going well. I got to see Elder R. today in an evaluation. That was good.

Yesterday we had a leadership counsel and it was so freakin awesome. We learned so much about how we can better minister to the other missionaries that we are serving. I am super stoked about that...

Umm I am short on time. Okay thinking, thinking. We ate with an investigator. G. is loving the gospel and is learning so much. She loves changing her beliefs and feels such a power in following the guidance of the Holy Ghost. Hahah. Yes!

Well that is pretty much it. I love you all so much. I am pretty sure I will get changed after this transfer. 5 more weeks here in Iztacalco and then 6 more in an unknown land. It’ll be great. 

The mission is awesome. STAY STRONG AND WORK HARD. LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH

Con Amor, Elder Macdonald

My C. family

Dia de los Muertos

Bus to the temple!!!!!!