This week has been great! I am doing better and loving the mission. I have had so many good days this week and was able to spend time with some awesome people out here! I am loving it. Hermana Murray and I have been bonding a great deal and it has been really fun! I am loving the work and I am loving the mission in general. Some days are easier than the others, and some days are tough...but overall, things are great and I had fun this week and I am looking forward to all the success that is right around the corner.

We have 2 baptismal dates right now...one with Cierra, and the other with a guy named Luis who is new and has a great attitude about life. Also, Daniel Santos (one of my favorites) is not ready for his baptismal date (problems with la ley de caridad) therefore, we are holding off for a week or two with him.... but the work is coming along nicely. We also have the opportunity right now to be working with 2 awesome couples that I have high hopes for bringing into the gospel. T heir names are Carmen and Jesus and the other couple is Nancy and Wilson. I LOVE bringing families into our gospel!! Nothing is sweeter! Well, and bringing all of Gods children into the gospel is of course the bomb as well. But anyways, this is what we have been up to.

So last week we did end up going to the Aquarium with almost the whole zone which was super sweet and way way fun! We even ate sushi afterwards. My favorite!!!! And we have a new Tongan Elder here from Hawaii who played football for the University of Utah and we talked alot about Hawaii. It which made me want to bust into a Hawaiian reggae song and play the ukelele on the beach (but in a good and not trunky way). Also today we went to the Airforce base with Elder Andreason because he is in the Airforce or something like that and it was super fun too! And next week our entire zone is going to MOSI which is an awesome museum here with a planetarium and everything for MY BIRTHDAY!!!! So P-Days are getting more and more fun as I am out here longer. Up till now they have been pretty lame to be honest. But of course the work is the coolest and most important thing out here and I love it the most.

Danny's call is a this week...and I cannot tell you how excited I am about that!!! I have been talking about it all day with my zone and I made them all guess where he is going. I think that they got sick of guessing because I kept asking everyone. So, my guesses are these: foreign: Taiwan or India...and stateside: New York, New York Spanish speaking!!! I am so so so so so excited to find out where he is going. I love him so much and I know that he is absolutely going to rock it out there!!!!!

Well, I love you all so much and I wish you all the sweetest happiness in existence! Be safe and remember I love you!

August 2, 2010

This week is a special week because it is Mom and Dad's anniversary!!!! Happy Anniversary! It is crazy that it is August already!

So, this week has been a very trying one for me. It was very sad. For the past couple of moinths we have been working really hard with a part-member family, and trying to reactivate the members and teach the non-members. It was going pretty well and we were getting through to the family members. The mom's name is Minerva and her sons name is Sam. We were especially getting through to Sam. He has been living in Miami for the past 15 years, and they are from Nicaragua. We ate with him at his house last Friday....(he loved to cook so so much) and the food was always so delicious.

Well, we were planning on him bringing his girlfriend who was here visiting from Miami to church with him on Friday...and none of the family showed up....and we had another appt. with them on Tuesday all set up. So, Monday night we called to confirm and see why they were not at church, and his phone was off....so we called his moms phone, and his girlfriend answered and she told me that Sam had died on Friday and that he was now an angel in heaven and to please pray for him. I was shocked and in denial because we had been with him on Friday until like 3 or 4 in the afternoon, and he was fine and loving life and so excited about the future and he had just gone shopping and bought all these new clothes and he was running around the house showing us all of his new clothes and his new shoes and his new watch. He was so excited about opeing up his own restaraunt in Nicaragua, which was going to be taking place in 3 months...and he was SO passionate about cooking and he loved life.

So the next morning (Tuesday morning) we went over to his house and everyone was there.....and it was true. He was dead. He died Friday night at 8:45 PM in a car accident. He had taken the car and gone out to get drunk (we didn't even know that he drank) and he was speeding really fast and running red lights and stuff, and he went around a corner too fast and ran into a pole, and the car split in half and half of it lit on fire, and the other half that he was in went down a cliff.... they they say that the car hit so hard that he died instantly with the impact so he didn't suffer or anything and I was happpy to hear that. This all happened only a few hours after we were there with him at his house and he had cooked us a wonderful meal. I took a picture of it and I asked him if I could take his picture and he said no, bt that I could on Sunday because he was going to wear his new clothes to church and look really good.

So, his girlfriend arrived the next day to see him, and they could not find him for 2 days...he had just gone missing since Friday....and they called the hospitals, but he didn't have ID on him. Finally Monday afternoon they recieved a call and went into the place and identified the body as his. The investigators had been trying to figure out who he was for 2 days. Such a sad story.

But on another note, we have a really great couple that we are teaching. Nancy and Wilson....and they are great. They are from Columbia. Also, we are teaching a white 12 year old from the white ward....and she only wanted sisters to teach her and there are only Elders in that ward.. and she wants to be baptized. She is super cute and her name is Cierra. I Loved her and she is a bright sunspot in the dark world. So yep....she will be my 13th baptism on the mission so far. I really love her! I think her baptism will be the 15th which is the week of my b-day!

So, that is my week. You are always in my thoughts and prayers. I love you with my entire heart.

July 26, 2010

This week has been great because we are teaching a new guy named Daniel. He is awesome and seems to be golden. I hope to get a baptismal date set up soon. Everything is aweseom!

This week we worked hard, and are teaching alot of great prospects, but nothing is solid right now. I am hoping that will happen tonight with Daniel or another couple we are workling with named Wilson and Nancy from Columbia. Daniel is from Honderus.

The language is starting to really come along nicely.....I still struggle, but I am to the place now where I can really understand people, and I can say many things.....not everything yet, but soon I hope.

Love Forever, Jenna aka Hermana McDonald

July 19.2010

I have wonderful news! I was not transferred! And I am staying with Hermana Murray!!! And this is her last transfer which means that I am going to be taking over this area in 6 weeks.....which means that I am going to be here until at least the middle of October!!!!! YIPPEEEEE! I could not be more excited about this! This is as consistant as the mission gets. I love the people here with the entire magnitude of my heart and soul and it would have killed me to get transferred....

This week has been great. Hermana Murray and I had a few really great bonding times, and I am grateful to be staying with her and strengthening our relationship. Something has happened to me this week which really changed my outlook on the amount of time that I have left in the mission...and I am now feeling like I don't have much time left at all, and that I need to really start getting better and better because these missions go by fast! My spanish is still kinda crappy.....but it is getting better through faith.

Anyways, the mission life has really become just normal for me, and I am loving it. At first I struggled with not being able to watch movies and listen to music and that kind of thing....but now, none of that matters and I am just trying to live up this short amount of time that I have not having any of that to distract me....I am in the process of molding myself into a new and improved version of myself. I am loving the mission and I am loving making sense out of all the things in this life. Life is amazing!

So, this week Hermana Murray and I did splits for a day with the St. Pete sisters...and I was with Hermana Budge, who has only been out for about 5 weeks (at that time)...which meant that I was the one who had to be in charge, and we were in my area, so Hermana Murray was excited for me because she told me that it would be really good for me to see that I could take the area over right now if I needed to. So, I went with Hermana Budge who speaks very little spanish....and we taught 3 lessons all in spanish...and I was the one to do it, and I gave her the little easy parts that she could do.

Well, I love you all so mcuh and I am glad that you are happy! Tell Danny to write me and tell me how he is feeling about all this misison stuff! It goes so fast! In 2 seconds he will be gone and I will be home and he will be home again! I love you all!!!!!!

Love Forever, Jenna