September 13, 2010

Hey My Family!

This week has been better. I feel like the Spanish really is starting to pick up and come along and Michael you are so right! I should just do Spanish all the time, but after we do that for awhile, my comp gets sick of it and starts thinking that we need to speak in English for a bit because she is afraid of losing her English accent that she has worked on. So there is a bit of a conflict there and so we kinda do a mixture of both. But I learn so much from her! I love hearing her speak to people and I am getting MUCH better and being able to follow the entire conversation....even if when I try and speak I generally do not conjugate things correctly, but it is really coming....and I feel that I really will be able to learn this language!!!! I have felt for the majority of my mission thus far that I was never really going to get it, and that my Spanish would always be sub-par, but I really think that I know have the opportunity to really learn this language! I pray about it, and I feel strong feelings that the Lord really does desire for me to get it, and I know that through faith, and my blessing, that I will learn it. So, this brings me such comfort, and even though I sound like a fool still, I know that it will come and that it will rock! But the Lord is really blessing me!!!!!

I have had an amazing week! Daniel Santos got baptized on Saturday! It was amazing! I loved it and he is now clean and pure and he is wonderful! The baptism was a huge success and Hermana Lopez got to see a baptism her 2nd week out here which was awesome! She really liked it I think. We also have a baptismal date with a guy named Juan Gregorio. He is awesome! He is from Central America. He just got his heart broken by a Cuban girl he really wanted to marry, he is such a good guy. He is really humbled right now, and he is ready for the truth. The only problem is that he LOVES Hermana Lopez. A lot of the guys love her, because they love her Chilean accent....and then they love my blonde hair and blue eyes, so together we are having problems....but at least I am getting fat again....so that is helping. (but it is also really bad!) Anyways, we have a date with him for the weekend after next, and I am stoked! He is great!

Anyways, I love Hermana Lopez. My Spanish is coming and I love her accent. I love this work and things are coming along beautifully. We are getting along great and I laugh a lot. I love working hard and I see that as I work harder and harder, things become a whole lot easier. (Why in the crap did I not figure this out before?!?!? ) Working really hard is something that I know that I am going to have to implement into my career when I get home...all it takes is confidence and then the work really takes off, and I know now what I am capable of through Christ, and it really excites me. I love it.

I love you all so much. I hope all is well for you all and I hope that you know that you are everything to me!

Love, Hermana McDonald

September 7, 2010

My PERFECT Family,

Well, this week has been great and new and interesting! I am training....and the Lord has blessed me to train a native spanish speaker!!!! She is initially from Chile, but she is fluent in English too because she and her fam have lived in Utah for like 5 years, and then she went to BYU. Her name is Hermana Becca Lopez. (Hermana Lopez to me). She is fun and I am loving training her....but this is of course a little bit different than a regular training situation....because I am NOT FLUENT. There have been a couple of really interesting things that have happened as a result of my new training experience....

The first day of training her I was shocked into the realization of the situation that I am now in when during the lesson. She went off in the conversation...and I lost it for a second not being able to catch every word, because I was with 2 natives, and when I got back into the conversation I realized that she was describing the translation of the Bof M and how Oliver Cowdry was the scribe and among other things... AHHHHHHHH!!!!

This week we had a member of the 70 come and give us a WONDERFUL training! The AP's asked me to give a talk at this and I was nervous since there was a member of the 70 there.....but I did it and I felt really good about it....and then he referred to my talk (which was on obedience) several times throughout his training. This was also good for my greenie because several times throughout his training he said things that I had said to her (exactly the same way) in my attempts to train her this week. She commented about that and that I really did know my stuff out here....so I think that it will work out well for us.

I am loving the mission!!!!! I really am. I am used to the life out here now, and although it is true that the Lord never lets us "Stay comfortable" I am super happy with the new responsibilities that I am having to take on. I am loving it. I love working harder and harder....it makes everything better. I also know that with my new and wonderful comp I am going to be learning alot more spanish! (even though it is frustrating at times!) I am utlizing her fluency a lot and she is great! I am learning a lot and I have the goal to become fluent, and I have prayed for that a lot and I know that is why the Lord gave me hermana Lopez.

I love you all so much! You are all everything to me and I love you! Write me!

Love Forever, Hermana McDonald

August 16, 2010

HOLY BANANAS!!!!!! I am so excited about Danny's mission call!!!!! That is so super incredible! I cannot believe that he is going to such a dangerous mission!!!!!! I work with tons of Mexicans here, and yesterday at church I was telling them (and everyone else) that my brother just got his call to Tijuana, and they would say, Oh my wow! That is so dangerous! But the Lord really will protect him, and I am so excited that he is learning SPANISH!!!!!!! I am really going to have to get my spanish better and better because both my cute brothers are going to have better spanish than me!!! JK....my spanish is getting better and better every day....but full immersion in a language does help. :) I am sending a couple things home to Danny this week from my Mexican friends here...and I burned him a CD today with my favorite spanish church songs on it :) Danny you are really gonna love spanish! Spanish gives my heart wings! It is so beautiful and when I speak in it, and when I hear it (especially Columbians accents are my favorite) it just mesmorizes me. The bottom line is that I AM SO EXCITED FOR YOU!!!!!!!!!

Cierra is getting baptized next Sunday which will make my birthday week extra sweet! She is awesome! Also we set 2 more baptismal dates with Carmen and Jesus, ( they are the cutest couple in the whole world and they are from Venezuela... and I love their accent too) so that rocks it! Also, Daniel Santos (WHOM I ADORE!) is being tricky....he is not wanting to get baptized, and that peeves me a lot. I told him that my birthday was this week, and it was funny because he thought that I was only 22... and we found out that he is turning 26 in oct. so I am actually 2 months older than him. He thought that was funny.....I thought that it was kinda annoying...haha! He told me (Spanish people are VERY BLUNT) the only problem with the fact that we are both turning 26 is that we are both old and not married. He then told me that I need to be sure to be married before I am 30 because white people don't age very well.... and I still look rockin now, but after 30 I will have a very tough time getting someone to marry me. I assured him that I would do my best to be married by then, and thanked him for his concern. Then he told me that he was going to have us over to his apt. on my birthday night and he would order pizza for us or something...because he said that he will never cook :)

We only have 2 weeks left of this transfer, and then I will either be training or be senior comp.....that makes me nervous...and I hope that I am ready. I will be one of the olders after this transfer becasue we have 4 spanish sisters going home this transfer, and 1 the next, and 2 the next....and then I will be the OLDEST! Crazy huh?!?!?!? The turn over rate on these missions is crazy fast. And in about a month my mission will be half way over.

Well, I am so excited fro my Birthday presents, and I am so glad that you all love me so much! I really appreciate you all.

Thank you for being my family! You are the best!

Love Forever, Jenna

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