wanta stay here

Note:  This is our very last email from Russell as a missionary. He is responding to our last email.  I wrote him that we plan to return to Germany with him to visit.  He is not saying "Good-bye", only "Till we meet again."  He completes his mission tomorrow, Wed, Jan. 27, 2010.  He returns home Thursday, Jan. 28, at 10:00 pm.  We can hardly wait!

Yea, tomorrow we go to the temple in Frankfurt. I'm excited, it's been a long time since I've done a session.

I can't wait to visit. We've got about a million families that have offerred their homes to us. But I'm warning you now I've decided to do everything I can to do a study abroad here in germany. I just haven't had enough.
Anywho, I'll see you all in two days.

Elder McDonald

"Finishing his mission"

We received a letter from President Ninow, Russell's mission president recently. It is the concluding report on our Elder's work as a missionary for the past two years. We would like to share the letter:

"As you son, Elder Russell Allen McDonald finishes his mission, Sister Ninow and I express our gratitude to you for the privilege we have had of serving our Heavenly Father with your son in the Germany Frankfurt Mission. During these last two years, he has deepened his love for the Gospel and has strengthened his faith in his Savior, Jesus Christ. He has gained a righ appreciation for the people here, their culture and their language and through study and dedication has learned the German language as well. He has been able to teach the doctrines of Christ and bear firm testimony of their truthfulness and by so doing, has been an instrument in the hands of the Lord.


During his mission, Elder McDonald had the opportunity to serve in the capacity of a District Leader. He demonstrated a great love of the people which is critical to the Lord's work here and he gave Christ-like service to those around him. We commend him for the service he has given to the Lord. He will be missed by many her in Germany and his influence will be felt for generations to come.


Elder McDonald's release date from the mission field is the 27th of January, 2010 and he will travel home the following day. The Lord has richly blessed your son and we are certain of His great and abiding love for him. He will continue to be an asset for good in our Heavenly Fathers' kingdom here upon earth. Sister Ninow and I love him and pray for the Lord's choicest blessings to be with him. We will always cherish our time of service together and hope that Elder McDonald will keep in touch from time to time as he progresses forward.


Again, I express my deep gratitude to you for your love, your support and for the sacrifice made while your son has faithfully served here in the Germany Frankfurt Mission.

Solingen, Germany

Solingen.

Well It's been a crazy week. Both of us are new to this area so we had no idea where we were where our area is and so on and so on. But finally we've gotten a pretty good idea. Solingen is not far away at all. but it's way different, more like Wesel. It is pretty small, but it's way pretty. It's in the mountains, so there's lots of hills but also tons of trees, also way pretty. Elder Gruber is way cool. Way excited to do missionary work. He's only been out for three months so I feel a little old. Soo, I'm getting more accustomed to the city. I'm warming up to it. The ward's way sweet! A little smaller than Köln but way nice and way efficient. I was given this packet that every missionary gets with my name on it and the goals, stats, members and whatnot in it. It was awesome. This ward is ready and willing to do crazy good missionary work, and Elder Gruber and I are more than willing to help them do it.

Well, I'm glad the holiday is over. Don't get me wrong I love Easter but holidays are a little different in Germany than in America. All the stores are closed and everybody makes a point of going somewhere where we (missionaries) can't find them. Holidays in Germany are really boring for missionaries. Normally I set up appointments, but then again, I got here on Wednesday, so I didn’t really have much opportunity. We'll dig down and do some great work this week.

Alright well I love you all. Stay cool.

Volle liebe
Elder McDonald

Solingen, Here I come

Well I will be leaving the beautiful city of Köln and go to the far far off city of Solingen. Actually it's not far off at all. Two stops away. I don't know a lot about the city, so I'll have to fill you in next time.
This week has gone by really fast. Luckily I was able to see all the members I wanted before I leave tomorrow. Plus we have stake conference not to far away. So it's not like it'll be a long time before I see my old ward. What I do know about Solingen is that my companion and I (Elder Gruber, I don't know him at all) are opening an apartment that was closed a couple of months ago, so we'll be hitting the streets. That's nothing new. But yeah, I'm sad to be leaving, though that's the life of a missionary.

I really enjoyed conference, as always, I hear just what I need to hear.

Well I gotta pack. Bis nächste woche. (Until next week.)

Elder McDonald

Meine neue adresse
Werwolf Str. 32 (that's right werewolf how sweet is that?!?!)
42651 Solingen germany.

Transfer time again

Note: I asked Elder RAM about a box of goodies that I had sent to him a second time (we sent it the first time at Christmas time, and it came back to us.) We wanted to try one more time to get a box to him in Germany. I included Easter wishes and goodies too.

I got the Christmas package...and some Easter mm's. Stop the mail at the moment, this weekend’s transfers and I have a feeling that I'm going to get transferred. It's about time this little ol’ elder get a fourth city. (After a year in Germany, most missionaries are working on number five or six.) I'm doing a lot better aka “Not sick”. It was funny though, the ward thought I was getting into fights or something because of the scabs my cold sores left. This week is general conference- it's going to be sweet! UMMMMM We played basketball today so I'm tired and way out of it. Well life's sweet, the weather is great, and a year ago I wouldn't have imagined that I'd be able to communicate in this language. (It's so weird that I've been in Germany for more than a year.) Loves,Elder McDonald

Sorry

Man, there's just so much to do in Koln. We're always busy. Right now Elder Burr and I are talking to a lot of people and trying real hard to find someone prepared. But it's fun and we're happy.
And our mission president said we are allowed to "dutz" ask Lyndy, she knows what I'm talking about.
As far as cd's go I've got a good collection now, thank you.
Other than that, you should probably stop trying to send me packages here in Koln. I just have bad luck in this city.

Love you all, I'll send a longer e-mail next week, I promise. I'll even write you before the (mission) president.

Loves,
Elder McDonald

Weekly report

Hey! Not much new this week. We've just been prepping for Christmas (only two weeks away- crazy!) It hasn't snowed in the past little while which makes me sad but what-ev. We've been doing a lot of member work. Trying to help them get the courage to open their mouths...So yea it's cool.
Well, one really crazy thing that I found out is that the sister of a member that lives in my old area (Wesel) lives here in Koln. We were only able to talk real short and I wasn't able to talk to her about the gospel, but she was really happy to see us and I was amazed by such a "random coincidence". Anyhow, like always, I'm real busy.

Till next week
Elder McDonald

11/4/2008

Yea, the parallels in the Book of Mormon are crazy. No, I haven't gotten the package yet, but I'm not putting my hopes and dreams on it. We know my luck with packages.

Well this one's really short. Sorry. Things are going great here in Kln. I'm enjoying it a lot. Perhaps Brother Feil could give me a few hints about Kln culture- that'd be sweet. Everything’s great here.
Much love
Elder McDonald


11/3/08

Dear son;
I hope you are doing well. Our thoughts and prayers are with you! Have you received the package we sent yet? As dad mentioned, tomorrow is an important election day. More than voting for a president, we are voting for the sanctity of marriage. We will let you know how everything turns out.

I started Helaman today. It is amazing how our times parallel the times in the Book of Mormon. We need to read and heed the lessons there. The wonderful news is those that love the Lord can have peace in this time of uncertainty.

Mom

One cycle wonder

Well another Transfer has gone by, and... I'm going to Koln (Cologne). What? Four transfers in my first city and now one in my second. Especially odd since no one had done a one transfer in Wesel for over a year. But It's pretty sweet that I'm going to the biggest city in the mission. It's also well known for the Christmas Market that it has every year. Which I will probably be able to enjoy...if I'm there long enough.
I'm sad to be leaving Wesel after such a short stay, but I'm excited for the new area and change of pace.

Loves <3>

Elder McDonald

Ausgezeichnet

July 15, 2008

Well, it's halfway through the month and our new mission president hasn't turned the mission upside down...yet, who knows, in two weeks are transfers. And then we'll see.

Actually He's really cool. A lot different from President Webb. President Ninow is 20 years younger. We had our first Zone Conference and he gave a really good talk. He's pretty hardcore. I'm excited.

On the other hand I'm doing great. I came to a realization the other day about how awesome living the life of a missionary is- even if you had nobody to teach.
Let me break it down for you:
1) I don't get graded on my German,
2) I don't have to do better than my companion
3) I don't have to worry about a job
4) or girls
5-100) Basically anything that makes life troublesome is no longer part of the picture.

I could dance the day through. Too bad I don't have my tap shoes (that's a joke, don't send me my tap shoes, It would probably drive my companion crazy)

Anyhow, I've always got a miracle for you- I see one just about every day, but I'm too lazy to type them all down, so you just get the big one of the week.

This is about a cool guy we met. He was with one of our newer members and sooo naturally we got to know him. He's American and been living in Heidelberg for the summer (perhaps you heard about him from the guys down there.) He's been investigating the church, however he's not like other investigators. First he found the church on his own, second he already has a testimony of the church. The problem right now is that he's not really in a stable position to get baptized- he lives in America, not Germany. But we did take him to the temple yesterday, did a tour there. He's just ready, he wants it. He loves the Lord he loves Christ and he wants to learn everything he can. Furthermore, when he learns, he acts on it. For him, there's not really a distinction between faith and knowledge. It's quite an amazing experience to meet such a person as him.

Lots of fun,
Family: have fun in Cancun,
Others: have fun...doing whatever.

Mucho luvo

Elder McDonald

Kein Lust

I did not have time to post to Russell's mission blog last week- so here are two weeks posted today!

On 5/27/08 Elder McDonald wrote (notice the German spelling that is creeping into his letter):

Sorry this one will be short again. I tend to find myself not really into letters. I guess that's what happens when you're in Germany doing the Lord’s work.

This week we had Zone Konference, the presiding authority for the Europe Central Area came and talked. He gave us a lot of good ideas about how we can be better missionaries. So we're taking it up a notch. But I guess when you step up the work, the opposition steps up too. It's kinda crazy but I love it.

Quick little story:
We had a block of finding time and taught two lessons, almost back to back. Then right when we were about to go into a building this guy came out of nowhere and asked us for something about our church. So we gave him a Book of Mormon, well he didn’t want to give us his number but he said he’d find us. Then right when he was done, this crazy drunk guy started talking to us. It wasn’t the first drunk guy who we’ve talked too, but he was the first one who blasphemed against the Lord. I didn’t know how to react, thankfully Elder Thorne just said, “Sir you’re a little drunk. We’ll be more than happy to talk when you can think straight.” Then just a couple minutes later, we found a Jehovah’s Witness and that was an interesting conversation. Then another drunk guy talked to us, and wasn’t so kind himself.

It's a good life,

Till next time
Elder McDonald.

All in a Day's Work

We went to a world famous guitar maker and Elder Thorne's going to spent thousands of dollars on a guitar.

Next Sunday is my two month mark in the field, goes fast, well for me at least. As far as this past week goes nothing really extra-ordinary, we've been doing a lot of finding time. It's helped my German a lot! Now we've some pretty strong contacts, so I'm excited. Plus we have an appointment with a guy named jah…….., How rocking is that?

Here's a cool story from an awesome appointment we had this week:

We had a meeting place planned for this appointment, we'd been doing finding time most of the day and we had already had a fallen out appointment, so all in all I was pretty tired. So we're waiting for this appointment and I had no idea what to expect, though I was hoping it would be good. Well he shows up and we ask him a little about his religious background. He's sixteen, believes in God, is active in his church group, and loves learning about religions. So we were introducing the Book of Mormon with the pictures on the front and he's like "yea" "ok" "Klar", eventually he asked why it was important to him. So we taught him about the restoration and he was sooo attentive. At the end we bore our testimonies and started to come to commitments. He committed himself to read and pray. Then we were going to very gently give him a soft baptismal commitment, [but before we could] he said if he finds out that it's true then of course he'd get baptized without us even having to ask. It was awesome and I'm excited. It's been a good week.

Picture: A picture in the Book of Mormon that Elder RAM was sharing. This is of the Kirkland Temple, in Ohio.

RAM- Elder Updates

We will be using this blog to post information for our son, Elder Russell McDonald (RAM for short), who is serving a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Frankfurt, Germany. It will be a way to let everyone easily hear how he is doing, and to see pictures he shares from his mission. I will post new information on this every Tuesday.

Elder RAM (if I use his first/last initials it makes him an RM- which he is not yet!) recently sent pictures. Most of the pictures were taken in the MTC in Provo. Those are saved for another post. There were only two taken in Germany.

#1- Elder RM with his companion, Elder Thorne at the Frankfurt Temple, Frankfurt, Germany.




#2. A picture of the countryside in Germany. The countryside near Frankfurt is very picturesque. It is not mountains- more hills and grassland. This is something that a lot of people do not realize about Germany, that it has this type of terrain also.
He is serving in Darmstadt, a small town south of Frankfurt.