Super Busy

Sorry, I am super busy. Not to mention I just don't really want to sit here in the interenet cafe all day.

But life's great, the work is good.

We said goodbye to President Weeb this week. It was sad to see him go, but we are excited to meet the new President.

kk much love,
Elder McDonald

(sent Tues. June 24, 2008)

Not a Golden Reject

I am not a Golden reject, I'm staying in Darmstadt for another six weeks!
(A Golden reject is somone who gets transferred after only two cycles in their golden city.)

Soooo, my address still works. YES! Our district is moving around a little which makes me sad, but it's always exciting to get to know new people.

It's kinda sad my German is just getting to the point where I'm realizing how hard I am to understand. Go ME!

Mom and family, thank you for the letters. They were sweet. Actually a married couple who's been serving down in the institute center is being transferred to the genealogie department, they were interested in hearing about what cool stuff you're doing down there.

As far as the work's concerned it's going really well. We have a lot of cool people to teach. It's just hard to meet with them. Man, life would be so easier if our investigators didn't have lives. I mean, if they just sat at home, prayed, read the Book of Mormon, and waited for us to come teach them, everybody would be baptized in no time. Too bad people've got to work, right?

Though I've decided mission life is weird, it's almost all I know. I know that I had a life before, and I know I'll have one after...But one seems like an old dream and the other is just a far distant unlikelyhood. This is the life to live.

I can't really think of anything to write, so I'll leave you with a cool story.

So Elder Thorne and I were waiting for an appointment to show up yesterday. (He's Jewish, we were sooo excited- though we have had a fallen out appointment before.) After about five minutes, I see this girl walking toward us, I didn't think much about it because we were waiting for a guy. But she just came up to us and asked which church we were from, so I told her. She asked where we were headquatered and whatnot, then we started talking to her about her beliefs and what religion means to her in her daily life. We were able to give her a Book of Mormon and talk some more about Joseph Smith. Unfortunately she's moving to Bolivia, but, still, it was amazing to see how open and curious and ready she was. Hopefully she'll find the church there.

Have fun, Talk to you later

Lots of love and other mushy stuff.
Elder McDonald
Alma 24:15

P.S. I'm buying shoes next week, nothing expensive, just so you know.

RAWR

WOW, this week's been fast. But crazy tiring. There's a lot more to missionary work than I ever thought. For example fixing your stupid lock (more on that later).

First, thank you for the package. It was yummy loving goodness which warmed my soul after a long cold day in the storm (German thunderstorms are awesome, the lightning is horizontal, ahh it's so awesome, wish I could get a picture, nut it just ain’t gonna happen). But yes I'm very thankful for the good loveness.

Oh guess what I realized. I turn twenty three months from yesterday. How trippy is that? It made me feel extremely old, all the stuff that was so far away isn't- like I'm on my mission! I swear it was only six months ago I was sixteen and still had three years before I went on my mission. Yes, I'm getting old.

As far as mission prep goes...gosh there's so much, I'd say study Mosiah 28 and Alma 26, they're the feelings of the sons of Mosiah before they go on their mission (Mosiah 28) and when they return from their missions (Alma 26). There's a lot to be learned from there. Also Preach my gospel always helps. However the key to being a good missionary is that he's already converted to the gospel before he goes on his mission. That means we need a testimony of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ, How do we get that? The same way investigators do. Read every day, pray specifically to know if it's true and come to church. If he is converted before he's set apart, he will be able to be a "serviceable man of God" (I'll let you look up that scripture reference)

This week’s been up and down. We've found a lot of cool people, also had a lot of fallen out appointments. Yesterday we had three hours of finding time planned, and we were stoked and ready to go when we couldn't get the door locked. It was ridiculous. So we had to call the Haus Meister and he couldn't come for two hours, then all he did was put wd-40 in the stupid thing, which we could have done. It was stupid.

We were contacting and I asked this lady if she knew the Book of Mormon, she replied yes. So I asked her if she's ever read in it. She said she's read the whole thing. Then she said that she reads in it when she's upset and it comforts her...at this point I was wondering if she was just a member playing a trick on me or something. Well, someone had come up to talk to Elder Thorne so I figured I'd just have faith that she and I were on the same page. At this point I asked her straight up if she thought the Book of Mormon was the word of God. After a brief moment she said “yes”. Then my jaw dropped. So next I asked her if she knew who Joseph Smith was. She said she had heard the name, now I was truly amazed. So I told her that Joseph smith was the prophet who translated the Book of Mormon. We traded information. She said she couldn't meet for another three weeks, and left. So, yea really awesome though unfortunately we won't be able to follow it up till later. Though I thought it'd be a cool story to share.

Well that's about it for this week, it was nice to hear from you guys, leave me some love for next week.

Till then

Elder McDonald

Alma 26: 35-36

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.

Gotta Love Holidays

It's just like I talked to you guys a few days ago...oh wait I did!Nothing much is new, but it was a little interesting this week. What with our district changing around and whatnot. Yay, new missionaries! I'm not part of the "baby" missionaries, though I'm still "golden". Holidays are long for us missionaries here in Germany. Not because it makes me homesick or anything, but it's just Germans don't like being talked to on holidays. So you don't knock doors. Which is normally no problem- we'll talk to people on the streets. Oh wait, by law stores can not be open on holidays, unless it's a restaurant. so there's no one except really drunk people out, and other random couples/families.I've decided it's somewhat like poking something furry with a stick. Always entertaining, plus the added thrill that you never know what's going to happen: find a cuddly puppy, or get mauled by a bear. Man, I love analogies. That's basically been my week, talking with lots of people.Though, on Tuesday we had a really good appointment with [a family], I love that family. We wanted to see why Herr .... wasn't active. so we taught and then just basically asked him. He had some things, and habits that need to be resolved but it's in his thoughts now. We challenged him to read the Book of Mormon every day. Hopefully that'll help.Well, I don't really have mcuh to say this week except that those little crytal light powder drink things are like love in a packet. Just add water, and you get liquid loooove. Anywho, we've got good things planned this week. So I'm excited.


Viele liebe und erfolg


Elder McDonald