11 July 2011

Hey Guys,

This was such an awesome week here! I love this place! I have to say that this is the best area that I have been in my whole mission. We have so much help and support from the members here, it is amazing! Most of the ten recently returned missionaries in the ward help us a lot and the Bishop is amazing! I still get a lot of jokes about McDonald´s, but what´s new? The love that here. We had two baptisms yesterday; they were two kids in this amazing family that I was talking to you guys about last week! Their parents finally let them get baptized, it was so cool! I told my companion that they were the reason that I came to this area and they are the reason that he stayed here one more transfer, such an elect family. Now we just need to get the mom, Rose, married and baptize her and her other two kids. The dad was already baptized a long time ago, but we are working to get him back to church; he is going to another church right now, but we´re hoping that with the baptism of his kids yesterday, the Spirit will help him come back. The more and more that I´m here on the mission, the more I realize that I don´t do anything. The Lord does everything.

Earlier during the week, I was getting nervous because Vitor and Vitória´s parents weren´t wanting them to get baptized at all. We brought Elder R. Corrêa over there to interview them and they were really excited to get baptized, but up until Saturday, they still weren´t firm to get baptized. We had been praying and fasting for them and the Lord heard and answered our prayers. When we went there on Saturday after the conference in Petrópolis on Friday, the first thing that Vitor said when we got to his house was that his dad gave him permission to get baptized! I got so happy! The baptism yesterday was one of the most spiritual baptisms that I have ever had. One of the returned missionaries, Monique, gave an amazing message at the baptisms and I don´t think there was a dry eye in the room. The Spirit was so strong there. Their mom, Rose, was really happy and had tears in her eyes after she saw them both come up out of the water. Rose reminds me a lot of you, Mom. She is really funny and loves to joke around a lot and she looks like you I think. This family is incredible. Another returned missionary, Edimar, came with us to pick them up yesterday morning and that helped a ton. The people here are amazing! I`m in heaven here, I`m telling you. This place is incredible. The Lord is blessing us a lot.

Luciana and her family sent me another email (the awesome members from Galeão) They told me to tell you guys hi and that they love you haha. They are awesome, I really, really miss that ward as well. I really have been blessed with amazing areas. I´m grateful for that. She said for me to pass by there again before I leave to come home because she wants to give me some stuff to take home with me, oh goody :) I really miss the people in that ward, they are so cool. I honestly am going to have to visit the mission again after I get home; visit these amazing areas that I passed.

The Zone Conference that we had on Friday was amazing. We woke up at 3 in the morning after going to bed at 1 because of the crazy buses that stopped passing at 10:30. We were still in Resende after the interviews in my area and we went to the bus station to go to Volta Redonda. We sat there for about an hour only to find out that the bus that we wanted wasn´t going to pass again until the next day, so we had to walk another half hour or so to another bus station on the complete other side of the city, only to find out that there wasn´t any buses there either. So our only alternative was to take a taxi to Volta Redonda. Yikes. That wasn´t cheap. At least we will get a reimbursement for that as well. So we finally get there, go to sleep, get up two hours later and have another three hour bus ride to Petrópolis. It was cool. We met President and his family and they taught us about the new ideas for the mission. President said that when he was set apart as mission president by Elder Christofferson, Elder Christofferson said that he was called here to establish a temple in Rio. That was our focus before with President Bezerra, but it is even more so now. It is cool to see the differences between my two Presidents, they are a lot different, but I know that they are both called of God. It will be cool to work with him these next few months, I can´t believe I am even saying that. A few months is all. Scary.

Well, I love you all. Hope that you had a great 4th of July. Sounds like that Kansas concert was awesome, I´m jealous. I´m loving this area!! I´m doing amazing!! Talk to you all next week!!

Love, Elder McDonald

Fourth of July, 2011

How´s everything going?
This week was amazing! We had transfers on Monday, they called us at about10:30 at night, that was nice. I got transferred to an area called Manejo and it is amazing!! It was where President Bezerra was trained and it was his favorite area on the mission so I feel really honored to have been sent here,I´m loving it here so far! It is in my old Zone as well, Volta Redonda. It is in a city called Resende. My companion is amazing, his name is Elder Gonçalves,he´s the best junior that I have had so far on the mission, he knows how to work. My zone leaders are also amazing, I´m finally with Elder R. Corrêa, a really cool Elder that came out in the field with me, he´s incredible. It was a really crazy week and flew by really fast. I got here on Tuesday afternoon and we went to visit some members. When I was still in Usina, I came out here on a division one time so I knew a really cool family and I went back there and said, ``Hey remember me?`` It was really funny, they are awesome. They have a son who just got home from his mission not too long ago and his name is Danilo,he was really happy when he saw me. He´s an awesome guy and he helps us a ton.This Ward has ten returned missionaries, it´s awesome! Two of the returned sisters that came home just a few months ago left with us last night to visit people, they are amazing! We had a bunch of investigators at church yesterday,so that was awesome to start out the transfer well. We had two confirmations,and one of them is a deaf lady. She is an awesome lady! Her and her son were baptized last week and confirmed yesterday. We also visited another awesome family that I met on Thursday, such an elect family. The missionaries have been working with them for a long time; they were pretty much eternal investigators.The mom, Rose, didn´t want to let her kids get baptized, and she can´t get baptized yet because she isn´t married and she´s living with someone. So we went over there and left a powerful message. The Spirit was so strong there; Ihaven´t felt the Spirit that strong in a long time. I was telling her about an experience that I had when we baptized Ronan and Eduarda, two kids in my last area, and how them being baptized made a huge difference in their family and everyone ended up going to church, including their dad who never listened to our messages when we came over. I was looking at her and she started getting teary-eyed and I knew that she could feel the Spirit because it was incredibly strong. That was an amazing experience for me. Then, the next day, I went on a division to Barra Mansa to interview some people there while Elder R. Corrêacame here to my area to interview Rose´s kids. Rose loved him as well; he is an amazing missionary. She finally decided that she would let them get baptized if it is really what they want (they have been dying to be baptized for the last few months). We are going to work with them this week, such a great family! We also met a really awesome lady, Maria, who went to church with her nephew and they both loved it. Maria accepted a date to be baptized this Sunday, so we will work with them as well; it will be a busy week! We are going to have a Zone Conference this Friday in Petrópolis again to meet our new President and his wife, President and Sister Lima. That is going to be awesome!
We have a General Authority that lives in our area; he was a Seventy, the SãoPaulo Temple President, the Fortaleza Mission President. We went to his house yesterday to give his wife a blessing; his house is incredibly nice. They both speak perfect English. Supposedly when we eat lunch there, they get the missionaries phone numbers and when we leave, they call our families. That will be cool. Be expecting a phone call in a few weeks. Our bishop is a really awesome guy! I feel so welcome in this Ward already, it seems like everyone already knew me. It was the first Ward that I came to where they announced that they had a new missionary and I had to go up and introduce myself and bear my testimony,  that was pretty cool. These returned sister missionaries, Anelise and Monique, are really awesome. The both of them and Danilo help us out the most with teaching people with us and helping us out with the work. This Ward is amazing with helping the missionaries out, I love it already. My areas just keep getting better and better, as well as my companions. The Lord has been blessing me a ton on the mission. I´m so grateful for Him. I have been trying to sacrifice a lot more to thank Him for everything that He has given me. I must have done something right to deserve all of these blessings. My district is amazing; I have really hard working Elders in my district so that is good that I don´t have to get on anybody´sback about doing better. The Mission is so amazing! I love my new area, it´s so cool! I want to try and visit Usinaheh heh. My companion said that when President Bezerra would come here to visit, he would always cry because he had so many spiritual experiences here. I´m scared that the mission is going to end too quick, but I`m going to enjoy my time while I`m still here. I love you all! Hope that you have a great Fourth of July! Say hi to everyone for me! Oh, and by the way JJ is engaged now and is getting married on the 24th of August!!!! How crazy is that? I just got an email from him today, I will have to write him. Love you guys!!
Love, Elder McDonald