23 April 2012

life is good :)

theresa is progressing right along! she is so close! we'll have another lesson this week with her. last week she told us that she was going to start praying about baptism :) we'll see how it goes, cross your fingers :)
next time we see joe we are going to challenge him again to baptism. he's ready! he's been to church like 6 weeks in a row now and i think he really enjoys it!

and i think we're going to be picking up a couple new people to teach! i'll tell you about them as we start teaching them\

yesterday was ward counsel in one of our wards so the stake president came. he is really really good with the scriptures and he taught us all about the history of the BoM using the old testament and then he taught us jacob 5. it was sweet! i wish we would have had more than an hour with him. i took lots of notes!

also yesterday it hit 100 degrees. that is bad. if i dont email next monday i probably melted. actually if i dont email next monday, it'll really be because we are going to the temple next week and i'll email on wednesday :)
but i heard its supposed to cool down soon, which is good because our 5K is on saturday. we've been slacking on training, so we'll see how it goes.

this past week i had a very sad thing happen to me :( i tried on my buddy's glasses, and they helped my vision! :( and then when i took them off, i realized how not perfect my vision is :( :( that was the first time that this has ever happened to me! ive never put on glasses that have actually HELPED. i was pretty mad about it :(

ooooo, but i finally finished Alma! i have about 150 pages left of the BoM :)

welp, time is flying! we're already halfway through the transfer. its almost may! everybody is finishing school. CRAZY!

this is a short version of what ive been thinking about this week:
The Atonement is absolutely ESSENTIAL for the eternal salvation of ANYONE that has or will EVER live on this earth. Jesus Christ knew that performing the Atonement was his mission here on the earth and He knew that by performing the Atonement He was providing an infinite favor to EVERYONE. Even though He knew this, He made an effort to serve the beggar on the street, the widow, the sick, and the little children. There is a lot to learn from that example of charity!

i hope everybody is safe and healthy and happy! have a good week :)

love,
elder donovan :)

16 April 2012

we had a good week this week! it was cold and rainy :) :)

today it was about 83 and we all got sunburned playing football, it was fun!

we still havnt seen or head from Sylbi. i'm thinking about just staking out  her house. i want to know how shes doing and what happened! its such a weird situation.

Brandon has started going to the ward where he actually lives and is meeting with the missionaries there. he's planning on getting baptized on the 28th of this month, so hopefully i'll be able to go to that!

we taught Teresa this past week. shes 50 something, lives by herself, has 1 son and 3 grandkids. she randomly showed up to church on easter and asked us to come over and teach her. i love it when that happens! we taught her about prophets and Christ's earthy ministry, and about the Restoration of His gospel and why that was necessary, and then about the Book of Mormon. when we left, she was excited to get reading and praying. and she came to church yesterday (all really good signs) and we have another lesson scheduled with her this week, so hopefully it goes well.

this week we have interviews with President Black, we'll see if he drops any hints on which mission im going to. im sure he wont. i'm still hoping i get sent to the reno mission, otherwise i'll never get to use the winter coat i brought.

2 weeks and counting until the 5k. my ankles really dont like this running on the street thing. i suppose they they will get stronger as i go. or maybe they'll just hurt more and more.

I'm almost done with Alma. i'm excited about that! today i read about Teancum stabbing Amalickiah in the heart, with a javelin, while amalickiah was sleeping. teancum is my new favorite person :)

i did learn something from the war chapters this week:

during a time of peace, Moroni taught the nephites how to prepare for attacks that were certain to happen sometime in the future. when those attacks did come, they came in the exact way that Moroni warned and because the nephites prepared like moroni showed them, they were able to pretty easily defend their cities and fend off their attackers.

We have modern day prophets and the scriptures to warn us about "attacks that are certain to happen". they tell us how satan works, what his goals are, and also how we can defend ourselves and the people around us from him. if we prepare spiritually, and build our walls with the foundation of Christ, they WILL NOT fall and we will be safe from the adversary.
(alma 49:21-23, helaman 5:12)

tomorrow is my 8 month birthday, you know what that means. it means i need letters :) you know the address, you wont regret it :)

be safe! and nice :)

love,
elder donovan

9 April 2012

hey everybody :)

had a hectic week here! spent a lot of it trying to get all moved in to our new place and organized. mostly we are done with that. the rest of it was spent trying to introduce elder christensen to the area and the people. unfortunately it was spring break here and most of our week was spent trying to contact people that weren't home. just one of those weeks. but this one's looking good! we are going to start teaching a few new people so thats pretty exciting!

also exciting, and kinda confusing: i received a call this week from another missionary who told me that Sylbi had moved back into my ward. since then ive called her probably 15 times, texted her, and knocked on her door a few times. nothing. but she talked to someone else in the ward. weird. i'll keep trying to get ahold of her and figure out whats up.

easter was way good here! sister ringer had us over for dinner and then afterwards we watched all of the new easter videos from www.lds.org/bible-videos they are really really really good. check them out

it's getting hot here. pray for cool weather for me :)

i ate a "1000 year old egg" this week. it was really pretty gross. what it is is a raw egg that basically gets covered in clay and ferments for a few days. when its done and you crack it open, the insides are solid and black. yum

we have started running in the morning. at the end of the month we are going to run a 5k. stay tuned for that :)

im going to start pushing to finish the book of mormon. i feel like i have been reading it for a long time. and i'm pretty sure if i push to finish it as fast as i can (while still marking it up well) it'll really help me. so stay tuned for that as well i guess.

other than that, nothing much is happening here. the mission split is getting closer so the excitement is growing for that. elder marks, my mission dad is the new AP, so he keeps joking that he wants a grandson and so he's going to make sure im training soon. i dont think that show it works though. we'll see what happens.

i think my bike is about to die....

but life is good here :) im glad i get to be a missionary. its an awesome experience to be able to only worry about the things that Heavenly Father wants me to worry about :)

i hope you all had a wonderful easter and have a wonderful week this week :)

love,
elder donovan

2 April 2012

i dont have much time today, so i'll hurry and tell y'all what you need to know :)

elder larsen is getting transferred to Winnemuca. my new companion will be elder Christensen. (not the one that was with me and matekel) he's from canada. i served around him in Tule Springs. He's pretty cool, we should have a good time!

we are moving out of the Ringer's basement and into the DiMonico's casita tomorrow. it'll be a smaller place, but a little more like having our own apartment, so that'll be cool! we're working on getting bunk beds :)

I really enjoyed conference! we were able to watch all of the sessions and they were all taught me things i need to learn. we had a few investigators watch conference with us, thats always good! (the church leaders are always a lot better at teaching than we are)

We had a really good first lesson with Brendan. he is dating a girl in one of our wards and seems pretty ready to make a change in his life (a cute girl can do that to a guy :P). he had already read the book of mormon until 1 nephi 13 when we had our first lesson. so thats awesome! he watched priesthood session with us.

this morning i woke up and played b-ball with a bunch of people at the stake center. I wish i had actually learned how to play basketball lol

and then we went on a pretty lame hike out in the desert. so heres a desert joke for you:
What does christmas and a cat in the desert have in common?

they both have sandy claws :)

well, stay awesome everybody! you guys are great :)

love,
elder donovan :)