Miracles.

Hola Familia!

I'm doing well and loving this area. We have lots of investigadors too. We should have two getting baptized this week so I'll hopefully have some pics of that as well. And the ward here kicks butt. They really help us out and a lot of them are young converts . (July 10)

Elder D a little fond of his 45 liter Coke bottle collection. 

Well this week was quite the week! We had some cool experiences, definitely a testimony to me that the Lord runs this work. We spent 2 weeks planning these baptisms to a T, verifying with all the members, getting all the music and videos and everything else we needed, making assignments, everything. We did everything. But Satan did not want these people to get baptized. It started on Tuesday. We went out Tuesday morning to buy some coke and bread, which we shouldn't have done, but we left anyways. As we were walking down the street, we ran into H, which is super weird because its far from his house, and he just looked furious. He came up to us, and explained that his mom, the landlord of his house, called the police and evicted him from his tiny house because he said some rude stuff to her the night before. So he was homeless for the moment. But finding him that morning was the first miracle, because if we didn't find him he would have gone to Bogota to get away from everything, and we wouldn't have seen him ever again. So finding him due to our disobedience was the first miracle. So we walked to a panadería to sit down and drink something to try and calm him down.

30 seconds later, his brother, the elders quorum president, drove by on his motorcycle. What are the odds.? Miracle number two. So his brother comes and talks to him and calms him down, and makes arrangements to talk to his mother and work other things out. Meanwhile, we made arrangements with H to accompany us to our visits for the day, a chance to feel the spirit and distract him for a while. It worked. H is back at his house, his mom forgave him and went to his baptism and confirmation, and he feels great about everything.


Satan didn't want him to get baptized, but the will of God is more powerful, and based on the odds of those two miracles happening, God really wanted him to get baptized.



H, our convert is also a painter. He paints pictures of Jesus, and well just about everything you want so if you would like him to do a painting of Jesus or the family or something let me know. He charges about 30 bucks for a hand done painting or drawing, and I could send it home with a returning missionary. Just a thought of a cool souvenir for the fam. (July 17





Another investigator, D had a bit of a rough week as well, but we did everything we possibly could with the ward to figuratively hold her hand through everything, and when she finally got baptized, I had never seen her smile so big for so long. Y'all have no idea what has happened to her in her life. And if she never smiled once for the rest of her life I honestly wouldn't blame her. But she is just so much happier now, there is an incredible difference between the first day we met her and her life now.





I can't express it enough. It's been some really good weeks. So grateful to my Heavenly Father and his blessings. Furthermore, we still have lots of potential discussions to teach for the weeks ahead.


The mission has really settled in. I feel like I've been here my whole life. Just this last week a lot of the north American missionaries went home... making me pretty much one of the older missionaries in the mission now... I still feel new though. I feel a lot of peace and so happy to be a missionary. It's hard to describe, but I love it. The clouds were out everyday this last week so we didn't have too many hot days, well its always hot but it was more bearable this week. Our converts are doing well, H was out of town all week working and got back late Saturday night. He had an accident so he didn't come to church yesterday, we are gonna go visit him tonight. We passed by D last night and she just thanked us over and over again for bringing her the gospel.



Weekly Fried Chicken!


Amongst the spiritual outpourings we still have a little fun. Probably the funnest thing this week was making empinadas with Elder Cox Sunday night... we had no idea what we were doing and they turned out really gross but the guacamole was good.

Anyways, I love you lots and I am grateful for all you do. Thanks for all the updates, and the story about Grandpa! :) I'll make sure I always remember my belt now. (July 24)

Lots of love,
Elder Donaldson

August 7th, 2017, Elder Donaldson sent a picture of a letter rather than an email. Shared below. Love this missionary.