January 25, 2011

(I received this letter on 2/4/11) 

January 25, 2011

Well, this week seems like I've blinked and now it's over. I can't believe that I'm flying to Peru tomorrow. (Wednesday, 26^th) I'm excited to go down there. I'm sure it will help me a ton with the language. I should be able to pray for more than my teachers, friends, and family after I'm down there for a while. I never thought it would be weird to hear someone pray in English, and sound normal for someone to pray in Spanish, but that's about where I am. I've caught myself trying to read English sentences in Spanish and I'm like, I have no idea what that means! When I realize it is written in English and not Spanish. Haha Well, I was able to teach two lessons to mock investigators again this week. They both went well. The first lesson we taught was to an older couple and we taught about the plan of salvation and we only had 45 minutes. I'm pretty sure we could've taught for a couple of hours on the plan of salvation. Anyway, the lesson went well, we could feel the spirit, however, I talked a lot more than my companion and kinda rushed the lesson a little to make sure we covered every principle. It wasn't bad, it just could've been better. Luckily that lesson was in the morning so we had all day to evaluate and game plan for Friday. Both teachers taught about how to ask inspired questions on Thursday night so Elder Schafer and I really thought we could use inspired questions to help our lessons. We basically learned that we have to always be in tune with the Spirit and let Him guide the lesson. So in our lesson on Friday we tried to do just that. We had never met with our investigator before so we talked with him for several minutes and got to know him. As we started teaching I taught for a couple minuted, then my companion taught. While he was teaching I was able to have a prayer in my heart and ask what I needed to be asking. The spirit prompted me with what to say and as we continued this routine for the rest of the lesson I could feel the Spirit so strongly. Afterward our investigator told our teacher that he had also been able to feel the Spirit, so that was pretty awesome. This week has been pretty hectic besides that,I've been to gym twice maybe because they make us pack during that which is really dumb. And I had to say bye to both of my teachers, two best teachers I've ever had. But oh well, one of my buddies here told me a mission is basically 2 years of goodbyes, I'd have to say that's about right. Well, thanks again for all you've done, and still do for me. I wouldn't be here without all of you.

Con Amor,

Elder Donaldson