Rip Sticking in Peru

3/16/15

hey pops! que tal?? como esta el clima en Hawaii! estoy totalmente celoso ahora! no es justo para nada! hahaha are you serious? me and kyle ran up 150 dollars worth of pina coladas and i don't remember this? how could this be so! hahaha... how old were we? how were the waves at Waikiki? and wow double overhead shorebreak!!!! awesome!!!! i would of loved to be a part of that! hope you guys got some good photos of that to show. wow, how is it that when you guys go over to Hawaii there are some waves to surf! not fair! how i have longed to surf some great waves on the north shore! send me some pictures of the surfing seshes! love to seem some classic Hawaii waves.  

me and my companion are doing awesome! today in the morning as we were getting ready, my companion asked me how i slept.... and i said, fine... he asked me if i remembered what i dreamed about and i asked him why... and in the end, i guess i talk pretty bad in my sleep... he said i would talk in Spanish and English so he didn't quite understand everything that i was saying! hahaha... i wonder when i get home if i will still dream and sleep talk in Spanish! hahahahaha... my companion is a stud and in his family they are all dudes except his mom like our family!!!! hahaha its quite funny and we both come from the same background... he is the oldest as well in his family. he has been a good companion... this next Monday we will find out if i am staying in this area or if i have changes.  

and this family has been a big change in my life! they are so awesome and the changes that have happened in their family have been radical.  from his wife being not interested at all and now she is just flying in the book of Mormon and has passed her husband. their little 3 year old daughter everyday is singing primary songs and its just so touching to see how the lord prepared this family and how we were guided towards them.  it will be hard to say goodbye when that day comes but it would be cool to come back in a year and go for their sealing!!! they are awesome and its cool how the lord has blessed them so much because the husband was unemployed and now has a job.  just little miracles for being obedient to the gospel and his commandments that really strengthen my testimony.  

on the classes that i should talk, what do you recommend dad... what general classes do i still have? and i was thinking about taking Spanish classes and getting all the credits i can for it and maybe having a minor in Spanish! i know you cant help me out entirely but i just want to know the route that you took on the classes and the ones that i should take.  

we found a part member family that the dad is not member and neither is the daughter who have now accepted to be baptized on the 25 of April... we are pretty stoked about that... we are on the hunt for new people.  its been a bit slow this week but we are going to raise it up... this week we are going to have the baptism of hermano johnny! he is a stud... one Sunday as we were waiting for our investigators... johnny came in and was sitting down because other missionaries had told him that there was a church closer to his house and he lives in our area! it was a great blessing from the lord and he is super stoked about getting baptized this week. 

anyways, how is everything at home? i am quite sad about calvin still, and the rest of my buddies are looking at renting a house to stay in when they get home... i am trying to figure out all the details about it but it would be for the following semester... i need to know asap if i need to fly to cali in stead of phoenix to let my president know! anyways, is there anything new that i should know about? i miss you guys like crazy! so grateful for the family that i have and how much happiness you guys bring me! love you!

elder macdonald 

On Mon, Mar 16, 2015 at 2:09 AM, Keith & Lori Macdonald <kekelolli5@yahoo.com> wrote:

Aloha Alex;

We are kicking it on the north shore right now.  We flew in on Friday afternoon and spent the first night in Waikiki at the Moana Surfrider.   You stayed there a long time ago.  I don't know if you remember but you and Kyle ran up like $150 bill on pina coladas.   Needless to say I was none too happy. We surfed at Waikiki and had a good time and then it was off to the north shore. Before we went to the North Shore we did a hike called The Manoa falls Trail.  It was a beautiful hike with some beautiful trees. We also hiked up to the Makapu light tower which was cool. We went down to Makapu beach and it was breaking like crazy. The Shorebreak was close to double overhead. Kyle and I went out and did some body surfing and it was crazy. We had a good time and luckily no one got hurt.  Today the swells on the North Shore were 6 to 10 feet with bigger sets. Some of the sets were coming in probably 12 to 14 feet. So that means the faces were about 20 feet. We watched guys surf at Rocky point which is a fun place to Watch surfing.  There are a couple of families from our ward here and another family that we are friends with. So we are having some fun with them. I plan on surfing Turtle bay in the morning, hopefully I can get Kyle and Jake out with me. I hope things are going well for you and your companion.

What a great blessing for you to be able to baptize such a wonderful family. You will always remember that.

You need to figure out what classes you are taking next semester. I would take all the Spanish that you need to to get credit for the Spanish you learned on your mission.you will need to take a bit of time out of your day to get scheduled. Mom and I cannot do that for you. I hope everything is going well we love you look forward to hearing from you will send more pictures next week. Aloha

Love Dad

Sent from my iPhone

A white Spring in Lima Peru

3/9/15

hola padre! como esta?? once again the jealous of you being at Carlsbad is always there, but this week you were not the only one tha got wet this weekend ;) and you know what i mean (baptisms)! hahaha... wow you kidding that Alan just got to the 50th mark... that is crazy! i can not believe it! and it was a suprise get together how awesome! i am sure you guys had a great time! loved the pictures that you sent me... going to use them to show all the Peruvians how big of a family that we have and how blessed we all are to have the gospel and what it has done to our family.  how was the Mexican food? i am dying for some good mexican food.  but the Peruvian food is quite good as well.  you better enjoy those waves because you know i will be snaking you every time.  but glad you had a good time with your brothers and sisters and the fam! good memories.  

this week we did have the baptism of yon and his wife cindy... it was a great experience.  getting ready for a baptism is always very stressful because you want to make sure that everything is perfect and all ready to go.  we had a great turn out with alot of members present because the entire week we went and told all the members to come and give support to this great family.  it was a great program and it then came time to the baptisms.  i had the privilege of baptizing the father, yon... it was awesome to see his entire family there and the family of hermana Cindy... it was a great feeling baptizing him and it was quite different because hermano yon is taller that i am by an inch but it was executed to the perfection... as we waited in the corner of the baptismal font for his wife, i could tell that he was feeling something.  as he watched his wife enter with my companion and when she came out of the water... you could see the tears starting to come on... as she started walking towards her husband, Cindy couldn't hold it back any longer... the tears of joy and knowing that she had received a true baptism with her husband was an experience she thought she would never have.  the spirit was really strong as yon and Cindy where hugging of joy in the baptismal font and i couldn't help myself but get in on the group hug after a few seconds... it was a very great experience for not only them but for us as well.  it was always awesome watching Johnathan baptize his own mom who was called to serve in the Bolivia Cochabamba mission... where my companion is from! that was quite the scene as well to see how far this young man had changed.  afterwards when it came to the testimonies, as they walked up holding hands to the pulpit, Cindy shared how she felt and that she knew that it was the spirit.  yon first started talking about how he first saw us walking one day and knew that we were the Mormons and one day he heard a knock on their door and we were standing in his front door.  that desire to know more about us was given to him and he said the moment that he say us, he said that there was something different about us and he felt if when we talked with him.  he went to bear a great testimony of the church being restored to his parents and everyone there... its always such a great feeling hearing the testimonies of the people that you have helped... when Sunday came around, we were picking up some investigators to go to church and we get a call from hermano yon asking us where we were and why we were late... at when he called it was 8 45... ten minutes before church was starting...we got there at 8 50 to see him wearing the white shirt and pants and a tie with his family sitting in the second row waiting for church to start.  i am so grateful to have been apart of the conversion of this little family because not only were they converted, but it converted me even more to this gospel and how true this gospel is.  another cool experience is that me and my companion were walking around  and we didn't even know why we were there and we started heading back when we sat down for a second and as i was sitting down i felt a little impression and the next thing i know i saw a hermano driving his moto taxi and waved and i waved him down and in the end he was trying to find the missionaries to help him and is family get activated back in the church... it was cool little experience for me that the lord will always put someone in our way to help them come back to the road of our heavenly homes. 

these are just some of the things that had happened this week that i thought i would let you know... we are know teaching the parents of yon and cindy and are very interested now in the church! hopefully it goes well... we have a few more baptisms coming up which we are stoked and feel extremely grateful especially for how hard we have worked lately.  

and dad i am not quite sure what to do for schooling because i have not even thought about it once... i have been to focused on the people for example last night i had a hard time sleeping because i was just so stoked on who we are teaching and what we need to do for them to help them... what do you recommend me to do? and i don't remember really my yahoo account and i cant get on it... you serious... off to Hawaii?? not fair! i hope you guys have a great time! love you dad... miss you every day! look forward to having my surfing buddy back but after i finish going ham in the mission field

love the stories... send me some more!! 

love your son, elder macdonald 

On Sun, Mar 8, 2015 at 9:40 PM, Keith Macdonald <kekelolli5@yahoo.com> wrote:

Hey Alex;

We just got back from CBAD this afternoon.  We went over on Thursday afternoon to celebrate Alan's 50th bday.  He was unaware we were doing this ...but all of his siblings and Granny flew in from all over the country.  Scotti and Scott brought him over to Los Olas for dinner and there we all were.  It was pretty funny.  He was definitely surprised.  We all spend the weekend together and the weather couldn't have been any nicer.  We had some fantastic beach time.  I paddled out at the reef at Terramar on Thursday PM and had some fantastic waves.  There were alot of guys out so it was hard to score too many but I had about 6 really fun waves.

Hopefully your baptisms happened with these people that you are really excited about.  I hope it was a great experience for them and for you.  It will be impossible for your mom and I to register you for school.  Your going to have to do this.  I wouldn't know what classes to sign you up for.  You need to talk to your mission president and take some time to do this.  Your mission president has to give you an ecclesiastical endorsement.    I also don't remember your yahoo account and password.  could you give that to us?  Mom will give you more info.  I have a very busy week this week and then we are off to Hawaii for spring break.  Love you son.  I will send some pictures of Carlsbad.!!!

DAD 

Spiritual experience:

I was dating your mother and she took me over to Oahu to meet her parents for Thanksgiving.  We were having a great time and I really enjoyed her family.  I had never been to Hawaii before so it was a great experience.  I was walking on Hukulau beach with Lori heading around the bend toward Goat Island when I received a powerful witness that I would marry this girl.  It was so strong that I got choked up.  I didn't ask her that day but did about a month later in Arizona.  I will always remember that witness and the fact that Heavenly Father sent the Holy Ghost to let me know (in no uncertain terms) what I was to do with my future when it comes to this all important choice.  I have always been grateful for that witness.