February 26, 2013

Hey T

Things are going good! My companion always wants to be with another Elder all the time, I think he has a man crush on him ha ha. So I am always with an Elder named Elder Black he is a really awesome dude. We have a lot of fun together. My companion is going to the same mission as me but no one else in our zone is. He is from South Salt Lake. I have not had to speak in sacrament meeting yet because there were three districts that left yesterday so they had as many of them speak as they could, so I will probably be speaking not this Sunday but the next. My roommates left yesterday so I will be getting new roommates tomorrow. We are going to only speak Tagalog to them and see what happens it is going to be awesome. We teach investigators,  but they are our teachers acting like people they taught on their missions; so its not too bad. But they speak perfect Tagalog so sometime we have no idea what they are saying, so it's really hard at times. Tell Reagean and Mylee I love the pictures and everyone always looks at them. I got the package yesterday thanks so much for it. Tell people if they want they can write.

Love you,

Elder Doney
Go on to Lds.org and watch, Mountains to climb, and share it with Holli. It is so good.

Also watch Lessons I learned as a boy

Mom, 

Things are going good my roommates left yesterday so I will be getting new roommates tomorrow. The language is getting harder and harder because of the way you have to say things.

There are so many missionaries here, in our zone it's only me and my companion going to Cauayan and there are seven missionaries in total going. Thanks for taking care of snoopy. My room will get dirty but everything of mine is clean and my bed is always made, so thanks for making me clean so I don't look like everyone else and I don't loose stuff like they do.

Love you,

Elder Doney

First Letter!

Hey T,

How are things at home. There is not much going on here. I get up at 5:50 every morning except for Mondays and p-days I get up earlier. Tagalog is way hard to learn. When you say a word you have to say every letter and a lot of the words are really long like pananamplatya, it means faith, and it has a lot of ng and mga they are every were, but as I get it down it is really fun to speak. I started to teach an investigator on Thursday and I teach him a lot, and it's all in Tagalog so it is really hard to talk with him and answer any questions that he has for us, we mostly just say opo, yes, to every thing he says- but not to get confused with upo, sit, they sound almost the same. We do a lot of studying and it gets old really fast. I have seen Jacob almost every day we have gym at the same time so we always do stuff together. In sacrament meeting we all have to prepare a talk and it has to be almost all in Tagalog, so the talks are not very long. My companion is Elder Heumann and he is a cool kid. We have another companionship in our room and the are way cool, but they leave next week so I will be getting new roommates. We had a fireside Sunday and Elder Littlefield spoke, he helps the Quorum decide where missionary's are going so serve their missions, he told us stories how they pick that mission they are going to. They are all way cool. The rest of his talk had people laughing are crying it was way good. After that we were able to watch a movie. I watched the one about Joseph Smith, it was way good. My teach is way cool he is part Philippino, and there are some teacher that will help you if you need it and one of them reminds me of Luke it is crazy. Let me know how things are going. When you and Mom send a package send some papa j's jerky and a little snacks. thanks.

Love you

Elder Doney 

MTC Bound

On Wednesday February 13, 2013 Elder Bracken Doney reported to the MTC.  He was very excited to begin serving the Lord! He had been waiting for this moment for a long time and nothing could stop him! When 12:45 rolled around he was off! Get to work Elder Doney! 

 

Elder Doney and Elder Bosma

Lamont and Susan Doney

Elder Jacob Bosma

Elder Bracken Doney

Grandma and Grandpa Beckstead

Our Missionaries with Jacob's Mom

See You Later!

I am starting this blog for my brother Bracken while he is on his mission in the Philippines. I will post his letters and pictures and hopefully people can enjoy them! I called the blog "Serving in Paradise." I guess we will find out if that is true when he gets there in about a month! Good luck Elder Doney, we know that you will be an amazing missionary! Know that we all love you and our prayers are with you! See you in two years!

"Yea, I know that I am nothing; as to my strength I am weak; therefore I will not boast of myself,  but I will boast of my God, for in his strength I can do all things; yea, behold, many mighty miracles we have wrought in this land, for which we will praise his name forever."  (Alma 26:12)