07/26/10 - Letter to the World

[I asked Elder Denton how he was chosen to baptize the first three people last week: I did the baptisms because my comp wanted me to be able to do the first ones and because it was in the sea! He thought that it would be a good experience for me because they don´t do that too often.]

Heey! How are you all?I hope you are all starting the week of well! I´m doing great here in Lamlaya! We´re still teaching a lot of people and the people are incredibly receptive! I love every minute that I spend with the people. When you ask questions after a lesson and they give you the exact answer you want to hear, it just puts a smile on your face! The people here are so hospitable and they´re always checking up on us Miriki (gringo in Miskitu).

On Saturday we had 6 baptisms:

Diana, la esposa de Jorge - Diana is awesome! She´s going to be a great leader in the church one day. She´s very headstrong and gets things done! She didn´t get baptized last week because she wanted to see a change in her husband before she was baptized. This past week we´ve made it a point to teach that we are baptised for nuestros mismos, to make covenants with our Heavenly Father.

Lorena (daughter) and Domitila (mom) - These two women are some of the most faithful people I have ever met. They were ready to be baptized the moment we told them about baptism and the restored Gospel. They are both more than willing to live the commanments and serve in the church!

La familia Lopez - This is a family that doesn´t speak spanish, so I don´t know too much about them. We have a translater that helps us, but he doesn´t always tell us everything that they so, so we have to guess sometimes. From what I can tell, they are all very happy people. They are always excited for the missionaries to come and share a message.

This next family hasn´t been baptized, but I love them, so I´ll tell you a bit about them. La familia de Felipe has been awesome since we arrived. They live right near our house so we stop by there every night before we go home to check up on them and make sure they´re reading the scriptures and praying. They almost always are. I don´t know if I´ve told you about this Felipe character, but he´s incredible! He loves the Lord so much and he always is trying to do what is right, but he has had a problem with drinking. It´s so sad to go there after he´s been drinking because you can see how ashamed he is of it as soon as we step in the door. Today we´re going to set some goals with him to keep him from drinking and teach him about fasting. I think it will be a great blessing for him.

God is working with us here in Lamlaya, but Satan is working just as hard to keep the people from being able to keep their commitments. I never really realized that Satan was such a jerk. He´s starting to get on my nerves, but I´m not going to let that slow me down.

----------In my Agenda I write down things that I don´t want to forget in my letter to the world...these are some of those things: One day I saw a Monkey, a pig, and a chicken without turning my head...and I wasn´t at a zoo! I saw a chicken cross the road and tried to make a joke out of it, but it didn´t have any other intentions than to just get to the other side.........

WOW! Time flew!...I´ll write more next week! - Love you all, take care! Elder Denton

First Pictures in from Elder Denton II

Today was the first time he's sent pictures. Here are all of them, some dating back to the MTC. Most pictures are self explanatory.

MTC District

Elder Dearden and Elder Denton--MTC Companions


Classic MTC Picture

I think this is Elder Burrows, his new companion, getting off the plane with him at the airport in Puerto Cabezas, near Lamlaya.

Elder Denton's house. He says the power goes out there once/day.

7/19/10 - Letter to the World

Here are a few side-notes to Elder Denton's letter:
1. The stomach issues that he speaks of below lasted about 36 hours.

2. The investigators only have to attend church 1 time (and pass their interview) before they can be baptized.

3. His meeting with the "native" to learn the Miskutu language went well, but since he didn't really know how to TEACH the language, that was the biggest challenge.

4. As you see in the pictures, they took a plane ride to his area of about 1 hour. Even recently they bussed back and forth (a 20 hour ride) until a bus turned over with some missionaries in it because the roads are so bad. He heard that the mission president will be flying out for zone conferences.

5. They do pay for somebody to wash their clothes and feed them.

Good Evening World!!!

I wish I had more time to tell you about all the things that have happened this week, but time has escaped me! I´ll just touch on some of the most memorable things!

On Saturday I had my first baptism!!!...3 of them actually! Jorge Lee and his daughter Darci, along with their neighbor, Alfadelia Wilson! We showed up here in Lamlaya and they were just ready to hear the Gospel and change their lives! My companions confirmed them members of the church yesterday in Sacrament meeting! Jorge´s wife, Diana, and kids are planning on being baptized too, but we just need to teach them a few more things first!

There are still just sooo many people that are ready and willing to hear the Gospel. Are day is so full of teaching people that we don´t have time to go out and contact, which is a problem. We´ll need to start condensing our lessons a bit so we can get to more people in a day!

Question! - How many times does the average human poo a day??? - Not 17! I can tell you that much! Turns out that the people weren´t joking when they said that gringos had a rough time getting used to the food and water here. I thought I was going to die, but I´m all better now! Luckily that is in the past!

I have some pictures attached. I hope you like them! If you don´t, I´ll try to take better ones this week...well, I´ve gotta go out for Ice cream! Jealous? Don´t be...Rum and raisin ice cream is one of the more popular flavors here :S

Have a FANTASTIC week!!! Love you all

Elder Denton II

OH!!! And just in case you were wondering! I´m a MASTER at taking shower´s with a bucket of water!...freezing...cold...water!

7/12/10 - Letter to the World

Hey World!!!! What´s up? I´m having a great time here in Nicaragua! My companion is Elder Burrows and we´re serving in the Puerto Cabezas stake (it´s not quite a stake). We are in a BRAND NEW AREA called Lamlaya. It´s never been open to missionaries before and the field is whiter than white! All of the people are at least giving us the opportunity to teach them. We´ve been there since Wednesday and on Sunday we had 20 investigators at church (35 if you could all of the kids). One of our biggest challenges is that a great number of the people don´t speak spanish! They speak Miskitu. My comp and I are anxiously trying to learn it. It´s rough! So far I know:

Nakisma - How are you?
Ninum dia? - What´s your name
Painsa - Nice to meet you
Isabe - Bye

Pretty impressive, right? We´re going to have lessons with a native member a little later today. He wants to learn English, so it´s a nice trade-off. My time is already just about up, so I´m going to just right down some quick things that I never new before I came here:

Perosonpopos (a type of lizardy thing) make creepy chirping noises when you try to go to sleep.

If you´re ever in a bind, if you crinkle up a peice of paper and unfold, it works just as good as any toilet paper...Don´t judge me!

Mosquitos have a CRAZY fascination with Gringos. I have 35 bites on my left hand!...but they don´t itch, thank goodness!

Nicaraguans use a plastic money with little windows in them.

If you want to point to something, you don´t use your finger, you use your lips.

If you eat enough gallo pinto, you start to smell like gallo pinto.

Turtle doesn´t taste as bad as it sounds.

If any of that comes across as complaining to you, you´ve taken it the wrong way. I love it here and I´m enjoying all the different experiences. It´s incredible to see the different style of life and I hope to get closer to the people as I learn more about there culture.

Well, that´s the Nicaraguan Report. I hope that you are all have a fantastic week!

Love you all,

Elder Denton II

Someday I want to be a missionary...by Whitney Denton

Elder Denton's sister wrote this: "Song by David Blasucci with Donny Osmond. I think this is a cute song, so I made a video to it!"

Here's the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGKaUYKATaY

You'll notice a couple pictures of Elder Cody Denton.  Hint:  He has a bottle in one of them.

Elder Cody Denton has arrived at the Nicaragua Managua North Mission!

Elder Denton was on the phone with us a few times yesterday. We got the 5am call that we discussed, then he called us from Texas and spoke to him for awhile...Whitney was able to speak with him this time. Fun to hear how much she misses him, and him her! We heard a few more stories about life in the MTC and how easy it was for a group of 18 missionaries to get off track during training with the Sister teacher who wasn't able to get control of the class very well. Apparently the Bro. teacher did a better job at keeping them focused, but he/they also learned to help themselves focus when they would notice that they were not doing what they were sent there to do.


He also tried calling us from Florida, but the phone connection was lousy and after three tries we thought we said our good-byes. However, at around 9:30 we got another call from him directly from Nicaragua. He was out to dinner with his Mission President and wife (and a couple of the Assistants, we assume. He didn't know who they were). The Pres. let him use his personal phone to give a quick call home and let us know that he had arrived safely.

So, on just one hour of sleep he left the MTC at about 3am and left SLC at 6am, had breakfast in Texas, lunch in Florida and then a nice dinner in Nicaragua. Now that's traveling! His P-days are on Monday.

5:00 am Wake up Call!

Elder Denton II has left the MTC and is on his way to Nicaragua.  We were blessed with an early phone call this morning and were able to speak with him for about 20 minutes.  He did have the chance to meet about 10 other missionaries who are also going to Nicaragua when they all had a chance to formally meet their Mission President and wife.  The other Elders/Sisters going to Nicaragua are flying out tomorrow to go to Guatamala for the next 6 weeks to practice contacting people with their newly acquired language and in a spanish speaking country to help them get used to the culture.  They are only allowed to speak spanish there.

Elder Denton II is the only one of the group that is on the expedited course, so he is traveling alone today.  He mentioned that the MTC was never quite on track with him that he was in this expedited course and they were trying to tell him he would be going to Guatamala too.  He explained what he was doing and he was happy to see that his ticket this morning was to Nicaragua!  He's got a little mexi-accent (no disrespect meant) like his brother, Elder Kyle Denton, who is in Argentina.  It's kind of funny.  He loved the MTC and everybody in his class, even as crowded as it was...he wouldn't have had it any other way.

We don't know when his p-day will be.  Because he is coming in at an odd time he doesn't know if he'll get hooked up with a companion, or just work in the office until the other's catch up.  So many unanswered questions and we'll just have to wait until he contacts us, or his mission president contacts us to let us know he has arrived.