11/29/10 - Letter to the World

Bautismos de 27-11-2010

Good Afternoon family, friends, and conocidos!I hope you all had a fantastic Thanksgiving, celebrated with plenty of pies, mashed potatoes, and turkey. I´m happy to announce that mine was rightly celebrated with a big old mountain of gallo pinto!...if you don´t remember what that one is, do a quick google images search! Lots to say and not much time! This last week my comp and I had 4 baptisms, ALL very exciting!Maura, Keri, and Fray -Maura is the wife of a recent convert, Orby. When Orby got baptized, he was going to get married with his wife, step daughter, and step-son...in law. When the day came, Maura never got ready. She told us that she didn´t have sandals so she couldn´t go. We knew that that was bogus and that there was another reason, but we didn´t know what it was. We went back a few days later, and she didn´t want to talk to us, we didn´t want to upset her, so we left, and planned to go back on Saturday, after she had time to cool off (from what?, I don´t know). Saturday came and she still didn´t want to talk to us, she was talking to her friends in Miskitu, and we didn´t understand a thing. We invited her to church, but she said she wasn´t going to go. After that, we would go back to visit Orby and his step-kids, but we never talked to Maura, because we didn´t want to make her angry, but every Saturday we invited her to church (she had never been). After about 2 or 3 months we found out that she had problems with her riñones (¿kidneys?) and she couldn´t hardly walk.3 weeks ago we invited her to go to church again, not expecting anything out of it, and she said that she would go! I was shocked and excited, but at the same time, I didn´t really expect her to show up. But guess what! She did! I was super excited and all day I was wondering why she had changed her mind.We went by to talk to her that evening after church and we had a really neat experience. We asked her how she liked the church and she started telling us how much she loved it. She told us that she had been sick for 3 months, and no one from her church had gone to visit her and that during those 3 months, we went by every Saturday to see if she was okay and to animate her to go to church. She said that she was impressed with our dedication - teaching people all day long until after the sun goes down. And then she paused, and said, with a giant smile, ¨My son learned how to pray!¨. She had brought her 6-year old son to church with her and in primary they taught him how to pray. She was astounding and completely impressed. She told us that she wanted to be baptized along with 2 of her 3 kids (keri and fray). Saturday they were baptized in the Atlantic ocean and now, they´re next goal is to go to the temple!I´m out of time and I haven´t even mentioned Vicenta, who is AMAZING! I´ll write about her and her story next week.I hope you all have a fantastic week and enjoy the transition from November to Christmas!!!Love you all,Elder Denton II

11/22/10 - Letter to the World

Good Afternoon, my family!!!
Buenas tardes, mi familia!!!
Tutni yamni, familiki!!!

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! I know it´s a few days early, but I hope it gets you all thinking about all of the things that you are grateful for! The gringos here in Puerto Cabezas are doubly grateful this year, because we wrongly celebrated it last Thursday. Turns out that since the Pilgrams didn´t land here in Nicaragua, they don´t celebrate Thanksgiving and we were convinced that it was the 3rd Thursday of November. Oh well, One more holiday! It´s incredible to think that Christmas is already on it´s way - it´s hard to accept when there isn´t any snow on the ground and there aren´t Christmas lights up on the houses. ¡¡BUT!!!, good news!:

In Puerto Cabezas I haven´t seen kleenex - only snot rockets...gross!

In Puerto Cabezas I haven´t seen skittles - only mamones, a little fruit that´s actually pretty good

In Puerto Cabezas I haven´t seen running, heated water - only coffee makers to heat water for a bucket-bath

BUT LAST MONDAY I BOUGHT EGGNOG! My comp showed me a drink called ¨rompope¨ and as soon I realized that the translation was eggnog, I was jumpin´ up and down!

This last Saturday my comp and I had two baptisms, a father and a son. They´re both named Delfino. We had a bit of a hard time finding them on Saturday (the dad went hunting and the son left to the market all day), but in the end we had a really nice service for the both of them. As the baptismal service was getting closer and closer, I kept asking myself if he was really ready, if we had done everything we could to prepare him to take such an important step. After the baptism I asked him how he felt and he said, ¨ahora, sí, estoy feliz!¨. He was ready! I think he is going to be a great example for his son and his son, likewise, a great example for his father.

Something that I realized this last week is that on my mission, I make a lot of lists. I have lists of investigators (vicenta, ricardo, etc...), lists of recent converts (felipe, delfino, etc...), lists of things to write on monday (baptism, eggnog, lists, etc...), lists of movies that pop into my head that I need to watch in 20ish months (mrs. doubtfire, aladdin, etc...), etc... I think my the end of my mission I´m going to be all listed out!

Well...I wrote too much and it´s time to take off. Have a great week, eat a lot of turkey, keep an alka seltzer handy, and tell brother devey to take it easy at the turkey bowl.

Love you all

Les quiero todosSutra mai wantsna, Elder Denton II

11/15/10 - Letter to the World

New Companion, Elder Cordero with Elder Denton

What the heck do you think he ate to puff up like this, with hives? I'm thinking it may have been shellfish. It happened to me when I was his age.

Hey World!!Who´s pumped for ANOTHER change here in Puerto Cabezas? I know I am! The Nicaragua Managua North Mission had changes last Wednesday, and Elder Denton was not part of it. I am the only missionary in the mission that has never gone to a reunión de cambios (¿change meeting?). Something that did change though, is my comp. This change I´m going to be working with Elder Cordero! He´s a tico (person from Costa Rica) that has about 8 months here in the mission. He´s super pilas and has a really important task here in Puerto!I imagine that all of you who follow missionary blogs have heard of a ¨new doctrine¨ or ¨new teachings¨ or maybe ¨new focus on the Gospel¨. I don´t know how they say it in English, but it´s pretty new and has everything to do with teaching 100% with the spirit. I think nearly all, if not all of the missionaries in the field have already received this capacitation, except for Puerto Cabezas. The church, in it´s organized form, is an hour-long flight away from Puerto which impedes us from having the most updated news/capacitations. The capacitater of these new teachings arrived to Puerto last Thursday and it just so happens to be my new comp!President Arredondo (mission president) told us that the capacitator was going to be the missionary that applied it best, so I´m super excited to learn first hand how it all works!A little bit of bad news...I´m allergic to something here in Puerto and I don´t know what it is. A few days ago I broke out in hives all over my body and my lips swelled up pretty bad. That was the day after I was up until midnight puking. Oh well, it´s all part of the experience and I´m loving it!For the rest of the month, although we need to keep focussing on retention, are going to pick back up on baptisms and I´m stoked for that! I love seeing the instant change that it makes in people´s lives when they recognize the laws of God and start living by them.Well, that´s what I have for you this week, be pilas and don´t let Satan get you down!Elder Denton II

11/1/10 - Letter to the World

Elder Denton didn't send a letter to the world, that I'm aware of. With three missionaries hitting our email account all on the same day we have been having technical difficulties getting all of the emails...especially when they include pictures. We are working on resolving that for tomorrow's next wave. Here are some excerpts of what he wrote me...I think it is safe enough to share with everybody to give a flavor of how he's doing.

I´m trying to send/organize pics and write a ton of people today, so I´m a little scattered.Thanks for the ´little gem´! That´s really tight...and true! Last week I started reading the book of mormon from the start in spanish. I´ve read parts and sections, but I want to go all the way through it, there are plenty of things that I don´t understand, but I ask my companion and he helps me understand who´s doing what to who and why. Even in reading the BOM in English I never really got it, so this time I´m going through without moving onto the next chapter until I´ve understand the preceeding chapter. The questions that I´ve asked my comp have really brought us closer together!I thouroghly love this opportunity to serve this people. I get frusterated and discouraged until it nearly brings me to tears, but I absolutely love it because I know that it´s the truth and I know that it´s exactly what my Heavenly Father wants me to be doing.Thanks for your support and your quotes always! They´re always very inspiring and just what I need...or just what another missionary needs. ex. Elder Johnson, who has 3 months here in the mission, just got a new comp that also has only 3 months. Yesterday he was way stressed because his mission dad hadn´t ever taught him how to be a missionary...he just did everything for him. Now that his dad is gone, he has a ton of responsibilities and he´s not sure which are more important or how to accomplish them. I´m gonna share that scripture that you gave me with him.

[Guides to Courage and Strength
"At the moment, these four guides—prayer, obedience to God's commandments, daily scripture study, and a commitment to follow the living prophet—may seem like small and simple things. Let me remind you of the scripture found in Alma: 'Behold I say unto you, that by small and simple things are great things brought to pass' (Alma 37:6). When applied in our everyday lives, these four 'small and simple' guides from the book of Joshua will combine to provide the most powerful source of courage and strength there is: faith in our Heavenly Father and in His Son, Jesus Christ."
Ann M. Dibb, "Be of Good Courage," Ensign, May 2010, 116 ]
My favorite that you´ve sent so far was the one about Repentance that talked about a guy in a marathon. That was tuanísimo.Well...That´s all I have to say for now. Love you tons!!Elder Denton II