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