12/28/10 - Letter to the World

Goooood Morning!
I don´t normally get the opportunity to write this early. Today we woke up at 5:30 to catch a bus from Momotombo to Paz Centro at 6:30 to catch another bus from Paz Centro to León at 7:00 to arrive at 8:15 to walk a half an hour to a cathedral where we met up with our zone to have P-day. We took a tour of an old Catholic Cathedral and at 9:00 they sent us on our way to write our families, go shopping, and enjoy the day. The cathedral was kind of cool, but it was borderline creepy. I´ve never seen pictures where Christ looked so sad before in my life. I think I´m going to stick to the Gospel Art Book for sure!
For those of you who don´t know, we had changes last week! They translated me to a fairly new area called Momotombo. It´s right off of Lake Managua so all of the streets are sand, except for one that is cobblestoned. The sand makes it really hard to walk and it tires you out really quickly. It´s really different than Lamlaya. It´s pretty much farm land. The people are pretty cold and closed, but that´s why the Lord has sent us there! Getting an investigator to go to church is extremely hard. It seems like everybody wants to become closer to God, but noone is willing to start walking in His direction.
We visited one man named Pedro during the week and he said that he would try to go to church on Sunday. On Sunday we passed by in the morning and he said that he wasn´t going to be able to go. We asked him why and he told us that it is because he goes to the New Star of Bethleham Church. We asked him what time his church started to see if he´d be able to go to both and he told us that it started at 10:00 am. It was 10:33!!! We gave him the time and he just looked started and told us that he wasn´t going to go.
Yesterday in the afternoon we met a really positive family! I love them! We taught them about prayer and tomorrow we´re going to teach them Lesson 1, about prophets and the restauración. I´m really looking forward to seeing all of them again.
I hope that all of you enjoyed your Christmas and that you all have a happy New Year. Be good and don´t make me come up there!!!
Love you all,
Elder Denton II

12/6/10 - Letter to the World

Good Afternoon!Who´s getting excited for CHRISTMAS!?!? I sure am! December has finally come around again and yesterday during the Christmas devotional we were reminded of the reason for the season. I really enjoyed Elder Uchtdorf´s talk about the true meaning of Christmas. It´s amazing how we all KNOW that Christmas is about our Savior, Jesus Christ, but somehow we always get caught up in the commercialization of the holiday. When President Monson started talking, I could not stop smiling! I love the look that he always gives us when he´s about to say something funny. Every time I hear his voice, my testimony in living prophets grows stronger. What a blessing it is to have a prophet in these latter days that recieves direct revelation, to guide us, to direct us, and to let us in on what our Heavenly Father wants and needs us to know.

Last week I didn´t have the opportunity to tell you all about Vicenta, so here´s the spill:

Vicenta is a recent convert that was baptized a week and 2 days ago. She is incredible! I first met her with Elder Burrows, 4ish months ago, and she was ready to get baptized! The only problem was that she wasn´t married and her husband wasn´t legally divorced from a previous marriage. That in itself isn´t normally a big problem, but whilst those papers were in progress the ´alcaldía´ (similar to city hall) was robbed and a ton of papers were scattered and stolen. Vicenta´s husband kept telling us that he was doing everything he could to get the papers taken care of, but it seemed like nothing was happening. Elder Amaya came and left and the darn papers still didn´t get taken care of. When Elder Cordero, my present comp, arrived I told him about the situation and he told me that according to the Nicaragual laws, as long as the divorce was in progress, the two of them could legally be married!!! WOOT WOOT! Can you just hear the wedding bells? They were married two weeks ago and Vicenta is now a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints! In the time that she was an investigator she only missed 1 week of church (out of about 10), she read half of the Book of Mormon, cooked for the missionaries several times, and offered to wash all of our clothes for free (which we wouldn´t allow her to do because it´s a ton of work). She always says her prayers and is always trying to better her life! I really feel blessed for the opportunity to have met, taught, and baptized her!

Well, I´ve written a ton now and I´m sure you´re all tired of reading. Have a fantastic week, be pilas, and don´t forget to pray...ever!

Love you all,Elder Denton II