03/21/11 - Letter to the World

Dear World,

It feels like it´s been a while since I´ve written and I don´t really remember everything that I´ve said about my new area/comp, so if some of this is old news, forgive me.

My current area: La Dalia
My current zone: Matagalpa
My current companion: Elder López
My current companion´s home country: El Salvador
Status: Animated and Ready to Kick Butt!

I´m coming up on 3 weeks in La Dalia and I´m loving it to death. The people are all really friendly and It´s an awesome atmosphere to work in. The weather is a bit chilly, the streets are hecka steep, and the food is as ricey and beany as ever.

The last time I wrote, I mentioned how we were working on finding all of the Recent Converts and Members. It´s a really neat experience. It´s funny to see the reactions that people have when they see missionaries aproaching their house when they know perfectly well that it´s because they haven´t been to church in months. Some hide, but the majority are really fun to get to know. I love reactivaction!

When we got to La Dalia, the church attendance had been 15-20. Last week we had 32 people in Sacrament Meeting! 6 Investigators - youngsters, but Investigators nonetheless.

Our Branch President went out with us on Saturday and we met a few new families. None of them came to church on Sunday, but this week my comp and I are going to get to know them a bit better and animate them for Noche de Hermanamiento and Sunday!

Pass a good week and if you have any questions about the mission or Nicaragua, feel free to ask.

Elder Denton II

02/14/11 - Letter to the World

Hello World!

It´s been a long and challenging week here in Momotombo. We had four investigators at church again this week, which is excellent, but they weren´t the families that we were hoping would show up. We still have the goal of baptizing a family this month, but it´ll be difficult one since only parts of families come to church.

This week I´ve learned something really interesting and great about the mission. It might be really obvious to many, but it took me a while to figure out it´s significance. Every missionary is completely different. They might have similarities, but they´re going to have different ways of teaching, different ways of contacting, different ways of learning AND different ways of feeling the Spirit. As a missionary we´re never told to do any of these things in a certain way. What brings loads of success to one missionary, may not do anything for another. We were called on missions not to be robots that live the same day on replay for 2 years. We are to constantly be looking for better ways. Better ways to teach, contact, learn, feel the Spirit and help others feel the Spirit as well.

Everyone is different and we all need to weed out the things that are slowing down our progress and start doing the things that will help us progress faster.

Every time I analyze what I´ve learned on the mission I get really excited, thinking of how I can apply it all in my life at college then with my family and then for the rest of my life. There is so much to be learned on a mission and you can help so many people while you´re learning! It´s really fantastic!

Next week I´ll talk about some new investigators and what we´re teaching them :)

Much Love,

Elder Denton II

02/07/11 - Letter to the World

Good Afternoon!

I don´t have a whole lot of time to write today, some members in Paz Centro went hunting earlier today and invited us to go eat iguana at their house tonight...don´t wanna be late!

This week we had 4 investigators at church which is really good for this area! I think that it´s the highest that we´ve ever had. Juan came again and continues to be our most consistant investigator, but he still doesn´t feel ready...soon though, I can feel it!

President Arredondo came to our zone not too long ago and he told us that a good goal for every area is to baptize one family per month. We met the goal in January with Juana. This month we´ve been visiting 4 good families and we hope to pull one out for this month. Our biggest challenge is getting people to church. It seems like everyone has to go run an errand exactly when church starts. Fishy, right?

On Tuesday we had a really good *noche de hermanamiento*. We learned about the Lehi´s Vision of the Tree of Life. Tomorrow we are going to have another one about the Liahona. I´m really excited to see which investigators are going to be able (make the time) to go.

Well...I´ve gotta go eats me some Iguana! Love you all,

Elder Denton II

01/24/11 - Letter to the World

Buen Dia!

Today I´m really running short on time, but that´s okay, because not too much happened this last week.

Juan showed up to church yesterday which I´m super excited about. He understands the importance of going to church, reading the scriptures, and being baptized. The only thing that lacks him is being baptized! We had a good lesson with him and his brothers last week and he said that he would be baptized as long as he got a response to his prayers that he needs to do it now. I know that if he prays he will get a confirmation that he needs this.

PG-13 Today for P-Day 4 of us walked about a half-hour out to a farm where a man needed some service done. We helped him dry out some corn and bag it up. When we were done they gave us some chicken soup which was amazing, but it was the first time I´ve ever seen chicken soup made from beginning to end. First, the Señora picked up a rock and threw it at a rooster so the dogs knew which one to hunt down. Then I learned that apparently to kill a chicken, you grab it by the head and spin it around until the neck snaps. The chicken then proceeded to do a little dance until it gave up the ghost and died. Next, the kids came around and started preforming CPR on the chicken while screaming ¨¡¡¡VIVAAAA!!!¨ which translates to ¨LIIIIIVE!!!¨. When their attempts to revive the chicken failed, they lamentably scream ¨¿Por qué?¨ or ¨WHY??¨. - I´m not so sure that the last step was completely necessary...but I got a kick out of it! After a good five minutes of mourning, the chicken got put into a pot of swirling hot water. The feathers were plucked, the feet were cut, and the guts were gutted. The prepared chicken was then mixed in with some herbs, vegetables, modongo, and VOILA! Chicken Soup!

Last week Elder Christofferson from the 12 came and spoke to us. I´ll write about some cool stuff that was mentioned next week when I´ve fully understood it. One quote that I did like though (from a 70) was: a habit forgotten was never really a habit, but an obligation.

I love you all a bunch and if you have some space in your prayers, Juan could definitely use it!

Don´t let the world get you down and tell my Dad happy birthday if you see him ;) - (on the 27th)

Elder Denton II

01/17/11 - Letter to the World

4 Investigators at church yesterday!!! The change is winding down here, but things are heating up in Momotombo. It´s so fantastic to see people progressing. On Saturday, Juana was baptized and was really excited about the whole experience. We had a nice service in the ocean and then was confirmed the next day. During the sacrament meeting a member of the Stake High Council spoke about temples. I realized that now that all of Juana´s family are members, in one year they can go to the temple to be sealed - ¡Tight! - Either tonight or tomorrow we´ll go teach them about the importance of temples. That´s one thing that I especially like teaching. what greater blessing than to know that we can live with our families for the eternities? In the presence of God and Jesus Christ! I love the opportunity to teach and preach happiness!

Juan showed up to church again yesterday along with three investigators (siblings) that we contacted that same morning. We´re going to be working with Juan to get him baptized this month. EXCITING!

Sidenote - When we were on our way back from Juana´s baptism, we all shoved into our branch president´s pick-up truck and took off. Turns out there are legit policemen in Nicaragua and they pulled us over because we weren´t being safe. They wanted to take President´s license away and fine us, but he talked the police out of it!!! He started telling them how we were on the Lord´s errand and that we were coming from a baptism and that instead of pulling us over to fine us, they should have pulled us over to thank us because we´re making the world a better place. Awesome, right?!?...and I thought Nicaragua Police only took money bribes!!

Love you all,

Elder Denton II

01/10/11 - Letter to the World

Good Afternoon-

Well, I´m in the same boat as the other Elder Denton today. Not sure exactly where to start. Not a ton happened this last week, so I´m going to keep it short and not babble on.

Yesterday we didn´t have our 5 investigators at church, but we did in fact have 2. Juana (¡¡¡again!!!) and Juan.

• Juana has had 2 Sundays at church now and is so cool! I absolutely love her personality. She has a baptismal date for the 15th (this Saturday) and I think that she will be more than ready! We went and had a *noche de hermanamiento at her house on Tuesday and we taught the Restoration! Afterwards we played a game and everyone was really excited about the whole activity. We challenged everyone that night to start reading the Book of Mormon our plan is to go back every week for *noche de hermanamiento to teach the main story of what he should have read. When we showed up yesterday to bring her to church, she told us that she was ready for church, but that she wasn´t going to be ready on the 15th. We reassured her that there is still time to get ready and that if she prays and reads the Book of Mormon, that everything will be okay!
  
  
  
• Juan is the brother of a less active that we found this last week, Franklin. They are both really funny and smart young men, but they just haven´t found time for church recently. I´m not sure why Juan didn´t get baptized when Franklin did, but we´re going to work with him so that he can have the same blessings that his older brother has. When we showed up to their house they kept offering us things: starfruit, a coconut, peanuts...I´m not sure what that was about, but it was certainly nice of them.

Well, other than that I don´t have much to say. Enjoy your week, pray always, and do your home teaching!

Love y´all - Elder Denton II

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