11/25/09 - Letter to the World

OK....so i had a HUGE letter written, and i went to send it, and the server logged me out soooo..i have like 5 min (maybe to write)
This week was great. We had a conference with elder Bednar from the quorum of the 12 apostles, and he took and answered questions. I had a question to ask him, but never got to me (we were about 600 misionaries). However...the spirit is an interesting thing. Even though my question wasn´t even mentioned, i was able to recieve an answer. The spirit works in small ways, and as i was sitting and listening, all of a sudden i recieved the answer to my question. Elder Bednar wasn´t even talking about a subject close to my question. This is important to keep in mind when any of you have questions. Keep it in mind always, because the spirit can speak to us in any moment, and we need to be ready and receptive to the spirit to understand the answer!
José Luís - he told us not to come by anymore. It is so hard to ´drop´him, because we know that he has a testimony. He knows that the church is true...but he thinks that it will be to hard to live the gospel, and ALSO live with his family.
Tatiana - She came to church, and the only thing she needs to do now is talk to her parents. They told her about a month ago that she was moving too fast (she was going to be baptized the 14th of this month) so we moved the date to the 5th of december. Now she has to ask her parents permission again, and she´s scared to do it. She said that she will sometime today!
Nicolas - He is amazing! He´s going to be baptized saturday at 7pm!
Sorry for the shortness and lack of details.
Love,
Elder Denton
NOTE: Before the glitch happened, Kyle had emailed me the following information, which I think would be fun to share with everybody:
They don't have Taco Seasoning Mixes in Argentina (at least he can't find any) so I sent him a home-made recipe I googled off of the internet. This was his response: I left here last week before i got the recipie for the taco seasoning...i don´t know how i´m going to find the ingredients..i´ll have to grab a dictionary and translate all of the spices into spanish!
I told Elder Denton that we had always said that his companions would love to have him as a companion because he was such an excellent cook. This was his response when I asked what fun things he had made and what they have for breakfast: Elder Poteet is a pretty good cook also...we usually only have to make ourselves breakfast, and lunch on our P-Day (it´s easier to not have to leave the house and go look for food!) I have made a lot of bread and muffins...last week we made sloppy joes, the week before we had Ñoquis (a type of pasta) with a white cream sauce and smoked ham (yummmmm!)...i guess it´s going well!! For breakfast, i usually make myself a fruit salad and a potato patty (like grandma sherwood does...but with a lot more stuff...2 eggs, some mashed potatoes, ham, onion, tomato, oregano, and garlic)!!! yum! I haven´t really made any other treats...today were going to prepare a couple of things to take to the baptism saturday (brownies and chocolate chip cookies) I haven´t made no-bakes...but the ingredients are here!
Elder Denton was commenting that it would be nice to have computer programs and the organization found here in the U.S. I asked him about computers and phones and how do they communicate if you needed to talk to somebody immediately...People don´t really have personal computers...but there are a lot of internet cafes. Many people have cell phones...and home phones...but the cell phones usually don´t have credit...so they can only take incoming calls. There are many people that don´t have phones too. If you need somebody to take over a class...you have to go to a locurotorio and use a public phone.
George Denton

11/18/09 Letter to the World

HELLO WORLD!! I don´t know if thanksgiving is this week or next, so i´m going to go ahead and wish you all a happy thanksgiving now!
HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!
Okay...we´ve got a couple of investigators that are progressing, so here´s a little update on all of them!
Tatiana - She´s doing ok. She didn´t come to church 2 weeks ago or last week for different reasons, but we do have a date set for December 5th for her baptism. She has to come to church this week and the next to be able to be baptized that week, if not, we´ll have to push her baptism date back.
José Luís - He´s playing hide and go seek with us. We have passed a few times knowing that he is home, but he hasn´t opened the door...and every time that we call his family tells us that he´s out. We´re giving him a couple of days, and then we´ll try again. I hope that we can continue teaching him because i know that he has a testimony of the church. I think that he has problems with what his mom has to say.
Nicolas - AMAZING! We had a lesson with him yesterday, and he continues well! We asked him if he was going to come to church this sunday and he said he can´t come to our ward, but he is going to go to the ward he was assisting before for their primary program...and then he will be baptized next saturday, the 28th!!! His family is not too happy with his descision, and that worried him a little, but when we talked yesterday he told us that he knows that this is what he should be doing, that there isn´t any other thing that brings him the peace and tranquility that he feels when he reads the book of mormon and prays!!Here are some answers to a few of the questions that have been ´thrown my way´so that you all can get a little more perspective on what i do/what it´s like here in Argentina!
Are there ever any ward members / investigators that speak English?
Yea...there are a few members in the ward that speak english (mainly learned on missions). But we don´t really ever talk in english with them. They know i´m trying to learn spanish, so they speak to me in spanish to help!
Do you and Elder Poteet speak much English in your apt.?
I´m going to have to confess that sometimes we do speak english, when we´re really lazy and don´t want to think in another language, but that´s usually only a couple times through the week for a couple of minutes.
How big is the ward(s) that you are in...about how many people?
The ward here has a lot of members, but most of them aren´t active. We have more than 300 in the records, but it´s a good day when we have 70 in the chapel.
In Utah, there is a ward for about every 6-8 square blocks...How big are the ward areas in Munroe? Is Munroe just one ward, or are there several cities that make up a ward?
Munro (no e!) is the name of the ward, and the city is called Villa Marteli. Munro is the name of a neighborhood in the city.
How big is the stake in your area?
8 wards...6 cities.
Argentina Fact - When you go to an ice cream store to buy an ice cream cone, they also give you a little spoon. (like the flavor test spoons)...but to EAT your icecream from the cone. They don´t lick the ice cream off of their cone like in north america.

11/3/09 - Letter to the World

Hello family, friends, and everybody else!!
This week has been great! Today was transfers...but we didn´t get a phone call last night...so it looks like Munro has Elder Denton for another 6 weeks (at least!). This has been a good week! First, we found Kevin. We were looking for another contact, and he came to the door of the pensión (a pensión has like 6 apartments inside!) We talked to him, and he let us into his apartment, and we taught him the first lesson, and challenged him to be baptized, and he accepted! Also this week, we were in another pensión talking to an investigator, and as we were leaving, I started talking with a 20-something year old guy, and he invited us to come back. When we went back, he said that he had read, and we talked a bit about the church. As we were about to leave, his sister came out, said that she had been listening, and that she was also interested in listening to our message. We went back on saturday (halloween), to have a lesson with the 2 of them, but there was a party going on in their apartment, but the investigator that we had been talking to initially let us use his apartment to talk with Mario. As we went in, there was somebody already there. It was ANOTHER sibling (little brother) of Mario!!! We taught them the first lesson and challenged them to be baptized. The little brother of mario, José Luis (he´s 18) said that he wanted to be baptized, and also that he would love the opportunity to do what Elder Poteet and i do...go and talk about the gospel with people all day!!!
One of the hardest things here in Munro has been church attendance. This week, it rained all friday, saturday, AND sunday. When there´s rain...church attendance goes down. (There were 30 people in church sunday including missionaries and kids). The miracle was that 2 of these people were investigators!! Tatiana came with a family of members, and José Luis, the little brother of Mario came also!!!!
It was a GREAT sunday!!
Argentina Fact -
I´ve run out...i need questions to answer!!

I love you all. Have an AMAZING week!!
Love,
Elder Denton