10/30/09 - Letter to the World

Hello World!
I almost forgot about you all. (Thanks to Dad last week for putting togethera letter to the world for me!) I´ve been trying to get other Emails out, write down recipes, and a whole bunch of other stuff! Life as a missionary NEVER has a dull moment! There is always something to do! Last week for Christmas, we got a call from our Zone leader that we could leave Munro to go to Ballester to play soccer! Our Mission Pres is very strict with the white handbook, and it says that VERY RARELY should the missionaries leave their area....this was the first time that he´s authorized something for us to get together! I had a great time! We were about 10 missionaries in all, and played for about an hour before Elder Fuentes and I had to go home to shower, change, and run over the the house of our most recent converts to recieve our phone calls and eat lunch! I don´t think you all heard about the baptism so...Claudio Martín Bentancourt and Cecilia (Claudia) Bentancourt were both baptized on the 19th, and confirmed on the 20th. Claudia asked me to baptize her! It was an amazing experience to be abe to perform an ordinance for the salvation of one of God´s children! It was also a nice early Christmas present! (for my companion too...the baptism was his first week here!) Last week (the 27th) in church Claudio recieved the Aaron Priesthood (Priest)! As far as the other investigators...we´ve pretty much dropped everybody that we had. Nobody has given us the time to go and teach them, and Elder Fuentes and I are realizing that the Lord has people ready for us to teach right now, and we can´t waste our time on people who aren´t ready to hear the message of the gospel right now. This week is going to have a HUGE focus on finding new investigators through our members, contacts, and any other way that the lord wants to bless us!
I love this gospel, and i am so glad that i was raised knowing what i know. I hope that everybody can come to know this message, and LIVE IT in their lives. True joy only comes from knowing and living in accordance with the commandments that we have been given.
I hope that everybody has a GREAT New Year!!
Love,
Elder Denton

12/25/09 - Christmas Call to Elder Denton

Cody used skype to call Elder Denton at noon on Christmas day at $0.02 per minute. Nice! Elder Denton answered the phone and we weren't sure if it was him until he started speaking a little more. He has been told recently by other missionaries (and we can confirm this) that his English is terrible! On the plus side, Cody and Chazz say that his Spanish is very good now (I'll have to take their word for it). Cody spent a lot of time translating to English what Elder Denton was trying to express. He told us many things about how they celebrate Christmas in Argentina and seems to be doing very well with his new companion, Elder Fuentes. He loves to work hard and gets aggravated if something prevents him from living the mission rules. In the picture from last week there was a question whether or not he had baptized the couple that were in the picture (Claudia and Claudio). Elder Denton did baptize Claudia and the other man baptized Claudio. The Sutherlands were visiting from Oakley and listening/participating in to our conversation too. Kyle let us in on another Argentina fact...the bidet is the preferred method for cleansing oneself. That one caught us all by surprise! George Denton

We were not going to hear from Elder Denton until Christmas day, but due to a mistake all the missionaries had to find a family in the ward willing to let them use their landline so we could call them in Argentina and then email the information to their homes. Apparently they were set up to use mission cell phones, but then somebody found out that it would cost the mission a ton if all the missionaries used them to receive calls from out of the country. He didn't have very much time to put together anything, but following are some highlights that we discussed in a few quick emails back and forth before he had to go:

I don´t have time to write a letter to the world...but just wish everybody a VERY Merry Christmas!

He gave us the phone number for Claudia & Claudio and asked us to call them asap to make sure we had the proper country code, etc. Cody (Elder Denton's brother) came home from one job just long enough to make a call and was able to speak with Claudia for a few minutes (which was not planned...waiting to find out what that is going to cost us!). She had many good things to say about Elder Denton, that they and the ward loved him and that they are taking very good care of him; and that they had seen some pictures of him before his mission and said that he was now very skinny. She told Cody that Elder Denton would not even eat a piece of her wedding cake when they got married this past week. I was amazed at how easily Cody was able to speak to her, as she doesn't speak English at all. Incredible! We are set to make a call around noon on Christmas day using Skype, which Cody is working on setting up for us. He uses that quite often to speak with his Spanish speaking friends from other countries.

Because he was in such a hurry, he didn't say anything about the pictures that are attached. We are curious to know if Claudia and Claudio were also baptized this past week...we'll be speaking to him about that on Christmas day for sure! He also asked for another care package that included things mostly for other people...recipes, gum, etc.

Have a Merry Christmas,

George Denton

12/15/09 Letter to the World

Hello World!!
I don´t have much time...sorry. My new companion is Elder Fuentes..he´s from Chili.
This last week has been great, and next week will be great too!!...Claudio y Claudia, a few investigators that i´ve had since i got here are finally getting married this week!!! Jueves van a casarse y el sábado van a bautizarse. It should be GREAT! It´s a bit sad for elder poteet, but a great gift for Elder Fuentes! Yesterday, the last thing we did for the day was visit a contact from the street. His name is Javier. He is married (por la ley!!!!!) and has a child of about 3 years. We taught him the first lesson, and he accepted a baptismal date for 8 january 2010!!! We have a few other investigators that are progressing well also...Fabian is doing well, and we have an appointment to teach him later this week.
Nicolas, who was baptized a few weeks ago went with us para hacer divisiones. We went saturday morning for about 2 hours with him, and today we have an appointment with him to start a list of friends y conocidos para empezar a trabajar en la obra, y traer otros a cristo.
Yesterday in the house of a member who has internet, while eating lunch we were able to see part of the first presidency christmas devotional. Elder Uchdorf and part of Elder Eyring. WOW. IF you haven´t watched it...you should!!! Amazing!
I Love you all, and hope that you have a great Christmas...
(My next pday isn´t until next friday, Dec 25th....president changed it for christmas)
Argintine Fact - Christmas is celebrated here the 24th. There is no preperation beforehand, so everybody is going to be buying stuff on the 24th, and then they have all of the celebrations at night.
Sorry for the partial spanish...no time for me to change and translate...i just write what´s on my mind!
I will try harder next week....cody...do your magic! ¡gracias che! [Note: Cody is at work so there was nobody here to translate before I sent this out...george]
Hasta Luego! Love to all!
Elder Denton

Note: Elder Denton sent the above picture without telling us who was in it. Elder Poteet is in white along with Nicolas, I believe. Other than Elder Denton, I don't know who anybody else is.

Hello World!!!!
Wow...last week was PACKED with stuff...this week, not so much. Nicolas recieved the Priesthood Sunday in Sacrament Meeting, and is now a Priest! He is doing great, and on Saturday he´s going to be coming out with Elder Poteet and I to teach a few people! Tatiana has basically stopped in progression. There are some problems with her family and boyfriend, and she has decided that it is better to let things cool right now instead of continue fighting with her family. We are still having people from the ward visit her, and invite her to church and other activities! Irma is moving along, more or less. She is pretty hard to get in contact with, but we have a meeting with her on Friday! We have recently found a man names Fabian! We contacted him in the street while we were with our Elders Quorum President, and were finally able to get in contact with him, and yesterday we taught him the first discussion. He has a catholic background, assisted the universal church (la iglesia universal...it´s very big around here) for a while, but recently has found himself working a LOT. He lives alone, and has a shop in his house where he does leatherwork. In the first lesson, we were able to set a date with him to be baptized. We set the date for January 2nd. We have to change it to the 9th though, because right before we left he remembered that he has to go out of town this weekend, and he won´t be able to go to church, and we forgot to change the date with him. We have another person that we are teaching named Mariana. She lives alone with her 3 kids. We taught her the first lesson in her doorway with our Ward Mission Leader, and she invited us to come back. It will be sort of complicated to teach her, because there is no man living in the house.
Anyways...that´s about what´s going on here in Munro. Next week Elder Poteet will be heading home, and I´ll have a new companion! I´m excited to see what the Lord has in store for me, and willing to do whatever he would have me do!
I Love you all!
Love,
Elder Denton

12/2/09 - Letter to the World

Hello World!
Okay...so i´m sure that everybody is wondering....what happened with Nicolas?!?! Well...he got baptized! Everything went great...the only slight glitch was that when the ward mission leader went and turned on the font, he forgot that he needed to light the pilot light of the water heater. Luckily elder poteet and I, after a few lessons in the morning went to the church to make sure everything was going ok...and that they had actually started filling the font. Elder poteet checked the water temp, because he was going to be getting wet....it was way cold. I told him i was glad that he was going to be getting wet and not me! Anyways, it was about half way full, but we lit the pilot light and filled it up the rest of the way with REALLY hot water, and elder poteet said it was still cold, but not too bad! As far as our other investigators, we´re having a bit of trouble. Tatiana has a couple of concerns, but we´ll be having a lesson with her tomorrow. Irma, another investigator, has a baptismal date on the 12th, and we´ve been having a lot of trouble getting in contact with her to teach her, but we called her last night and we´ll be having a lesson with her also tomorrow. Yesterday was a great day! We had a retention lesson with Nicolas and the president of the elders quorum, and it went great! He´s excited to get the priesthood, and has an appointment with the bishop sunday morning to recieve it! After that meeting, Elder Poteet, The Elders Quorum President, and I went to a few places near the chapel to talk with less active members, and a few investigators that we have. While we were out, we ended up doing quite a few street contacts, and it seems that we´ll soon have quite a few more investigators...that´s been one of the biggest problems is finding good investigators and retaining them. My companion, Elder Poteet, will be going home soon. I think his last official day here is the 16th. He´ll be home just in time for christmas.
Well....have a GREAT day. I´m enjoying the heat here, and i imagine that many of your reading this are happy to be inside because of the cold.
I love you all!
Love,
Elder Denton
OH...we recently had a zone conference. SOOOO good! We learned a whole bunch of different things. I´m very excited to start using them in my teaching. One of the things we learned was staying out of the way of the holy ghost. Many times when we are teaching we try to say a lot more that we need to, because we are insecure that the people are going to think that what we´ve said is weird...but if we´re teaching true doctrine, the spirit will be with us, and they will be able to feel and know through the spirit that we are representatives of Jesus Christ.