2/15/10 Elder Kyle Denton (Not a Letter to the World)

This morning Elder Denton sent me a text (via e-mail) indicating that he was online and sent a reply to my email to him...and then we lost him. I "assume" it has something to do with the computer that he is using, or MyLDSMail.net email system, which is sometimes a pain for the missionaries in the field. Because of that, I am sharing the few lines which I received from him. I try to prime the pump with many questions about his area, investigators, upcoming baptisms and how busy he's been with having a very young zone leader for a companion and if they are able to get out to find/teach yet. His note is somewhat cryptic, but he usually answers most of my questions in his Letter to the World. We hope to get more next week. George Denton.

Hey!
Things are going great! Stuff is settling down, and we have a baptism scheduled for Saturday!

We are finding a lot of people, and today we had another leaders counsel meeting this morning in the mission home...usually there is 1 every 6 weeks...we’ve had 3 in 3 weeks now...but learning a ton!

HAVE A GREAT WEEK!

Elder Denton

BTW...I’m less than 200lbs now! I weighed myself about an hour ago and I’m at 194!!!!!! WAHOOOOOO

2/9/10 Letter to the World

Hi Everybody! This one’s gonna be quick...I hope!

The best thing that’s going on right now is with the Cantero family. They were all baptized about 2 months ago except for the oldest daughter Myra, because she was always working. Well...last week she lost her job! Wahooooo! We stopped by the house, and she was there. She told us, and we said...”ok so...we’ll see you at church this Sunday, right?” She said “yes” and was there when sacrament meeting started, even though the weather was wet and ugly. Sunday afternoon we had a lesson with her and her dad, and we set a date for her baptism!
The Torres family we were finally able to get a hold of and teach on Saturday, but they didn’t come to church Sunday. They said that they slept in. We are praying for the mom that she can receive an answer...or recognize the answer that she has already received, that she needs to be baptized...because she already knows that the church is true.
The ward here is great! The missionaries before were always good workers, but at one point, the missionaries tried a LOT...and succeeded in getting the trust of the members. They would go to their houses and chat for a few hours...literally 2-4 hours. The families got used to it, and it is REALLY hard for them to understand why we don’t spend as much time with them now. That is the biggest challenge that we have.

Fun story for the week.
Sunday, in church, the counselor in the bishopric that was conducting was bearing his testimony when all of a sudden the lights went out, and about 2 seconds later there was a HUMONGUS (I can’t spell) clap of thunder that lasted about 10 seconds right over the chapel. Apparently lightning struck the steeple and shorted out the lights. Ha-ha. The meeting continued with the emergency light, and we got all the lights back about 10 min later.

I Love you all and hope you have a great week!

Love,

Elder Denton

2/1/10 Letter to the World

World! ...How’s it going?

This week has been FULL stuff to do...unfortunately, a lot of what we had to do kept us from being able to proselyte in our area. Tuesday we didn’t have much time because of p-day and transfers. Wednesday we had district meeting (Elder Martinez, my companion, is Zone Leader...so we have to travel a ways to get to our other District), Thursday we had to go to the Doctor in Capital, and Friday we had to go to the mission home for Leadership Counsel.
With Elder Martinez as my companion, I’m learning a lot! There are also a lot of opportunities that I will have to learn from others. One of the assistants to the president will be living with us from Friday to Monday to help us, and mainly to teach elder Martinez all that he needs to know to be a Zone Leader. There are also going to be a few other opportunities to do exchanges with the District leaders!!
The time that we WERE in our area, I LOVED! The difference is huge between here and Munro, but I really enjoy it here. It’s a bit more of a laid back and relaxed environment.
We have a lot of investigators, and I can hardly remember their names. We are teaching a family called the Torrez Family. The husband is a member, but the Mom and Son are not. They have all of the assistance that they need, but we’re working with them on a few last things!
There is a LOT of potential here, and a lot of people that are very close to baptism! I’m excited to be able to work here, and help these people baptized and make covenants with our heavenly father!

In my personal study I was reading in Mosiah 2 today! I LOVE this chapter. It’s impressive the power that the words of King Benjamin spoke still have the same impact today as when he spoke them! One of my favorite scriptures is in this chapter too. v. 30 talks about the weakness that King Benjamin has in talking to the people, but that the lord supports him and helps him. I know that as I am serving here in Argentina I have weaknesses, but the work I’ve been called to do is of God, and as I work diligently to help his work progress, he will sustain and support me!

¡Que disfruten la semana!

Con amor,
Elder Denton

¡Chao!

Note from Dad: The city that he is in is called Tigre, which is North of Buenos Aires and about 45 minutes from his last area. He is about 6 miles from where the South Atlantic Ocean comes inland to the Buenos Aires area. Temperature today is about 90 degrees with 85% humidity. They do not have air conditioning, but they do have 1 fan. The mission office provides the fans for free and they are getting a second one very soon. Also just found out that the reason for the trip to the doctor, above, was to have an ingrown toenail removed for the second time. He had it removed before he left for his mission and it grew back ingrown again. "No biggy!" was the way he put it.

1/26/10 Letter to the World

HELLO WORLD!

I pretty much knew it was coming, but I got the ´transfer call´ last night at about 9:45. I am now in an area called Lopez Camelo in the zone Litoral. It’s an area a lot more tranquilo than Munro, but the same. I haven’t really gotten to know the area a lot...I’ve only been here about 3 hours!
My new companion is Elder Martinez. He has a little bit more time than me in the mission and was recently called to be Zone Leader. I’m very excited for the opportunity that I have to learn from him!
I don’t have a lot of time because of moving and everything, but i hope that you all have a great day!

Love ya!

Elder Denton

Additional Notes:
Elder Denton mentioned in an email to me that Elder Martinez (A Chilean) has been out a few months longer and went strait from a junior companion to a zone leader, which is something that hardly ever happens.

He also had some thoughts about leaving his first area:
I did get transferred...and like you said, twisted and torn. The change that I was able to see in Alejandro Bentancourt is absolutely amazing. I know that he will be baptized soon! He got work as a remisero (he drives a car sort of like a taxi). We called him to take me to the mission office to the exchange, and we introduced him to a lot of our friends in the mission (Elder Fuentes and I). He was happy to tell whoever he talked to that he was going to be baptized as soon as possible!!!

1/20/10 Letter to the World

Hello World!

This week has been pretty good! We taught Manuela almost every day last week! She had her interview on Thursday with our district leader, but then had to have another with the mission president on Friday. Everything went well, and she was baptized on Sunday! She will be confirmed a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints on Sunday the 24th!
With Alejandro, we had an AMAZING experience last week. I think I talked about it last week, but he told us that he would make a decision on whether or not he was going to continue following God. He didn’t know if God really existed. He said that if he was at church on Sunday, he was going to leave behind his past life, but if he wasn’t, he wasn’t going to listen to the lessons anymore. We left him with a part of The Book of Mormon to read, and told him to pray after he read. The next time we went, he said. I have a favor to ask you...do you have an extra pair of Sunday slacks? I’m coming to church with you on Sunday!! He didn’t need until Sunday to tell us, he received his answer, and knows that the church is true. He told us that he’s going to leave everything that he was doing before behind him, like he told us he would. He ALSO told us that he wants to be baptized, and is looking forward to being able to be sealed forever to his brother and to his children. (His brother, Claudio, was baptized in December, and assisted about 1 yr before he was able to be baptized). Alejandro came to church with us on Sunday, and also assisted the Baptism of Manuela after!
Elder Fuentes and I have been working a lot in trying to reactivate members. We have a list of more than 400 people that supposedly are in our ward, but only about 60-80 come every week. In doing this, we have been able to get to know a lot of members, but it has given us the opportunity to get to know a lot of people who aren’t members, and share the gospel with them. We have come into contact with Juan, an 18 year old kid who has passed through a lot of churches before, and also a family of 5. This family has a Dad, Fabio, and 4 children, all old enough to be baptized! We taught the dad and one of the kids a few days ago, and left them with a part of The Book of Mormon to read. We have another lesson planned with them for tomorrow with more of his kids!

I Love you all, and hope that you have a great Week!

Love,

Elder Denton

PS – The mission president just sent out a message to all of the missionaries that P-day was going to change. It will now be on Mondays, except for transfer weeks, which will then be on Tuesdays. Next week is a transfer week.

1/13/10 Letter to the World

HELLO WORLD!
What a great day! We were able to go this morning to play soccor for a few hours! We had a great time, and then we came back to Munro to do our PDAY stuff! This week has been great, and we have a lot of investigators that are progressing!
Claudio y Claudia - Recent converts - Claudio´s brother moved into our ward. Claudio has been preparing him for us! He was smoking, doing drugs, drinking, and doing a lot of other things that he shouldn´t...but he´s cleaned up his life, and Claudio presented him (Alejandro) to the misionaries to teach!
Nicolas - Recent Convert - We found out yesterday that Nicolas proposed to his girlfriend (who introduced him to the gospel!) We talked to them last night, and his girlfriend asked us how soon he can enter the temple so that they can be sealed...!! :D
Manuela - It seems that the Lord knows what he´s doing! We´ve been teaching Manuela EVERY day for the past week, and her baptismal interview is tomorrow. If everything goes well, she will be baptized this sunday!
Alejandro - (Claudio´s Brother) Alejandro is amazing. He has had a VERY hard life, and has changed a lot. He is doing everything that he can to be able to feel that God exists. He has a lot of questions, and there are a lot of principles that are sometimes hard for him to accept. He is working on developing more faith! I don´t think it will be long before he is a member of the church! He has expressed his desire to know that the gospel is true and to be able to be sealed forever to his children and brother.
There are a bunch of others that are progressing, but because we played soccor this morning i don´t have much time.. I hope that everybody is doing great!
Love,
Elder Denton

1/6/10 Letter to the World

Hello World!!

I Hope that the New Year is treating everybody well! I’m still doing great here in Argentina, but it seems like I don’t have very much new and interesting things to say. On New Years Eve there were a TON of fireworks, and as I sleep VERY heavily, my companion was ´kind enough´ to wake me up 5 min after they had started to welcome in the New Year! I would’ve preferred sleep...but hey....what´cha gonna do? This week we’ve continued having difficulty in setting appointments and having the people keep them. We have had some success though! There is a Sister that has been coming to church for a few weeks named Manuela. She is about 70 yrs old, and we thought that she was a less active member who the second counselor of the bishopric had been bringing to church, but found out that she wasn’t a member. We started teaching her, and earlier this week put a date of Jan 16 for her baptism. It’s soon, but we’re putting our faith in the Lords hands to give her the response that she needs to know that this is the Lords true church here on the earth.
I love this gospel, and continue to find scriptures that help me to learn and grow, and that I can share with my investigators to help them too! This last week in my studies I came across Alma 34:31. I know that this scripture teaches the truth. All we need to do is put our life in order, and the atonement of Christ can start working in our lives. We don’t need to wait a lot of time. When God sees that we are striving to live his gospel, he blesses us!

I love you all, and hope that you’re having a great time in the cold! The heat here is impressive.

Love,

Elder Denton