July 15 and July 22, 2013

15 July 2013

Letter to All:

Well...I finally weighed myself since I left the MTC.  I weighed 235 in the MTC and now.............205 wow!

This week my companion had to do a Visa run to Costa Rica.  So we left Friday afternoon to get to Managua.  We got there at 6:30pm and then at 3 the next day we got up and ready to catch a bus going to Peñas Blancas.  We spent all that day traveling and got home at almost 7pm Saturday.  A long trip.  Sadly we lost 2 days of work!

Well lately we have been finding a lot of new families.  The investigators that we have aren´t progressing much so we are looking for more again!  We still haven´t heard form Ronald yet, hopefully he gets here on Sunday.

In church we planned with the Elders Quorum and branch president to go out Saturday nights and invite people to church (Mormon Battalion).  Apparently they had never done this before.  So it should help a lot.  We are also going to do more activities.  With these 2 things I know the attendance and member assistance is going to raise.  So things should be going well in the branch from here on!  Sadly we didn´t have any investigators in church yesterday.  But this week will be an excellent one, I can feel it!

Friday we have interviews with President Russell

The other day I read Psalms 1, I liked it a lot, it speaks of the importance in trusting in God and not the wicked.

Take care!

Elder Willden

 The buses are way too small and packed...well at least for me

22 July 2013

Letter to all:

This week was awesome!  Even though I´ve been sick the last 3 days it was great!  Basically the weekend was the best part.

Friday:  We had interviews with President Russell, it was basically just a chat with him, it was like talking with a friend.  He said he and Sister Russell admire me for reopening a tough area like this.  Sister Russell took a look at the pictures of the family then asked me what are the best things about your parents, I said my mom is the most loving person, and my Dad is the best example I can have being a true man of the priesthood.  They are truly great people.  President Russell I believe hinted to my companion that he was going to train so we´ll see what happens in the future.

Saturday:  We found a new family María and Francisco, we put a baptismal date with them, they accepted well.  We also did the Mormon Battalion

Sunday: Was great but sadly there was a lot of rain and only 25 people came to church.  People were telling me go home and rest and asked, “Why are you working?” And I said, “we got to work.”  And I am so glad I didn´t go home to rest this day because we were truly blessed Sunday.  Sunday we truly found people searching for the gospel, people needing this message that God had prepared beforehand.  First of all we found Ronald and we are going to baptize him August 3rd!  We taught a new family, a reference.  Carlos and Maricruz, they are awesome, we taught them the Restoration and put a baptismal date for August 24^th. They said that was a good thing to have a goal and they want us to pass by more frequently.  They want to get prepared as fast as possible because we don´t know the day the Lord comes.  And the family that gave the reference have been talking with them helping them understand the gospel.

We also taught another family Lucía and Bismar we almost forgot to pass by their place, but the spirit reminded my companion that we had an appointment with them and they accepted a baptismal date for August 31st.  

Hard work pays off we are seeing the fruits of our labors and August will be an amazing month, but if I would have stayed in the house resting I would have never found them.  Every minute is precious even if the day seems to be going crappy.

I know the Lord is preparing many to hear this sacred gospel and that Heavenly Father preordained me to come to Nicaragua, to come to Santo Tomás.

Have a great week everyone!

Elder Willden

Men in Black 4

9 July 2013 New Mission President and New Investigators

9 July 2013

Letter to All:

This week was great; we have been working very hard, as well the others in the district.  Ronald came to church again, he is the most amazing investigator we´ve ever had.  I´m going to tell you how we found him.  One of the few investigators they left in the area book we visited 1 or 2 times.  She was really weird and we were thinking of dropping her but we decided not to.  One day we went by her place and Ronald was there, we talked with him and he participated in the lesson.  We set an appointment to teach him in his house, and we had left him a pamphlet of the restoration.

He read it and he said he believed that Joseph Smith was a prophet and had read up to 1 Nephi 5.  And it has been up hill from then on.  He makes comments in church, and is super positive to be baptized the 27th.  If we had never listened to that prompting of the Holy Ghost to visit that investigator that was a little weird, we would never have had the opportunity to teach him.  He is jobless right now, he will be going to a city about 3 hours away called Rama to work there for 15 days and he will return, he said maybe he´ll come back a little early.  Hopefully he does, pray for him please!

This week we have found a lot of new families to teach, we dropped a lot of investigators last Sunday, but the Lord has prepared even more for us to teach.  Jisenia and Rojer are still thinking about when they want to get baptized, they want to do it but something is stopping them.  They´ve even received answers from the Lord.  Any suggestions to help them?  I´m going to read in Alma 34 with them that they should not prolong the day of their repentance.

We met the new mission president, President Russell he´s 59, and has had a very successful life.  He is a great man and has a great spirit about him; he has a fun personality too.  He told us how he proposed to his wife, what a story!  His friend took her in a plane and left her off in the desert at a table with a rose and a note.  The note said, if you want to marry me raise the rose, if not...find your way out of the desert.  What a way to propose!  They talked to each missionary for just a minute or 2.  He looked at me and said you got a good mode about you.  

What more, oh we had an activity, Noche de Cine (Movie night) and 5 investigators came. We watched The Testaments, at the end of the movie I saw 2 of our investigators crying, it´s a touching movie.

Things are going great, I still have high hopes that we´ll have 3 baptisms on the 27th it´ll be great, and pray for Ronald, Jesenia, and Rojer please!

Have a great week!

Elder Jonathan Willden

On the left Elder Montes, on the right Elder Ajtún

Nasty soda they drink in Nicaragua.

Refreshing Waterfall

1 July 2013

Letter to All:

This week we found 3 new investigators that are very positive.  

A family: Nora and Rafael.  Also a friend of theirs named Ronald.  Ronald is the most positive.  I know the Lord had prepared him beforehand.  We met him one day and taught him part of the restoration and we left him a pamphlet and a Book of Mormon. He also accepted the invitation to be baptized on the 27th of July.

On the second visit he had read the pamphlet and 5 chapters of the Book of Mormon.  He said he loved everything from the Book of Mormon and he said he believed that Joseph Smith was a prophet.  He came to church yesterday as well.  We were a little surprised how positive he was, I guess we are just used to teaching people that don´t really think about what we teach them.  So we´ll see how soon Ronald will get baptized.

God truly does prepare people for missionaries, that´s why all who are called to serve need to serve a mission. There are people waiting for this message of hope!  We are so blessed to know about the Restoration!

Today we went to Boaco, It´s about 2.5 hours north of here, we went to see a waterfall, it was kind of small...but there were little kids cliff jumping there!

Take care

Elder Willden