16 December 2013

16 December 2013

Letter to all:

Well, I´m sure you´re all wondering, ¨Did he have changes? ¨ Yup.  I got changed to San Marcos, Carazo.  My companion is Elder Velásquez from Guatemala.  He has 18 months in the mission.  My companion is a good missionary, very obedient, and he knows what he´s doing.  So we should have some great success together.  I´m about to have 20 months in the mission...wow.  I´ve been assigned as a zone leader.  

San Marcos is nice and cool, good members too.  It´s the biggest ward I´ve ever served in with an average of 130 members attending.  In the zone there are 20 missionaries, 8 elders and 12 sisters.

Our area is well....lets just say there´s a lot of work to do.  We are making a lot of plans for our area and our zone, to hasten this work.  We want to do things that missionaries don´t normally do to get investigators.  For example on the 7th we are going to go to the park and polish everyone´s shoes for free, while others are writing down their names and information.  

We´ll I´ll let you know how the next week goes.  Tomorrow we are going to a meeting at the president's house, so that´ll be interesting.

Have a great week everyone!

Elder Willden

9 December 2013

9 December 2013

Letter to all:

Well this week was a great week.  Why?  Because, we baptized!  Damaris was baptized Saturday!  What a great experience to see her get baptized!  Now that makes a family, Ronald and Damaris, the first family baptized here for quite a while!  I´m very happy that she decided to take this step, in the end she understood most of what we had taught and felt like she needed to get baptized.  We had Hermano Juan do the baptism, because there´s a new rule in the mission that missionaries can´t baptize.

Also a member who was excommunicated finally got the okay to be baptized. Sunday he asked me to confirm him, he´s going to be an awesome member he was a missionary, and he knows a lot.

Also a new member came to the branch, he´s from Costa Rica, his name is Bismar.  He has been a member for 13 years.  So he will be a great support for the branch, maybe he´ll be a counselor.  The branch is going well, now we are maintaining about 50 in church as an average.

Let's see what else...the members have been working with us more and more, and we have been having great lessons companioned with the testimonies of these members, we want every investigator to have a friend in church.

The new family Felipe and Felipa have a baptismal date for January 25th, he is catholic but open to listen to us and ask God about it.  He said, "But I have faith that I was baptized and there were witnesses."  So a member explained how he was catholic as well and he had doubts about getting baptized again.  The member also explained how small children are not capable of sin.  Then we told him he needed to ask God about it, if he should get baptized.  He said, "I´ll take your advice."

We had a good lesson with Wilmer and Flor.  We read 1 Nephi 3 with them because they haven´t been reading on their own, we read a part about why is was so important to obtain these records, then I gave them an example.  I asked Flor, ¨let's say you want to write your mom a letter, but the government wants to capture you for something you did and you put your life on the line to get this letter to your mother.  Then she gets the letter and throws it away.  How would you feel? ¨I´d feel that I am not important to my mother", she said.  Then I told her, the Book of Mormon was written for your great, great, great grandparents and when you don´t read this book, they feel the same way.  They understood well, and committed to read the Book of Mormon more.

Erasmo´s wife also has a baptisimal date for January 25th, hopefully she´ll stop smoking, that´s her biggest hang up for baptism.  

The other elders are going to had baptism this Saturday too, a family - complete as well, they´ve been working very hard too.

Everything is going great!  

Changes are this Wednesday, I keep saying I´ll probably go but I keep staying - haha, but this time I think It´s time to move on to my next and most likely last area.

Keep it up over there, keep reading the scriptures!  

Love, Elder Willden

Happy Thanksgiving! 28 November 2013

2 December 2013

Letter to all:

Where should I start, let's see...  Well Felix and Maykalin are back together now. Thursday we decided to go over there and see if Felix would be there, we showed up at about 8:40.  Felix has a stable job  so he was not there. Maykalin told us about all of her problems and her biggest desire is to get her children back.  Some people have accused her of doing things to her baby that she says she didn´t do.  She does admit she does have some physiological problems and wants to look form help.

In all her life she has had very few good experiences, terrible parents than never taught her the way toward happiness.  She told us she wants to change her life completely and to no longer have this hatred towards the people who have harmed her.  We told her that Christ is the way she can overcome this and that through the miracle of forgiveness she can forget about the past, forgive others and change.  We shared Alma 7:11-14 with her and after reading that she asked, so when is the next date for baptism.  Excellent!  But first you need to get married I told her.  The only obstacle is that she doesn´t have a birth certificate, but we know what to do to get it.  

Wilmer and Flor are doing alright, he´s doing better with his word of wisdom problems.  But they didn´t come to church, so we taught them about obedience and how putting God before everything will bring them blessings.  We shared in 3 Nephi 13: 33 and D and C 130.  They understood that they aren´t putting forth their part and they recommitted to another baptismal date.

Damaris is doing great she´s going to get baptized this Saturday!  She just has to pass the baptismal interview.  

We also found a new family that is very positive, Felipe and Felipa.  Did they plan that haha?  He told us the other day, I like how you guys teach, you aren´t like others, you don´t come and tell me that I´m lost and that my church isn´t true because of this this and that.  You just come and share the truth with us and ask us to pray about it.  He is catholic, we taught him the restoration and he came up with stuff about how the Catholic Church and their line of authority but we just told him how he needs to pray and ask God.  He understood well and I know he´ll pray.  He is always intrigued with every pamphlet we give him and he loves them.

At church 53 people came!  As a district we brought 10, not bad for a branch!  We are getting real success here.  The activity that we are doing is really functioning and getting people animated to help us with the work.  One member who is a little less active brought her boyfriend Claudio.  He is very positive and has excellent questions.  She helps him out a lot, we taught him about the Book of Mormon, how it came to be and why it´s important to us.  Then we asked him, now, why would it be important for you to read it and according to his answer he understood very well.  The only problem is that he lives in Managua so we are going to send the reference over there.

I´m very happy to be here and see how this work is moving forward here.  I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving!

Elder Willden

We had a pretty good Thanksgiving as well.  We actually ate turkey!  Turkey, chicken, mashed potatoes, rolls, soda, brownies, and ice cream.  Not bad for out here, I´m surprised the Zone Leaders could find the turkey and brownies.  But the brownies turned out bad, they were like jello haha!  The ice cream was super crystallized as well, but over all it was good!