Elder Willden's Release Date is . . . .

Big Announcement!  Elder Willden is headed home on . . . 

May 1st - Hurrah for us! 

24 February 2014

Letter to All:

Nathali got baptized!!  Woooh!  It was a great baptism, it was very reverent and peaceful, with a steady feeling of the spirit.  She was so excited for her baptism.  I know she`ll remember this moment always!  The sisters in the ward baptized as well. (Not sure what Elder Willden means.)

Sunday, two investigators came to church, Jorge and Wilmer.  Both of them are very positive and they loved church.  I`m sure they´ll get baptized in March!

Things are going well, the only problem we are having is that it´s hard to take care of so many people at the same time, we need to focus more on those who are more positive.  We need a better balance. I know that the Lord has many blessing in store for us, because we are putting forth all of our might!

Yesterday we had a great lesson with the Bishop on the atonement, we read in Alma 7.  We gained his trust and he asked us to give a talk in March.

Take care!

Elder Willden

Elder Willden wrote a sweet note to his mom this week:  So the other day I was thinking.  Every time I give my dirty clothes to the sister in the ward I feel bad for them because I know it´s a lot of work, and they have to wash by hand.  I realized that I should have been a lot more grateful with you because you always washed my clothes!  Thank you so much!  For everything.  I love you!  (Thankfully I never washed clothes by hand!)

17 February 2014 ~ A Successful Week!

17 February 2014

Letter to All:

Oh man!  This week we worked super hard.  We are finding a lot of new people.  Nathaly is going to get baptized this Saturday!  On the 1st Marta will get baptized!  Things are going great.  

We all get along well, we are all happy and filled with energy to work.  And we come home super tired but content.  The Lord is blessing us for our work and obedience, many hearts are being softened and many people are desirous to learn.  But they still won’t come to church, just Nathaly came.  So we need to focus on getting people to church this week.  My companion talked with Cristian yesterday when he was on divisions.  She still wants to get baptized but the whole wedding thing is a stumbling block.  But I know she´ll get baptized soon.  We have a lot of people with baptismal dates for March.  Hopefully we´ll baptize on my birthday (the 22)!

I´m truly happy, it´s joyous this work of the Lord!  I love it, I´m still learning and growing and working on being better every day.  I want to teach Elder Agustín everything I know, so he can be an excellent worker and missionary.  I know he will.

On Thursday we had a great lesson, it was with Keyler and Karla.  Keyler is a less active and Karla is an investigator.  We sang a hymn and we prayed and I felt the spirit, as we prayed I felt I had to talk about the Holy Ghost, even though we had something else planned.  The lesson was powerful!  But for some reason they still didn´t come to church, but they did get married this weekend so that´s another step towards baptism.

A lot of great things happened this week, but there isn´t enough time to share everything that´s going on.  But things are going great!

Love,

Elder Willden

Elder won Monopoly - can you tell?

10 February 2014 ~ A Trio of Elders!

10 February 2014

Letter to all:

Well I have some exciting news, I´m training!  Elder Velásquez had changes and I´m in a trio now with Elder Mann and Elder Agustín (my second son!).  They are great, it´s interesting being in a trio!  Elder Mann works super hard and Elder Agustín is very excited to work.  I love their energy they bring to missionary work.  

We have been working super hard, tons of lessons and tons of contacts.  We contact about 30 people a day and we have about 8 or 9 lessons a day.  It´s going great, I love the hard work.  We have found new positive people and 2 people are getting close to baptism. 

Marta and Nathaly came to church, as well as 3 others.  Nathaly will be baptized on the 22 and maybe Marta, we´ll see.  Cristian is in the same rut with the whole marriage thing.  We haven´t visited Carlos and Jackalin.

In this week we read 2 Nephi 32 to many people, specifically verses 3, 5 and 9.  They talk about what we should do to have direction in our lives and that prayer scripture study and the sacrament are key.  

 3 ^aAngels speak by the power of the Holy Ghost; wherefore, they speak the words of Christ. Wherefore, I said unto you, ^bfeast upon the ^cwords of Christ; for behold, the words of Christ will ^dtell you all things what ye should do.

 5 For behold, again I say unto you that if ye will enter in by the way, and receive the Holy Ghost, it will ^ashow unto you all things what ye should do.

 9 But behold, I say unto you that ye must ^apray always, and not faint; that ye must not perform any thing unto the Lord save in the first place ye shall ^bpray unto the Father in the ^cname of Christ, that he will ^dconsecrate thy performance unto thee, that thy performance may be for the ^ewelfare of thy soul.

We are preparing many people to get baptized in March, I hope to have a lot of baptisms on my birthday, because it´s a Saturday, that´d be a great gift!

Well, I´ll let you know how next weeks go!

Elder Willden

A Good Week for Elder Willden

3 February 2014

Letter to All:

Well sorry time is short...

This week was great.  2 days this week we had to go to Managua but the rest of the days went well and we had success.  We have 2 new investigators that´ll get baptized this month.  Marta, she fell in love with a member and they got married in 2 or 3 weeks!  It was insane almost!  But she has a strong desire to learn and to get baptized. She has a baptism goal for February 22.  Also a less active family decided they want to be active now.  They have a daughter named Nathaly who´s 9 and she wants to get baptized, so she´ll be a little present for us ha-ha!

Elder Carlos H Amado came to visit the mission.  We were able to listen to him for about 4 hours, he asked questions and we asked him questions and it was completely led by the spirit.  It was great, I was truly fed.  He talked about a lot of things, the language of the mission as well as the language of the spirit.  He talked about the importance of having a constant prayer in your heart 24 hours a day.  He also talked about eternal marriage because it was the oldest group of missionaries he taught.  I learned a lot, but there is little time to share, sorry.

But it was a good week, God has blessed us!

Elder Willden

Elder Willden's Zone - look at all the sisters!  Elder Willden is in the back and the tallest, of course. 

Elder Bear