3 September 2012 - Baptism

Letter to all:

This week we had the baptisms of Gensi and Cristian.  I baptized Cristian first, the first time I’ve baptized!  Elder Buc baptized Gensi, she was very scared to go into the water.

Their grandma is in charge of them and she said they have changed a lot since we started teaching them, more obedient and kind.  I´m so glad to be able to be of help to them.

Saturday night we passed by a house - a family of investigators to invite them to come to church...they were drinking.  It´s disheartening to see someone you care for and want the best for doing the wrong thing.  We just have to move forward and help them.

This week we´ve been looking for new families to teach.

Elder Willden

Jonathan looks like a giant!

August 27th 2012

27 August 2012

Letter to All:

Well my soles for my shoes are already worn down; I dropped them off with a member to put new soles on!  I can´t believe they´ve worn down so fast, but these souls should last longer. 

 And my bed is too small as you can see in the picture.

Well we didn´t have a baptism this week one of the kids drank coffee on Monday, but they´ll be ready for this coming Saturday.  It´s a bit of a bummer but it´s okay they´re baptism will be great on Saturday!

Many of our older investigators we have dropped this week and some of the newer ones were losing the desire to move forward, Satan works really hard to impede our work.  But by the end of the week one of our families showed progression and came to church and were really positive in our lesson. We should have their baptism the 15 of September.

We spoke with and investigator named Dolando, when we came to his house he was waiting outside with the Book of Mormon in hand.  He had a lot of questions.  He has a great desire to read the Book of Mormon and know if it is true. He´ll receive and answer I know it.  I can´t wait to meet with him again.

That´s about all that I can think of for this week.  

Something I missed last week...  We meet with a member last week and at the end of our short message she asked for a blessing.  Afterwards she told us she had a lot of pain that day and she tried to get a hold of the bishop and couldn´t.  She thought to herself, Well maybe the missionaries will come by.  And we did, we didn´t plan on visiting her that day, It´s proof that the spirit has great power in directing us where we need to go and who we need to talk with.

Have a great week!

Elder Willden

August 13th and 20th

13 August 2012

Letter to all:

This week went well; I had my first baptism, and my first family.  A family of two the man had been investigating the church for 30 or 40 years and she had been for a year and a half.  A different elder came to baptize them.  

Saturday was crazy, at 7 in the morning the bishop called us and said he didn´t have all the papers to marry this couple, so we had to go over and talk to them and then we had to go find new witnesses because the witnesses that we had couldn´t come.  Then we had to decorate for the wedding and coordinate with people to get food and everything.  Normally it isn´t that big of an event but this baptism was special because he has been assisting the ward for a long time.  We spent almost the whole day running around organizing the baptism and wedding.  But it was worth the pain!  The baptismal service went very well, the elder that came to baptize perormed a musical number as well, the members really liked this elder when he was there a year ago.  The spirit was strong and everyone was happy.  2 baptisms (one family)!  The goal for the mission is to baptize a family every month, at least. The ideal would be a family every week. That  is what the president would like to see one day.

I believe that we are going to see more baptisms than in the past; my companion only had 3 here before I came.  We have 4 new investigators that are part of a family of one the members, 2 very positive and have gone to church twice and will be baptized the 25 and 2 others in the family that are curious.  We´ve received a lot of references these last 3 days and we finally had a ward council.  I believe in time this area will explode, It´s starting to...  We had 111 in the church and when we hit 125 they are going to build a new church, bigger and better.  They church we have now is very small.

They like to put a lot of salt in their drinks...  Someone stole the rails to a nearby bridge, and I´m getting tired of rice and beans haha...

That´s all for this week

-Elder Willden

                                    

                                                                        Notice Elder Willden is the tallest!!!

                                                       This Dog LOOKS EVIL!!

20 August 2012

Letter to all:

This week went alright...could have been better.  We have 3 different families that we are focused on and for most of our appointments with them fell through and none of them came to church this week.  But it´s okay we´re going to work hard so we can baptize these 3 families next month!  We have 2 baptisms scheduled for the 25, they are ready and excited to be baptized!  I believe next month well be an excellent month if we finish off this month meeting will all of the investigators and motivating them to be baptized.  

Sunday I gave a talk about the tree in the vision of Lehi and Nephi, and how it´s the love of God and that we all need to share this love of God as Lehi wanted to in the Vision.  If we want blessings in this life we need to help others. If we want to be more like Christ we must help others come unto him.  This life was never meant to be focused on yourself but to focus on others.  As we look and pray and fast for opportunities for missionary work we will find it.

D and C 18:15-18 

The talk went well, the words came easily.

The language is coming along well, still It´s a challenge to understand some because of the way they speak Spanish, fast and unclear.  I can converse with my companion almost just as I would in English.

My first exchange is now past, I believe these next 6 weeks will be great!

Adios

Elder Willden

6 August 2012

Letter to all:

This week went well, we found a great new family to teach and some of our investigators are beginning to progress.  Right now we have 6 different people with baptismal dates.

The lord is beginning to Hechar Fuego (Start fire) here in Bello Amanecer!  This week we had 8 investigators come to church!  Some of our new one´s came and some other investigators that we have never met attended.  Also it was fast and testimony Sunday.  I bore my testimony, when I started it was very noisy as usual but about halfway through it was silent except for me, which is not normal for a ward filled with little children.

In the first visit with one of our new investigators we talked about the restoration but then we changed the message because she mentioned her daughter who passed away at the age of 1 and a half.  As we talked about how she can have a family forever she began to cry a little.  The message hit her heart I´m sure. She accepted a baptismal date for the 25th but she has problems to overcome with getting married. 

The sister we eat dinner with (Hermana Raquel) gave us the reference of her cousin who lives next door.  Christian and José.  Christian accepted a baptismal date for the 25th and José we have only met with him once.  They came to the church this Sunday, and at the end José asked us when we are going to come over and visit them again.  I am so grateful for this new family to teach!  The Lord has already prepared this family, I believe baptism will come easy for them!

We have a baptism scheduled this Saturday the 11^th.

Another funny story...  We were walking down the street and we heard a motorcycle rev very loud.  We turned around to see a crash with a horse and a motorcycle.  Somehow the horse got it´s leg stuck in the wheel in the crash and was trying to pull it´s leg out.  Finally it did and it walked off.

Love Elder Willden!

 

P.S.  Dominos doesn´t taste very good here.

P.S.  Dominos doesn´t taste very good here.

Pictures from Elder Willden - Look if you can!!

30 July 2012

Letter to All:

Well the week didn´t start of too great...We went home after P-day to shower and there wasn´t any water (it happens from time to time, the same with electricity) luckily we had some water bottles stored in the house so I showered with about 6 liters of water.  Ha-ha that would never happen back home!

There are a lot of members in Nicaragua but more or less 20% are active, not good at all!  They always have some excuse not to go to church, if there weren´t so many less actives they´d have a temple no problem.

A lot of Nicaraguans lie, they´ll commit to do something and they hardly ever will.  4 of our new investigators hide when we show up so it looks like we´ll drop them.  Luckily we have new ones to teach.

Raul and also Vilma both have been taught a lot but don´t read or pray but we´ve been working really hard to animate them to do it, I believe they´ll do it this week!

We have a new investigator Milton and also his wife they have a child who is a member and look really positive but they aren´t at home much.

Yesterday the sister we eat dinner with gave us the reference of her cousin and neighbor, we went over and had a family night with them and watched “Together Forever”.  They´re a family of 3. They liked it a lot and they look very positive.  They have received great blessings lately.  Also the mother (Christian) donated tithing to our church a few days before we met them, she felt very blessed and wanted to give money to our church because she knows in the other churches the money goes to the pastors.  I believe they´ll be great investigators and be baptized.

We are planning an activity in August to boost the ward’s desire to do missionary work hopefully, all will go well. Also, I may do an English class.

A funny story that happened yesterday:  We were meeting with members and a drunk came up to me (happens a lot) and wanted to talk to me, he said Elmer, Elmer....Eler.  Then shook my hand 3 different times and said I love you in English and walk away.  I found that to be very funny!  There are a lot of drunks here.

Well that´s all for this week, Love you all!

-Elder Willden

                                                                     Elder Willden's Residence

                His Wonderful Restroom!! - he said he bought a new toilet seat.
                                                Thank goodness!

                                       Common and Regular guests...

                            The Locals - "taking a nap" - really just passed out.

                             An Average home in Nicaragua - we have much to be thankful for. . . .

Gallo Pinto and Fried Plantains

23 July 2012

Dear Family and Friends:

\Well I´m sure there are a lot of questions about how it is over here I´ll write what a can remember haha, It´s a different world here!

Every once in a while there´ll be army trucks driving around but instead of soldiers there is a marching band playing in the back I was a little confused!

The money here is 23 cortobas to 1 dollar and 1 dollar can go a long way.  For example you can ride the bus for about 12 cents here and go over to Managua.  A taxi is about 80 cents to take to Managua.Tthere are two types of taxies; normal and motos which are 3 wheeled, 3 seater vehicles.

I eat gallo pinto twice a day (rice and beans) and sometimes bread or cheese or even fried cheese.  Fried plantain which I like a lot and a bunch of different drinks - some don´t taste so great...

Diarrhea hit me this week!  It wasn´t that bad but I´m sure it will come again.

We have sisters in the ward that make us dinner and lunch and do laundry.  The mission gives us money to pay them.  Hermana Raquel makes us dinner her family is very, very funny. It´s fun to go over there and eat watching all their crazy kids run around.

This rest of the month our zone has the goal to baptize a family for each companionship.  We´ve been working hard to reach the goal but a lot of our investigators are new now but I need to trust the Lord and work my hardest and his will, will come to pass.  This week we contacted Raul who has family who are members.  He has received the missionaries for a lot of time, but none had ever given him a Book of Mormon.  I believe we are the missionaries for him!  It is so great to already see how the Lord sent me here for a reason.

We contacted Rodrigo yesterday and taught the Gospel of Jesus Christ and he accepted a baptismal date right after I asked him without a wink of hesitation!  I was surprised how fast he answered!  Also we contacted Haliey her parent’s don´t want her to go to church but I think she already believes this church is true.  We met her for the first time yesterday she has had missionaries for a while too, yet she hadn’t had a Book of Mormon as well so I gave her one.  There are a lot more investigators but I don´t have time to talk about all of them!  It´s been a good week and we have a lot a work ahead of us!

Until next week!

-Elder Willden  

P.S There are Giant Pigs here about 3 times the size they are normally!  They are huge!


Note From Elder Willden's Mom: Check out this link about Water and Beverages in Nicaragua - http://foodsobriety.net/?p=1076

Elder Willden is now in Nicaragua!!

16 July 2012

Letter to all:

Wow - my first week already flew by!  Time goes by very fast when you are teaching the gospel.  Well my trainer is Elder Buc from Guatemala I´ll be his last companion because he has 3 months left and training takes 3 months.  In training, we study and extra hour almost every day than you normally would.  Also we take turns doing different things as missionaries like contacts or baptismal dates - things like this. 

We only have 2 baptismal dates, the rest of the investigators weren´t progressing and so we found a bunch of new investigators to teach this week.  The two baptisms will be the 11th of August.  A man and a woman that are together but not married yet, the man has been investigating the church since the 80´s!  I am very excited to see them get married and baptized and take this new step in their lives!

The work here it tough and long but it is great.  A lot of walking.  Almost all the roads are dirt and mud, when it rains it is all mud but it hasn´t rained a lot yet.  I´ve never seen a place more poor than here, most houses are a little bit of concrete and whatever metal or wood they can find to make a roof and fence.  It´s very humbling to see the poverty they live in and yet they are still happy.

Oh and my area is in a city called Sandino and the area is Bella Bandino it´s close to Nicaragua.  The language is tough because the speak fast and aren´t clear and they like to cut out the s at the end of words but after a week here I can understand a lot better what they are saying.  It´s still very tough but I´ll learn, they say I know a lot for a new missionary.

Until next week!

-Elder Willden