great miracles happen

December 16, 2013

so this week we have had some great miracles happen!!

first off... that family that is from El Salvador that we found last week... they are all getting baptized on the 28th of this month!!! soo sick!!! this happened due to the promise our mission president made to us that if we went and looked through our former book we would find 2-3 people who could be baptized in a week!!! now we didnt find them in there but we found someone else who when we went to visit them gave us the reference to go down the street a little bit!!! so that was super cool to see how god really is leading us to the people who are ready!!! she use to be super catholic and wouldnt lsay anything to the missionaries... now she is getting baptized and has stoped drinking coffee! (which is a big deal to the people from el salvador) the 13 year old girl has cancer and has to be in the hospital a lot but she and her sisters are super excited to be baptized!!! she loves coming to church!!! their grandpa turned out to be an inactive member of 30 years and now that he is going back he just tells his whole family how happy he is now!!! he told us all that when he was going to church he would always feel soo bad because he wanted his family to be there with him but his wife was super catholic. but now he says how happy he is that he is going back WITH all his family!! in just the two weeks we have been teaching them we have taught them about everynight and HNA O--- calls us her boys haha she is sooo funny!! its fun having someone to talk to from el salvador because she spanish is different so its fun saying things that my companions dont understand!! hahaha

texas is cool! there are aligators in the rivers... all the people here drive like my dad (love you)! haha jk they are worse!! it really stresses me out sometimes!!! i hate driving!! i want to be on a bike soo bad or just walking!!! or riding the bus!!! that would be better!!! 

i still love my mission soo much and im soo grateful for who im becoming because of these experiences. they have truly changed me!!  

 

thank you for all your love and support!!! 

-Elder Dennis!!

im here in Houston Texas

 December 9, 2013

hey everyone soo im here in Houston Texas as im Sure you know!!!

this week has been great!!! I love it here!! im really sad that I had to leave El Salvador and all the people that I grew to love!!! I feel like I left family down there with how our relationships were with some of the members!!! It was hard to leave!! I miss the simplicity of everything!! I feel out of place here having so much!!! having things like hot water carpet a clean house no bugs. down there we had so little and yet I was never more happy!! well maybe a few times can match it but yeah. haha here I drive around in a truck I have hot water and carpet! everything is clean and safe!!

I have some amazing experiences tho!! so basically everyone I talk to here is from El Salvador!!! we found this family this week who is from there and I talked to them a lot about that and then we taught them the gospel of jesus Christ!! cool thing is that after the lesson my comp elder case told me that it was so weird because he has never gotten into their house before!!!! because the mom is super catholic and didn't want anything to do with us!!! well they came to church yesterday... ALL of them and after church we asked them what they thought and they LOVED IT and they all told us that they were going to be coming everyweek from now on!!! Hna Ortega (the super catholic one) didn't want to leave!! she spend 30 minutes after church just talking to people!! haha ahhhhhh sooooo awesome!!! first family we have come to church here is Salvadorian!! =) the lord truly has a purpose!!! and truly is guiding us!!!

I know that im here for a purpose. I learned some great things in ES and im really sad that I had to leave but there are things I could not have learned there that I needed to learn obviously!!! I feel sooo happy still!!! i love WORKING in the mission!!! its not so much where you serve but how you serve in the place your serving!!!

i want to share one last experience that was really scary!! when i was in the hospital i almost died (im saying this because im fine now). i had a platelet level of 43,000 and a white blood cell count that was super low like 2% i think, i was thinking about how if i died i would miss doing all these things and i was really worried about that and kind angry!! i was thinking about it and i remembered about what we had been teaching everyone, about how this life is the time to prepare to meet god! and i was thinking about that and about how everyone says that if you die in the mission you go to the celestial kingdom. and i thought. if i died... wouldn't that be completing my purpose? this life is such a small part of the big picture and sometimes we get soo caught up in the things that don't matter. i realized that all of the things that i was worried about really didn't matter because that's not why im here!!! we all need to have an eternal perspective and realize that "things" in this life really don't matter!! the only thing we are going to take with us is our families and our knowledge!!! that's it!! so while i was laying there in the hospital i decided to accept god will and if it was his will that i continued my mission in another world then i would accept it!! i know that the lord has a plan for me!!! i know that im here for a purpose and that all i have in really a blessing from the lord!! he knows i don't need anything but my family... now i know that too!! im soo grateful for my family and for the love they have always showed me!!! im soo grateful im still working in THIS world!!

i love you all and thank you for all your prayers!!!

love you soo much!!!

-Elder Dennis

this is mauricio the guy that was a drunk on the side of the road!! when we left he hadnt been drinking and smelled lie soap!!!!!!!!!=) he had a date to be baptised dec 25 so!!! so excited for him

Texas Houston South

December 5, 2013

Hello everyone,

I'm sorry for not sending an update about where Josh was transferred. I posted it on Facebook but forgot that not everyone is connected to our Facebook page.  Josh was reassigned to the Texas Houston South Mission and he arrived on Monday afternoon.  He was not able to write again before he left, other than a scanned Thanksgiving letter to the family that they did in a meeting they had that day.  We think his next P-day will be Monday so we should hear from him then. Our older son got a call that Josh had arrived safely so we know that much.

His mission president looks awesome and I have corresponded with him a couple of times by e-mail.  He said that Houston has the third or fourth highest population in the world of people from El Salvador and the stake president of the Spanish stake that is in the mission is from El Salvador, so Josh will be able to continue working with Salvadorans, which I'm sure he was excited about when he found out. Thank you to everyone for your prayers and support of him.  We truly appreciate it as does he. We're very glad he's now able to get back to work. I'm sure he was going crazy being cooped up in the hospital and the house for those last three weeks. They did take them to the temple and I'm attaching a picture of that.  I'm not sure yet what his mailing address is, but I'm sure it's on a site with info on the mission.

Thanks again, everyone!

Anette Dennis

I'm alive and well!

 November 25, 2013

(Josh hand wrote a letter and had someone take a picture of it and send it to us to send out to everyone. He and his companion cannot leave their house yet as they are still recuperating from Dengue fever and they can't risk getting it a third time. So they will be there until they are reassigned, which we are told should be early this week. Thank you all for your prayers for him.  We'll see where they send him this time.)

Hey guys!

So this week I have learned so much with all the time I have had.  I finished the Book of Mormon again, read about a year’s worth of Liahonas, and learned about 10 hymns on the violin and learned to play the ukulele!!  I sorta knew how to play the violin before but I don’t really know where I learned to play like I can???  It’s weird!  I was just watching Elder Soto play for awhile, and then after that I played everything he played.  And then I opened up the hymnbook and could play those, too!!  Elder Soto doesn’t believe I only took lessons for a year in 6^th grade!  The Lord has blessed me with a gift to use in my time of boredom!!  When I get home, I hope I won’t lose it!! This gift could have an expiration date!!  Either way, it’s weird but I love it!!

        

         I’m alive and well but still can’t leave the house.  So lame!! That’s why I’m writing like this. Hopefully I will be off to a new country in a day or so!!  Love you all!! 

Elder Dennis

Reasigned

November 24, 2013

Elder Dennis ha sido reasignado a la misión Texas Houston South.  El viajará a esa misión el día Lunes 2/Diciembre.

 

Out of the Hospital

November 19, 2013

Hello e Dennis get out from the hospital yesterday! They need a week of rest, before any physical activity. They are doing fine, Prest will contact you to talk about what will happen.
Sincerely
Hermana C

Update

November 17, 2013

Hello!! Today elder Deniss plaquetas 115!!! Maybe your letters were magic for him😊 will keep you informed.
Hermana C