WHATS UP!!!

 August 23, 2013

WHATS UP!!!

 

soo this week has been super crazy!! and just awesome!!! first off my president is sooo cool!!! haha umm the first day we got here we went proselyting we got to ride the ghetto bus!!! haha seriously a super old school bus that has been paited blck!! people hanging out everyopen spoace!! haha the first day in my area me and elder o--- (super awesome comp love him) we got lost and had to call the bishop to come find us!! he just laughed at us!!! haha oh well!! we opened a new area soo we didnt have annnyy investigators!!! kinda sucked!! but yesterday we when to town (not literally) and we contacted EVERYONE we could!!! we spoke to about 27 people about the church out of that we got 6 new investigators!!  heck ya!! our goal for the day was 3 so we doubled it!!! yeah man!! the first day we met this lady who was jehova witness... she said we dont really teach about good things because we call jehova jesus not jehova and that if we really knew jehova like she did we would know that jesus isnt his name... ok?... also she said that we arent children of god because of the fall of adam...we asked her if her kids were her kids even when they sin... she said yeah but that it is different we asked her how... she changed the subject!! hahahhaha soo funnny!!! we have talked to a lot of people with a lot of really interesting beliefs!!! really cool to see other peoples views and super funny sometimes!!! on the plane ride from costa rica i talked to a guy sitting next to me and ended up sharing chapter 26 of alma with him... he said he would read it!!! soo stoked!!! hopefully he does!!! he lives in canada and doesnt speak any english.. not sure how that works haha oh well. our first day here we got sooo lost because there are tons of little streets everywhere!!! love it!!! some people live in little shaks with stick walls and tin roofs its really neat to see how poor all these people are and yet how happy they are!!! my house is really small too we havent moved in yet but right now we are living with the AP`s super cool!! i have some pretty good mentors!!! the aps are way cool!!! my companion is the district leader right now and i am learning a lot from him!!!

 

our house some times has running water!!! haha i have been taking showers with a bucket!! haha even when there is water is is sooo freezing that its better to just use a bucket!!! yeah... didnt think about the fact i was losing warm showers for 2 years!!! ohh welll i needed to be humbled anyway!!! haha the people here are so nice!!! everyone says hi and will talk to you usually!! some guy yelled at us yesterday because we tried to talk to him!! he was sitting in his house with the door open so we tried. he flipped and said how he was already a catholic and didnt need more religion!!! haha we said ok have a good day... he then said oh yeah you too!! have a great day!!! haha they are nice but... yeah its weird some times!!! my spanish has improved sooo much!!! i can speak pretty fluently now!!! well my time is up!!!! thanks everyone for all the emails and support!!! love ou alll!!!! i have to go buy a watch now!!! haha

Love Elder DEnnis!!! 

This week has flown by!!

HEEYYY EVERYONE

 

 

This week has flown by!! it usually does!! this is my last P day in the MTC!!!! YESS!!! haha not thtat i dont love the MTC but... i really want to start teaching real people now!!! teaching teachers is kind of a lot different!!! haha but over all my MTC experience has been amazing!!! i have made soo many good friends here. This past week some of my good friends left! i was really sad!!! i have pictures with them all!! Me and my companion are getting along well!! My friend Elder Thomas who left yesterday reminds me so much off all my friends from home!!! he is soo funny!!! he would always come and hug me when he would see me in devotionals and stuff which at first was super awkward cuz im pretty sure everyone was questioning how we got thru our stake pres. interviews yeah thats enough said haha it reminded me of my friend Zac who would always give me hugs haha kinda weird but get over it. haha

 

Holy cow i had some really cool experiences this week with the spirit!!! sooo anyway... this past monday i was super unfocused the beginning of the day and i couldnt figure out why!!! it was driving me nuts. because we have to teach 4 times a day in spanish and when i dont have the spirit that is really hard!! my spanish just kind of slurs together when i dont have it. so anyway we were about to teach our 2nd lesson and i was really stressing out because i didnt have the spirit as strong as i usually do, i started praying. i explained my problem and asked that i would be able to feel the spirit more strongly amongst other things. after my prayer i just sat in my chair quitetly and just waited and stayed focused on my feelings. a few seconds went by and then all at once it came back, it felt as if a literal sheet or blanket was laid inside of me, i dont really know how to explain it but my focus just came right back and i remembered how to speak spanish!! this was really good because we were teaching chastity, which could have gone reallllllllyyyy bad had i gotten a few words wrong hahaha yeah im sure you can imagine!!! yikes.... yeah i dont want to think about that. especially this is our (fake) investigator who is lesbian. yeahh.... really hard lesson, could not have done what we did with out the spirit!!! She commited to live the law of chastity and to break up with her girl friend... HECK YEAH!!!!! ¨:) after words in class our teacher (which is also our investigator) told us how amazing we did!!! i felt pretty happy. but i know that it was not me teaching. In the strength of the Lord we can do all things!!! soo that was a cool experience!! another one happened on tueday and wednesday. Tuesday during personal study i studied all about faith and how to get stronger faith, and i found several scriptures that talk about the trial of your faith and it really made me think because i couldnt think of one specific time in my life that i can specifically call THE trial of my faith. So i was praying really hard for help to find the answer to this. anyway i had a discussion with my District about Moroni chaper 7, because it talkes a lot about faith and how to get it. One of the Hermanas in my district brought up that she always wondered about how to recieve stronger faith and that she too has never had one specific trial of faith. and she brought up how in spanish the word that it uses when talking about trial of faith is Prueba which means trial or QUIZ. and that really hit me because she said that not everyone has a test but everyone has quizes haha soo that answered my question!!!

 

so more about this week... im hesitant to tell you all this but im going to anyway haha soo on tuesday the other elders who are going to El Salvador played a prank on me... one of the elders was an electrician before he came... well tuesday night after i finish writing in my journal i go to turn off my light and it doesnt turn off... haha im kinda freaking out and they all come in and are looking at it and laughing at me and stuff. After a while they all told me that they had played a prank on me... they wired the wires together... O_o yeah i wold never have thought of that haha so they fixed it pretty quick and we went to bed... well yesterday we got them back... we came back to the dorms early from Lunch and Took the Doors to their bathroom haha the doors come off really easy because they dont have pins so you can just lift up on them and they come off haha and the bathroom is set up so that you have a door to the shower and a door to the toilet haha sooo yeah after we all got back from gym they freaked out cuz none of them could take showers or really use the bathroom hahahaa it was really funny!!! we gave them back the doors after we got back to the dorms for the night... yeah

 

also this week i got my release date!! I will be getting home June 23, 2015!!

 

im soo excited to get to El Salvador or as some call it El Matedor (inside joke) . this will probably be the last Thurday i will be writing!! next time i write i will be in the Field!!! yeaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh im stoked!!!! welllll thats alll for today i think i have to go play soccer.. :) haha oh and do any of you know Tanner Mangam... welll when we get home he will be the starting quarter back for BYU haha he is pretty cool!!

 

Love you all thanks for all your prayers and support!!

 

-Elder Dennis- 

 

 

 actually... we just got our flight plans just now and i will be leaving monday morning at 3 AM!!! hahah sooooooo sickkkk!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

! ok just had to get on and tell you all!!! i have 3 days left!!! not 5-6!! sweeet!!!!!!!!!

HHEYY EVERYONE!!!

HHEYY EVERYONE!!!

 

soooo this week was rally good!! and went by soo fast!!! this week my pal Trever Mccleery got here!! this is the kid i almost got cicked out of preschool whith!!! haha we wont be getting cicked out of the mtc tho! dont worry!! haha there are a lot of my friends here now!!! Dallin, Mark, Conner, Ethan, and Trevor!! haha sooo this week was just like last week basically!!! we had a ginormous rain storm and all the side walks were floodded with 2-3 inches of water!! it was nuts!!! there is soo many people here now! it is soo crazy!!! i think they said we will be reaching 800 next week!! yeah it is crazy!!! my scripture study is going well!!! i am continually finding new things that i love!! the newest thing is Alma 26:27-30!! holy cow i love that scripture!! i love alll of Alma 26!! it is my favorite chapter in the Book of Mormon!! :) i a soo sad that the first group of elders are leaving next week!! i have made soo many good friends. sorry todays letter is kinda rambling im kinda rushed!! haha gotta go play soccer!! hahah my ankle is completely better tho!! im happy!! im still being careful tho!! HOLY CRAP OK soo the natives in our dorm, well the last ones, had the craziest sleep schedule!! they would go to bet around 1 and wake up at 5 they are nuts! haha the last night they were here they didnt let me sleep cuz there were 4 of them in the room together so i got up and talked to them for a while. they are pretty cool!!! they have all given me some pretty cool ties!! haha its soo fun!! . ok soo this week i startded the coolest thing!! i made a scripture index!!! it has all the topics of the lessons and then tabs to where they all are!! soo cool!!!

 

well thats all i have for this week!!! SORRRYYY!! haha thank you to everyonne for writing and for your love and prayers!!!

Love Elder Dennis

 

 

 the sky was red!!! soo cool!

 This is basically were i spend my life right now!!! haha

 This was a joke we played on the new latinos!! their faces when they saw that there was only one bed!! haha priceless!! haha we just pushed the beds together haha but they were kinda worried when they walked in!! haha

Hello everyone

Hello everyone

first offf thank you everyone for all your emails i love reading them!! this week has been soo amazing!!!  i dont even know where to start!! hopefully i wont forget anything!! soo the week started off good we just had our usual schedude which is... wake up get ready, eat, personal study for an hour, class for 4 hours, practice investigator, lunch, language study, study time, gym, dinner, personal study, class again for 5 hours, home by 945, lights out around 1030 yeah it is exhausting! the days go by soo fast! but this week i have been praying so hard that we will know how to teach our progressing investigator who is lesbian... it has been like walking on ice!! i know that the spirit has directed me soo much because we broke her open and got her to tell us all about her life and her past and her problems and as soon as she did we were right there to put the savior and his atonement right into her life!! it was really cool! because at first she would hardly talk to us and she wouldnt tell us anything, after this one lession we taught she just opened right up, all we did was show we genuinely care and there we were there for the sole purpose of helping her and bring her back to christ. the next lession we taught her about the plan of salvation and she just broke down and revealed more about her life to us and said she wanted to change and she told us she was going to start going to church and break up with the pareja haha which means her partner, she thanked us over and over for helping her and not rejecting her when she told us about her partner. she has a lot of problems. it is really weird how our teacher playes the character because she really starts crying when we address the problems even tho they are not really her own!! its way cool. this week a sister in my district got sick and she asked me to give her a blessing! that was tuesday... annnddd she is better now!! haha priesthood power is real!!! its soo cool!! i got a blessing the day i jacked my ankle up and the lord told me that my ankle would heal quickly and that it wouldnt be a problem to me!! im back to playing soccer now... yeah priesthood power rocks!! haha

 

so this week i have been reading in Alma, i finished Mosiah on sunday. holy cow i love so much reading the scriptures there are so many sweet things all over the place, things that i have never noticed before. i was reading about alma the younger and the sons of Mosiah and their change of heart, i love that story so much because the were "the most ville of sinners" and yet a few chapters later they are some of the lord most mighty instruments! i love so much Mosiah 28: 3, this scripture just hits home so much with me because i feel the exact same way!! i know what it feels like to not be living with the spirit, that feeling is sooo awful, i was always irritatated and upset about something and yeah i was messed up, but im soo grateful for the oportunity i had to repent and for that experience i had because it taught me so much about the atonement and what it means, i can realate so well to people who are in the same place i was that i just know exactly what to do. im soo grateful that im not perfect and that the Lord has given me temptations that he knew i would fall for knowing that i would repent and comeout of it knowing who he is soo much more than i did before. i love my savior and i dont know where i would be with out him. im so grateful for all the opportunities i have had to repent and im so glad i know that i always can!! there is another scripture i love because it talked about my investigators... Alma 31:35 this scripture is awesome.

can you guys believe that it has already been about a month!! holy cow it has gone fast!! 23 more!! haha i can do this!! i have 2 and a half weeks left here!! yay!!! so stoked!!! my companion and i have been getting along good!! i can totally see why im with him... for me and for him.

 

i love being district leader! i have finally got the hang of all my duties i think!! i love teaching my district what i am learning and in return they teach me more. i love the discussions we get into after our tuesday night devotionals. if you havent seen any of elder hollands talks at the mtc go watch one haha holy cow they are good but soo forceful!! haha he reminds me of alma in chapter 5 haha especially verse 39 haha yeah alma kinda goes hard at the people of zarahemla!! haha he is soo cool haha Alma the younger is a beast!! haha

 

soo i have finally got to know our new latios this week!! they are super cool! and i think that i met one of my cousins!! his last name is Ibarra but the first time i saw him we were both like dude!! i know you!! haha i think dad (my dad) is uncle in some way because i remember going to visit his family a few years ago when we were in hermosillo!! haha i call him Primo now haha he is so funny!! i will send pictures later!!

 

HOLY CRAP the mosquitoes here are nuts i probably kill like 15 in our room everynight last night i kept waking up cuz they would be buzzing in me EAR!! ughhhhghgh so i got up at like 3 this morning flipped on the light and  WENT HAM!! i killed soo many with a towel i was soo mad!!! haha but look at it this way they can have all the animal blood they want now in heaven!! creatures from... not heaven... haha ;) well thats all i got for now i think!! if i think of more i will add it on next week!!! i love you all!! thanks for all the prayers love and support!! if anyone wants to read with me this week i am starting chapter 13 of alma today!! talk to you later!!

 

Elder josh!!