November 23

Hey everybody,

I am very sad right now because I just wrote you all a very beautiful letter that is very long and now is all lost. So I have 10 minutes to hurry and right another one.

Well, Jose and Maria were baptized and married this week! It was an amazing experience that I will never forget. A lawyer from the ward married them and it was a great miracle because they needed papers that cost an arm and a leg, but the lawyer did the marriage anyway without the papers. I don't know what happened but it was a miracle, and the day of the baptism was a joyous day in my life.

A cool story of the week is that one day we were walking to an investigators house that lives really far away about a half hour. And on the way there, this guy jumps out of the back of a truck and says, "HEY! I'm a member and want you guys to come over and visit me!" So we did haha the next day, and his name is Juan Carlos and is 25 years old and single. He recently moved from his old house about 5 months ago, and has been looking for the missionaries ever since. He gave us references for all of his family and his girlfriend too, and hopefully we can get him to come to church as well.

Another awesome thing is one day we went with the sister missionaries to go to a baptismal interview. When we entered the house, the Hermanas left to go contacting, and my comp to do the interview, leaving me alone in the other room with the family. I ended up talking with 2 teenagers for about 1 hour straight in pure Spanish, and I almost understood every little thing. I was thinking about your story dad when you found out you could speak Spanish when you talked to that little kid about football. The gift of tongues is real! And I can almost speak Spanish!

My thought for the week is that I now am in love with reading the scriptures. I have realized that all a person needs to stay spiritual and keep from falling is to read the scriptures every day. Pres. Flores said that all the missionaries that fall away after serving are those that forgot to read the scriptures and study like missionaries do. Dad, your right about getting too "spiritually casual" and now, scripture study is my favorite part of the day. I am studying the Bible and Book of Mormon intensely!

Well this is about all I have time for this week. Sadly, next week I don't think I'll be writing you because the elections start on Sunday, we're not going to have church meetings or anything because it's forbidden to gather in groups, so we'll see what happens. Maybe I'll be able to!

Vaya Pues!
Elder Tinkham