Feliz Año Nuevo to all‏

Hello and Welcome to 2010 everyone! I am glad to be writing you today, so I'll start to get straight to my points of the week!

First off, one of the biggest news of the week, on Tuesday I had the opportunity to have interchanges with guess who? Elder Cardon! Him and I were reunited once again as he got to come over to my house and chill for a whole day while we labored in the work of the Lord. We even had a lot of success together finding people to teach and having the Spirit in our lessons. We loved the time we got to have reminiscing of the MTC, of our first areas, experiences we've had, and all that jazz, oh we also talked about the Utah Jazz (shhh).

Anyways, that was about the high point of the week, because the rest of the week was actually really bad haha. The next day, we met up to switch back companions at a service project, and I found out that Elder Lopez was sick. He got sick that night and couldn't sleep very well. I didn't think it was very bad, and I thought we’d just stay in the house for the afternoon....but we ended up stuck in the house for 3 days! He was in the bed the whole time and very sick. I have no idea what he had in English but he had Empacho, or was Empachado. So Dad, there's your duty of the week to figure out what that was.

{Phil: Empacho is a gastrointestinal illness which can affect anyone but is most common in children. It is characterized by abdominal pain, bloating, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. It can be associated with an intestinal blockage or can be caused by swallowing food that is hard to digest; like popcorn hulls, chewing gum, corn husks, etc. It can also be caused by eating spoiled food (food poisoning). It usually will not go away on its own and needs to be treated. Common treatments are; massaging the abdomen to manipulate the blockage, laxative teas, enemas, and some pretty dangerous folk remedies that contain lead (but these are not very common anymore).}

I felt really bad for the guy and spent a lot of time praying for him, I think it was because he ate something really bad. He didn't eat for 3 days because with the sickness he had an extreme sharp pain in his stomach, and could not go to the bathroom, and everything he did eat he just puked it up. It was quite the nasty experience because none of the pills he took worked, and we were about to have to leave for Tegucigalpa to go to the hospital, but a member came over and gave him this crazy massage, because all the people here know this sickness and they say that apparently doctors don't accept it. But he finally recovered about Saturday, and we left to work again slowly that night. So I passed December 31st locked up in the house with absolutely nothing to do. The worst part about it all is that I was locked up in the house for 3 days without anyone to talk to at all, it was like solitary confinement haha. But I'm sure it wasn't as bad as the experience of Elder Lopez.

Anyways, other than that the work is going really slowly because not much was done this week. We have been working with a girl named Yuliza who is family of a recent convert here so that she can be baptized. She is really awesome and understands a lot that we teach, but the only problem is she is incredibly shy and just did not want to go to church because it scared her. But we FINALLY got her to come to church and she just loved it. I hope that we can build off of that experience.

Because there usually is not a lot to do here in Juticalpa as it is probably the hardest city for missionary work, we are finding other ways where we can help people out. We have been doing a lot more service projects, I have been teaching English and that is going alright, and the Latin’s have started to teach how to read while we’re teaching English. We are also going to have an amazing activity where we’re showing the Joseph Smith 2-hour movie in the chapel on Thursday. We invited practically the whole city and really hope it will strengthen the testimony of Joseph Smith of the members, and win over the investigators as well! I have also been helping out with the ward choir, since, um...they really need it haha, and they are ALWAYS asking me for my suggestions! Thanks a lot mom! (wink)

Anyways, that's all I got for you guys this week. I hope you are all taking care. You're in my prayers -

Vaya Pues!
Elder Tinkham