March 1st

First things first...
Happy Birthday Daddy!!!! Sorry I missed that last week but better late than never right!

Hello everyone! I am writing you from a different email address. Recently the myldsmail website has changed and is now partnering with Google and we all have new email addresses.

Alright so I have some good news and some bad news. I'll start out with the good news...I'm staying in Juticalpa for another transfer! So that means I'll get to be here to participate in the baptism and wedding of the Ruiz Matamoros family. They were really nervous that I was going to be leaving. I wasn't really that nervous, until we went and visited them and they told me how nervous they were, they were even praying for me to stay. Aw! Haha, I love them a whole lot and I'm really glad I'll be here another 6 weeks to work really hard.

The bad news is...I'm staying here in Juticalpa haha. March and April are the hottest months of the year in Central America, and I just happen to be in the hottest area of our entire mission. I will admit I'm pretty sure I've got some world record tan lines and I no longer look American at all, so if you guys don't recognize me when I get back, blame Juticalpa. The other part of the bad news is that Elder Cardon will be leaving me on Wednesday to go to his new area. We knew one of us was going to be leaving because it would be too good to be true, but I'm sure I will see him again soon! But seriously, I love it here! I'm glad I'm staying.

So like I was saying before, I went on interchanges with Elder Cardon on Tuesday night, and we thoroughly enjoyed it. We hit up a lot of lessons in his area, and in the night we made some homemade french toast. With the french toast we put ice cream and syrup on top! It may not sound that good, but oh it was delicious. On Wednesday we had quite the crazy experience. In the afternoon we were not having a lot of success contacting and it seemed that everyone was not at home, so we decided to go over and visit the Fam. Ortiz, who live about 45 minutes away from the house if you're walking fast. They also happen to live in the closest house located by the river, about 15 steps away. While we were there, it began to rain like none other. Now, it doesn't hardly rain over here in Juticalpa since it is a big desert farm, but wow did it rain Wednesday. The winds were bustling and it took the power out of the whole city; and when the power goes out at night we have to report back to our homes. So we had quite a long walk back to the house, especially since we were so close to the river. ALL of the streets were totally flooded as the water drained down into the river. So we spent about 1 1/2 hours walking home jumping from sidewalk to sidewalk, climbing fences, Indiana Jones style, adventuring until we finally made it to the house. When I walked into the house, it was a bit flooded inside too, which surprised me. Luckily nothing was too heavily damaged, just my luggage took the major hit and was soaking wet, but I don't have transfers so I'm not worried.

This week Elder Hansack and I have been having a pretty good time, and a lot of success as well. We have found quite a few new families that have began to receive the lessons, so hopefully we might see even more baptisms in the future! I am going to have to give away some of my investigators, because on Wednesday another pair of Hermanas are going to arrive and begin working in Juticalpa as well. So that makes 4 companionships in just 1 branch! We are anticipating the division in the branch very soon, and I'm guessing President Flores is too haha. On Sunday we had a special conference for Central America where we listened to talks from Elder Claudio R.M. Costa, Mary N. Cook, D. Todd Christofferson and Pres. Eyring in Sacrament Meeting through satellite. I didn't really get to watch most of it because we got there a little bit late, bringing families to church, and then I was playing babysitter of the little girl Jaime of the Ruiz Matamoros Family, but I did really enjoy Pres. Eyring's talk and I felt the Spirit very strongly.

In other news, everything is just going normal here in the ole mish. My foot is a little sore because this week in service, we were helping a recent convert dig a couple of holes to make her tortilla work station outside be more secure. While I was filling the hole with the dirt afterwards, Elder Hansack had the idea to secure the soil around the wood real good, and used the shovel to pound the dirt in. But, he happened to pound it in right when I had my foot there, and smashed my little toes! It hurt a lot, but now I'm doing fine, no problems just a little sore haha!
I love you all out there, I hope everyone is doing well and taking care of themselves. I pray for you often and feel your prayers always.

Vaya Pues!
Elder Tinkham