March 29

Hello once again to all of my family and friends out there, I hope that you are all doing well and especially thank you for all of the birthday messages that were sent out to me. I haven't quite received the packages yet mom, but we'll see how long it takes for me to get them right?

Well..once again it has been a week of extreme work and extreme heat. Today is the start of Holy Week as they say around here, or basically Spring Break as you know it there. Spring Break is the biggest holiday in Central America, bigger than Christmas and all of the other holidays, and it is also the hottest week of the year. We'll see if I make it out alive right? Quite a few special events happened this week, and I have short amounts of time to tell you about them, so I'll get rolling.

This week for service we went back over to the house of the Hno. Santiago to help him out. I feel really bad for the guy because he literally doesn't sleep. He works on his house all day, then goes home to eat and shower, then heads off to work all night. On Wednesday we carried up an immense amount of wood up the very large hill that leads to his house. It was pretty fun, but definitely the most tiring service project we have been doing. We just ran up and down the mountain about 50 times carrying wood up, and sprinting downward to do it again. I left in much pain and sweat, but it was a good experience! The wife of Hno. Santiago is really awesome, her name is Ana Maria. We haven't been able to teach Santiago because he is never home, but Ana always listens to us and is really close to accepting a baptismal date. We have been talking about baptism and everything and she tells us that she is already decided to be baptized in the church, but we haven't been able to put a secure date yet. We still have a lot of work to do with them, we need to get them moved into their other house, help them get married, and then teach them the rest of the lessons before the baptism. I seriously doubt I'll be here to see the baptism, but I'm going to do all that I can in order to help them out.

We have been spending a lot of time these last few weeks in a neighborhood that's called La Sabaneta, and we are receiving a lot of reception from there. So consequently we decided to have a small fireside in the home of a member with all of the people from La Sabaneta. We spent some time planning and setting up, and we showed a small film called On the Way Home. I really love this movie it is one of my favorites from the church. It talks about a family that has been plagued with problems, and their decision to be baptized, and all of the things that led up to their great decision. We spoke about baptism afterwards, and are looking to put dates with them this week. Afterwards we made (or tried to) make a cultural food called Catrachas. It's fried tortillas with a little bit of sugar, beans, and a special kind of cheese on top. With the large help of the Hna. Rosaura, the member who hosted, we made them! Haha they tasted really good and all in all it was a really good experience!

I know I said that I was going to try and put a lot of baptismal dates this week...but I still have a bit of work to do with them. But we did put 1 baptismal date this week! And it was a great miracle. We placed a date with the Hna. Sara Torres. We had many interesting experiences with her. She has been an investigator for quite some time, but never went to church. We were about to drop her about 3 different times, but we always felt that it was important to go back. One day this week, we asked the Hna. Juanita, our neighbor whose mom always cooks for us, to come with us and help her mom out. Her mom goes to another church and is seriously considering baptism in that church, but is scared that it's not right. We went over there to talk to her about that, and on the pathway there, we found her walking to our church....she had lied to us. Well...Elder Hansack and I went to the appointment regardless, a little bit disappointed, to teach Sara, who we thought was already dropped and uninterested. During this very spiritual lesson, we found out that Sara had received an answer to her prayers, and knows that the gospel is true. Hna. Juanita, former missionara, helped us out with her amazing testimony, and she ended up coming to church on Sunday! It was amazing.

My birthday was a pretty normal day, since it was Sunday, not much celebrating happened. The present I got was I had to give a talk! Yikes huh? I gave a talk about the Restoration of the Gospel through Joseph Smith, and then afterwards all the missionaries sang I'll Go Where You Want Me to Go. It was a tearful experience since I consider the people of Juticalpa my family, and I really enjoyed the opportunity to give a talk. All the other missionaries were really nice wishing me a happy birthday and everything. The only person that didn't wish me happy birthday is my companion haha, but like I said before he is a little bit of a grinch. I'm used to it, no problems there. But it was a decent birthday!

Anyways, that's all I've got for you guys this week! I hope you enjoy conference! My second one ALREADY in the mission! I'm so excited to be able to hear the voice of our beloved prophet whom I love so much. I hope you all can learn a lot from these great people. Until next week!

Vaya Pues!
Nos Vemoshmm
Elder Tinkham