April 26

A big hola to all of my family and friends out there, how is everything going? I hope well. Sadly I am no longer cold because the rainyness has stopped, and once again it's hot (when I say that it was cold that means it was about 75 degrees). Things have been rolling along for me around here, let me tell you about my week.

Well, this week we had our transferly Zone Conference, and once again it was quite amazing. I really respect President Flores, it seems like every time he speaks, spiritual knowledge just shoots out of his mouth and heads directly to our brains and heart. Every time we leave a conference, we all feel like vile sinners and great missionaries at the same time, if you know what that means. The doctor of the Central American area also came by and gave us a message about stress and how to manage it as a missionary. He is a hilarious man and we all got a great kick out of him. Also, in the conference I got your package mom! Thanks so much for the new shoes, I still haven't even touched them because they are so clean and shiny, I'm afraid to get them dirty! But basically all of the candy and the mashed potatoes are already long eaten. So thanks!

To answer a few questions that my mom had about the food situation. There is a member that we pay to give us lunch, but all of the breakfast and dinners are house made, so we do a lot of cooking around here. Elder Torres and I get along just fine, he is a quiet type, but I don't have any problems with that.

As for the work here in Ciudad España, it's starting to come, slowly but surely. I have never seen so much opposition to the church as I do here, and its taking a little bit of time to get used to. In the pueblos I could just go up to any random house and say, Hi! We're missionaries and have a message about Jesus Christ! Can we come in and share it with you?! And about 85% of the time we go in. Here in Ciudad España it's more of the United States type deal...¨Hi hows it going! Were missionaries of the church of ...slam!¨ so yeah...the finding comes slower than usual, but I'm working on it!

We did find this one family of 4 that we are currently teaching. Its a mom (Juana) with 3 kids (Evelyn, Josè, and Jimmy) and things are going pretty well with them. They didn't come to church this week because Hna. Juana works in Tegucigalpa (like everyone else here), and she didn't have the time because she was over there working. But they are good people, they sure do talk a lot, but they do listen haha. The second time we went over there to visit we had a funny experience. We were asking them if they read the Book of Mormon and then prayed to know if all of these things were true. The daughter Evelyn said...I read and I liked it, but I didn't pray. Why? We asked...Because I'm scared I'm going to receive an answer like you told me. We laughed a little bit and asked her why, then we explained that it is a GOOD thing if she receives an answer to her prayers. The Hna. Juana also began to explain how she had had a horrible experience with an Evangelical church, were they baptized her and she told us that she does not believe in it at all. She asked us how our baptisms are and everything, and after we explained it, she said straight up. Well then looks like I'm going to be baptized! We laughed, Okay but you have to go to church first!

Anywho, that is pretty much the highlight of the week. In other news, I have been experimenting all of the different ways I can eat a Slim Jim this week due to the large mountain that my mom has sent me. I especially like the Slim Jim mashed potato mix, and the grilled cheese Slim Jim sandwich. Everything else...mas o menos. But I hope everything is going well with you guys, and I hope to hear from you soon!

Vaya Pues,

Elder Tinkham

April 19

Hello on this lovely new day to all of my family and friends out there. I hope you are all doing well and are safe. I would like to start out with some great news....Tengo Frio!! (I'm cold!!!!) As you might have discerned, its true, I have been transferred. So I have a lot to explain about my new area, lets get going.

Well, I have been transferred into the city finally, but it's not really the city. I am in a city zone, but my area is still outside of the city about 30 minutes. My area is called Ciudad España, and for those of you Spanishally challenged ones, that means Spain City. My area is very interesting, it is a community that was built about 12 years ago by the Red Cross when Hurricane Mitch hit. Then later on more people came to live there and expanded the community. Everything is paved, I have running water in the house, and....its cold! I even got a small fever the other day due to the large climate change because it has been raining like the dickens in my area. All the houses look pretty much the same, and it's just a nice community. But yeah, if you think I can rest now, think again.

The attendance in Ciudad España has a norm of about 45 people, and there is no church building. We meet in a house, which shocked me at first, but I'll get used to it I think. The Branch President doesn't live here, and comes every Sunday as a special calling from the stake. My companion and I are the counselors in the branch presidency, and I am the 1st counselor. We also teach seminary, give talks about every other Sunday, and bless the sacrament, so yeah....I have a lot of work to do!

Speaking of my new companion, his name is Elder Torres from Guatemala. He has just over a year in the mission, and he is a good humble guy. I don't really know why he hasn't been moved up to Senior Companion yet, because he is a good missionary, but I'm not worried about it because we need 2 good experienced missionaries here in order to have success. This branch has almost been closed down several times, because the members are very few, and the branch just hasn't progressed. President has told us that he needs us to save the branch because he does not want it to close down. I'm determined to do all that I can in order to help the branch.

Right now we are having trouble finding genuine investigators who are willing to progress. We have a couple of investigators who are decent, but very involved in other churches, and they just don't understand why they only need to go to one church. Here in the community there are A LOT of crazy churches, and most of the investigators who have gone to church say that we are boring because when we sing hymns we don't jump around, clap, and yell. They say that we don't have enough Spirit in our church because we don't yell and scream and heal people on the spot every Sunday. We have been trying to teach them that God is not a God of disorder and absolute loudness, and are looking for ways to help them understand. We will see how that goes this week.

As for Juticalpa, I was sad to let all my beloved friends go. I hope to find out soon if the baptisms are still on and how the branch progresses over there. I made some great friends and hope to see them one day again. I'm going to send a picture of part of the house I built with Hno. Santiago and Hna. Ana. I love you guys!

Vaya Pues!

Elder Tinkham

April 12

Hello to one and all on this beautifully, incredibly hot day in Juticalpa. I hope you are all doing well, and that everyone is taking care of themselves. Well, I'll start out with the bad news, the zone leaders haven't given us the transfers yet, so I won't find out until tonight if I'll be leaving or not. So sorry guys, until next week you'll have to wait to find out! The zone leaders are holding us out to sweat on this one. So if I'm outta here I'm gonna be having to say my farewells pretty quickly!

Anyways, this week has been pretty normal for us with respect to finding, teaching, and all that type of stuff. With a lot of heat, sweat, and everything of that nature. I'm gonna look pretty weird when I get back due to the food diet I have here. Everyone uses very large quantities of oil when they cook their food, so I have lost weight and, without bragging, gained a bit of muscle, except for this blasted pot belly that is coming in. The oil goes straight to the love handles, so I'll be doing a lot of sit ups when I get home!

Okay so I got off on a tangent there, anyways, now for the miracles that have happened this week. Here in Juticalpa we have a couple of investigators that we call "eternal investigators," these are those that always like to listen to us, and often go to church, but for some reason or another do not want to be baptized. We have been thinking a lot about them this week, and trying to figure out different forms that we might use to be able to reach them. Well...I'll admit it didn't work at all, but what did work was a couple of miracles. One of them is with a 17 year old named Brian. He is the son of a recent convert and of the family of Yuliza, remember her? Seems like forever ago we were working with her. Well anyways, the first counselor of the mission, along with a counselor in the branch presidency, were doing visits related to seminary attendance and invited the youth that aren't signed up to attend. They made a visit over there, and I don't know what happened or what they said, but he accepted. Later that day, the other Elders ran into him on the street, and he told them that he was finally ready to be baptized after all that he heard in the morning. The quick acting elders put a baptismal date right then and there in the street for the 23rd of April. Later that night they told me all that had happened, and I did not believe them at all. Brian tends to be a bit of a "deceiver" when it comes to this. But to my great shock and joy, when we went over there to investigate, it was all true! He even came to church with us this week for the first time in 2 years of listening to the missionaries! I could not believe it was really happening. To add to the shock, today he went to seminary for his first day. Wow! There will be more information on that later on...well...if I'm still here haha.

Another miracle that passed is that I think we finally had a breakthrough with Hna. Denia! The other day we were talking to her, and she told me that she is going to be baptized the day Norma is baptized. Norma is a teenage girl that she befriended the week of spring break, and is studying in Tegucigalpa. She has a large testimony of the church, but hasn't been able to be baptized because her parents will not allow it. Well I gave her a call, and she told me that her plans were to come down on the 20th to be baptized on the 23rd! So we talked to Denia and she told me, "alright elders, you got me this time, its finally going to happen." "That's right it is!" I told her. All in all the week passed by with a load of surprising things.

But, I haven't yet finished with the surprising things I have heard said this week. But this one is bad news... We had to drop Sara Torres and her family this week. I don't know what happened, but ever since she got back from vacation visiting her grandma in a tiny pueblo, she was different. And the other day we received a text message from her that said, "I'm sorry, but I am attending another church with my mom, so you don't need to visit me anymore." Well...it came to not much surprise because Elder Hansack and I could tell that she was different. The only answer is that someone in her family told her something bad about the church, and now she doesn't want anything to do with it. It was a heart breaker, but we have to move on right?

Today one of the sister missionaries that I have been serving with for 8 months, Hna. Alvarez from Guatemala, finished her mission. In the morning we had a surprise celebration for her. We told her that we were going to climb the mountain behind my house to show her all of Juticalpa before she leaves. Little did she know that we had cake and soda at the top waiting for her. It was a good time and we took some pictures before she left for her home.

To answer your question mom, yes we finished the house of Santiago and Ana. It's pretty good if I do say so myself. The Hna. Ana is always thanking us for our work, and that they would have never finished without us. We finished the work up by moving all of their things into the house last Wednesday. It was really hard since their house is on a slippery hill, and WAYYYYYY up there, the highest house up. So we sure had a good time carrying mattresses, a dresser, and a bunch of other things all the way up there. I thought of Dad and all the movings he has done with the Elders Quorum with the funny stories he has. But dad, that beats all of yours. If only you saw it haha!

Well, that's all I have for you guys this week, this turned out to be a long letter so I hope you enjoy it. I'll let you know about the transfers next week. I love you all!

Vaya Pues,
Elder Tinkham

April 5

Hello once again out there to all of my family and friends out there in the world. I just want to start off by saying I love you so much, and I hope you are all doing well. This week has been a, well, boring one haha. Let me explain... Due to the fact that it was Spring Break/Holy Week, just about everyone of our investigators left to go on vacation or to swim at the beaches. So we spent a lot of time walking, and walking, and walking, and searching, and knocking, and all that type of stuff haha. So I only have a little bit for you guys this week sorry about that.

On Tuesday and Wednesday I had interchanges with the other new elder in my district, Elder Quinteros, from Guatemala. We had a pretty good time together, although it wasn't all that effective because everyone was gone. But we did continue working on the house of the Hno. Santiago again, we have just about finished it! I'm going to have to take a picture of it when they move in so I can show you "the house that Tinkham built." Carpentry here I come!

Ah, one thing I forgot, after we went to internet last Monday we went out to play the normal soccer for 2 hours, and it was pretty fun. I'm improving a little bit and a little bit every week that we play. But the funny part was afterwards, I found out that the other missionaries had a secret plan the whole time for me. After we got done playing, they blindfolded me and spun me around in circles in order to "do something fun." I knew what was coming, but let it happen anyway. They all nailed me with several eggs, and started to run. Luckily my agility has been increasing, and I caught just about all of them to get them a little bit eggy as well (except the Sisters cause that's just rude!). Later that night the members that live next door to us bought me a cake and sang to me, it was really special and I had a good time. Then they shoved my face in part of the cake haha, I ended up taking about 4 showers that day to get rid of the various food smells. But it was a great day after birthday celebration.

Anyways, the rest of the week is just about walking. Sorry mom there wasn't much big stories or any of that around here in Juticalpa. Since I'm so far away from the world here, everyone that lives here lives to go to the city, and that's why all the ruckus goes on there. I just stayed here in the devilish heat of the sun working on my tan. But I did get your package this week mom! Thanks very much! I enjoyed all of the candy and ate all of it during General Conference! I love you!

Speaking of General Conference, I absolutely loved all 10 hours of it. I took 9 pages of notes, and have a lot to study when the Ensign comes out (I'll receive that in like July haha). One of my favorite speakers is becoming to be Elder Eyring, I love his spirituality that he has and love for everyone. But seriously I can't pick a favorite. Once again we received a "Spiritual Beating" from Elder Holland haha, but that seems to be his assigned position these days right? I could talk about conference for hours and hours, the point is, I loved it! And I learned that I'm not a good missionary and have a lot to work on haha!

This week may be my final week in Juticalpa, it is a sad thing to think about, because I know that there is still A LOT of work to be done around here, but on the other side of things, I am ready to move on as well. I'm not going to think about that very much because I wont find out until Sunday night, but we`ll see. We have a lot of catching up to do this week since everyone is just getting back. So I hope I have a lot more to write to you guys next week.

Thanks so much for all of the prayers and love I feel every day when I reflect upon you. I extend my true love to every one of you reading this, and bear my testimony that the gospel is true. We have heard it from countless apostles and prophets and the most righteous men on earth. And I, as an imperfect, humble servant of the Lord would just like to add mine on top of theirs, that Jesus Christ lives. I know he lives, and loves us. I know this is the best thing I could be doing right now. Until next week.

Vaya Pues

Elder Tinkham