Hello again to all of my family and friends out there. I feel like I am always giving a weather report to start out, but I'll continue with the tradition...it's hot. There you go! Haha
I have realized that my emails to you guys are getting a little bit lazy and uninteresting. I have officially repented of that, and I'm going to try and do better this time. Let's see how it turns out.
The old guy Josè Aparicio that we found last week is doing great. He came to Sacrament meeting for the first time yesterday, and he absolutely loved it. It took him about 80 minutes to walk there with his crutches, and I was incredibly grateful to see his smiling face at the door when he got there. He is what you call a golden investigator. There is just one problem, big problem, and it's the same problem that is happening with the Hno. Nicolas. He lives in his house with his wife...and they are not married. The problem is that they don't even like each other at all, so it will be quite difficult to convince them to get married. They sleep in different rooms, she sometimes leaves for periods of time to who knows where, but doesn't want to leave the house. And he, being a man of many years, can't really leave the house because it would be very hard for him. I feel really bad about that, and it's quite frustrating. All of the people in Ciudad España that want to be baptized, can't...and those that can....don't want to. But we are going to be working continually with him, because he is a really great guy. The biggest problem that Honduras has is that about 95% of the couples, aren't married. It always causes a large delay in the baptism, and more work for us, but we're always willing to do it.
We have also been helping out another member family get married this week. The whole family are members, except the Dad. We have been teaching the Dad, Franklin, and he has an amazing testimony. He already read the entire Book of Mormon, Principles of the Gospel, and is starting Doctrine and Covenants. We spent most of the week running from place to place, spending a large amount of money, and doing all that we can to have all of the marriage papers turned in this week so that we could have a large marriage baptism celebration (I was even going to bring the cake that Camille gave me). But at the last moment, the very last paper we needed, the birth certificate of the wife....caused problems. When we went to the government building of registered persons, they told us that the book that contains the week in which she was born, had been destroyed. She will have to re-register herself, a process that delays about 2 months, and then we will finally be able to obtain the paper. I am really starting to see the power of Satan and how he does not want the chosen ones to be baptized...but we haven't given up. Sure we were quite discouraged, but the towel hasn't been thrown! The fat lady has not sung!
Today is transfer day, and they will be telling us the transfers sometime tonight. I seriously doubt that I'll be leaving, since I just got here. But it's extremely probable that Elder Torres will be leaving since he has been here a good time. So who knows what the Lord has in store for me this time! I'll inform you about my new companion, if I receive one, in the next email. But all I can say is, this has been the fastest transfer of the mission!
On Tuesday was the long awaited meeting with Elder Clark, president of the Central American area. It was absolutely amazing! I can't even begin to tell you all of the things I learned there, I would be here all day. He gave us all a good shaving up and a whipping, but we all enjoyed it. I think one of the reasons I'm going to try and make these letters better is because Sister Clark told us that we were doing a crappy job at writing our family emails, and we need to do better! So sorry about that family! They also mentioned that every future wife of missionaries has to call their mission president and ask them how great of a missionary he was, and they will know how great of a husband he will be. I thought about that a lot, and thought...Uh oh....haha....if my future wife is going to call my mission president....I need to change from a good missionary to an extraordinary missionary! So that's what I've been trying to do lately. All in all I really loved the meeting and it gave me a boost of spiritual energy.
I had a really spiritual experience this week with respect to Priesthood blessings. One day, as we were leaving the house of Josè Aparicio, his daughter, a member from San Pedro Sula (other mission), came outside and unexpectedly asked us for a blessing. I told her of course, but what do you need the blessing for? Silence broke out, and she began to cry. She told us that she was here in Tegucigalpa because in recent testing by doctors, they told her that she might have cancer. I was about to tell my companion to anoint and I would bless, but for some reason I felt that I should anoint. Something incredible happened as I did it, when I was anointing, the spirit came over me so powerfully that I don't even know when I finished or if I said the correct words, but the next thing I knew my companion was giving the blessing. Now, I don't know how she is doing at the moment, we haven't heard from her since...but all I know is, that was one of the first experiences in my entire life where I was absolutely positive that the Spirit was in that room. I had been studying a lot about recognizing the Holy Spirit in order to recognize it more often, and I have no doubt in my mind that it was present. I know that this church is true, I know that the work of Jesus Christ continues to be carried out in this day, and will continue until the Second Coming. The Book of Mormon is true, that I know. I'm so grateful for all of your prayers, believe me, I feel them often, thank you so much. I'll talk to you later!
Vaya Pues!
Elder Tinkham
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