Hello once again to all of my family and friends out there. I hope everyone is doing well and enjoying themselves. We have now reached the moment of the World Cup, and I don't know what that means for you guys back home, but it means everything here. It should be an interesting week, especially when Honduras plays on Wednesday!
This week I have been dealing quite a bit with sickness, I don't know why my body started to not like me this week, but I made it a whole 1 year without being sick at all! That's about 11 months and 3 weeks longer than the average white person makes it around here! I caught myself a small stomach virus and sinus infection at the same time, but I didn't get sick enough to stay in the house luckily. The problem is that there is a sickness called Dengy going around right now, which I think is a mild version of the West Nile Virus, so large groups of missionaries are getting a bit sick. But don't worry about me! I really don't feel all that bad, just dropping weight like crazy!
Last Tuesday I attended yet another Zone Conference, and once again it was a good experience. We mostly talked about applying what we've learned, so that everyone will be active missionaries and that we might be able to apply everything we have learned from the conferences with Elder Clark and Brother Osguthorpe of the Sunday School Presidency. President Flores also talked a lot about forgiveness, and the Sacrament. Recently I have been learning a lot about how to have a better experience during the Sacrament. I would like to share it with you so that maybe it can benefit you guys as well.
1. Say a prayer of gratitude in your heart
2. Arrive at the meeting repentant, with thoughts of the Atonement of Jesus Christ
3. Renew your baptismal covenants
4. Be ready to receive the revelation you need at that moment
I decided to put it into practice yesterday, and I really enjoyed my experience, I was able to feel the Spirit, and to prepare myself spiritually because I also gave a talk. More on that later.
As I promised, I would like to talk about a family we were teaching named Yasmin and Cesar. They are a young couple that we began teaching about 3 weeks ago, and things are going pretty good with them. Yasmin is progressing a little bit faster than Cesar, or was before. Yasmin is the one that came to the baptism of Marcela. She had always been reading the Book of Mormon and praying, but hasn't received an answer to her prayers yet to know that the church is true. Cesar, well, is the typical dude. Slow to respond to religious things, and quick to respond about cars and sports and all that. But, I think we hit a screw within him, and he is starting to progress! The only problem for right now is that Yasmin can't come to church because she is taking college classes on Sundays. The good thing is that she finishes her classes in 2 weeks. The other challenge is that they are not married (surprise surprise), but we have been talking with them a little bit about marriage, and I think they're starting to figure out that they need to be married. The other day we watched The Restoration with them, and they really enjoyed it. Hopefully I will have some good news further along with respect to their progress.
Good news! Marino came to church again! That seals the deal, he is off to the baptismal font this Saturday! I really respect Marino, he has completely dropped coffee, and is starting to read the scriptures every day in order to strengthen the testimony that he already has. I'm pretty sure that everything is secure, of course it's still not 100%, but I'd give it a good 99%, so Elder Vasquez and I are really excited about that.
This week, 2 guys from the church stopped by and installed a smoke detector in our house, and man that thing is annoying! He installed it directly above the stove, and so every time that we cook it goes off and we have to beat it with the mop to turn it off! It still scares the jeepers out of me every time it goes off, cause let me tell you, it is LOUD!
This upcoming Sunday we have our Ward Conference, and for the first time in my time in Ciudad Espana I'm going to get to meet someone from the stake. We are preparing a lot for the conference. We are going to paint the chapel, get some flowers, and put the sign of the church on the wall (it has never been placed as to date). So it will actually look like a half decent church for the next Sunday!
Well, that's about all I have for you guys this week. I hope that you are all doing okay and that you're taking care of yourselves. I love you all and I'll talk to you next week!
Vaya Pues!
Elder Tinkham
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