Hello once again to all of my family and friends out there, I think the secret is already out of the bag according to what my mother has told me, but I think I'm just going to tell you anyway.
After 1 year of being here in Honduras, for the first time in my missionary career I have been transferred to the city. I was really sad to hear the transfers because I was almost positive that I was going to be staying. Elder Vasquez and I put a lot of heart, sweat and prayer into the work in Ciudad España, but I'm starting to figure out that when that happens, when a companionship works so well like that, they change quickly. I wish all the luck to Elder Vasquez so that he can continue the work in Ciudad España, and I'm going to miss all of my beloved friends there. The hardest part was saying goodbye to the family of the Hno. Franklin. They were all very sad to see me go, and it was rough for me as well, but I will never forget that lovely family. The mom told me that I was the greatest missionary that she had ever gotten to know, and that just brought tears to my eyes. Adios Ciudad España!
Well, enough of the sentimentality....anyways! I have been transferred to Pedregal, an area that is part of the new project zone La Peña. Elder Hinckley is my zone leader, and his area is called La Popular. Once again I am working in the smallest zone, as I have done 2 times previously. My companion is Elder Maldonado, from Honduras! My first Honduran companion, its really exciting. He is from Choluteca Honduras, in the southern border, and he has about 5 months in the mission (he is from the same group as Elder Vasquez). I only have 4 days with my new companion, but so far things seem to be going pretty well, just that I have to help him out a little bit more than Elder Vasquez (but that's not saying much since Elder Vasquez was a genius). Pedregal is a ward (woohoo my first ward!) and part of the strongest stake in our mission, so let me tell you, this is a very odd experience for me. Our area is very small, nonetheless, there are a ton of people that live here. The houses are literally stuck together and really packed in there and the streets are really narrow haha, so it's going to take a little bit of getting used to. From our area there is a pretty good view and you can see a large part of the city, so one of these days I'm gonna have to ship out a nice pic or two. The members here are really awesome, and I am amazed at the amount of church membership that there actually is here in Tegucigalpa. On a side note, Pedregal means "area with lots of rocks." If you remember from my first area, Piedras Bonitas, also referred to rocks. Interestingly enough, I'm having a pretty "rocky" mission right! Haha, cheesy I know.
With respect to investigators, well...let's just say that once again, I haven't been left with much to do. It's a little bit more difficult to contact here since the area is small, and I'm pretty sure that the entire area gets contacted about every 4 months, but it just takes a little bit more intelligence. The biggest challenge for us in Pedregal is having secure appointments with people, because a lot of times the people aren't home. So we spend a lot of time scaling stairs and walking around finding people that are at home whom we can teach. It's a little bit of a challenge, but with time I'll figure it out!
Elder Maldonado and I, together with the ward missionary leader (a recent convert who is already becoming one of my best friends over here) planned an activity for this last Friday. We collected a ton of Liahonas from all of the members, and made our way to the entrance of Pedregal to give them away for free. It was similar to the activity I did in Ciudad España 2 weeks ago, and once again I played the role of "chase the guy down and find out where he lives!" Not in the burglar sense of course, but in the sense of messenger of God, haha! We had the chance to pull out about 15 good contacts from the activity, and we are going to work on finding them and teaching them this week. We already contacted one, and things went pretty good!
The other activity that we did this week is we volunteered with the Medical Center to help revise the pilas, and all the containers of water that people have in their house. I'm not sure if you guys have heard, but there is a large epidemic going around here in Honduras right now called Dengue. I have no idea how to say it in English, but it has to do with mosquitoes, so maybe it's West Nile, but I doubt it. Anyways, there are a TON of people that are contracting Dengue around here, and we have been taking a lot of precautions in order to prevent it. Every time we leave the house we have to spray ourselves with OFF all over, in order to protect us, and we are also sleeping with a mosquito net around the bed every night. It's really weird, haha and I feel a lot like a princess when I sleep with that thing, but I'll get used to it. Anyways back to the activity. We volunteered to examine all of the things that contain water in the houses, because the water is the breeding ground for mosquito eggs. We helped them realize all of the dangers of Dengue and how they can prevent it, and used the time wisely in order to talk a little bit about the Word of Wisdom and all that. It was really fun and we even had the opportunity to put a couple of appointments with the people, just that they weren't for us since we were working in the area of our District Leader, but oh well!
I would like to take the little time I have left to thank my Grandma Tinkham for all of the letters she writes me every week. She is by far the most faithful writer, and for that deserves a big thank you. I really enjoy receiving those little cards, and I often receive multiple cards at once! So for that, thank you!!!
Well, that's about all I've got for you guys this week, we will see how my time goes in the city, right! Love you all!
Vaya Pues!
Elder Tinkham
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