Hello once again to all of my family and friends out there! Yet another week has passed by, and I'm having trouble believing that in only 9 months I will have returned to Utah. It's shocking and....well it's better I don't talk about it. Let's move on to what your all waiting for (well, I assume so)!
This week was the infamous week long leadership meeting. We spent Monday through Friday from 8-4 pm in the church holding meetings with ALL of the District and Zone Leaders in the entire mission. There were about 48 of us, and it was quite the fun experience. 2 Elders from the pueblos came to stay in our house for the week so that they wouldn't have to be traveling back and forth every day the large distance. Every night we would take advantage of the extra bodies and we went on divisions to bulk up the amount of lessons. I got to work with Elder Summers, a Zone Leader who is about to finish his mission at the end of this transfer. It was really awesome working with him because the bonus about working with older people in the mission is that they actually know the lessons! The new guys that I normally pick up don't know much about the lessons or the scriptures and of course it's our job to help them out. So this week I felt like it was some type of mini vacation. Elder Summers is from Idaho and let me tell you, he is the poster Idahoan....potato farmer, white skin blond hair, buff, mountain climber, football player...yeah. But we had a great time together.
In the training meeting, what we would do is we gathered together and explained about 8 different points that we are now going to focus on and increase the effectiveness of as missionaries. What we would do is discuss the doctrine, learn it well, watch the new Preach My Gospel video for a real life example of how the missionaries do it, then we would practice it, and to finalize we would discuss how we are going to put that particular point in practice in our districts or zones. My most favorite part was the delicious catered lunch that we received every day (mmmmm). 9 out of the 11 Elders from our group attended this meeting, so we had an immense amount of fun together and reminisced about good times from the MTC and good experiences about the mission so far. I thoroughly enjoyed the training.
Sadly, we haven't been able to get in contact with Ivonne Ruiz this week, but I'm not done looking yet!
Ingrid and Leonardo are still doing good. This week I put a new baptismal date for Ingrid, and she said yes. She is going to be baptized as long as her husband repents. The only problem is I haven't yet established exactly to what point she wants him to arrive with respect to repentance, but I'm going to figure that out today. I know that she will be baptized shortly.
The 2 single guys we`re teaching, Martin Lopez and Mainor Gonzalez are really awesome. If I could combine them into one person, they (he) would be the perfect golden investigator. Martìn came to church yesterday, and Mainor was about to come but at the last minute his dad got sick and he had to take him to the hospital. We plan on placing baptismal dates with both of them this week. I am seeing Mainor as a little bit more positive than Martìn for a couple of reasons. Even though Mainor didn't come to church, I could tell he really wanted to come. Martìn came to church, but I feel like we have a little bit more work to do with him. There will be more updates on them next week.
Today for P-day we were able to go to El Picachu City Park, one of the most famous points in Tegucigalpa. Almost all the missionaries go in our mission, and after 15 months I finally had the opportunity to visit. Picachu has nothing to do with the Pokemon, and it's actually a giant stone Christ statue that stands atop Tegucigalpa. I will try and send photos next week. At the Picachu they have a soccer court in the middle of the forest, a small zoo, and an INCREDIBLE view of the entire city. It was a really awesome experience and we had a great time as a zone. Highlights are, we saw a plane take off on the runway and it goes RIGHT above the statue, like seriously if I would have thrown a rock it would have hit the plane. A monkey almost stole the bag I was carrying, and we played dodge ball. All in all I liked it a lot for a P-Day activity.
Well...that's all I have for you guys today. I hope that everyone is doing well and I share my love for you all!
Vaya Pues,
Elder Tinkham
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