Hello once again to all of my family and friends out there in the real world! It’s a wonderful day to be writing you because it’s Christmas week! The best week of the year! I hope you are all enjoying time with your families, drinking hot chocolate, and sitting beside the nice warm fire. This has been quite the interesting week for me, let’s get going!
Well, to start off this Christmas is definitely going to be a “White one,” let me explain why. We received the changes yesterday, and I will be departing from Elder Ortiz. He has been sent to be a trainer for his final change in the mission, so I will be receiving a new companion on Wednesday. I was incredibly excited to find out that my new companion is Elder Sinclair from my MTC group! It was a very shocking experience to find out, but I am extremely pumped to work together with my buddy so we can change things around here! It is a white Christmas because all of the missionaries, starting Wednesday, in our 4 person house are gringos! Something that has definitely never happened to me before.
On Tuesday I got the package! Thanks so much mom and dad! I actually haven’t opened it yet because I’m going to wait until Christmas to open it! We’ll see if I can wait that long! But whatever it is, thanks so much in advance! Tuesday was the mission Christmas Devotional that I talked about last week. It was a Huge spirit builder. To start off, we just sang a bunch of Christmas hymns to invite the Spirit into the chapel while the Assistants were getting the equipment ready. Then the Hna. Flores gave us a beautiful message about how the best gift we can give to anyone this Christmas Season is the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ. We were all very moved. Afterwards, I did something that I have never done in the entire 18 months that I have been in the mission....I watched a movie (that isn’t church sponsored)!!!!
President gave us his Christmas present, allowing us to watch the new version of A Christmas Carol that came out last year. I think it is the voice of Jim Carrey, but I’m not sure because we watched it in Spanish! I won’t lie, I felt super weird watching a movie, but it was better afterwards because we applied it to our missionary lives at the end. After the movie, Elder Tingey played the piano while my roommates from the house and I sang O Holy Night in Spanish. We were super nervous and I thought we did a bad job, but afterwards a whole ton of missionaries were complimenting us that it was awesome and that they felt the Spirit while we were singing, so I felt good about it. After that President Flores gave us his annual Christmas message, and it was a familiar one, repentance. I just love it haha, every time President Flores talks, it’s always about repentance and how to become pure missionaries. He gave a Christmas touch to the message, and it was absolutely amazing. I don’t know how he does it, but every time he speaks, the Spirit just floods the room. After the talk we had our Christmas dinner...mmmmm. We received our Christmas hugs from President and a small chocolate, and peaced out from the conference. All in all I definitely enjoyed the devotional!
Other big news that I forgot to mention earlier...In January we will be enjoying the company of an Apostle in our mission! Elder M. Russell Ballard, along with Jay E. Jensen from the 70 are going to be coming to Honduras for business purposes, and they have shown desires to speak with all of the missionaries! It will be around the 15th of January so I am super duper excited for that!
The work for us right now is still going super slow, but one thing that we have been able to accomplish is that we have encouraged our ward to help out in the missionary work, and it’s starting to work. We had a really uplifting Ward Council this week, and even created an activity on the spot. Yesterday after church, for the rest of the night we went caroling to all of the less actives and recent converts that we had time to visit. It was great because we’re starting to see with our own eyes that the members are starting to get a little bit excited. Right now we are without a Ward Missionary Leader because he’s been kind of slacking lately, but the bishop has really stepped it up and is starting to help us out.
I wish you all a very Merry Christmas! I hope that it is filled with joy and thoughts about our Savior Jesus Christ. I know that I have really come to know the meaning of Christmas as a missionary. Christmas is a really nostalgic time for missionaries, because they always think about things they used to do at home, but it’s also the best time of the year to teach the Restored Gospel. I could never ask for a greater blessing than I have right now, to spend Christmas doing what I most love, sharing the precious truths that deep down inside me, I have come to know for myself. I love my Savior, and especially at this time of year, the song twirls in my head.
“Joy to the World, the Lord is come, Let Earth receive her King.”
Vaya Pues!
Elder Tinkham
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