Hello once again to all of my family and friends. A very burnt and tired Elder Tinkham is writing you today. Lets see what I can pull out of my tired brain to recap you of my week.
This week has been mostly normal for me. On Wednesday, we had a lack of service to provide, so we decided to climb the large mountain that is just behind our house to do some contacting of the mountaineers that live up there. I won't lie, the idea to contact was a little bit overshadowed by the fact that we wanted to take pictures at the top of the mountain because you can see all of Juticalpa from the top! So we hiked on up there, and took us some nice pictures, but on the way down, we also had a great contact! We met a guy named Santiago, who is quite poor, and he is building his house right there on the steep hill. We began talking about the gospel, and offered to help him build his house this next week, so we should be going over there to help him out if all goes well. So we ended up getting something good out of our hike!
The next day on Thursday, we had our monthly Zone Conference, and once again I made the long bus ride to Tegucigalpa. I must say I really am getting sick of making that trip, but I'm not sick of learning all that we learn because it was awesome! We learned a whole bunch about how to teach the commandments, and the frequent errors we commit when we teach things like the Word of Wisdom and Keep the Sabbath Day Holy. We learned about obeying a higher law of standard, and not just sliding by by doing whatever we want as long as its not IN the scriptures that its banned. All in all I enjoyed myself thoroughly, that is until I had to make the bus ride back haha!
Other than that, we have been chugging along teaching all of the investigators we have, with a lot of hope that we were going to bring a lot of people to church. We had the baptism of the daughter of Hna. Denia this Saturday as well. It was a really great baptismal service because we tried our very best to have a spiritual service so that the Hna. Denia could feel the Spirit and feel the desire to be baptized. We still haven't been able to go back to ask how she felt, but I really hope it touched her heart. But I do know that she was very happy to see her daughter baptized, and she continues to come to church every week!
With respect to our efforts to bring many investigators to church, it went very bad. We had a lot of plans to bring 6-8 people to church, but only 1 ended up coming. We went on divisions in the morning to hit up the 2 sides of our area at the same time to bring people to church, but for various reasons and excuses they all dodged us. I felt pretty bad at church for this reason, because I really thought we were going to bring tons, but I'm just going to have to try harder this week right? I'm starting to feel like my baptisms are running out here in Juticalpa, because I have a feeling I will be leaving in a month since I have been here awhile. Our investigators aren't progressing as fast as we wanted them too, but I'm not going to stop spreading the ¨seeds for the other missionaries.¨ But all in all things are still going good for me here.
The reason I am very burnt today for P-day is because we as a district went to a farm property of a member to help him work on the farm. He only brings missionaries that he really likes to the property, so we scored! We thought we were really lucky to be going, but then we regretted it because he put us to work! Haha we worked all up and down that farm and so all of my city boy culture is now lost. Juticalpa is farm central of Honduras, so anything any of you would want me to do on a farm, bring it on. Cows, horses, dirt, poop, chickens, turkey, pigs, dogs, bring it on!
Vaya Pues!
Elder Tinkham
Monday, March 15, 2010
Monday, March 8, 2010
March 8th
Hello once again to all of my family and friends out there. This week has been quite a week of up and downs for me, and I sincerely hope that all of you are doing okay back home. I just want to say to all of you, don't worry about me. I am doing just fine over here and you have no reason to worry about me, keep going strong, and help each other out, for me! Haha cause the only thing I am sad about is that I won't be there to help everyone out that needs help, especially Grandpa. I love you Grandpa, and I just want you to know that I am praying for you extra hard this week.
Anyways, as I said it has been a busy week for me. Elder Hansack and I have been working extra hard this week to prepare for the wedding, baptism, and confirmation of the Ruiz Matamoros Family. We had the wedding on Friday in the morning, the baptism on Saturday in the afternoon. I am going to try and send a few pictures of the wedding and the baptism, because they were both the cutest thing I have ever seen, it brought such joy in my week seeing the testimonies of this family grow, and seeing the love they have for one another, and for their Savior, has grown. We spent a lot of time in their house this week preparing them with the last lessons, and getting the baptismal interviews done, and celebrating. After the wedding, us missionaries went to a bakery and we bought the family a cake to celebrate in their house, it was a really fun experience and moments I will never forget.
As for other investigators, we have been working hard to find our next baptismal candidates in our area. We have found various families recently in our area, but what seems like the most positive to me is the family Torres. Lester and Sara are cousins, and the mom Ramona who raised them both. Ramona has been going to a couple of Evangelical churches, searching for a church were she could be baptized correctly. The other day we had a wonderful lesson with her where we explained that if she would visit the church with us this Sunday, she would end her search of finding her baptism if she would come with the intent to answer that question. So I really hope she will come this next Sunday! Denia, is still doing really good. I just do not know why she doesn't want to make the decision to be baptized. I really think it is because her boyfriend who lives in the States doesn't want her too, and that makes me sad. But the good news is that her daughter, Sharon, is going to be baptized this upcoming Saturday. Maybe Denia will be touched by the Spirit and make the decision to be baptized very soon.
I had an amazing experience on Saturday during the baptism of the Ruiz Matamoros Family. President Flores called me about 20 minutes before the baptism was going to start to tell me that Grandma had passed away. It was very shocking news for me, and at first I didn't know what to think. I just sat down in a chair for a minute to think, and I said a quick prayer. I asked for the strength to continue on, and that my family at home will be alright. The answer to my prayer came when the Ruiz family walked in the door, hand in hand, ready to be baptized. At that moment, my testimony grew that families really are eternal. I knew that grandma was doing absolutely fine with her family, resting from her pains, and enjoying her time. My testimony of the Plan of Salvation grew as these 2 spiritual experiences came to me in the same moment. This plan really is a perfect plan, we will be united with our families again one day, as long as we are living faithful lives and obeying the commandments of God. I would beg each and everyone of you, do not deny yourself the gift of receiving an eternal family with one wrong choice that we make in our lives. I love you all, and I'm grateful for each and everyone of you. And like I said before, don't worry about me!
Vaya Pues,
Elder Tinkham
Anyways, as I said it has been a busy week for me. Elder Hansack and I have been working extra hard this week to prepare for the wedding, baptism, and confirmation of the Ruiz Matamoros Family. We had the wedding on Friday in the morning, the baptism on Saturday in the afternoon. I am going to try and send a few pictures of the wedding and the baptism, because they were both the cutest thing I have ever seen, it brought such joy in my week seeing the testimonies of this family grow, and seeing the love they have for one another, and for their Savior, has grown. We spent a lot of time in their house this week preparing them with the last lessons, and getting the baptismal interviews done, and celebrating. After the wedding, us missionaries went to a bakery and we bought the family a cake to celebrate in their house, it was a really fun experience and moments I will never forget.
As for other investigators, we have been working hard to find our next baptismal candidates in our area. We have found various families recently in our area, but what seems like the most positive to me is the family Torres. Lester and Sara are cousins, and the mom Ramona who raised them both. Ramona has been going to a couple of Evangelical churches, searching for a church were she could be baptized correctly. The other day we had a wonderful lesson with her where we explained that if she would visit the church with us this Sunday, she would end her search of finding her baptism if she would come with the intent to answer that question. So I really hope she will come this next Sunday! Denia, is still doing really good. I just do not know why she doesn't want to make the decision to be baptized. I really think it is because her boyfriend who lives in the States doesn't want her too, and that makes me sad. But the good news is that her daughter, Sharon, is going to be baptized this upcoming Saturday. Maybe Denia will be touched by the Spirit and make the decision to be baptized very soon.
I had an amazing experience on Saturday during the baptism of the Ruiz Matamoros Family. President Flores called me about 20 minutes before the baptism was going to start to tell me that Grandma had passed away. It was very shocking news for me, and at first I didn't know what to think. I just sat down in a chair for a minute to think, and I said a quick prayer. I asked for the strength to continue on, and that my family at home will be alright. The answer to my prayer came when the Ruiz family walked in the door, hand in hand, ready to be baptized. At that moment, my testimony grew that families really are eternal. I knew that grandma was doing absolutely fine with her family, resting from her pains, and enjoying her time. My testimony of the Plan of Salvation grew as these 2 spiritual experiences came to me in the same moment. This plan really is a perfect plan, we will be united with our families again one day, as long as we are living faithful lives and obeying the commandments of God. I would beg each and everyone of you, do not deny yourself the gift of receiving an eternal family with one wrong choice that we make in our lives. I love you all, and I'm grateful for each and everyone of you. And like I said before, don't worry about me!
Vaya Pues,
Elder Tinkham
Monday, March 1, 2010
March 1st
First things first...
Happy Birthday Daddy!!!! Sorry I missed that last week but better late than never right!
Hello everyone! I am writing you from a different email address. Recently the myldsmail website has changed and is now partnering with Google and we all have new email addresses.
Alright so I have some good news and some bad news. I'll start out with the good news...I'm staying in Juticalpa for another transfer! So that means I'll get to be here to participate in the baptism and wedding of the Ruiz Matamoros family. They were really nervous that I was going to be leaving. I wasn't really that nervous, until we went and visited them and they told me how nervous they were, they were even praying for me to stay. Aw! Haha, I love them a whole lot and I'm really glad I'll be here another 6 weeks to work really hard.
The bad news is...I'm staying here in Juticalpa haha. March and April are the hottest months of the year in Central America, and I just happen to be in the hottest area of our entire mission. I will admit I'm pretty sure I've got some world record tan lines and I no longer look American at all, so if you guys don't recognize me when I get back, blame Juticalpa. The other part of the bad news is that Elder Cardon will be leaving me on Wednesday to go to his new area. We knew one of us was going to be leaving because it would be too good to be true, but I'm sure I will see him again soon! But seriously, I love it here! I'm glad I'm staying.
So like I was saying before, I went on interchanges with Elder Cardon on Tuesday night, and we thoroughly enjoyed it. We hit up a lot of lessons in his area, and in the night we made some homemade french toast. With the french toast we put ice cream and syrup on top! It may not sound that good, but oh it was delicious. On Wednesday we had quite the crazy experience. In the afternoon we were not having a lot of success contacting and it seemed that everyone was not at home, so we decided to go over and visit the Fam. Ortiz, who live about 45 minutes away from the house if you're walking fast. They also happen to live in the closest house located by the river, about 15 steps away. While we were there, it began to rain like none other. Now, it doesn't hardly rain over here in Juticalpa since it is a big desert farm, but wow did it rain Wednesday. The winds were bustling and it took the power out of the whole city; and when the power goes out at night we have to report back to our homes. So we had quite a long walk back to the house, especially since we were so close to the river. ALL of the streets were totally flooded as the water drained down into the river. So we spent about 1 1/2 hours walking home jumping from sidewalk to sidewalk, climbing fences, Indiana Jones style, adventuring until we finally made it to the house. When I walked into the house, it was a bit flooded inside too, which surprised me. Luckily nothing was too heavily damaged, just my luggage took the major hit and was soaking wet, but I don't have transfers so I'm not worried.
This week Elder Hansack and I have been having a pretty good time, and a lot of success as well. We have found quite a few new families that have began to receive the lessons, so hopefully we might see even more baptisms in the future! I am going to have to give away some of my investigators, because on Wednesday another pair of Hermanas are going to arrive and begin working in Juticalpa as well. So that makes 4 companionships in just 1 branch! We are anticipating the division in the branch very soon, and I'm guessing President Flores is too haha. On Sunday we had a special conference for Central America where we listened to talks from Elder Claudio R.M. Costa, Mary N. Cook, D. Todd Christofferson and Pres. Eyring in Sacrament Meeting through satellite. I didn't really get to watch most of it because we got there a little bit late, bringing families to church, and then I was playing babysitter of the little girl Jaime of the Ruiz Matamoros Family, but I did really enjoy Pres. Eyring's talk and I felt the Spirit very strongly.
In other news, everything is just going normal here in the ole mish. My foot is a little sore because this week in service, we were helping a recent convert dig a couple of holes to make her tortilla work station outside be more secure. While I was filling the hole with the dirt afterwards, Elder Hansack had the idea to secure the soil around the wood real good, and used the shovel to pound the dirt in. But, he happened to pound it in right when I had my foot there, and smashed my little toes! It hurt a lot, but now I'm doing fine, no problems just a little sore haha!
I love you all out there, I hope everyone is doing well and taking care of themselves. I pray for you often and feel your prayers always.
Vaya Pues!
Elder Tinkham
Happy Birthday Daddy!!!! Sorry I missed that last week but better late than never right!
Hello everyone! I am writing you from a different email address. Recently the myldsmail website has changed and is now partnering with Google and we all have new email addresses.
Alright so I have some good news and some bad news. I'll start out with the good news...I'm staying in Juticalpa for another transfer! So that means I'll get to be here to participate in the baptism and wedding of the Ruiz Matamoros family. They were really nervous that I was going to be leaving. I wasn't really that nervous, until we went and visited them and they told me how nervous they were, they were even praying for me to stay. Aw! Haha, I love them a whole lot and I'm really glad I'll be here another 6 weeks to work really hard.
The bad news is...I'm staying here in Juticalpa haha. March and April are the hottest months of the year in Central America, and I just happen to be in the hottest area of our entire mission. I will admit I'm pretty sure I've got some world record tan lines and I no longer look American at all, so if you guys don't recognize me when I get back, blame Juticalpa. The other part of the bad news is that Elder Cardon will be leaving me on Wednesday to go to his new area. We knew one of us was going to be leaving because it would be too good to be true, but I'm sure I will see him again soon! But seriously, I love it here! I'm glad I'm staying.
So like I was saying before, I went on interchanges with Elder Cardon on Tuesday night, and we thoroughly enjoyed it. We hit up a lot of lessons in his area, and in the night we made some homemade french toast. With the french toast we put ice cream and syrup on top! It may not sound that good, but oh it was delicious. On Wednesday we had quite the crazy experience. In the afternoon we were not having a lot of success contacting and it seemed that everyone was not at home, so we decided to go over and visit the Fam. Ortiz, who live about 45 minutes away from the house if you're walking fast. They also happen to live in the closest house located by the river, about 15 steps away. While we were there, it began to rain like none other. Now, it doesn't hardly rain over here in Juticalpa since it is a big desert farm, but wow did it rain Wednesday. The winds were bustling and it took the power out of the whole city; and when the power goes out at night we have to report back to our homes. So we had quite a long walk back to the house, especially since we were so close to the river. ALL of the streets were totally flooded as the water drained down into the river. So we spent about 1 1/2 hours walking home jumping from sidewalk to sidewalk, climbing fences, Indiana Jones style, adventuring until we finally made it to the house. When I walked into the house, it was a bit flooded inside too, which surprised me. Luckily nothing was too heavily damaged, just my luggage took the major hit and was soaking wet, but I don't have transfers so I'm not worried.
This week Elder Hansack and I have been having a pretty good time, and a lot of success as well. We have found quite a few new families that have began to receive the lessons, so hopefully we might see even more baptisms in the future! I am going to have to give away some of my investigators, because on Wednesday another pair of Hermanas are going to arrive and begin working in Juticalpa as well. So that makes 4 companionships in just 1 branch! We are anticipating the division in the branch very soon, and I'm guessing President Flores is too haha. On Sunday we had a special conference for Central America where we listened to talks from Elder Claudio R.M. Costa, Mary N. Cook, D. Todd Christofferson and Pres. Eyring in Sacrament Meeting through satellite. I didn't really get to watch most of it because we got there a little bit late, bringing families to church, and then I was playing babysitter of the little girl Jaime of the Ruiz Matamoros Family, but I did really enjoy Pres. Eyring's talk and I felt the Spirit very strongly.
In other news, everything is just going normal here in the ole mish. My foot is a little sore because this week in service, we were helping a recent convert dig a couple of holes to make her tortilla work station outside be more secure. While I was filling the hole with the dirt afterwards, Elder Hansack had the idea to secure the soil around the wood real good, and used the shovel to pound the dirt in. But, he happened to pound it in right when I had my foot there, and smashed my little toes! It hurt a lot, but now I'm doing fine, no problems just a little sore haha!
I love you all out there, I hope everyone is doing well and taking care of themselves. I pray for you often and feel your prayers always.
Vaya Pues!
Elder Tinkham
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
February 23
Hello once again to all of my family and friends. Yesterday I did not have time to write so I asked permission to write to today, I will explain more of that later.
Things are going pretty decent here in the horrid heat of Juticalpa. Seriously, I'm melting here, we have now officially begun the hot season, and wow. It seems to me like the shade is even hotter than the unshaded parts of town.
Anyways, let me get started explaining this last week I had. I'll start out with the special highlights. On Friday we had the opportunity to have interchanges, and I stayed in my area. Elder Loarca, companion of Elder Cardon, came over and we worked for a day. I learned a lot from him, especially a ton of contacting skills. Since we have been having some trouble finding new investigators, he helped me out showing me a lot of different techniques to "persuade," you could say, people to let us in to teach. We had a lot of fun together, and we ended the interchanges heading over, the 4 of us together, to a service project. We dug a pretty big trench that was about 20 ft. long and 3 ft. deep for a member to put water pipes that will run to his house. Whew, now that was a service project! I haven't been able to hit up the manual labor in awhile so I still have a couple of hand blisters, but it was really fun. I also get the chance to have interchanges again today, but this time I'm going to the other area with Elder Cardon! It will be really fun since almost surely one of us will be leaving soon. We will find out the transfers this upcoming Sunday, and I'm fearing that I might be leaving. I don't wanna but who knows.
We also had a really awesome activity on Saturday with all of the members in the branch. It's called the Mini MTC, and we taught all the members how it is to be a missionary. We made plaques for everyone that came and put them in companionships. We were the MTC instructors and taught a few classes such as: how to contact, how to answer your friends questions with the scriptures, and introduction to Preach My Gospel. We watched a couple of video clips to amp up the spirit of missionary work in the branch. All of the members said that it was a really awesome activity and we felt really proud because we planned a lot of the activity and put a lot of work into it. All in all, it was a success.
Things are going pretty good with our investigators. The Ruiz Matamoros Family are still looking good for their wedding on the 5th and baptism on the 6th, and Denia, well, were holding our breaths. She has a husband, but they are not married, and he lives in the U.S. working. So we had the Law of Chastity lesson with her the other day, and she really wants to get married to him when he gets back. She is praying and reading, and doing everything, so I REALLY hope she accepts the baptismal date for this weekend. Hopefully I'll have good news for you guys next week on that one.
So, the reason that I didn't write yesterday is because I had to go to Tegucigalpa, again! We had the trainers evaluation meeting/newbie meeting, and so we were there all day. I got up at 4 AM to get there in time at 10, and I was quite sleepy, but I did learn a whole lot. When I had my newbie meeting it was a whole lot more fun because we were newbies, but now that I'm a trainer, President is a little bit harsher with us haha. I left the meeting pretty shaved up, but hey it's what I needed in order to become better right? I learned a great lesson about obedience. Recently I have been doing a lot of justifying, in other words, there are a ton of small rules that the mission has, that sometimes the missionaries disregard. But if I'm not being 100% obedient, how can I expect to have true baptisms of converts without the Spirit? I learned that I should never justify a sin, even if it's the tiniest thing, because sooner or later it will get back to you, turning into a larger and larger sin.
Anyways, that's about all I have for you guys this week. I hope you are all doing well and taking care of yourselves. Until next week,
Vaya Pues!
Elder Tinkham
Things are going pretty decent here in the horrid heat of Juticalpa. Seriously, I'm melting here, we have now officially begun the hot season, and wow. It seems to me like the shade is even hotter than the unshaded parts of town.
Anyways, let me get started explaining this last week I had. I'll start out with the special highlights. On Friday we had the opportunity to have interchanges, and I stayed in my area. Elder Loarca, companion of Elder Cardon, came over and we worked for a day. I learned a lot from him, especially a ton of contacting skills. Since we have been having some trouble finding new investigators, he helped me out showing me a lot of different techniques to "persuade," you could say, people to let us in to teach. We had a lot of fun together, and we ended the interchanges heading over, the 4 of us together, to a service project. We dug a pretty big trench that was about 20 ft. long and 3 ft. deep for a member to put water pipes that will run to his house. Whew, now that was a service project! I haven't been able to hit up the manual labor in awhile so I still have a couple of hand blisters, but it was really fun. I also get the chance to have interchanges again today, but this time I'm going to the other area with Elder Cardon! It will be really fun since almost surely one of us will be leaving soon. We will find out the transfers this upcoming Sunday, and I'm fearing that I might be leaving. I don't wanna but who knows.
We also had a really awesome activity on Saturday with all of the members in the branch. It's called the Mini MTC, and we taught all the members how it is to be a missionary. We made plaques for everyone that came and put them in companionships. We were the MTC instructors and taught a few classes such as: how to contact, how to answer your friends questions with the scriptures, and introduction to Preach My Gospel. We watched a couple of video clips to amp up the spirit of missionary work in the branch. All of the members said that it was a really awesome activity and we felt really proud because we planned a lot of the activity and put a lot of work into it. All in all, it was a success.
Things are going pretty good with our investigators. The Ruiz Matamoros Family are still looking good for their wedding on the 5th and baptism on the 6th, and Denia, well, were holding our breaths. She has a husband, but they are not married, and he lives in the U.S. working. So we had the Law of Chastity lesson with her the other day, and she really wants to get married to him when he gets back. She is praying and reading, and doing everything, so I REALLY hope she accepts the baptismal date for this weekend. Hopefully I'll have good news for you guys next week on that one.
So, the reason that I didn't write yesterday is because I had to go to Tegucigalpa, again! We had the trainers evaluation meeting/newbie meeting, and so we were there all day. I got up at 4 AM to get there in time at 10, and I was quite sleepy, but I did learn a whole lot. When I had my newbie meeting it was a whole lot more fun because we were newbies, but now that I'm a trainer, President is a little bit harsher with us haha. I left the meeting pretty shaved up, but hey it's what I needed in order to become better right? I learned a great lesson about obedience. Recently I have been doing a lot of justifying, in other words, there are a ton of small rules that the mission has, that sometimes the missionaries disregard. But if I'm not being 100% obedient, how can I expect to have true baptisms of converts without the Spirit? I learned that I should never justify a sin, even if it's the tiniest thing, because sooner or later it will get back to you, turning into a larger and larger sin.
Anyways, that's about all I have for you guys this week. I hope you are all doing well and taking care of yourselves. Until next week,
Vaya Pues!
Elder Tinkham
Monday, February 15, 2010
February 15
Another happy week to all of you family and friends out there, another week has gone by, oh how the time flies right?
This week has been pretty decent I guess, a few fun things that I have to tell you. So on Tuesday night, Elder Hansack and I planned with the Elders Quorum President for him to accompany us that night to our appointments. We told him to meet us at the church, and as we were arriving at the church, we saw a car. Elder Hansack asked me if that was Pres. Vallejo's car (EQP). I told him no, because it looked like the car of President Flores. It turned out that is was his car, and we had an interesting run-in. "President! What are you doing here all the way in Juticalpa?" Oh hey Elders, I was just having a couple of interviews tonight since I'm gonna be here tomorrow (we had interviews the next morning). And now, I would like to come with you for the rest of the night and be present in your lessons! Well, after brushing off the shock, I said that would be great and we headed off. Talk about nerves, about a million different things were going through my head that I needed to do in order to make this work. Luckily things turned out okay and the night actually went pretty well. The only problem was that that night he came to our house to see if it was clean, and since we were gone that whole day Monday we did not have a chance to clean it! Yikes.
But the next morning in interviews, President Flores congratulated me. He said I was doing a good job as a trainer especially since my companion is a little different and has a lot of needs. He also told me that I was doing pretty well here in Juticalpa. I told him that I felt a great weight on my back being a young trainer in a very difficult area, and that it was a grand responsibility. He told me that I was doing a great job and gave me a lot of council, and I really enjoyed the interview. I definitely left a better person.
Besides that, things have been going pretty normal for us. On Thursday we made a short trip to Catacamas to have a joint weekly planning session with the whole zone, and with the Assistants, so they could take a look at our area book and make sure we are filling out all our papers. We also got trained a little bit from the Assistants on things we need to do better with respect to planning. Haha I just typed all that and realized that only the returned missionaries are going to know what I'm talking about right here, sorry everyone.
Yesterday on Sunday we had a really good turnout of investigators at church. All of the Ruiz Matamoros Family showed up along with Denia and Sharon! It was a great day of success. We have also been working really hard to help arrange the marriage of the Ruiz family, and the date should be the 5th of March, with the baptism being the 6th! The only problem is that changes are the 3rd... so I might get hung out to dry again with a family baptism haha, but oh well, they are not my baptisms, but the Lords. Denia told us that she did not want to be baptized so quickly because she has only been going to church for 3 weeks and feels like she is rushing into it, but I'm not too worried because she always comes to all of the activities, church every Sunday, and is reading the Book of Mormon. I'm confident that one day the Spirit will touch her heart and we will see a baptism coming up soon. Possibly this Saturday, because she told us she'd get back to us soon on her answer. Other than that, "All is well in Zion," haha.
I hope you're all doing well, especially Grandma Jenkins (she was in the hospital for 3 days last week), give her special hugs from me at this time, and just know I'm praying for all of you.
Love you and be safe!
Vaya Pues!
Elder Tinkham
This week has been pretty decent I guess, a few fun things that I have to tell you. So on Tuesday night, Elder Hansack and I planned with the Elders Quorum President for him to accompany us that night to our appointments. We told him to meet us at the church, and as we were arriving at the church, we saw a car. Elder Hansack asked me if that was Pres. Vallejo's car (EQP). I told him no, because it looked like the car of President Flores. It turned out that is was his car, and we had an interesting run-in. "President! What are you doing here all the way in Juticalpa?" Oh hey Elders, I was just having a couple of interviews tonight since I'm gonna be here tomorrow (we had interviews the next morning). And now, I would like to come with you for the rest of the night and be present in your lessons! Well, after brushing off the shock, I said that would be great and we headed off. Talk about nerves, about a million different things were going through my head that I needed to do in order to make this work. Luckily things turned out okay and the night actually went pretty well. The only problem was that that night he came to our house to see if it was clean, and since we were gone that whole day Monday we did not have a chance to clean it! Yikes.
But the next morning in interviews, President Flores congratulated me. He said I was doing a good job as a trainer especially since my companion is a little different and has a lot of needs. He also told me that I was doing pretty well here in Juticalpa. I told him that I felt a great weight on my back being a young trainer in a very difficult area, and that it was a grand responsibility. He told me that I was doing a great job and gave me a lot of council, and I really enjoyed the interview. I definitely left a better person.
Besides that, things have been going pretty normal for us. On Thursday we made a short trip to Catacamas to have a joint weekly planning session with the whole zone, and with the Assistants, so they could take a look at our area book and make sure we are filling out all our papers. We also got trained a little bit from the Assistants on things we need to do better with respect to planning. Haha I just typed all that and realized that only the returned missionaries are going to know what I'm talking about right here, sorry everyone.
Yesterday on Sunday we had a really good turnout of investigators at church. All of the Ruiz Matamoros Family showed up along with Denia and Sharon! It was a great day of success. We have also been working really hard to help arrange the marriage of the Ruiz family, and the date should be the 5th of March, with the baptism being the 6th! The only problem is that changes are the 3rd... so I might get hung out to dry again with a family baptism haha, but oh well, they are not my baptisms, but the Lords. Denia told us that she did not want to be baptized so quickly because she has only been going to church for 3 weeks and feels like she is rushing into it, but I'm not too worried because she always comes to all of the activities, church every Sunday, and is reading the Book of Mormon. I'm confident that one day the Spirit will touch her heart and we will see a baptism coming up soon. Possibly this Saturday, because she told us she'd get back to us soon on her answer. Other than that, "All is well in Zion," haha.
I hope you're all doing well, especially Grandma Jenkins (she was in the hospital for 3 days last week), give her special hugs from me at this time, and just know I'm praying for all of you.
Love you and be safe!
Vaya Pues!
Elder Tinkham
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
February 9th
Hello out there to all of my family and friends who take the time to read this newsletter every week. Who knows how many people really read it, but really thanks!
Anyways I am writing this today (Tuesday) because yesterday I spent the whole day in Tegucigalpa in the immigration or migration center, whichever of the 2 is correct, applying for my residence card. Now that I have more than 6 months of being here in Honduras, I qualify to apply. It was really annoying going because I don't know if I mentioned that I do not like traveling to Tegucigalpa because its quite the trip (7 hours of travel if you combine the journey and return journey). So my P-day was completely wasted, and I'm scrambling to accomplish all the things that I need to this morning. But, the one good thing was that most of my good ole MTC district boys were there and we got a great opportunity to chat for awhile.
Anyways, about my week. Once again, this week was a very difficult one where very many challenges appeared. But, once again, it all turned out to work out for good. Funny how that always works out right? Basically the majority of our investigators live really far away, so we have to spend a lot of time walking each day to get there in the burning sun. We had a lot of challenges because after sincerely trying to put appointments with them that I would know they'd be at home, it still worked out in vain. We walked a whole bunch this week without being able to teach a lot of lessons. But, this week I'd like to focus on the amazing blessings, or good things, that have been going on lately, by explaining our 2 best investigator families.
The first is Denia and her daughter Sharon. They recently moved here from the capital. They are related to a few members here that we like to call the "Relief Society Corner," because on this street corner live about 6 strong members of the Relief Society and only 1 guy lives there, haha. So she moved into the Relief Society corner, and is family to the sisters. Easy baptism right? That's what you'd think haha. The members are doing a great job of getting her to come to all of the meetings though. She has already been to 2 sacrament meetings and 2 baptisms! The only problem is we have had a hard time being able to teach since we can't manage to find anyone male to accompany us around here. If I didn't mention before, I would love to see the stats of boy girl ratio here in Juticalpa, because I am positive that its HIGH above the norm of women percentage. Anyways back to the story haha, we have finally been able to teach her 2 times, and the lessons have been great. After a bad week of failure, Elder Hansack and I decided to have our fast that a miracle could happen and we could find some success that night. I did the best I could to follow the Spirit, and I invited her to be baptized with her daughter. She said YES!!! So there will be a lot more information on that to come, to see how I do to help her out with that.
Anyways, but that's not all of our success. Let me tell you about the Ruiz Matamoros family. They are extremely poor, but let me tell you I just love them to death. They are the nicest people I have ever met in my life. They give us food even though I know they don't have much, and with all the gratitude in our hearts we accept the food and pray that the Lord will bless them. The mom, Wendy, had a baby about 2 weeks ago and can't leave the house for about 3 more weeks. So we have a problem getting her to come to church. And the Dad, Jose Ramòn, has a meeting every other Sunday in the government building of Juticalpa for all the people that vend things. It has been a great struggle to get them to church, and I really felt bad about that. But I was guided in other ways in how I can help them. Josè Ramon can´t read, but we are leaving him with the scriptures on CD and he is loving it! I also put a baptismal date for them yesterday, but not until March because we have a lot of work to do with them before they can get baptized. We are helping them get married, and then they need to come to church as well. But all I can say is, amidst all the heartache and struggle we went through throughout the week, somehow the blessings came through again. I always seem to doubt that they'll come, but the Lord proves me wrong every week.
That's about all I have for you guys this week. I love you all and miss you all, take care of yourselves!
Vaya Pues!
Elder Tinkham
Anyways I am writing this today (Tuesday) because yesterday I spent the whole day in Tegucigalpa in the immigration or migration center, whichever of the 2 is correct, applying for my residence card. Now that I have more than 6 months of being here in Honduras, I qualify to apply. It was really annoying going because I don't know if I mentioned that I do not like traveling to Tegucigalpa because its quite the trip (7 hours of travel if you combine the journey and return journey). So my P-day was completely wasted, and I'm scrambling to accomplish all the things that I need to this morning. But, the one good thing was that most of my good ole MTC district boys were there and we got a great opportunity to chat for awhile.
Anyways, about my week. Once again, this week was a very difficult one where very many challenges appeared. But, once again, it all turned out to work out for good. Funny how that always works out right? Basically the majority of our investigators live really far away, so we have to spend a lot of time walking each day to get there in the burning sun. We had a lot of challenges because after sincerely trying to put appointments with them that I would know they'd be at home, it still worked out in vain. We walked a whole bunch this week without being able to teach a lot of lessons. But, this week I'd like to focus on the amazing blessings, or good things, that have been going on lately, by explaining our 2 best investigator families.
The first is Denia and her daughter Sharon. They recently moved here from the capital. They are related to a few members here that we like to call the "Relief Society Corner," because on this street corner live about 6 strong members of the Relief Society and only 1 guy lives there, haha. So she moved into the Relief Society corner, and is family to the sisters. Easy baptism right? That's what you'd think haha. The members are doing a great job of getting her to come to all of the meetings though. She has already been to 2 sacrament meetings and 2 baptisms! The only problem is we have had a hard time being able to teach since we can't manage to find anyone male to accompany us around here. If I didn't mention before, I would love to see the stats of boy girl ratio here in Juticalpa, because I am positive that its HIGH above the norm of women percentage. Anyways back to the story haha, we have finally been able to teach her 2 times, and the lessons have been great. After a bad week of failure, Elder Hansack and I decided to have our fast that a miracle could happen and we could find some success that night. I did the best I could to follow the Spirit, and I invited her to be baptized with her daughter. She said YES!!! So there will be a lot more information on that to come, to see how I do to help her out with that.
Anyways, but that's not all of our success. Let me tell you about the Ruiz Matamoros family. They are extremely poor, but let me tell you I just love them to death. They are the nicest people I have ever met in my life. They give us food even though I know they don't have much, and with all the gratitude in our hearts we accept the food and pray that the Lord will bless them. The mom, Wendy, had a baby about 2 weeks ago and can't leave the house for about 3 more weeks. So we have a problem getting her to come to church. And the Dad, Jose Ramòn, has a meeting every other Sunday in the government building of Juticalpa for all the people that vend things. It has been a great struggle to get them to church, and I really felt bad about that. But I was guided in other ways in how I can help them. Josè Ramon can´t read, but we are leaving him with the scriptures on CD and he is loving it! I also put a baptismal date for them yesterday, but not until March because we have a lot of work to do with them before they can get baptized. We are helping them get married, and then they need to come to church as well. But all I can say is, amidst all the heartache and struggle we went through throughout the week, somehow the blessings came through again. I always seem to doubt that they'll come, but the Lord proves me wrong every week.
That's about all I have for you guys this week. I love you all and miss you all, take care of yourselves!
Vaya Pues!
Elder Tinkham
Monday, February 1, 2010
February 1st
Hello once again to all of my family and friends. We have now begun the month of February, and all I can say is wow how the time goes fast. This week has gone by slightly better so don't worry everyone haha.
Anyways, one thing I haven't really mentioned, or that I don't remember mentioning before, is that we have been teaching a few teen aged girls this week, and we had a Baptism this Saturday! We baptized our investigator Kelin, who is a really awesome girl who is 11 years old about to turn 12. She started to listen to the missionaries when we were teaching a less active family (who by the way is now active!), and later on we decided to teach her, and this week she was baptized! It was a really crazy Saturday because there were 3 baptisms, 1 from each companionship here. The room was absolutely full of people and we all did not fit in the room for the baptismal service, but yeah so I'll try to include a photo from that event.
Things with Elder Hansack and I are going better. I'm still having a few problems here and there, but all in all I'm learning how to work it out. I've been really working on getting him to talk more and get to know the people so that he can enjoy himself while he is here. We're not really having any personal problems anymore, but we do have a bit of cultural problems haha, you guys might get a kick out of this one. So we found this new family this week and they are really positive, and we were super excited to find them. They live SUPER far away and it takes about 25 minutes to walk there, but it's worth it. The problem is that my companion Elder Hansack, when he learned how to speak Spanish, he only learned how to speak in Tú form, along with another form called Vos, which is unique to this part of Central America. This form is only spoken between really good friends, and people that..well...have a thing for each other, and us as missionaries are not allowed to speak in this form of Spanish. I never thought we'd run into a problem with this, but Houston...I have found a problem. With this family, they have listened to him talk, and I have tried to correct him, but it's quite difficult. But they listened to him talk, and now they only speak to us in this form. The daughter is starting to flirt with my companion and it's difficult to have a spiritual moment with them because apparently we're just among friends. But yeah, haha so we're gonna be working with that because my companion has a little bit more problems with Spanish than I thought.
Other than that, the work is really growing. I went from being really stressed out because we didn't have investigators, and not knowing what to do to train my companion, to having TOO many investigators and now not knowing what to do with them all! I have a ton a ton of work to do, and my stresses have been converted into a good stress, if you want to call it that.
This week on Thursday we had Zone Conference, and I had a really good time there. We learned a lot about the {secret combinations} of the mission, and getting rid of the Gadianton groups among the missionaries, and how destructive they can really be. I also got to see my trainer Elder Cobo for the final time, because he'll be leaving in March for Guatemala! So I gave him a good hug and he gave me some great counsel. All in all I had a good time and learned a whole lot from the meeting.
Sorry I don't have a lot more time to write more, but I hope everything is going well with you. I love you all and miss you.
Vaya Pues!
Elder Tinkham
Anyways, one thing I haven't really mentioned, or that I don't remember mentioning before, is that we have been teaching a few teen aged girls this week, and we had a Baptism this Saturday! We baptized our investigator Kelin, who is a really awesome girl who is 11 years old about to turn 12. She started to listen to the missionaries when we were teaching a less active family (who by the way is now active!), and later on we decided to teach her, and this week she was baptized! It was a really crazy Saturday because there were 3 baptisms, 1 from each companionship here. The room was absolutely full of people and we all did not fit in the room for the baptismal service, but yeah so I'll try to include a photo from that event.
Things with Elder Hansack and I are going better. I'm still having a few problems here and there, but all in all I'm learning how to work it out. I've been really working on getting him to talk more and get to know the people so that he can enjoy himself while he is here. We're not really having any personal problems anymore, but we do have a bit of cultural problems haha, you guys might get a kick out of this one. So we found this new family this week and they are really positive, and we were super excited to find them. They live SUPER far away and it takes about 25 minutes to walk there, but it's worth it. The problem is that my companion Elder Hansack, when he learned how to speak Spanish, he only learned how to speak in Tú form, along with another form called Vos, which is unique to this part of Central America. This form is only spoken between really good friends, and people that..well...have a thing for each other, and us as missionaries are not allowed to speak in this form of Spanish. I never thought we'd run into a problem with this, but Houston...I have found a problem. With this family, they have listened to him talk, and I have tried to correct him, but it's quite difficult. But they listened to him talk, and now they only speak to us in this form. The daughter is starting to flirt with my companion and it's difficult to have a spiritual moment with them because apparently we're just among friends. But yeah, haha so we're gonna be working with that because my companion has a little bit more problems with Spanish than I thought.
Other than that, the work is really growing. I went from being really stressed out because we didn't have investigators, and not knowing what to do to train my companion, to having TOO many investigators and now not knowing what to do with them all! I have a ton a ton of work to do, and my stresses have been converted into a good stress, if you want to call it that.
This week on Thursday we had Zone Conference, and I had a really good time there. We learned a lot about the {secret combinations} of the mission, and getting rid of the Gadianton groups among the missionaries, and how destructive they can really be. I also got to see my trainer Elder Cobo for the final time, because he'll be leaving in March for Guatemala! So I gave him a good hug and he gave me some great counsel. All in all I had a good time and learned a whole lot from the meeting.
Sorry I don't have a lot more time to write more, but I hope everything is going well with you. I love you all and miss you.
Vaya Pues!
Elder Tinkham
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