Elder Vasquez, Hno. Franklin and Elder Tinkham

The infamous wedding of Hno. Franklin and his wife Yesenia

June 28

Dear family and friends -

I hope everything is going well with all of you, because everything is just dandy with me. I had an incredibly crazy weekend this week so I have a lot to talk about. It has been raining a lot this week, basically every day this week. All of my stuff is pretty darn wet, but nothing to complain about.

This week, with respect to the lesson teaching, has been very bad. But that doesn't really matter to me, because we were able to have a wedding slash baptism this week! We spent the majority of the week planning and preparing for these 2 events. On Tuesday, we got rained out and weren't able to work due to the electric storm. Every time there is lightning when it rains the electricity goes out in Cuidad España so we can't do anything at night. It was interesting walking home to the house in the dark because it didn't seem like night time with all of the lightning rays falling all around us. But, Elder Vasquez and I had fun burning a few things with candles and reading deep doctrine in the scriptures all night!

On Friday was the infamous wedding of Hno. Franklin and his wife Yesenia. We did a lot of praying and a lot of hard work to make it happen, and it did. We contracted a bus and brought about half of the branch with us to the wedding, and it was a great time. I felt like I was with my 2nd family in the bus chatting when we were heading back to the city. I have included a lovely foto of the wedding. It was really a great time for us and we all enjoyed ourselves because they were FINALLY able to be married!

The next day was the baptism, and I must say that Satan really doesn't want people to be baptized! Of that I am a witness, but nothing could stop us this day. First off, we were going to head over to a nearby city called Zambrano to have the baptism in the chapel over there, but all of the money ran out, and we weren't able to leave the city haha. So we decided to head on over to the river that is a little bit outside of the city to baptize. Well, we thought it was a great idea and everyone else did too, and then it started to rain...ugh. Well we waited it out for awhile and when it stopped, made our way on over there. On the way there it started raining again, and never stopped the whole time that we were in the forest. Elder Vasquez and I had lent our umbrellas to other people whom had forgotten to bring them, and so we got soaked to the bone. I performed the baptism, and afterwards I didn't even change my clothes haha because they were already wet. But I must say, I was absolutely amazed by the baptism, it was a beautiful beautiful sight. We made our way down a little bit further and found ourselves in the middle of a waterfall! So we were able to have the baptism over there, and it was just beautiful. I was really happy to be able to be the missionary to participate in the baptism of this amazing family, I feel really grateful.

This week in the sacrament meeting, we brought a less active member to church. It was the husband of the sister who cooks us the lunch every day, a sister that I love and respect and really wanted to help out. After months of talking to him bit for bit, we convinced him, with the help of other members, to come to church. He is a returned missionary and everything, and has been inactive for about 9 years. but I really love the guy, and was incredibly excited to see him at church.

The work is progressing here for Elder Vasquez and I. After never thinking that I was going to baptized in Ciudad España, things have changed, and 2 souls have been saved thanks to the help of the Holy Ghost, I know that this gospel is true, and that Jesus Christ lives. I learn that more and more every day as a missionary, and I couldn't be happier. I love you all.

Vaya Pues!

Elder Tinkham

June 21

Hey everyone! I hope everything is going just great with each and every one of you at home. I have many things that I can talk about this week, so we gotta get going! First of all, as we speak, Honduras is playing Spain in the World Cup (and I'm sure Spain is killing them) and so the country has gone nuts. Everything shuts down for the World Cup when the home country plays, so yeah it gets a little bit difficult. The good thing is that all of the games are really early in the morning, because if they were at night, we would be having some problems haha. Anyways, here we go.

With respect to my health, I'm doing just fine now, all healed up and ready to go. But I do have a funny story about that! Last week, right after I finished writing my last email to you guys, we went outside to hop on the bus back to Ciudad España. We had been playing a bunch of soccer and I joined in because I "thought" I was doing alright. Well, I still didn't have an appetite so I didn't bother eating anything. We hopped on the bus, and headed off. Now, it's important to know that we always ride standing up for about half the trip since the bus is always packed full. So we headed off, and I started to feel very nauseous. I thought I was going to throw up, and I started to get nervous. I broke out into a cold sweat and turned as pale as a piece of paper (as tells my companion). I began to say a small prayer that I would not throw up and that everything would be alright.....and the next thing I knew I woke up sitting down in a seat on the bus with my companion shaking my shoulder. In the story he tells me, I had fainted! The bus started going crazy asking people for water to give me and everything...well I was half conscious and didn't know what was going on. All I know is that I kept falling asleep on the bus, and my companion kept smacking me so that I would stay awake. We got to the house, I hurried and ate some soup to put food in my stomach, and slept for the rest of the night. It was the first time in my whole mission that I hadn't proselyted, and frankly it was a really weird feeling, but it was something I needed. The next day I felt just fine, and we went back to work, everything normal. So I'm doing just great now.

This week we had interviews with President Flores, and once again it was a really uplifting experience for me. President told me that he had a lot of confidence in me and knows that I have learned a lot as a missionary, but he was concerned because he saw me as a missionary that worried too much and that I need to spend more time enjoying my mission than worrying about things. I think this has been a general trait of mine since birth, and when he told me that, I knew it was exactly what I need to change, so I have been working on that a whole lot this week. It has really helped me out a lot, and I can truly say that I am enjoying my mission a lot more.

Good news, Marino was baptized on Saturday! It was a really great experience. There were very very few people in the service (like 7) since we have to travel all the way to the city to have the baptism, but I didn't care that much. Marino is an amazing teen and I really have loved seeing the way he has changed in order to accept the true gospel in his life. His first Sunday as a member, he paid his tithing! It was an awesome experience to see him do that, and Elder Vasquez and I love him a lot. We had our branch conference this Sunday, and he was able to be confirmed and ordained a Teacher in the presence of the Stake Presidency, and they gave him a ton of council.

We did a lot of preparing for the branch conference during the week as well. We painted the chapel, it now looks a little bit better; and we did a little bit of deep cleaning inside, and bought flowers for the "pulpit." We learned a lot from the stake presidency and they were able to give us some good council. Something interesting happened during the conference as well. During Sunday School, the 2nd counselor took us out so that we could leave and visit a less active member. He wasn't home, so when we came back, we noticed that Marino's dad had come to the church! In Priesthood meeting, he was able to watch his son be ordained. After that, the 1st counselor taught the class, and said something to Marino's dad. He told him that He would be the one to confirm his own son an Elder when he was ready to go on a mission. So, Elder Vasquez and I are going to start working really hard so that the prophecy comes true, so that we can baptize him!

This week we have a lot of work to do with our investigator Franklin, because as rumor has it, we are going to get him married on Friday! We have been working hard with the paperwork this week and maybe...just maybe we are going to make another baptism happen this weekend!

Things are really improving for me here in Ciudad España and I'm starting to see success. That is the really good thing for me. When a missionary sees that there is at least a little bit of success, that is when you get excited, and work even harder. So that's what I'm going to do this week! I hope everything is going well with everyone at home. Love you all!

Vaya Pues,
Elder Tinkham

This is a photo of the baptism we had, of me and Marcela and a couple of members of their family!

That is a picture of my companion and I in the forest after the baptism!

June 14

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

June 7th.......2009....wait a minute...one YEAR!!!! 2010

Exactly one year ago, I was probably in the act of washing clothes or writing my first email as a missionary. Incredible how the time flies, I can still remember like it was yesterday, my first moments in the MTC...about 369 days and 20 pounds ago. I would love to read my first email to see how the progress has come along, but oh well! You guys can do it for me right?

Anyways, I have a lot of things to write about this week...so lets get started! Due to my mothers complaints about not responding to her questions, I will start off with that...Sorry mom! I love you!

First of all, I haven't received my package yet, but I'm thinking that it will be getting here this week, so next week I'll be able to send pictures! Second, my companion and I are getting along wonderfully. I think Elder Vasquez is growing to be one of my favorite companions in the mission so far. It's probably a tie between Elder Diaz, my second companion, and Elder Vasquez. Thirdly and lastly, after Sunday night of last week, we didn't receive much of any effect from the tropical storm, it basically only hit those 3 days. In fact we have only received the exact opposite....incredible heat....curse you global warming!

This next part goes out to Megan, I was thinking a lot about you this week and the day of your baptism. This Saturday I had the opportunity to baptize a little girl in the branch since the branch president couldn't be there. She was baptized in a river. It was quite an incredible experience. We had to walk about a mile, up and around a mountain in order to arrive at the beautiful location of the baptism. Elder Vasquez and I had quite the time with this one, because we brought along with us an investigator named Yasmin, and her son Steven who is 3 years old. Now, I speak for the whole Jenkins family in remembrance of countless hikes in Torrey when little children were brought along, and the "small" burden they were to worry about. Elder Vasquez spent the whole time arduously watching Steven, as we had to cross 2 rivers, climb a mountain, and walk through a little bit of mud. We felt a little bit bad inviting Yasmin since we didn't know how nasty of a hike it was going to be, especially in a shirt and tie, but it all turned out great. I have now participated in my first river baptism, and it made me remember a lot of your baptism Megan, and how awesome it was. (Megan was baptized in the Sweetwater River at Martin's Cove, Wyoming) The girl that I baptized is named Marcela, and she has a ton of knowledge of the church, just like you do, and is incredibly smart. It was a really great day for me.

On Wednesday, we had a great meeting with The General Sunday School President Osgurthorpe, and the General Young Men's President Ochoa (who, interestingly enough, was mission president in Honduras! San Pedro Sula). It was really great. It was a combined meeting with mission Tegucigalpa, and amongst all those people, I was chosen to play the piano. Of course you would all be happy about that, and I was a little excited. I got a personal congratulations from the authorities there afterwards, so it was a good experience.

With respect to the great celebration of my one year mark, the day went by pretty normally. For lunchtime to celebrate, Elder Vasquez and I bought about 12 Charamuzcas to eat and celebrate, Charamzcas are basically popsicles in a plastic bag, but they have something else added in them that make them DELICIOUS....and I don't know what it is.

Good news! Marino came to church this week!!!! He really enjoyed the meeting and pretty much is a secure baptism for the 19th of June. More news on that later on.

I would love to explain a family we have been teaching named Yasmin and Cesar, Yasmin the one that came to the baptism, but I ran out of time, so remind me next week and I'll talk about them.

This week Elder Vasquez and I have been focusing a whole lot on activating the branch. The attendance has been dying slowly and sadly last week we dropped down to 29! So we made the goal to double the attendance, and we almost got it! The attendance was 50, so we're slowly making our way up. The problem is, that we don't really know if we are the official counselors of the branch presidency, so tomorrow we are going to ask to talk with President Flores in Zone Conference. If he gives us the go that we are officially the counselors, we are going to start to take more action within the branch.

I hope everything is going well for you guys, and just know that I am doing really great over here. I'm praying for you all.

Vaya Pues!

Elder Tinkham

May 31

Muy buenos dias a todos en esta semana. Espero que todo esta bièn, y que se estan cuidando. Creo que debo empezar de escribir todas mis cartas a la familia en Español verdad? Porque tengo 1 AÑO en el campo misional!

Anywho, this was a very interesting week, you guys will get a lot of laughs out of this one, but that's what I'm here for. This week we had transfers, and as expected, I am staying in Ciudad España. Elder Torres was shipped out, and I have received Elder Vasquez. I must say, he is one of my favorite companions yet! As some of you may know, President was previously using me as a "helper" of companions that needed encouragement, help, and discipline, so I've been with that whole deal for awhile. But I must say that Elder Vasquez has none of these problems whatsoever! He is a new guy, I am his second companion. He is from Quetzaltenango, Guatemala, the 2nd largest city in Guatemala and site of their second temple. He is a smaller nerdy looking guy with glasses, and is an utter genius. I do not feel like senior companion with him, in fact I feel quite inferior, but all I can say is, I'm enjoying it!

Elder Vasquez and I worked really hard this week, and received a lot of progress. I have been working a LOT on my goals that I have set, and on the ones that Elder Clark and President Flores set for us. We had a good experience and lesson about obedience as well. We received a phone call from the zone leaders on Tuesday that said that they wanted us to visit former investigators that had previously attended sacrament meeting, and put a baptismal date for that SAME Saturday to end the month of May on a good note. Well, knowing the area and it's history, Elder Vasquez and I were like "Ha! Like that will ever work here!" but we pressed forward, and nevertheless did what he said. So we searched through the area book and found a family that had attended church for about 2 months, and were about to be baptized, but had problems and eventually fell away. We used the spirit and chose to go and visit them, and it was awesome! Well, we didn't put a baptismal date because they still aren't married, but we did find out that all this time that missionaries hadn't visited them, they had still been reading the Book of Mormon! So we are going to start working hard with them to see what we can do with them.

We also had the chance to put a baptismal date this week with one of the teens we are teaching as well, but later on that week it fell through. His name is Marino, and he is a really cool teen. He really likes what we have been teaching him and believes through prayer that it is true. He is also working on dropping the coffee, the only problem is that he hasn't come to church yet. He has a special needs brother that keeps him up all night sometimes, and so he has real trouble getting up for church. This week he didn't come due to the weather. As some of you might have heard, there has been a tropical storm around here in Central America this weekend, and that really affected us. It has been raining every day and every night this week, and on Sunday we got flooded! The church meetings were almost cancelled but we convinced the branch president to let us have it. Only 25 people came due to the rain, but it was still a good meeting. I used my raincoat from Mr. Mac for the first time in my whole mission this week! Mom you would be very proud of me. But don't worry about me now, the people are saying that the flooding will continue in these 2 days, but we're doing alright, nothing too bad in my area.

Funny story of the week, Elder Vasquez and I locked ourselves out of the house 2 times! It was quite a funny experience. With our house, there is 2 parts, the main part of the house, and were we sleep is in the back. The first time, I set the keys on the ironing board, which is close to the window. So we took out the glass part (this was at 10:30 at night in pajamas) and with a mop, carefully dragged the ironing board towards the window and grabbed the keys! You would think we learned, but with another large chain of events, we semi-locked the keys in the house again. I had the keys, but not all of them, and the key to the back door I didn't have. The front door was locked from the inside....ugh. So, this time we took the glass off of another window, and jimmied the door open with a metal rod. But now yes! I have officially learned how to keep track of the keys and I will never lose them again!

Well, that's about all I've got for you guys this week, hope everything goes well!

Vaya Pues!

Elder Tinkham

May 24

Hello again to all of my family and friends out there. I feel like I am always giving a weather report to start out, but I'll continue with the tradition...it's hot. There you go! Haha

I have realized that my emails to you guys are getting a little bit lazy and uninteresting. I have officially repented of that, and I'm going to try and do better this time. Let's see how it turns out.

The old guy Josè Aparicio that we found last week is doing great. He came to Sacrament meeting for the first time yesterday, and he absolutely loved it. It took him about 80 minutes to walk there with his crutches, and I was incredibly grateful to see his smiling face at the door when he got there. He is what you call a golden investigator. There is just one problem, big problem, and it's the same problem that is happening with the Hno. Nicolas. He lives in his house with his wife...and they are not married. The problem is that they don't even like each other at all, so it will be quite difficult to convince them to get married. They sleep in different rooms, she sometimes leaves for periods of time to who knows where, but doesn't want to leave the house. And he, being a man of many years, can't really leave the house because it would be very hard for him. I feel really bad about that, and it's quite frustrating. All of the people in Ciudad España that want to be baptized, can't...and those that can....don't want to. But we are going to be working continually with him, because he is a really great guy. The biggest problem that Honduras has is that about 95% of the couples, aren't married. It always causes a large delay in the baptism, and more work for us, but we're always willing to do it.

We have also been helping out another member family get married this week. The whole family are members, except the Dad. We have been teaching the Dad, Franklin, and he has an amazing testimony. He already read the entire Book of Mormon, Principles of the Gospel, and is starting Doctrine and Covenants. We spent most of the week running from place to place, spending a large amount of money, and doing all that we can to have all of the marriage papers turned in this week so that we could have a large marriage baptism celebration (I was even going to bring the cake that Camille gave me). But at the last moment, the very last paper we needed, the birth certificate of the wife....caused problems. When we went to the government building of registered persons, they told us that the book that contains the week in which she was born, had been destroyed. She will have to re-register herself, a process that delays about 2 months, and then we will finally be able to obtain the paper. I am really starting to see the power of Satan and how he does not want the chosen ones to be baptized...but we haven't given up. Sure we were quite discouraged, but the towel hasn't been thrown! The fat lady has not sung!

Today is transfer day, and they will be telling us the transfers sometime tonight. I seriously doubt that I'll be leaving, since I just got here. But it's extremely probable that Elder Torres will be leaving since he has been here a good time. So who knows what the Lord has in store for me this time! I'll inform you about my new companion, if I receive one, in the next email. But all I can say is, this has been the fastest transfer of the mission!

On Tuesday was the long awaited meeting with Elder Clark, president of the Central American area. It was absolutely amazing! I can't even begin to tell you all of the things I learned there, I would be here all day. He gave us all a good shaving up and a whipping, but we all enjoyed it. I think one of the reasons I'm going to try and make these letters better is because Sister Clark told us that we were doing a crappy job at writing our family emails, and we need to do better! So sorry about that family! They also mentioned that every future wife of missionaries has to call their mission president and ask them how great of a missionary he was, and they will know how great of a husband he will be. I thought about that a lot, and thought...Uh oh....haha....if my future wife is going to call my mission president....I need to change from a good missionary to an extraordinary missionary! So that's what I've been trying to do lately. All in all I really loved the meeting and it gave me a boost of spiritual energy.

I had a really spiritual experience this week with respect to Priesthood blessings. One day, as we were leaving the house of Josè Aparicio, his daughter, a member from San Pedro Sula (other mission), came outside and unexpectedly asked us for a blessing. I told her of course, but what do you need the blessing for? Silence broke out, and she began to cry. She told us that she was here in Tegucigalpa because in recent testing by doctors, they told her that she might have cancer. I was about to tell my companion to anoint and I would bless, but for some reason I felt that I should anoint. Something incredible happened as I did it, when I was anointing, the spirit came over me so powerfully that I don't even know when I finished or if I said the correct words, but the next thing I knew my companion was giving the blessing. Now, I don't know how she is doing at the moment, we haven't heard from her since...but all I know is, that was one of the first experiences in my entire life where I was absolutely positive that the Spirit was in that room. I had been studying a lot about recognizing the Holy Spirit in order to recognize it more often, and I have no doubt in my mind that it was present. I know that this church is true, I know that the work of Jesus Christ continues to be carried out in this day, and will continue until the Second Coming. The Book of Mormon is true, that I know. I'm so grateful for all of your prayers, believe me, I feel them often, thank you so much. I'll talk to you later!

Vaya Pues!

Elder Tinkham