February 28th

My dear beloved family and friends, I am pleased to greet you this fine day, we are about to enter into March (my favorite month) and things are looking great. I’m just as happy as usual, and also, I have a lot of things to talk about so, let’s get started!

The week of miracles, in reality, turned out to be a miracle. I marvel at the Lord’s mercy sometimes, and why it is that he plans such great things for such insignificant people like me. We were able to have the baptism of the Reyes Family, and it was one of the most memorable days of my mission. Just check out the photos to see haha! I’m totally burned up in the pictures due to the sun, stress, and happiness haha!

Being extremely nervous for the weekend to come, we planned a zone meeting for Tuesday so that we could relax a little bit and feel the spirit as we studied various themes. We let the sister missionaries teach this time (knowing that they always have the spirit with them, and are much better than Elders). A great friend of mine that I have gained in the mission, from Draper Utah, Sister Cutler, gave a wonderful theme about the power and authority of our calling, which really had a great effect on me. I truly believe that what she said helped me get through the week like I did. We planned the baptismal interviews, weddings, baptismal services, confirmations, and all of that stuff so that we could have everything totally organized. Right now I am totally out of money due to the extensive amount of travelling that we have done to interview, etc. I anxiously await tomorrow to get some more haha! All in all we had 22 baptisms in the zone this weekend, and 24 throughout the month of February. In the Guaimaca branch, we had 9 baptisms. 4 from us and 5 from the other Elders. It was something that has never been seen before in these parts of the mission, so let’s just say that it was a little bit stressful. Last night I slept like a little baby!

On Friday we had the wedding of the Fam. Reyes. We had a wonderful attendance. We planned it to be in the church, and everything was very cute. The family was super happy, and they were very thankful for the effort we put into it. The members in the branch were all fighting over bringing the cake and refreshments to the wedding! We ate a lot that night, and took lots of pictures. The next day we had the baptism. President Flores came to the baptism (I think he just wanted to make sure we weren’t lying about the stats we were reporting) and gave a wonderful talk about the Holy Ghost. The members of the Fam. Reyes are Edy (dad), Miriam (mom), Edis (son), and Melvin (son) who got baptized, and then they have 3 more kids as well that are younger. I was able to baptize Miriam and Edis, while my companion baptized Edy and Melvin. We had as many people in the baptism as we usually do in sacrament meeting.

To answer your questions mom, I’ll talk a little bit about my living situation here in Guaimaca. There are 4 Elders here in Guaimaca, but we each live in separate houses, so Elder Torres and I live in our own house. It’s a modest house, but very nice. We have a water heater on our shower, but it only half works so we just have lukewarm showers, it satisfies me! With the food, we pay some members who live right by our house to make us lunch, and for dinner, we don’t ever hardly have time to eat, and so not much happens for dinner. For laundry, the same lady washes our colors and we pay her. And for our whites, our neighbor has a washing machine and so we borrow it to wash in there...awesome!

The only person that we couldn’t get baptized was Kenia Guerrero. We found out that she didn’t have the right intentions to be baptized. She basically fell in love with my companion haha, and so wanted to be baptized for that reason. So....we are staying away from her house for right now for that reason. She knows that the church is true and everything, so hopefully one day she will come to her senses right?

Well, that’s all that I have time to write this week. Thanks everyone for all of your support. I hope that you have a good week. Be safe, Be Happy, Be Mormon!

Vaya Pues!

Elder Tinkham

Enjoying some Honduran Tacos at the Pioneer Activity

Pioneer Activity

February 21

OOiiii! Como estan mis queridos amigos que tanto leen mis cartas? A big howdy to all of you from Guaimaca.

This week has been pretty darn eventful, so I better get going.

The Reyes Family is still doing great! They are going to be married in the church at 5pm on Friday, and then the baptism will be the next day, along with another family that the other missionaries are teaching! In total we are going to have 10 baptisms that day. 5 from the other elders and 5 from us. 4 of them are from the Fam. Reyes, and 1 is named Kenia, who I will explain in a moment. We have had some great experiences with the Reyes family as well. The one thing that we were worried about, in other words, the only other challenge that was facing us was to get them to stop drinking coffee. When I was on interchanges, my companion went over there with my old companion Elder Menèndez (awesome) and taught a powerful lesson. At first, they were a little bit defensive and didn’t think that it was going to be important to stop drinking coffee, but after carefully explaining the doctrine, they understood that the Lord wanted them to stop drinking it. They left the lesson with a lot of hope that they understood the true importance of the Word of Wisdom, and I’m pretty sure that they did. The witness that they did was, the next morning as I was arriving once again in my area, they called us and asked for a priesthood blessing to help them avoid the temptation to consume it. It may be such a small thing, dropping coffee, but by small things, great miracles come to pass....and that was a small miracle. I really love this family, the experiences are countless.

We also have the baptismal date of Kenia. She lives in the Herradura, that super small town that I explained before that we wanted to start working in. Kenia is the sister of the Young Men’s President, and she has been receiving the missionaries for a long time, it has just been difficult to get her to progress due to the long distance of where she lives, but we have been working with her, and she has the desires. We’re going to prepare her so that we can have one more member in the future branch of the Herradura!

On Tuesday, we had the zone conference! (My 2nd to last one in the mission....I think I’m going to be sick). President Flores talked about our favorite theme...Repentance! I learned a whole bunch, and took some really revelation-based notes as well. President took some time to answer a bunch of questions about repentance from a bunch of the missionaries, and it helped a lot of us. We mostly talked about what it means to abandon your sins physically as well as spiritually and mentally as well. Many times, people don’t feel like they have been forgiven of their sins and wonder why, since they haven’t committed it physically in such and such amount of time. But, true repentance and forgiveness comes when we abandon our sins mentally and spiritually as well. That’s when the Lord “remembers (our sins) them not.” Afterwards, the Assistants gave us a ride home because they wanted to work with us for a couple of hours before they headed back to Teguc. I worked with Elder Christensen, and we went to visit the Reyes Family. We talked about comparing word to a seed (Alma 32), and we also talked abut eternal marriage. Elder Christensen gave them a photo of the future Honduras Temple. After the lesson he thanked me for the marvelous experience that he had. It truly was marvelous.

I also had a very unique opportunity to go on interchanges with Elder Wheeler. Elder Wheeler is the Branch President of a small branch in our zone called Campamento (where I thought I was going). I was able to travel to his area and see the way that he managed his branch, while working as a missionary at the same time. I truly admire his work, and we had a good day together. I had some good mediation time while he was doing a few interviews, and then afterwards we went finding. We found a couple of people to teach, and we also gave a priesthood blessing to the man that is going to get baptized this weekend. He is worried about his health and thinks that it will restrict him from being baptized.

On Saturday, we held a very special activity in the church called “Pioneer Activity,” it was a great turnout. The members even brought a ton of friends who aren’t members, and less active members. We played old pioneer games, like the stick pole Joseph Smith style (I was the champion), something called Stick your nose in the flour and pick out the dime or something like that haha, and etc. We had a fire in the middle of the soccer field, and we also enjoyed some Honduran Tacos. It was a very enjoyable experience.

I am definitely seeing the hand of the Lord in our zone at this moment, because we literally have 24 baptismal prospects to be baptized in the zone for this Saturday. I am super nervous for this week and for all of the work that I have to do, but I believe that the Lord will concede us the miracles that we need. But, I am also seeing the influence of Satan who knows what is happening. We had a bad experience with our branch president this week. We don’t know exactly what happened, but in the pioneer activity something got him really upset, and his family left. They didn’t come to church yesterday, and he only showed up to complete his duties. We could feel the tension and it was quite uncomfortable. He is quite angry with the majority of the members. We attempted to do an emergency visit with a bunch of the members yesterday afternoon, but it didn’t work to well. We’re just going to let him be for right now. We’re going to pray really hard for him and his family, so that it can all work out. He is a really important asset for us at this moment, with all of the baptisms we are going to have. I pray that everything goes okay.

Well everyone, my time has run out, and this has been quite the long letter. I love you all, and hopefully I’ll have some good news for you next week! Thanks so much for your prayers.

Vaya Pues!

Elder Tinkham

Here is a picture of us 4 missionaries in Guaimaca. With Elder Gunnell, on the left, who is an expert artist!

February 14

Hola y feliz dia de amor y amistad a todos mis familiares y amigos allà! I am wearing a pink tie for this special day! Haha how are you all doing?

This week has been pretty good for my companion and I. We spent a lot of time slimming down our investigator pool so that we can focus on the positive people that we’ve got. We actually have an amazing family that we are teaching right now! They are the Reyes Family. They were a reference of the family that makes us lunch every day. They had just barely moved in to their tiny little house the other day, and so they took advantage of the moments and became their friends and invited them to church. They are really nice people, and it’s a family of 7 people, they have 5 kids! Yesterday they came to church for the 2nd time, and they are learning a lot. On Saturday we placed a marriage date for them for the 25th of February, and the baptismal date for the 26th (Happy Birthday dad!) and they accepted! We are super excited, but also we are hoping for a miracle. We have a lot of work left to do to help them get married and baptized by the 26th. I have the faith that everything is going to work out! I’m so excited to be working with a family again. It’s been some time now, and it’s the greatest feeling in the world.

This week the Lord has decided to guide me to the home of several less actives. I’m not really sure why, but it’s been a pretty cool experience! On Saturday we had one, we were just contacted and we stopped to try and feel the guidance of the Spirit, and I felt the house that I needed to go to. We went and knocked, and it turned out to be a lady named Gisela, who had been baptized about 3 years ago in Tegucigalpa but hasn’t gone to church since she moved to Guaimaca. She wasn’t able to come to church yesterday, but today we are going to have a family home evening with her which SHE is helping us plan. Should be a cool experience.

On Thursday our Elders Quorum President took us over to a tiny pueblo outside of Guaimaca called the Herradura, where the Young Men’s president lives. We paid him a quick visit, and asked him to present us to a couple of his family members and neighbors. We talked to several of them and put appointments for this week. We are going to start going every Thursday...with the ultimate goal to start a small branch over there in the future.

I’m slowly starting to get to know my new zone. This week I went on interchanges with Elder Smith, an incredibly tall Floridian missionary in another city in our zone. It was basically for the purpose of getting to know a little bit better all of the areas in the zone. We had a great time together, and things are going really great right now in our zone. We have plans to have A TON of baptisms on the 26th of February (Happy birthday again dad!), and so Elder Torres and I are starting to plan for that as well.

This week I decided to feast upon the words of the modern prophets, and I read all of the Liahona general conference issue. Absolutely loved it. This time, I broke away from tradition and even decided to read the talks from the General Relief Society meeting, and the Lord definitely blessed me for that! One of the best talks that I read was President Monson’s talk about charity....I want to share a small quote from that talk. Pres. Monson talks about a man who a lady attends to in her small staying house in front of a medical clinic. The man was quite ugly looking, but had a large heart, (I recommend the talk). Months later, the lady had an experience in a greenhouse, where she saw a beautiful golden chrysanthemum growing in a dented, old rusty bucket. Her friend explained that she had run out of pots, and knowing that this one was so beautiful, that it wouldn’t mind starting in the old bucket. The lady then thought: “Here’s an especially beautiful one. God might have said when He came to the soul of the little old man. He won’t mind starting out in this small, misshapen body. But that was long ago, and in God’s garden how tall this lovely soul must stand!”

When I read this quote, my mind is directed to all of the beautiful Honduran souls that I have come to know and love. That is the way that I see each and every one of them. They are such precious souls to our Heavenly Father. If I could one day grow to become such a “beautiful chrysanthemum” as they are, I will have come a long way. I love my mission, I love everything that I do. I love all of you. Have a good week!

Vaya Pues!

Elder Tinkham

February 7th

Hola to all of my family and friends out there! A big Yee Haw to all of you as well! It’s great to be back in the pueblos again, to wipe the dirt of my brow and chill around with my sombrero. I got a lot to explain for this week so let’s get started!

First off....interesting news...so I kind of lied to you all about what my area was going to be. The Assistants confused me on what my area was going to be. I’m still in the pueblos and everything like that, and in charge of the same zone, it’s just that a little bit ago the zone leaders changed from one area to another, and I didn’t know that haha. So my area is really called Guaimaca. Let me give you a small rundown on how Guaimaca is...I just love it. It’s a really small town (If you remember, awhile ago when I was in Juticalpa, I mentioned that it was like the Wyoming of Honduras, well Guaimaca is probably a bunk town of Montana!). It’s blazing hot, just like all of my other areas haha, and the people here are really friendly! Here in Guaimaca, the whole city gets around in bike, and we just say hi to them by yelling out OY!!!! It’s the custom, totally awesome.

But yeah there is definitely nothing modern here at all, no ATM, no fast food, malls, paved roads (haha) or anything like that. After noticing all of that, I thought...man this is my type of place! I could get used to this!

My companion, Elder Torres, is a pretty crazy guy. He is from an island city in Guatemala called Cobàn. He is from Elder Hansack’s group, the one where I became a trainer...does that make me feel old or what? He is a really obedient guy, and gets a lot of work done, he’s just a little bit spastic and has about 100 things going on in his head all the time. But we make a good companionship, and we’re great friends already! The zone here is totally different, because all of the areas in my zone are in different cities that take quite awhile to get to by bus, so I’m gonna be spending a lot more time travelling than I used to! But that’s alright.

We have TONS of investigators. I think more than I have ever had in my mission so far. This week has been one so full of work that I am exhausted beyond belief! The members here are some of the most humble, nice, hardworking people I have ever met. We have been working super close with them, and have received a ton of super positive referrals. This area isn’t what it used to be before, it used to be super difficult and dead, but the leadership has changed. We have a great branch president who used to be completely inactive, but has had a great change in his life and now is a work horse! With the help of these animated leaders, we’re going to make Guaimaca what it has never been before! There are so many investigators that we have right now, that it will be hard to decide who to tell you about, and so I’ll save that for the next time, but just know that it’s going great! On Friday, we had to head over to Tegucigalpa again to go to Zone Leader Council. It was a really great council where we learned tons of things. President talked about the importance of using the Book of Mormon, the necessity of making P days spiritual, unity, and he especially talked about urgency. He explained to us that we need to up our sense of urgency, because there are a lot of us that have just a short amount of time left to work. The message really hit me, and I definitely felt the spirit. The only thing that I could think was, “Let’s get this going President, because we have to get back to work in our area!” He talked about Jacob 5 (one of my favorite chapters) in the verses 61-64, where the Lord of the vine talks about how this is the last time that they are going to work in the vine (I think that’s the translation). We related that to how this is the last dispensation, this is the last time that we, as the Lords servants, will work in the vine. I thought, if this is the last time that we are going to work in bringing souls unto the Lord, that I need to work 10 times as hard in order to bring as many souls unto Christ.

I love this work. I know that it’s true. Jesus is our Savior, and Joseph was his prophet. The Book of Mormon is true. I never tire in saying it, my testimony exists within me like an increasing fire. I love all of you, and hope that you take care this week.

Vaya Pues!

Elder Tinkham

January 31st.....Back to the Pueblos!

Hello once again to all of my family and friends out there. I am writing to you from what may be the very last time I am ever in MetroMall, the lovely clean mall that has everything you could need to buy. Because, my time to part has come, and ladies and gentlemen, I’m heading back to the pueblos!

This week has been incredibly busy for Elder Sinclair and I. We had a ton of baptisms in the zone this week! The awesome thing was that we were able to meet the goal that we had placed for January, something that rarely happens, haha. We were super busy with all of the interviews that had to do, and we each interviewed somewhere around 6 people each.

We had a funny experience on Tuesday when we were travelling to the District Meeting. We decided as a house to sing once again on the buses when we got on. The first time...didn’t work so well. The bus was going super fast, and everyone was yelling at us to get out of the way. We didn’t stop singing and ended up laughing our way through “Count your many blessings,” we were trying to decide if we should still sing another song on the way home due to the large hilarity and embarrassment of the first time. But we decided to do it anyway! We got on and started singing, and this time it turned out to be great! I sat down and talked to a lady named Fransica about the Plan of Salvation. She has a big family and was very nice, I’m going to send the reference to the missionaries for her.

We received the changes yesterday, and unexpectedly I have been transferred. I think that this is going to be my last area since I only have 3 changes left. I have been transferred to the area called Campamento, which literally means “camping grounds” in English. This is definitely going to be the pueblo of all pueblos due to the smallness and ruralness that it really is. I’m not sure how it’s going to be since I’ve never been around there before. It’s actually pretty close to the city of Juticalpa, where I was at last year. My companion is going to be Elder Torres (my 2nd companion named Torres) and he is from Guatemala. I don’t know too much about him but I’m pretty sure it’s going to be great! It’s going to be different trying to be a leader in the pueblos areas because everything is so much further away, and it’s definitely going to be even harder, but I’m up for the challenge! I was reading this morning in the Liahona the talk from Elder Dallin H. Oaks about the 2 lines of communication, and it really helped me out in my preparation for what’s about to come. I am really going to rely on the personal line of communication these months, so that I can receive the revelation that I need for the new zone, which is called Talanga.

I don’t really have too much more time to write for this week, but all I know is that I’m entering a new epoca of the mission, and I’m really excited for what’s about to come. I love you all and I hope that you have a great week and that you all take care. Thanks so much for everything.

Vaya Pues!

Elder Tinkham