Hello to all the friends and family located on the "mainland!" I hope that all is well with each and every one of you, and that conference was as amazing and meaningful as it was to me! Here in Roatan we are privileged to have a satellite, because it would be super expensive for all of the members to leave to the coast to watch conference. So, we luckily got to watch it here in the chapel.
As for the week, well, it seems that my "sneaky" trick of getting a package home has come to light! I am very grateful to the Marshall's for taking that to my family, they are such great people!
Well, conference in the mission has a reputation of leaving missionaries with bad numbers, so this week was filled with my companion and I trying to do a week's worth of teaching in 5 days so that we wouldn't have to fall under the same category! We set high goals still, even though conference was during the weekend. (The r doesn't really work on this keyboard, so if I miss fixing a mistake, forgive me!) So, on Tuesday we hit the road and went to teach like crazy! We ended up finishing the day with a ton of success and found several new investigators! But, at night, our Zone Leaders informed us that we had interviews with the President in the morning, and that we had to get to the coast by 9 in the morning (thanks for the heads up on that one!).
So, on Wednesday we left for La Ceiba in the morning, and went to my first District Meeting in several weeks! That went really well, and we had our interviews with the President, which also went super well. President Veirs is a man who shall have my respect and love forever! Sister Veirs brought us doughnuts, brownies, milk...the whole deal! Mmmmm. But, the bad part, was that the boat didn't leave to Roatan until 4:30! So, we had to wait forever for the boat to leave. But, on the plus side, we got to ride in the mission's new car, “The Black Panther” to get back to the dock. At night, we managed to pull off some lessons, but they had to be super fast!
Thursday, we decided that it was time to make up for what we lost on Wednesday. So we went to go teach a ton as well. Nothing absolutely spectacular happened except that I had to teach the lesson for the Noche de Hermanamiento that night. So, I centered my message on Easter, because unfortunately here in Honduras it is more of just thinking of it as a vacation because nobody goes to work. Everybody forgets about our Savior Jesus Christ at this time; even, unfortunately, the members. But, I hope that I helped them remember the purpose of this time.
Friday was it. The day where we had to work SUPER hard before the incoming weekend. So, we left early, headed out to go and teach, ate lunch, and went back to go teach again until dinner, and then crashing into our beds for working all day. It was a really fulfilling feeling to go out and give an entire day in service to the Lord, but it also felt really good to get in and just sleep haha.
But, before we could go to sleep on Friday, we had a surprise. The window in our room is missing a part. Here in Honduras, all the windows are sheets of glass stacked on top of each other, and when they are closed nothing can come in, but when opened, plenty of air flows in through the gaps. Well, our window is lacking one sheet of glass. So, we come back and my companion is hanging up his tie, and touches something super furry. He freaks out and jumps up on his bed. I come running in to see what happened, and we see this black...thing...on the floor. The owner's son comes in as well to see what happened. Turns out, a bat flew into our room in the darkness! We trapped it, and took it out of the room. Then, my companion blocked the opening in the window haha. So now, I call him Batman.
Then, conference. Wow. I felt like it went by way too fast! We sat there sweating (as it is now very close to Holy Week, the hottest time of the year) in our suits, listening to the prophets. Thanks to the senior couple, we were privileged to have an English room, so I got to watch conference in English! Huzzah! We also had the visit of a family from Washington who owns a house here in Roatan. They apparently come often, so it wasn't a surprise for the others. And don't worry mom, they aren't taking a package home haha. So they joined us as well in the "gringo" room.
I was very impressed by the talks by Donald L. Hallstrom, Dallin H. Oaks, Dieter F. Uchtdorf, the prophet of course, and Neil L. Anderson. I have been put to a lot of meditation to the talks, and tried to mainly write my inspirations as the words came to my mind. I shall wait anxiously for the Liahona to study the talks even more! But I also liked on Sunday Afternoon when the member of the 70 talked about sending missionaries letters. I agree whole-heartedly! :)
A few problems we had were that for the first half of priesthood session we didn't have a signal, and that Sunday morning we lost power for the whole
Anyway, that was the week of the missionaries located in Roatan, Honduras! The cruise ships will start coming in tomorrow and all the spring-breakers will be enjoying the beach. But as for us, we will be serving the Lord and preaching His true gospel! Because true conversion comes from understanding and living this beautiful plan!
In closing, I will echo the question raised by Elder Anderson: What does Christ think of you? That question rung deep within my heart. I hope he only thinks good things of me.
I love you all, I pray for you! Keep going!
Vaya pues!
Elder Tinkham
