Hello to all my friends and family. It sure is extremely
weird to be writing to you all from the "solid ground"...I still
don´t quite have my land-lubber legs. I do quite miss my last home out on
Roatán, but I did see the ocean today and felt good again!
Well, at least to appease my mother, I don´t know if many
other people are curious or would want know where I am, I shall explain where I am
now! I have been transferred to the area La Jutosa very close to Choloma. It is
a tiny little farm town up in the mountains where they don´t know what paved
roads or garbage cans are. And...I couldn´t be happier. I have already grown to
love this place. It has A LOT of work to be done...but the Lord thinks that
Elder Tinkham is the man for that job...and he can compete with what the Lord
wants. My companion is Elder DeGriselles, from California. He has about 6
months in his mission and speaks pretty dang good Spanish for that amount of
time. He helps me out a lot with the area, and we keep on learning between the
two of us! I am in a very small branch (I now know what it feels like to be a
pueblo guy, Tyler!) and we meet in a house for our meetings. Yesterday we had
about 38 people at church, and in our house we are lucky to fit some 50 people
(more people would fit in the house where I live than at the church!). But...I
really do like it here. We are already teaching a lot of people, and I can
really see the cultural difference between Roatan and Honduras once again haha.
This week was hard. Monday, a sister who served in Roatan came
back and had a party at church. So, luckily, I was able to go there and take
pictures with almost all of the members. But, I had to say a lot of hard
goodbyes. I can´t honestly say that tears weren´t shed...and not by the
members. I truly will cherish my time there and remember it for a loooooong
time. Six of the best months of my life! Tuesday I said just a few more
goodbyes and then left in the yacht in the afternoon to get to La Ceiba. I then
walked around in a 4-way companionship for the rest of the night.
Wednesday, we woke up at 3:30 am to catch the bus to San
Pedro at 4:30 to make it to the meeting that we had. I was super tired, but
enjoyed my ride (sitting next to the very man that got transferred to Roatan,
and he didn´t believe me when I told him that he was going to take my place!)
with everyone. I saw almost everyone from the MTC there, and had a very good
time. Then, my new companion and I came back to the area and ate lunch and
starting working. It was actually a pretty hard day, a lot of appointments fell
through...but I also didn´t have a lot of energy after the bus ride and waking
up early.
Thursday we studied and planned in Choloma with President
and the APs (of which, my companion Elder Chen got made AP on Wednesday! How
crazy!) and they gave us pointers on how to plan better and how we can better
ourselves. We also had a pretty awesome day afterwards and we found 2 families
that actually look very receptive and asked us a ton of questions! We are super
excited to be working with them! Friday, we had our first District Meeting in
the Zone (my 2nd meeting in 6 months haha) and learned from the leaders there.
My District Leader is an elder younger than I, who I saw start his mission in
my first area. He is a great person!
Saturday we kept on working like normal, and yesterday was a
little tough with people coming to church. But we ended off the day good with
having a lot of lessons accompanied by a member. I was very satisfied with what
we were able to do these days, I still am trying to learn how my area works,
what the people need, and how to get to my house and all the appointments haha.
But, it is a great process.
Unfortunately, I still don´t have any pictures, but next
week I promise some! Until next week! I hope that everyone has the best week
ever!
Vaya Pues
Elder Tinkham
