Dear Mom and Dad,
Happy Father's Day Dad! I was just thinking about you and the family and remembering all your hugs before I left at the airport. That was one year ago now. Cool right? It's been quite the journey to get to this point in my mission and I look back and I'm so grateful for the blessings I have for being "born of goodly parents".
Sorry about the rush last week. I wasn't able to write at all OR read until I got home and read your letters that I printed off. The reason being is because my companion got mad at me for being on the computer too long and told president and so president told me that he understands writing for extra long... etc but I can't write any longer than one hour. So I've been really good but I don't want you to be sad if I don't write a longer letter or answer all your questions or if I don't respond to everything that happened. I hope you can understand that the length of my letters and what I write does not determine my love and care for my family. Also, the computers here have problems with speed and I can't change that. I am in HONDURAS people! ;D
We haven't had any baptisms recently in my branch but we're hoping for a few in the next month or so. We have one investigator named Jimmy Mejia that's really awesome. We just taught him yesterday and I felt the Holy Ghost super strong in that lesson. We'll see how it goes with him in these next few months.
Yesterday, we had two new investigators come to church with us and everything was excellent. Sometimes the branch really worries me here though. I don't trust hardly anyone with teaching my investigators and that includes most of the leaders. Sometimes what they teach is correct but the way they teach is apostasy because they have no love and are full of pride and thirsty for power. They don't want to talk to our investigators or visit the less-actives but we'll keep doing the missionary work and teaching them how to help us and the Lord.
One of the things that is starting to help is that every Saturday we have capacitation meetings and we teach everyone on missionary work and then we do practices. It's like mini district and zone meetings.
We have visited almost all of the leaders' homes and they are all excited. I'm excited for them. It's an upward climb but it's worth the great view up on top of the mountain.
The best thing about San Lorenzo is that it is both physically and spiritually a refiner's fire. The people are generally nice but this area was an area that the past presidents have used to punish missionaries and so it's really hard to get in the doors because the people have already heard from flaky missionaries and they think it's the same.
Dad, The branch is named Mongollanos and as far as I know that could be the name of a person that first settled there. This week, a missionary has been sick and so just about all my money is gone from travel expenses to do divisions. But that's part of ZL life I guess. My interview was five minutes long and President just encouraged me to keep going and I was done with the interview. He just told me to not write for more than an hour and we shared testimonies and I left. Really short.
We go to other areas walking a lot of times because it's expensive for ZLs to take buses and taxis everywhere. I wish I had a bike sometimes but that's not allowed in all of Central America now. That was the decision of the Area Presidency.
Danli is doing well but I haven't talked to Elder Johns since. We aren't allowed to call other missionaries just to chat or talk about our areas so I have no idea how Danli is doing.
We use the Book of Mormon every day. The story of Elder Robbins was exactly how my conversion and Elder Cruz's conversion took place. Everyone must sincerely ask God if the Book of Mormon is true and they must read it. If they don't read, it makes the conversion process much more difficult. When I started here in San Lorenzo, I felt like something was missing in our teachings. I asked out loud to myself, "How do I know this is the true church?" I responded at the same time with my companion, "The Book of Mormon!" And since then, it's been the only way we teach. Honestly, I hate carrying the Bible because it's huge and sometimes useless when talking to these people down here. But we use the Bible and the Book of Mormon equally most of the time.
Mom, I am doing everything I can to keep away the bugs and mosquitoes. I haven't received your package though. It got lost remember, but Hna Bowler I bet has it now in the office waiting for me in two weeks when we go for Changes. Thanks for all the updates! I hope Lindsay has a great experience at EFY and that she writes everything down so she can remember her experiences.
I haven't met an Elder Putnam but if I do I'll say "Hey, my Mom has told me a lot about you!" ;D Love you mommy! Keep clunkin' along with that cast till MONDAY! :D
Love,
Elder Tuft
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