Baptism on Dec. 7, 2009

Andrew Sanchez (10 years old)

His father Juann (member for 6 months) <----- He did the baptising.

Old News, But Still Good News

Dec. 7, 2009 (these were during surgery recovery time, sorry they are so late!)

Hello,

I Hope you are having a happy December. I know I am. We had a baptism on December 5th. We have another one on the 26th. Another one on the 30th. And possibly a second one on the 26th. So needless to say, the work is going great. I've had an awesome week. Yesterday though was my favorite day. The whole day, every step felt inspired. Saturday night I had a dream that one of our members wasn't going to pick up an investigator. His phone has been shut off. So, we headed over there early in the morning. Sure enough we found out that he was in intense pain and was possibly going to the hospitable. So we gave him a blessing and called the investigator. He still came to church on his own means. Sweet!!!!! Then we went to talk to a potential investigator and we met a guy who loved geneology. So, we gave him info. The whole day went like that. It was just an awesome day. Well, I got to go. Hope all is well. I love you.

Love, Elder Tingey

Raining and Raining

Dec. 14, 2009 (sorry to post late)

Hello, Hello from raining Santa Maria. It's been a wonderful week. We have had tons of rain though. And I mean tons!!!! The last 4 days have rained all day long. Today hasn't been raining. The week has been a good one. We have spent a lot of the week just finding. We did a lot of street contacting and a lot of door knocking. We did get some success and have some new investigators. Not only that, but an investigator we have been working with for almost 2 months wants to be baptized!!!!!! Woot!!!!

So funny story. I'm in Santa Maria 1st ward, but due to strange circumstances I've been on exchanges with 3rd ward missionaries quite a bit. The other day we went to a stake nativity concert and there was 3rd ward members there. They asked me if I was on exchanges, because they hadn't seen me in a while. I know enough of 3rd ward members, so they thought I was a 3rd ward missionary. I though it was funny. Had a great zone conference Thursday. It was our Christmas party. Our mission president dressed up as Santa and we did a white elephant exchange. It was pretty cool. Each zone also did a skit. Our skit was the 12 days of christmas door approach style. It was awesome. Well, hope all is well at home. I love you!!!!

Love,Elder Tingey

Busy but Happy

Dec. 28, 2009

Well it's been a crazy week here in Santa Maria. We got another addition to our companionship and we are now 3 strong. Also, we have been given a second ward. So we have tons of work to do. The unfourtunate part is we are out of miles so we spend most of the time on bikes. We bike roughly 30+ miles a day, and we are teaching almost 4 - 6 lessons a day. The two wards are turning out to be very productive but at the same time very stressful trying to juggle the two. We will make it work though. I'm excited about the challenge and know the harvest will be well worth the effort. Hope all is well at home.

Love, Elder Tingey

2 months already

Hi everyone!!
It's been 2 months as of today! I can't believe that time has gone by so fast! Today is also the start of a new transfer. 1 down 16 to go. It's going to be a very interesting transfer. Because of my companion's visa he will be leaving a week before transfers. Another elder in the other ward is leaving in 3 weeks. So our district is going to be cut down to nothing soon. :( Oh well, we will survive. So I hope you had a wonderful thanksgiving. I know I did. I ended up getting two wonderful meals from loving members. Not only that but there was non-members at each dinner. So, some more exciting news. I get to drive! Woot. I'm now cleared to drive the mission vehichle. Which has been a dream of mine for the last 6 weeks. The week has been a good one. We ended up street contacting a lot of people, because most of our investigators left for thanksgiving. We also have a baptism this week. On Saturday a recent convert will be baptising his 10 year old son. Super exciting!!!!!! More exciting news is that today I get to go on an 8 mile hike. The funny thing is that we are going to be climbing a hill, yet all the members here call it a mountain. I'm almost tempted to show them a picture of what mountains really look like. They are convinced though that it is a mountain. What can you do though? It is supposed to be a beautiful hike and I'm rather excited for it. On another note I'm currently learning Espanol. The population is mainly spanish here so I called and got permission from the mission president to study it after our morning studies. I can speak it, but can't understand it. My companion can understand it but can't speak a lick of it. So we make A good team. Well I'm off to go climb a "mountain". Hope all is going well.

Love,
Elder Tingey

1 month in the field

It's been a rather strange week in Santa Maria. My companion has some wierd stomach bacteria that stops him from going out. In 3rd ward, one of the missionaries has some head injury that stops him from going out. So for the last week I've been working with Elder Rogers. We have been locking the two sick people up together in our zone leaders appartment while we go out and work. Poor zone leaders. We are eating all of there food, but the sickly elders keep the place spotless. I guess when you have nothing else to do you clean. Even with this set back though the work is progressing. We had a baptism last night. We baptised and confirmed an 8 year old. He is a child of record but still it was cool to be a part of the baptism. We were supposed to have a convert baptism on the 21st but it was pushed back to the 5th of december. Bummer. :( Oh well, I've decided to count it as a November baptism still. We also set 2 more people with a date and will have 2 baptism on December 19th, if all goes as planned. Super excited about that. Don't worry about all the steak and getting fat. I've actually lost about 10 pounds since I left the house almost 2 months ago. Crazy to think I've been gone that long. Cool story of the week. We were headed to our car to drive to a ward correlation when I saw a lady working in her garage. We had parked in front of her house and were a little ways off. Well I got the impression to go and talk to her. As we approached she went through the garage into a door that led to the back yard. Not wanting to ignore the prompting I entered her garage and her back yard. The moment I said "hello, hows your day?" She burst into tears. She was having a horrible day and was ready to just give up. I talked with her a bit and then promised I would be back in about 20 minutes. We still had to go to ward correlation. Luckily ward correlation involved us going on splits with the ward missionaries. So I went to the correlation picked up my new companion for the night and headed back to the ladies house. As we began to talk with her I found out that she was trying to help her father, who was drinking himself to death and it had been a very trying day. She had been praying for God to send help from above, and then we showed up in her back yard. She was super receptive as we taught her about the Restoration. By the end of the lesson she thanked us for bringing such a wonderful spirit into her life and her day. We gave her a book of Mormon and she is reading it and loving it! The work overall is going great. I love it! I love you as well. Take care and I'll write you next week.

Love,
Elder Tingey

Picture of Thomas on his mission

Nov. 2009 while eating at a member's house, Sister Sandy Peterson. The boy in the photo at the left is her son, Chris, then Elder Rodgers (on splits with him) and then Thomas.