LETTERS FROM HOME

Tobago Orchid

Our Grand Daughter Sarah Pinnock in Argentina

Family,

This week was really sick!!!! ... But really I was sick all week.  Wednesday morning = me throwing up.  Wednesday night = me not sleeping. Thursday morning = worst headache of my life.  And by Saturday in the evening I had lost my voice and I still haven’t gotten it back.  When it's just me and the comp we whisper so I can save my voice but whatever I need the boca to speak to the humans so what can you do?

Regardless of being sick I´m proud to say that we hit it hard!  I am trying to work as hard as I can with my little child... I don't want her to be a liver missionary.  We had some awesome lessons this week.  We had a lesson with Marta on Tuesday that rocked.  We had almost started teaching when her ex-husband knocked on the door.  I could tell she was nervous for him to see us but he came in and we just started to ask them both questions.  She hadn't done her scripture reading so we asked if we could read with them.  It was in 3 Nephi chapter 17 one of my favorite chapters and the Spirit was strong.... Marta started to choke up....  Her ex stayed pretty quiet so I thought he was kind of bugged but then at the end he expressed how grateful he was to speak to us and asked a lot of questions he had.  He asked questions like how can we be saved?  And what do we think of all the bad things happening in the world?   I loved every second.  We gave him a lot of pamphlets and invited him to come back and offered to send the missionaries to his house but he declined because he said he’s always working and never at home but whatever.  Anyway, we left that appointment real happy!  My companion was a little lost in the Spanish but the truth is she is learning fast!  I’m proud of her and love training.  We also found a family of five to teach this last week.... holllllly great family!!!!  I’m super excited to keep teaching them! Their names are the familia Silva.... good humans.  Well I love you all!  Have a great week!

Hermana Pinnock

Tobago Critter

Sister Linton refers to him as 

Mr. Big Eyes

Our Grandson Joshua Pinnock in Italy

Family,

I got an email from David this week and it was amazing. 

School is about to let out here as well and I am not

looking forward to that. We will be stopping high school kids who don’t
care at all but who knows we might be able to find a cool one. We
hope that we might be able to teach some families here soon because
that would be the coolest thing ever. The thing that I am not looking
forward to is Faraguosto. It is a holiday that Italians take in
August. So for about three weeks every Italian with money picks up
and leaves for the beach. So most Italian cities are left absolutely
vacant and any of the big beach cities have a never ending supply of
new people. So us being on the sea might make it better. The people
will either come to us or our entire city will just leave. I really
hope that our city is one of the cities that people go to. Besides
that not much happened this week. Yesterday we had to sit inside the
entire day waiting for a man to hook our stove up to the gas line...It
took him four hours. We were going to be able to teach at least five
lessons yesterday but because the man hooking up our line wasn’t
American we had to sit on chairs the entire day...AAAAHHHHHH!!! Its

ok because now our apartment is ready for gas and we should get
that on Friday. Then for the rest of the week nothing really
out of the ordinary happened. It scares me that I have already served for almost a year.
I felt like I just flew in but I’m already almost half way to sitting
in an airplane again...dang-it!  Oh well that means that I still have
a year to work and preach the good word of God!

Have a great week and stay awesome!

Elder Pinnock

A WEEK IN GEORGETOWN, GUYANA

We flew from Trinidad to Guyana on Tuesday May 20^th.  It’s about an hour flight with nothing of particular note until we were over the South American continent.  The tree cover was a vast forest carpet in shades of green with sprinklings of yellow.

Occasionally there was a ribbon of light brown that meandered through the carpet.  We were still quite high but you could tell they were muddy rivers, some of them very large.

The Guyana airport was fairly well developed and it was easy to come into customs.  The Francom's picked us up and drove us to the Pegasus Hotel.

The drive was very West Indies.  

Drivers cutting in and out of their lane with abandon.  With left lanes turning right, right lanes turning left and it was another defensive driving course.  for the most part traffic lights, stop signs, direction signs and passing obstacles are just a suggestion - everything goes and passing on a blind corner, hill or major intersection is common.  

Wares under left arm, in bucket and on her head

Street vendor in the open air market of Guyana

Many beautiful old buildings left over from the Dutch and English occupations

Crowded Streets of Georgetown

They also have horse and donkey drawn wagons on the main streets 
hauling building products

and

Even the Mrs. under a parasol

Horses, cattle and sheep were wandering everywhere - even downtown

BLESSINGS

By the time we arrived at the hotel I was dripping wet and there was barely enough time to take a quick shower before heading over to the chapel for blessings.  They have a very nice chapel.  I was told that there were about 250 members in this branch.

We were a few minutes late but quickly started.  There were two pronounced that afternoon and the Francom’s waited and then drove us to their home where we then met the Poulsons.  The six of us enjoyed a nice dinner and visit.  By 8:30 we were exhausted and the Francom's took us back to the hotel and we went to bed early.

On the 21^st we had three blessings from 10:00 am to 12:30 pm.  Two of the young men were from a tribe that I haven’t previously seen.  They were both of Indian extraction and I was happy to have had the opportunity to pronounce their blessing.  The spirit was very strong and I felt that all three of the young men were the pioneers of the West Indies.  I could see in all three of them the next generation of leadership.  They each had a wonderful spirit of missionary work and a desire to do all in their service to Jesus Christ.  They were all in their early twenties.  It was an honor to have been with them and to see such devoted recent converts.

During the five days of our stay in Guyana we had thirteen blessings.  The majority of the blessings were administered to missionaries, prospective missionaries or young couples.  As said earlier, I was very impressed with the wonderful people here.  They truly are a generation of future leaders.  With several having received their lineage from a tribe I haven’t previously encountered, I was impressed that these youth were the predecessors of the next generation that would be an army in countries that are just beginning to have the gospel introduced to them.  

In saying that, I make reference to Elder Jeffrey R. Holland speaking about the “WONDERFUL TIME FOR THE CHURCH IN ASIA”.  “We move steadily into the future. India will be one of our miracles, we will live to see a remarkable work unfold in India.  The Spirit of the Lord is moving over this vast area,” he said. “It would be undeniable, it would be impossible not to grasp, not to feel that there is a great work unfolding here.” 

One of the many unique mosques and temples in Guyana

West Indies forest flora and deadfall

Harpy Eagle of Guyana

A magnificent bird, with a six to seven foot wingspan, that

I've always wanted to see in the wild

When I saw it in the Guyana Aviary 

I was saddened by its isolation in a wire cage

The city waterways were filled with a variety of water plants I have never seen before.

The plant leaves looked like lilies and the seed pods looked like poppies.

The flowers were very large and showy.  It appeared that they only lasted for a day or two at most and then they turned to seedpods

One leaf nicely frames Sister Linton

Georgetown is several feet below sea level.  It was occupied by the Dutch and they built a massive seawall that stretches for miles.

The saddest part of the city was the rubbish that was thrown everywhere,

waterways were choked with styrofoam containers

A wonderful Guyanese brother

ready to serve a mission

More unidentified Guyanese water plants 

We visited the ATM at our hotel to get some Guyanese Dollars

and 

decided that $200 USD should be enough for the few days we were there

and 

were shocked when we received $41,000 GYD

Our pizza that night cost about $4,000 GYD

        

Tobago Southern Lapwing

LETTERS FROM OUR MISSIONARIES

Family,

So this week was a good one.... On Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday I think I blacked out a few times waiting for the new greenie companion.  I was so stoked and so nervous.... haha and then she came!  (Wow I just realized how scary having an actual baby must be... that´s terrifying) On Wednesday we went to the mission office aka Villa Mitre my first area.... P.S. I love visiting there because I get to see how all my converts are doing... Jorge is great!  Orlando is even better!  He found out that his long lost brother was my old ward mission leader.... SAY WHAT????  Anyways that made me super stoked!  I’m super happy that was my first area.  But anyways I get to the mission office and BAM new comp is right there waiting for me!  AWWWWW!!!!  She’s a good egg!!!!!  Legit super cute!  Her name is Hermana Eubanks from the ghettos of Georgia and she´s adorable!  She's nineteen and super stoked on the work!  The spanish is hard for her but she is learning fast... like a lot faster than I ever learned!  But for reals this is going to be a great transfer.... I'm really going to work her hard and we are going to have a lot of fun!  

We had Laura, Maria, and Camila in the church on Sunday and we were super stoked on that!!!  Camila is nine years old and her mom and siblings are all less active so we are also doing reactivating action right now. I think working with less actives is harder but a lot of the time more satisfying!  Dolly didn't go to church.... her brother said she couldn't get baptized.... como se dice "devil child".  But we are going over to her house tonight to talk and see what we can do.

Well I love yal tons!  The church is true.... see ya later!

Hermana Pinnock

Tobago Green Parrot

Family

That was the greatest letter you have ever sent me! Thank you so much for keeping me up on the fam and putting great thought into it. I love hearing about the family and I can smell the pies that were all eaten in a frantic mess in order to win...I love that game. 

So it sounds like you are all doing great. David has started his big boy job and Jane is tearing it up with dance and violin. She has been working so hard on both of those I bet that she is really happy to see the fruits of her labor. I’m also really happy to hear about G & G Linton. No one could ever finish their mission in a better way than that. Going around giving blessings to everyone would be such an amazingly spiritually uplifting experience I don't know what could beat it. 

Sorry that Dad pulled a muscle in his back. What was he doing? Oh well now he will just lay down and Ben will take over the yard. There are a lot of things that I look forward to when I get home but seeing and working in that yard is one of the things I want to do the most and if the Pinnock/Linton family happens to be there on the lawn I guess thats ok.  

So me and my comp had a great week. We are having hard times with some of our investigators. Many of them have the same problem that they complain and say that they need help and they may even pray for help but they don't do anything else. God helps us to improve what we are doing. If we arent doing anything what can He improve? Its a simple principle that we try to teach our investigators but they never seem to understand it. But there were some great things that happened this week as well. One is Livorno got its brand new bishopric on Sunday. It was really cool to be there. Our new bishop is a great man and I know that he will do a great job for our new ward. He is also going to need a lot of help because he has four little children, two of which are small baby twins plus one of the twins is severely autistic so his wife is going to need everyone's help. But it was great on Sunday when he went up the members helped his wife take care of the children and even took them out and helped calm them when they cried. 

So that was great plus yesterday we met with a new investigator and his Son-in-law and they were both great. They are both very Catholic but very kind and open. Plus they have a very strong family and that will help them because they will be able to support each other in the gospel. 

 So that was my favorite part of this last week. Oh and my birthday went on...kind of. We had weekly planning, and finding work.  Me and my comp had a great time and at the end of the day we got pizza for the celebration. It was very low key but there shouldn't be a focus on me right now anyway. And what you said at the end of your letter is true. We have a strength of God going through us. I can work all day without feeling too tired but when I go to bed my body starts to shut down and as soon as I hit that pillow I am asleep. 

I love my mission so much and thank you for helping and supporting me in this mission.

Elder Pinnock

Tobago Smooth Billed Ani