Some Pics from Tim's Mission

Tim's Update October 29, 2008

hey how is everyone doing, Mission conference is tomorrow the president is rebuilding the mission and cracking down on everyone.  I am so excited. Quite literally we have to change how we are doing things here in the mission and in the world.  things are going to be different than they have ever been before, not in a way to frighten people, but there is definitely a feeling that the world and church are changing.  The time is coming that we no longer focus on talking about being better, but that we become better now.  I encourage you at home that as you are at home to use the old pioneer adage,  'Eat it up. Wear it out. Make do, or do without' I am not implying that we should become Armageddon minded.  But I do know that things are changing in ways they have never changed before.  Literally since I have been out here, I have seen a huge change in the work.  The Missions of the church are becoming more successful and focused.  Its like a train, they are saying jump on or off, but the Train is now moving.  I feel very strongly that I must play a key role in our mission to be an example of the best of the best in obedience and work ethic.  I know I have what it takes in me to do so.  However I struggle being that person, but I know that the lord and the world cannot afford any less from the missionaries out here serving. There are lots of great people out here in the mission.  We actually haven't been able to get a hold of any of our investigators this week.  I know for a fact that the lord is testing our patience, because we are essentially doing everything we need to and we are still struggling.  We have over 12 investigators, but none of them will meet with us, because they are busy.  However we are now getting appointments with them. We are working with lots of families in the ward.  The bishop is bishop Vawdrey, he is brand new and only about 30, he is very new to the whole running the ward thing, it is interesting to watch.  But he is very supportive of the missionaries I am so excited to have him.  We also have many great families in the area.  We have the phillips who are stock brokers, they are both wonderful.  They try so hard to raise their kids the way the lord would have them.  They are really trying their best.  We also have the Reades, they are from texas and are awesome, they had us over for Chili the other day, the chili was so good.  they have two little boys, william and Joseph and they are both just so incredibly smart and funny.   They call themselves wally and diego.  The family is so great they support the missionaries so well.  He served his mission in Jamaica and had a kind of rough mission experience, he liked it but it was tough on him.  She served a mission in Arizona, and she mostly worked in the visitor center.  I will send a picture with there two little boys, they are twins. Our investigators are not doing as well as I would like, we have a few that are worth mentioning though. Irene Zedka is from Kenya, and she is so awesome.  She told me that the lord told her in a voice that the Mormons are true and that she should join the church.  She is constantly saying that she can't wait to receive the gift of the holy ghost.   She has a hard time meeting with us because she is a home care nurse and watches an older lady.  But she said that she is working on a way to come on Sunday. Jean Muse is doing just fine, she is progressing.  But she says that she still has a hard time believing that the book of Mormon is true.  She just needs to pray about it and things will work out. Eric Flaim is awesome, him and his older brother have expressed an interest in receiving the priesthood.  I hope that we can get it to them very very soon.  Tony his older brother goes to a catholic school and says that there are so many things that don't make sense from school.  And we teach him, he is already a member, but he is not active at all.  We are going to work on him getting the priesthood.  Him and his brother have both talked about how much they would love to serve a mission.  I hope we can get them lined up in a way that they can serve a mission. Anyways, I am so happy that everything is going well at home, I am working on being a better person.  I hope that things will work well with you all at home.  I love you all so much, I really miss home.  But I am good being out here and working, I am really learning to love the work.  I am hoping that this obedience talk tomorrow will really jump start my companion.  He is good, but his heart is not into the work which makes in hard for me to be in the work.  Anyways I love you so much, please try to write, I realize that the wedding will make you busy, and thats ok.  I love you and I am going to be voting absentee ballet wise.   Love Elder Timothy L. Flink

Tim's 2nd Week Out August 27, 2008

Hey everyone, second week out already. So Far this has been really super awesome.  My companion is a super awesome guy, we have our disagreements but overall he is a really rock awesome righteous dude (I don't really talk like that).  No we are having a fantastic time here, so many of the people that we are teaching and finding are awesome as well there are alot of not so awesome people.  I scared a little old lady half to death the other day, I knocked on her door and it was getting fairly late and she opened it up a crack and yelled at me telling me to get back, she said that she didn't know who I was. I told her that I had a message about Jesus Christ, She told me to just get back again.  So I did, then I told her again that I had a message about Jesus Christ, then she said good for you and slammed the door.  I wonder why she even opened the door.  It was really funny, as well I am getting better at contacting people on the street.  We went to talk to some black kids on the street and at first they weren't talking to me and my companion, but then they began asking us every gospel question in the world that you can imagine.  The one kid asked how do we know that there is a god.  I asked him, Is there good and evil.  He said yes.  Then I told him if God didn't exist then there would be no good or evil.  He thought about it for a minute and then realized that there was a God.  We told them so much about where we came from and where we are going.  I taught them that through the Fall of Adam and Eve that it was necessary for Christ to perform his atonement.  They actually understood what we were telling them it was awesome, but the cool part was, another kid came up and was completely interested in finding out if the book of mormon was true and he said he would pray about it.  His name is James he is 16 years old and he plays football for Hackensack High School.  We have so many incredible people that we are teaching right now.  We are teaching Pedro and Zuli, Pedro is progressing really really well, he has a baptismal date which is fantastic.  Also we are teaching Irene, she is from Kenya and is absolutely incredible  I love talking with her, she told us that if this church were true should would be baptised and join it.  Also we are teaching Jean Muse who told us that she has always wanted to be baptised be immersion and she told us that the spirit we bring and the things we say are the very first time she has felt and heard them.  She will probably get baptised.  As well we are teaching Cheryl and her son Taylor, they are both awesome people she knows its true we just need to work with her.  We have decided that every  person that we teach and meet with that we are going to mention baptism, we won't push it too hard but we will mention baptism.  The people here in New Jersey are very very interesting people, there are so many different kinds of people there is 13 times the national average of people per square mile here.  I am so excited to continue teaching, I am missing home quite a bit.  Not so much that it is keeping me from doing my work, but I am definately missing home.  I am already a little trunkie, not to have you worry I am not bad, but I am missing home.  But as I work harder I get less and less that way.  I love you so much.  I am having an amazing time.  The drivers here by the way are extemely aggressive, therefore I may be fairly aggressive when I come home in my driving.  The pictures I sent you are of my companion (elder Sorenson), my bed, and my desk.  I am so excited for the coming weeks, I am learning spanish slowly but surely, I can understand like 40% of conversations and that number is rising.   My ability to speak spanish however is like 3%  so I will continue to get better. 

Elder Tim Flink

Tim's Rainstorm on October 28, 2008

Tim took this video on Tuesday, October 28, 2008. 

Watch for the part where water almost goes over their hood. Crazy!!!

Tim's Update October 22, 2008

Hey how is it going?

Life is good out here.  It has been a good week. This week we met with a lady name Jalima Schifino.  She is an Indian lady who grew up in columbia.  She speaks perfect english so we can teach her.  She took really well to the first lesson and loved what we had to say.  We have an appointment with her tonight and I am so excited to see if she read and prayed about the book of mormon.  She told us that she had a dream once that she saw jesus smiling at her and that she felt so good that she ran outside and told everyone she could.  A few weeks later her friend sent her a picture of Jesus and it looked the exact same as the jesus in her dream.  So she took us back into our house to see the picture and it was awesome, the picture in the back of her house was the exact same picture that is in the front of the Book of Mormon that we gave her.  When we Showed her that she just said "thats my jesus, thats my jesus"  I am so excited to see how things go with her.  I know that if she comes to church she will feel the spirit.   And it is interesting that we found her by just tracting into her, we didn't want to go talk to them at all, but the spirit told us to, so we did and now we are teaching her.  I am so excited to see how she has done so far.

We are still working a little bit with Chris, But I am concerned that he has started avoiding us.  I don't know if work has just gotten really really busy, or that he read anti-material but we havn't gotten a chance to contact him.  I think it is truly his work and how busy he has been.  His company failed a project at work and since then he has been super super busy. We are also working with Jean Muse, who is an older lady.  She is so wonderful.   She doesn't know if she believes what we are bringing to her but she is willing to pray about it.  And I know that if she prays about it she will truly receive an answer.  So we are so excited to be working with her. Eric Flaim is another person we are working with here in the ward.  He is 13 years old and hasn't been baptised.  His family is members but he isn't.  I am hoping that he will decide 100% to be baptised.  He has a date for December 10 and we are so excited for him.  I know that if he keeps making steps forward he will truly be blessed.  His older brother as well, Tony, has been asking about receiving the priesthood.  He attends a catholic school because the education is really good there, but he doesn't believe the things they teach, and I am helping him understand why those things don't sound right. We are working with Irene Zedka.  She is from Kenya.  She is so awesome, she wants to be baptised and have the gift of the holy ghost.  She told us that a voice told her that the church was true and that what we brought to here was truly the word of god.  It is so exciting to see her progress. some of the less actives we are working with are the overby's which I have told you about in the past, and bucabals.  The bucabals are an awesome philipino family.  He was a bishop in the philipines and she was a relief society president.   They have such a desire to come back to the gospel, but work makes it so hard.  Eveything here is so expensive, it really takes alot of money to live here.  It is almost 9000 dollars a year for property tax and they only live on 1/8 of an acre.  But gas here is cheaper than utah, the lowest here is 2.49.

Elder Timothy L. Flink

An update from Tim on October 15, 2008

Hey guys! Life is so good here! I love being in this area. The members here are so awesome.  I love hearing about everyone at home. Hey Everyone, New Jersey is Bomb.  I love being out here.  This week has been full of amazing experiences and life is just as awesome as it has ever been.  It sounds awesome about the gas in Utah but to make you feel better the gas here in Jersey is 2.59.  Anyways that was fairly random.  I love the mission, I have learned so much about being a true warrior of god.  I love being out here on the front lines.  I have been teaching so many people from so many different places.  Some of those people and places are- Muslims from:Pakistan, India, and Syria.  Christians from-Kenya, Ghana, Columbia, El Salvador, Philippines, India, Russia, Argentina, Chile, Canada, England, Ireland, Japan, China (almost every country from central and south America).  Hindus from-India, Nepal.  As well as Jehovah's Witnesses. And Jews from all sorts of countries.  And the classic Catholics, Baptists, and Seventh Day Adventists.  Needless to say, if I thought I wasn't going somewhere exotic I have definitely met people from every exotic place on the planet.  This is just a short list of the people I have met.  The work here is progressing like it never has anywhere on the planet.  The missionaries who are here that have been here for a while say that they can see the way missionary work being done changing quickly and moving in ways they have never seen before.  Our mission has been chosen to be the pilot mission for a lot of programs and we are truly part of the last generation of missionaries who will spread the gospel with haste.  I don't want to get Armageddon minded but truly the work here is reflecting the importance.  They are no longer saying we need to get better.  They are saying we need to be better "NOW".  I am so excited to be on the front edge of all of it.  Literally this is the leading edge of the most important work in the world and in the most influential part of the country.  I feel so blessed to be chosen to fight on the lords front lines. I love all of you and will continue to let you all know what is going on in the mission.  If you all get a chance write me and I will make sure that I write you back within the week.  I am sorry If I didn't write back to previous letters I was out of my element before, but I am good now.  Love you all lots and Happy Halloween.