"I'm Cooking In My Own Epidermis"

Here's what Elder Hintze had to say on Monday, July 22, 2013. Thanks for looking in on this blog. When you have time, drop Elder Hintze a note. Address and email to the right ------------->. 
He would love to hear from you. Enjoy!

"FAMILY!!!!! Hello. Time really is flying here, it is zooming from P Day to P Day. Hope everything is going well there, love all of you so much!!! Not a lot happened this week here in Dothan. BUT REST ASSURED IM COOKING IN MY OWN EPIDERMIS HERE. Holy smokes I can't even handle the heat. I usually sweat through my slacks each day, so I have some bum sweat that shows up on my pants. I am not quite sure exactly how to conquer this as of yet, but every day is a struggle here! :) And I gotta be honest after living in Utah, I don't know why anyone in their right mind would come and live in such a place as Dothan, Alabama, I don't know it goes over my head. But this place is pretty alright, and as far as Alabama goes I am starting to love this place. So lets talk about this dress code change for the missionaries, we have heard nothing about it, but we went and looked it up... We can't wear backpacks.... They just decided in the year 2013, that backpacks are unprofessional.... I don't get that. I would almost rather die a thousand deaths than wear a over the shoulder bag.. I don't know. But maybe could you look at sending me a pair of tan slacks. Because I would probably look mighty fine in them. Tonight I think we are hoping to go out with Carter Bess and see some families with him, some of them are investigators, so it has potential to be a real good night tonight. We may even take him to a Spanish guys house that the sisters found and have him interpret for us. And not to mention we are going to hit up the Dothan Rescue Missions for some 50 cent ties. I still have yet to teach a first lesson.. So I am really hoping that this week will be the week for that. Also, President Smith is coming to go out with us on Thursday to see an investigator or a less active... But as of yet we have no one for him to go see. So pray that we have somebody to take our Mission President too."


"Monday- After I got done emailing ya'll we went to the grocery store and then to the Mall. It is a lame mall, but that killed me, I wanted to buy lots of stuff there, but I didn't. Any whom, so we met Tony Hansen and Nathan Hansbury there, Nathan is the investigator, he is now gone. So we have no investigators. But we talked with him about the Priesthood, just the lessons that are in the 4th lesson. So he is gone and in 13 weeks he will be back, and he wants to be baptized. So I am just thinking that I will probably be here when he returns, but I don't think that Stubbs will be. But he believes everything that we have taught him, and he has changed so much, which is awesome. I just hope that he keeps it up while at boot camp, he said that he would go to church while there, and we are going to write him every week, and send him different material. Then we ate dinner at the Bess's home, and I told you about that. It was awesome, holy cow their neighborhood is unreal."


"Tuesday - Had District meeting in the morning, and it was really solid. We are the only ones in the District, which is Sisters that cover Dothan 1st and 2nd Ward, and the Dothan 1st Elders. We are the only ones getting investigators, or teaching member present lessons, everyone else doesn't have anything going. Anyway, so it was a good meeting. Then we met with the recent convert Linda Pollium again, she is sweet as pie. She gets so mad when sacrament meeting is noisy, like she said that she was going to get up and leave. So we are trying to work with her. And her neighbors that came to church, we are trying to get in with them!!! But we haven't been able to. So then we ate dinner at a members house, Levi Hansen. And he is in the Elders Quorum Presidency so we met with them, it was supposed to be all of them. So we met with them and tried to get something going with them, missionary wise. Then we played ball at that church with everyone, and we talked to Nathan again, and taught him little things here and there."


"Wednesday - So it was Trade-Offs, so I didn't know much about trade offs, so I went to the 1st ward with Elder Hyer, and Elder Davidson came down with Stubbs. I didn't know that you spent the night, I got the hee bee gee bees from sleeping in another man's sheets. Eh. That grossed me out. But so I went with Elder Hyer. So we tried to see probably 12 people and like 2 were home, but we did meet this recent convert family, they were pretty awesome. Not what I expected going into it, walked in Dad covered in tattoos, killing dragons and what not on the computer, grandpa sitting there with his shirt of. But they are some good people, who are doing some really awesome things with their lives. The Gospel has really blessed them. So then we had dinner at a members house, Ingrams. They cooked us ribs, and corn, baked beans, and I even tried potato salad.. They have 3 daughters, and then a lone son. I told him to just endure and things will get better. :) So that was basically the trade off, I was really happy to get back to the 2nd ward."


"Thursday - So this day we had planned out awesome.. But as for most days, no. Nobody will ever see us. So it didn't turn out as planned. We tried a lot of formers, but nothing is coming from them. So we rode the bikes for a while and tried to find people and tract, but you know how that goes, nothing. So we rewarded ourselves with Kraze Yogurt, and regrouped. We visited a member family Homer Meeks, he has cancer. He has been in Dothan his whole life, and was here when the church was first established here, so that was cool to talk to him about that. We then had dinner with Donna Yost, we were hoping her non member husband was there, but he wasn't. So after that we went and saw Nathan for the last time, we had a lesson at the marine recruiters office, where Tony Hansen works. And we just talked to him about the Book of Mormon and shared our favorite stories with him, and then I had the idea to give him a priesthood blessing. So we did that because he was leaving, so we did it. And he said, "That was weird." And so I'm like oh crap. But then he said, "I almost cried." Hahaha so it was good. He was really happy, and said that was exactly what he needed to hear, so I think that's good right? :)"


"Friday - Ah man this was a bad day. We had nothing going. We did Clergy duty, and nothing happened, we talked to very few people. We tried to find formers after that. And then we went to Cameron Coggins house the Japan bound missionary from the ward, his Mission President is the Wadas! Who used to be in our ward, I don't know if you talk to them at all, but I told him that we knew him. So we went over to meet his two friends Michael, and Calhoun, who are non members, Michael had to leave, but we grilled up burgers, mac and cheese, and tots. And talked to Calhoun, and tried to teach him, but he wasn't interested. But before we talked to them, we tracted out his neighborhood, and this is where something clicked, I was like forget this, we gotta do something different with these door approaches, so every since that time, every single experience that we have had tracting has been positive, even if its a negative experience its a positive negative, and we have found like 5 potentials, and I think 3 of them told us to come back, so we have a lot of work to do this week. It is amazing to see how many people have heard of the church, or who have friends that have told them all about it, or who have a Book of Mormon in their house, but then just say we are happy where we are. Everyone, not everyone, but almost has heard of the church, and been exposed to it. Also we got up early and met as a district at Loyless Donuts in Dothan, they make homemade donuts and are usually sold out at about 8 am in the morning, they were delicious!! Crazy that they sell out that quick, it is pretty famous I think.."


"Saturday - Another day that we had planned out to be a blockbuster day. Nah. Aint having none of that. It never turns out how we plan, because nobody is ever home, so we just have to improvise. So we met with Anita a recent convert and read form the Book of Mormon at Linda's house. And Carol Hughey was there, who is Linda's niece or something like that, and she is the mom of the family that we've been trying to get in with, but we cant seem to do it. She is a member, but isn't active, because her husband cheated on her, I think I told you about her. But the second we open up the scriptures, she's gone, we invited her to stay, but she never does. So we don't really know how to get in with that family. We tried to visit a new investigator that Stubbs picked up on tradeoffs. We talked to the husband as he was fixing his ghetto sled. Just a ford continental or something with like 40 inch rims, they are everywhere, all the people, seem to enjoy them, I don't know? Any whom we talked to him, he told us to come back, so we did that night, and he came to the door, and just laughed at us. And said, "Man, what are ya'll even doing out here?" So he thought we were funny, I guess. :) Haha, but we are going to go back and see them, you better believe it. So then we visited a recent convert Carol and Taren Burnsed, super nice family, the son got baptized too, but right now, doesn't like the church, so we have some work to do there. Then we had dinner at the Hutto's and there was lots of food, breakfast for dinner. It was really good. I had grits for the first time, they don't taste like anything. But everybody down here is obsessed with them. Then we saw Sister Knight, with the sisters. Saturday night I was super depressed, because I just felt worthless, because it is so hard, when we have expectations to see these people, and then it doesn't work, and we have nothing to do. I just feel worthless a lot. But I snapped out of that quick, and I'm just gonna keep on pressing forward."


"Sunday - We had no investigators at church this time. Sacrament was really quiet today, which is a great positive for the ward! Some really great things are happening in the ward right now, a medical school opened up, so we have had tons of young families moving into the ward, which is phenomenal. And the last two sundays there has been close to 220 members at church, which they normally have like 160. Which I don't think has much to do with us, but it really is awesome!! Right after church we had dinner with the Davis family, they are a super solid family. So we talked to them a lot about missionary work, and hopefully go them back on the train with us. So that was good. Then we went and tracted, the historic Dothan area. Some houses are hundreds of years old, and they are beautiful. So we found are solidest potential there! It was sweet, and we are going to go back and visit him, everyone we met was super nice, and had experiences with the church. So then we tried to see Nathan Spivey that referral from the Douglas Bishop, but the girlfriend answered and we gave her a B of M, and told us to come back, it was super quick, and so we don't really know where they stand. We are confused. But you better believe you can't get rid of us with that. So then we thought we were moving a new family into their house, but that got canceled, so we taught Tony Hansen a little, he has only been a member a year, but is the most solid missionary in the ward. Then we found like three more potentials tracting, it really has been weird? We are killing it tracting lately, but its really odd. And freakin awesome!! So then we tried to visit with Linda's neighbor, Gloria, but we couldn't, they were busy, but apparently they are very poor, and they don't have money to fix their plumbing, so they have to take tubs of water from their sink and dump it out back, I WANT TO HELP THEM SO BAD! So we are trying to find a member of the ward who is a plumber, who would at least come look at it."


"Well family that's my week! I wish I had more cool stories, or sweet lessons that we taught! But haha, we are trying to get things moving. This mission thing is pretty fun though, if I wouldn't be having fun, I probably wouldn't be here right now. But it is awesome to watch how the Gospel blesses lives. It has blessed my life and our families life so much. I am so thankful for the Gospel and for all of you, and all that you do. Really I love all of you so much, it drives me crazy not being home!! But I love what I'm doing here, because we have been too blessed, to not try and share that with others, who are missing it. 
LOVE THIS GOSPEL, AND LOVE ALL OF YOU MORE THAN IMAGINABLE."


LOVE, ELDER HINTZE