"Who knew that the Ensigns were so good huh?"

Here is Elder Hintze's email from Monday, September 9th. He is doing great!

"Hey Family! I'm going to get right into it, another fantastic week here in sunny southern Alabama. I Love this place!


Monday - So this was Labor Day. Wooow Happy Holiday! So nothing too big this day, as always I hit up my stores and check out all of the hoodrat t-shirts! I haven't had an oppurtunity to go skating yet.. sadly Stay tuned for that. So we met with a recent convert family in the evening and they fed us some spaghetti. Then we hadn't met with them, Mike and Paula Thomley in a while, so they had a ton of questions for us.


Tuesday - We had district meeting, and it was a solid one. we put our district goals and actuals on the board.. hahaha. I'm sorry but man those are some bad numbers. The work is slow here, for just about everyone but Elder Stubbs and I, we have tons of really great things going right now! So on the way to district meeting we got a call from Carol Burnsed saying that she needed a blessing. So after that we went over there and did that, and when we got there she just broke down and man she has some hard stuff to deal with right now. She had her son thrown in jail, and has been really sick lately, and she is raising her two grandkids, and her grandaughter, one of them, is on meth and no one knows where she is. So just really hard stuff, so we were there for a while trying to help her out! It was good to be able to help her, and I think that we were able to! Then we went with Luke Thompson to try and find some people, the whole ward is on the chase for the lost people now, so we are on the hunt! We didn't have any luck though! Then we met with Barbra Phillips and we retaught her Lesson 3, Faith, Repentance, Baptism, etc. So we are just trying to get her all set for Saturday! Then the Myers took us to Del Taco to eat, Paul Myers is probably the funniest man that I know, he is the one who has had two strokes, so it is kind of sad to see him, but he is so upbeat all the time!


Wednesday - We worked at the food bank in the morning. And then after that we went to the Myers house again to help them with service, I ripped out a bunch of bushes and cut a bunch of hedges, they got a gas trimmer, that baby will take you for a ride! We also went and helped him at his old law office and did the yard work there, it was sad to see, because he can't work anymore. But as I said awesome people! And then they took us to McDonald's afterwards.. they are trying to make us fat I tell you. But on the way home they had to pick up rent money from a tenant of theres, and this old black guy named Lorenzo comes out to shake Pauls hand, and he says, "Hey Lorenzo do you want to be baptized?" It was awesome! So after that we went again to Barbra's with Forest and we taught here Tithing. And she did the math in her head and she basically told us that she will be living off of like 50 dollars a month after tithing and bills. And then she laughed and accepted it. So she has so much faith it is crazy! With this week leading up to her baptism she has been struggling a lot, you can tell that the adversary is just working on her like crazy. I will talk a little about that later. So after that Forest solicited us to help him pick up a washer and dryer. Oh boy so then a lady in the ward told us that she was buying us pizza for dinner, so she told us to meet her at Sams Club because that was the pizza that she wanted to buy us, so we get there and she has a chihuahua and says alright one of you needs to watch the dog, while the other stays with me.. So we told her that we can't split up. So here we are two guys shirts and ties and we are standing outside of Sams Club for probably like 30 minutes with this dog on the leash. hahahahahaha. I was laughing so hard. Then we finished up the evening with the ward coordination meeting, which is super effective, it is really awesome that we are doing that!


Thursday - We worked at the food bank again in the morning! Then we got weekly planning and that jazz, so we don't get out of the house forever. It's the worst. I just want to get to work! So we saw Linda for the first time in like 2 weeks, we are trying to help her understand the importance of baptism for the dead, we want her to go to the temple! But she gets upset that she can't do the male names, and she has no family members and she was mad that we couldn't go do them with her, it was actually quite funny! So we are working with her! Still my favorite person in Dothan! Then we saw Paul Kennedy, and he got his vision back, or at least some of it, so he was super happy about that and we read with him Elder Holland's talk from the September Ensign, and it didn't work as planned he just started talking about prison afterwards.. so that was a rough one. Who knew that the Ensigns were so good huh? It's like where have those magazines been all my life? ;) Really though I love the Ensigns!!!!! So we saw our thrift shop friend again Teresa, and we dropped her off a big Book of Mormon. And then here is the kicker we went to Marine PT. Because a lot of them play basketball with us, so we said lets get to know some of them better. ya bad idea... We both couldn't walk for like two days after that. We did some cross fit stuff, and it was like a 90 degree day here, I could have rung out my shirt. But needless to say I think we might go back, because it is a great oppurtunity to find people! So the sisters came over that night and told us about their visit with Barbra and she had told them that she didn't want to get baptized anymore and that she can't pay her tithing, and that she doesn't know enough... So I was super depressed about that, I said some real prayers that night for her. The adversary has been doing a number on her!


Friday - So instead of our normal donuts in the morning, we went to McDonald's breakfast, family I'm worried about my health, do you think it is the fast food? So after visiting a few people, we met with Barbra, and we talked with her, and needless to say she is still getting baptized!! She just felt like she didn't know enough, so we went through the baptism questions with her, and showed her that she knew them all, and we testified about the tithing, and told her to do it and see if the Lord doesn't bless her beyond measure. And then I had the idea to sing some hymns to her, so we sung her a bunch of hymns, and that was awesome. The Spirit was there! It was felt so strongly! I love that!!!!! It is unlike anything else! So chalk one up for the good guys and negative one for Satan, badaboom! So then we went to the Hospital and worked, nothing of report there. After that we visited a potential named LaRhonda that we saw from a while a go, and she is so nice, so we gave here a Book of Mormon, and hopefully we can begin to teach her, she is having a baby here in 2 weeks though. SO then! We went to the local high school football game hahahaha. With the Hughey's they bought us tickets and we went with them, it was Dothan vs. Northview the biggest rivarly in Alabama we heard.. both Dothan high schools, so we don't know if we will do it again, but it was awesome! We were hoping it would be a good finding oppurtunity, but I was too wrapped up in the football, the guy next to me, me and him just commentary all game.


Saturday - In the morning we tried to visit a bunch of people and we set up a bunch of appointments for Sunday. We went to see someone in the government housing district in town, so we pulled up in the parking lot, and there was these two black kids sitting on the porch probably 18 years old, and as soon as they saw the chevy car, and the white shirts everybody scatters. They booked it inside... Hahahahaha everyone thinks that we are cops. It is classic! So we went to visit Scott Magnus, the big burger man, his wife is a non member, and I was kind of frustrated because I was like what are we going to say, I was tired of the how are ya, we just wanted to see if we could help you, okay bye. So we get up there and are talking to him, and Elder Stubbs just says, "What are you doing tomorrow at 3?" And he is like, I don't know what's up. So he says, "We would like to come teach your wife more about the church." Goes inside asks, comes out, says, way to be aggressive, great way to handle your business see you tomorrow. It was so awesome!!! It was cool! Then we went and had our free lunch at the hospital, and then visited the Burnsed's again, they are doing much better, so we just read from the Book of Mormon with them, and we will continue to visit them! Then the Bainbridge Georgia Branch President called us and told us that he needed help loading up a piano. :) Hahaha so we had to lift a piano up into the bed of a truck, I'm huge basically. Then we went and met with Tony and Alicia Hansen's friends for the first time, Tiffany and Mitchell, and they are all for it, Mitchell is very receptive to the church and everything, and Tiffany is skeptical because she has never been to church her whole life. So we taught them the first lesson and it really was awesome that they met the Hansen's because they are exactly the same! oh ya and we had two dinners tonight haha, one at the Lint's and one at the Marturell's. My health...


Sunday - Sunday we had 3 investigators at church, it had been like a month solid now that we have had 2 or more investigators at church! We had Tiffany and Mitchell and Barbra there! Solid church meetings too. But in the morning Barbra wasn't there because her legs were hurting her, but if she doesn't come, then basically we would have had to bump the baptismal date back! So we rallied our troops of Cam and Luke and we left church and went and picked her up and helped her get to sacrament meeting, we told her that we would carry her if we have to, but we got her there! Then after church we had 3 straight member present lessons with investigators, 3 in one day, unheard of! So we met with Deborah first, Linda's neighbor and we just got to know her better and talked to her about prayer and then we had her pray with us, she feels that her prayers aren't answered, but she has been taught to not ask God questions, all the baptists believe that. That is so stupid!!! If there is anyone to turn to for answers it is our Heavenly Father, so we told her that, and she did her extravagant prayer. So prayer is going to be a great place to start for her. Then we saw Scott Magnus and his wife Bonifay, and she said that she is totally open to learning more about the church, we just answered a lot of her questions and all of them were based on the temple and why it was so secret, but we explained all that to her. And Scott has been less active for awhile, and he said that he would read the Book of Mormon with her, because he had never read it all the way through! SO AWESOME! Then we saw Barbra with Forest and we taught her the Law of Chastity. Oh boy, she is so hilarious, it was a hilarious lesson with her. But now we have officially taught her everything, she knows it all and so now we just keep going through the baptismal questions with her!!!!! After that we went and chilled with Cam and studied with him, and I helped him get all of his mission papers squared away, and then we saw Sister Knight! Cam told me that he was going to call you Dad, and I wanted him to do it while I was right there, but I decided against it, I would have been to tempted to say something!!!


Family!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Great things are happening here!!! I love it!!! I miss each and everyone one of you so much!! It is crazy how much I love and miss you alll! But I love what is happening here, remember how sad I was that we had nothing at the beginning? But not now!! We have so much going on, and I am really looking forward to helping all of our investigators to progress!! I love this Gospel! And I love being a missionary!!

LOVE YOU ALLLLL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!