"I used the analogy from Hitch... you gotta come 90% and she'll come 10%, only there ain't no kissing! :)"

Here is Elder Hintze's email from Monday, February 24th. Almost nine months in Dothan, Alabama!

Hello Family,

How is everyone? I must say I am doing so well! We had a phenomenal week this week. The Lord really blessed us and we are starting to see lots of successes! Not to mention the weather is still delightful! Anyway lets talk about it should we:

Monday - Nothing special at all, we just updated our area book and did our a lot of planning and scheduling in the evening!! 

Tuesday - No District meeting do to Zone Conference. Some appointments fell through, but we went and we saw Theresa, we set her up to be in the Blunk's home for Feb. 19th... but we were teaching her a lesson, getting ready to read out of the Book of Mormon and in walks this lady, and she says, "Is that the Mormon bible?" So she comes over and starts talking, and then she feels the need to sit down and start adding her two cents into the lesson, and she was a Jehovah Witness. So she starts going off and telling all Theresa all about the things they believe. I took her on the journey in the scriptures to show that Jehovah is Jesus Christ I'll share that with you briefly: read Isaiah 12:2-6 with her, say "it says Jehovah is the Holy One of Israel. So I was thinking well, who is the Holy One of Israel?" Read Isaiah 41:14 with her. "So it says the Holy One of Israel is the Redeemer, so I start to wonder who is the Redeemer?" read Isaiah 43:3 with her "So this says the Holy One of Israel is the Savior?" then I say, "So in your mind who is the Redeemer and Savior?" Isaiah 43:11, there is no other Savior. So then her answer is "Heavenly Father" WHAT!?!?!? Anyway it was really frustrating to have her there, we just let her do her thing, then once she left we were able to point something really good out. We said Theresa right as we started to read, she walked in, said that is not a coincidence, just as Heavenly Father wants you to accept His gospel, Satan does not. So we testified that there is going to be opposition, thankfully she recognized it too. In the evening we were able to teach Daniel Guyout again. He told us a lot more about his past, he has been through a lot. We talked to him about the Atonement, Baptism, Gift of the Holy Ghost, Book of Mormon, all of these things, it was kind of all over the place, but it was so Spirit driven, and he feels it and knows it, was all they way into 2 Nephi, still reading like a mad man, he didn't come to church yet, but tomorrow we have a church tour with him to get him in the building.

Wednesday - We saw Manice at the library. We were able to talk to him and he still wants to investigate and figure out if it is true, but he does his school literally 24/7. We saw a new less active guy his name is Jim Smith, we had to meet him at the Troy Dothan campus, but he lives all the commandments, still pays his tithing, but doesn't come to church cuz his ex wife is there, so need to get him to come back! We saw Barbara with Charles Bain. I think I might have already told you all, but our family picture is now framed and up in Barbara's living room.. soo hahahahaha :) We had dinner in the evening with the Blunk's and with Theresa and it was awesome.. It was so cool to teach someone in their home like that, just changed the whole spirit about it! We retaught the Restoration and taught it so clearly. She is seeking for answers, she asked if she would get an answer if she prayed, read from the bible, and went to another church.. uh No. I used the analogy from Hitch... you gotta come 90% and she'll come 10% only their ain't no kissing! :) So she is definitely searching, but don't know if she is putting in the effort! After that we met with Linda and Gloria in the FH center and we also gave Gloria a blessing.

Thursday - We did service pretty much all of the day. We helped Linda clean up her shed, and then her neighbor came over, so we helped her clean up all of her yard, and then we washed Gloria's windows and we trimmed down so many trees, like I was just going nuts, like Huntsville house crazy, they had the biggest pile of trimmed trees. I loved it! Then we get cleaned up and we get a call from Tony Hansen who says meet me at the mall, my friend wants to learn about the church. So we rush up there and meet him, his name is Steven Caldwell. And before anything else, he is so probably most likely getting baptized. So we talked to him briefly there, met him, got to know him, then they had to leave quick, so we rolled to our dinner appointment with the Prigmore's. Then after we went to Tony's house and we taught Steven... Tony is so awesome, he had already talked to him about everything. So we shared with him the Restoration, and he is so sincere, it was awesome! He is joining the marines. So prepared.

Friday - We had Zone Conference all day pretty much... it was really awesome, I sometimes wish that I could serve all 3 years with President Smith, I love that man so much. Our mission is a testing mission for Family History for all of the missions worldwide. So that's the way we are headed, introduced a lot of things for us to do, how to teach baptisms for the dead, it is so clearly explained in the Bible! The Church is True.

Dothan Zone - February 2014

Dothan Zone Conference February 2014 - Elder Smith, Elder Hintze, and other missionaries.

Then we had the Young Women's dessert auction in the evening, and Theresa came to that, and she loved it, she bought so many desserts! It was such a fun event! Athen was there as well, I have committed him to begin praying about meeting with us. I talked to Cathy Coggins on the phone for on hour, it was so awesome!!! So they are coming!!!

Saturday - Saturday morning we met with Steven again and we watched the Prophet of the Restoration video with him, that video is so powerful... he started clapping when it finished, he is also reading the Book of Mormon!!! Then we played basketball, its up and running again, I got permission from President, I had to go to the top!! After that we saw Barbara Phillips and Barbara Erb. We also talked to the Brown's... and talked to him alone on the porch. I challenged him and his wife to meet with us and take the lessons and go from there, he seemed excited about it and is going to get back to us! We ate dinner at the Thompson's, and then went with him to see Brother Nunez.

Sunday - Church, so Steven came to church.. I'll just get to the kicker! So he came to church and he told me that he had been looking up things online about the Mormons and I told him to be very careful you will find a ton of lies and false information on there, so I gave him all of the church websites.. he really seemed to enjoy church. Then that night he texts us and says... "I would like to say the website you gave me Mormon.org has answered a lot of questions I was curious about, as I read into the Church of Jesus Christ and Ladder Day Saints the more I feel that this is somewhere I can see myself belonging." SAY WHAT??!???!?!?!?!?? Are you kidding me, I was freaking out... We immediately said a prayer of thanks and while I said it, I was crying. It really was so powerful. I'm so excited for what's to come with him!! We had to do our weekly planning after church. Then we went and we saw Marcus with Brother Thomley, and we talked to him about receiving answers and how the Spirit communicates with him.. we read Alma 32 with him.. and he loved it... about faith and planting a seed, so we said Marcus the seed is planted, so not it is time for you to nourish it and see if it doesn't sprout into a tree, the Spirit is working on him. He just has to work on Sundays. But get this, his boss is Bonifay who we taught when she was in Dothan, and we visit with her often, so we are gonna try and pull some strings. Then we went to the Hughey's and they had steak and chicken prepared for us, and we had an awesome conversation with them about the bible questions they had, and about prophets, all of it came from Christian the boy, I love that family so much! Our lessons we have been teaching have been phenomenal lately, I have really gained a lot of confidence, and feel that my teaching skills are on point these days!

The Lord has blessed us greatly this week and blessed me a lot. Recently it has been like the hardest thing I've ever done in my life, but things are so good, looking up and up. Just in time for transfers I guess.. we will see what happens, next Monday! :/ But I sure do love all of you so much!!!!


Love, Elder Hintze

"If I didn't have that walker I would drag you out there."

Here is Elder Hintze's email from Monday, February 17th. Thanks for reading.

Hello Family!!!

How is everyone doing!? Great, good to hear, I sure do love you guys a whole lot and can't quite get over how awesome you all are. Hope everyone had a Happy Valentines day. Anyway we had a pretty fantastic week this week, really it was, we were able to teach way more people than we had in a long time! So lets get to it:

Monday - Nothing happened, two of our appointments fell through, so we found a new less active guy, he said to visit him at work!

Tuesday - We had our District Meeting in the morning! We have had some crazy meetings this week, on Sunday they called all of the missionary leaders in, having them miss their church, and all of the stake presidents for a big meeting, basically we were all worried about what was going down. But basically it was just a meeting that we aren't doing enough! For all of the southeastern missions, so all of Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, and Louisiana, ya know just all of that, and we are averaging 1.3 baptisms per missionary per year. We were able to teach Jon Davis that one guy we found on the street! So we will see what happens. We ate dinner with the Marturello's in the evening, and after that we taught Daniel Guyout again! We met Brother Evans and it was awesome to have him there, in two days he had read all of 1 Nephi, so awesome!! He feels that he got an answer to keep studying, Bro Evans and him were able to connect with their military background. The lesson seemed to just be flowing the spirit was there, it was clicking, it was awesome. So we are excited!

Wednesday - Wednesday I was in first ward, and we didn't have the car, it was a miserable cold freezing day. And nothing happened!

Thursday - We had to make some boxes in the morning at the food bank. Then we did our weekly planning. We were able to meet with Linda and have a lesson with her, she is doing so awesome, really it has been so fun to see these converts to just fully accept the Gospel and go head on. Linda and Mike Thomley (another one) were baptized right before I got here, and both of them are doing so awesome, I have had so much fun continuing to teach these two! We ate dinner at the Lewis's house, the dairy farmers. In the evening we went to see the Hughey's and we were able to again have such a good conversation with him, we were able to watch a lot of videos from mormonchannel on youtube, he is fascinated with videos about the creation and things like that! He is so close yet but doesn't even know it! I want him to read Moses.. so going to try and do that!

Friday - We worked at the food bank in the morning! And then we had our hospital shift, nothing big happened there. Then on the way home we popped by the library to meet with Manice, and set up a time to meet with him, but we ended up having an awesome conversation with him ,the Spirit was there and we were able to ask him a lot of questions and figure out where he is at, and it came down to his relationship with God, he didn't know fully if He existed, so we gained a lot of ground with him. Then we went to the Valentine Dinner at the church, for couples and single adults.. it was on our calendar, so we went and it was awesome! There were so many non members there, just about all of the part members, the Nunez's were there, and they came to all three hours of church this Sunday! Also the Brown's were there... and it was awesome, they are hilarious, and the members are welcoming them in so much! They weren't at church on Sunday, but next Sunday they said... they also opened it up for some dancing and it was hilarious watching all of the couples and the old people dancing, Barbara said, "If I didn't have that walker I would drag you out there." Hahahahaahaha. But it was awesome, I also would be lieing if I said that I didn't bust a few moves, and steal the show, the members were dieing, so ya know, I was breaking it down.

Saturday - In the morning we went to a baptism in 1st ward, a family of 3 that got baptized, super fantastic service! Really happy for the family! Pres. & Sis Akeuma then took us to lunch, he is in the mission presidency. We had a lesson with Anita McBride and then we met with Manice.

Sunday - Great church service, sadly didn't have anybody out! But it was good, there was a baptism after for a girl being baptized from the ward. After that we went with Tony and we met with Marcus and "Slab" two guys that we met on the bikes, we met with them and we talked to them about the Restoration, and it really hit home with them, particularly Marcus.. he is a really solid individual and is very spiritual, he said he is going to begin to search, and at the beginning he said he didn't want to change church, it totally changed. Then we helped Tony to do some work at his house. Then we taught Marcus in the evening with Brother Thomley, it was awesome. They knew each other, and didn't know it until they went in. We taught him the end of plan of salvation and then a little restoration, and we committed him to be baptized and he accepted!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So we are preparing for him to be baptized on March 22nd, we are going to have some work to do... but way excited!!! It was a great lesson, and the Spirit again was there working on him, and not a coincidence at all that Brother Thomley and him knew each other!!!

So it really was a good week this week!!! Very excited for the things that are happening, hopefully we will begin to continue to progress! Love ya'll!!!!

Love, Elder Hintze

Here is Elder Hintze's letter from Monday, February 10th.

Hello Family!

 

How is everyone!? I am doing fantastic this afternoon. Let me first tell you about the weather that we have been experiencing this week, nothing short of delightful, it is has been 70 degrees, not a cloud in the sky, light breeze, it has felt absolutely delightful!!! Had a pretty good week for us this week, I am very excited about this next week ahead of us!

 

Monday - As I mentioned we had our appointment set up with Marcus for Monday and he was not there... so we had to reschedule with him again for this evening, so we will try and see him tonight! We went with Brother Thompson and he cannot go with us tonight.

Tuesday - We had our zone training, which was just with the zone leaders, we have our big zone conference with President Smith coming up in a couple of weeks on the 21st! But the zone leader training was really great. We ate dinner with the Myer's they fed us some big steaks for helping them move furniture. We were able to visit Linda Pulliam and Sister Rush. In the evening we tried to find some individuals, that is a huge problem down here, individuals are just gone, we have their names on the ward roster, but we don't have any number or address, so I found a roster with notes from Elder Leyba who was here for a year, and combined them with my notes, so we have done some awesome things with tracking people down, it has been a huge push from the General Authorities. I have called everyone on our ward roster, hahaha, so many disconnected phone #'s and so many people that want nothing to do with the church! so sad. Also March 8th in Tallahasee, Elder Ballard is coming to speak to us, just us missionaries!!!!! Way pumped about that!!

Wednesday - We worked at the food bank in the morning! We were able to talk to the new librarian here in Dothan, the libraries are so nice, and we are hopefully going to begin to teach family history classes. We saw Barbara in the evening, still progressing slowly. 

Thursday - We worked at the food bank again in the morning! And we did our weekly planning! We were able to see Brother Dobbs, and we have been trying family history with him. We ate dinner at the Sturridge's they are from Jamaica. After that we saw the Hughey's, we didn't get much of a teaching time with them, but we're able to see them, and we gave Jef the restoration pamphlet, but there was just too much crazyiness, to get to talk to him about it.

Friday - We had our Hospital shift. And in the evening we were able to meet with Theresa, she bought us dinner and wanted to have a lesson with us, so we did that. And we got to talk to her a lot about the Restoration, which is exactly what we were planning on talking about with her. After it she told us, "well it sounds like I need to do some serious praying and reading." I continually have high hopes for her.

Saturday - We met with Barbara in the morning with Brother Prigmore. And after that we tried a new guy in our complex named Daniel Guyout, retired Marine and he is a riot, but he is very, very interested in learning about the church. It was a really powerful lesson that we had with him. So we were able to talk to him about the Book of Mormon and the power that comes from reading it each and every day. He has great potential. We had a lesson with Anita McBride in the library. We were able to get a hold of Manice, the guy we taught from a few weeks back, and he came to church with us, getting ahead there. But on the way we met these guys that had met with missionaries before, I was razzing them for wearing so much bling, but it ended up being really awesome and a sincere talk with them, I'll keep you posted, one of their names is "Slab." :) We ate dinner with the Hansen's in the evening, and then we went out with Brother Sullins to visit some people.

Sunday - Church was good as I said, we had Manice there, which was really, really cool. He enjoyed it and the ward was so great to him as far as welcoming him in! He loved the artwork of the Savior, so we have a church tour set up in the week with him. We didn't have the Nunez's or Brown's, but I talked to Brother Nunez on the phone and he said he had a cold, and we talked to the Browns that evening, they were out of town. After that we had lunch with the Thomley's and then went with Brother Thomley, we went to see a guy we tracked into named Keon.  We visited with him, it was an awesome lesson, we just shared with him the Restoration, and he was like locked on us the whole time and when we started telling him about Joseph Smith, I thought that he was frozen.. The Spirit really was working on him and it was there so strong! I also went and gave a blessing to Maxine, I just want to say that the Priesthood is real, it was a very, very neat experience to be able to give her a blessing.

Love ya'll a whole lot!!!!

Love,

Elder Hintze

"The big hit so far has appeared to be the weather here in Dothan"

Here is Elder Hintze from Monday, February 3rd. Hope you enjoy.

"Hope everyone is well and happy! The big hit so far has appeared to be the weather here in Dothan.. let me just talk about that for a second, but first lets just enjoy a good laugh together, Hahahahahahahaha. 3 stinking snow days for school down here, members texting us warning us of the treacherous weather, nobody would drive to lessons with us, we had to be in at 6 pm on Tuesday, all roads shut down at that time, and nothing happened Wednesday all day inside! People are so crazy, it was just rain for the longest time, and everyone was nuts, the water and crackers get bought out at the store. Workers at the Hospital here in Dothan slept over. Anyway, just know that it literally was NOTHING. And it was like the storm of the century. And then this weekend it was in the 70s. I can take that!

So Wednesday was all day inside, and basically all day Tuesday this week, and we weren't able to teach anyone on Monday night.

This snowman was made by someone in Dothan, Alabama and posted on Facebook!

Thursday was cool, we were able to go out with Justin Beals in the ward, he is a senior in high school and I was praying that we would have some great experiences. We were just trying some potentials after the appointment fell through, one being this girl named Kelsey who we tracted into, we weren't able to teach her much, but talked to her a lot about what we do and what we come and teach, so we shared the Book of Mormon with her, and we are going back this week to teach her and her boyfriend, they are both looking for a church.

We also visited this young kid named Fuller, who we tracted into.. and it was so weird, his dad answered and just said come on in guys! Like way friendly to us, and made Fuller sit down and listen to us, despite his interests.. so we taught him the Restoration lesson it was all over the place, he wasn't interested, he had to go to life guard training, and his dad was cooking dinner, I invited him to listen as well, and so he did from the kitchen, but we got all through it, and Fuller did not seem at all interested, but then his dad comes in and is like well you better do what they have told you to do, you better read that Book... so it was so weird! His dad was so gung ho about it, you would have thought that he was a member of the church, the dad said that he had friends who were Mormon.. so I am excited for the family as a whole and the dad, not so much Fuller, because he is like 16 and not real interested, but we are headed back this week!

We also got to teach Marcus this week, we taught him the Plan of Salvation, easily probably one of the best lessons that I have been in, Brother Thompson comes with us, (Luke's dad), it was so inspired that he came, they hit it off just great, and Bro. Thompson talked a lot about losing a daughter and Marcus had lost a daughter. The Spirit was in the lesson, and Marcus invited us back for tonight. One of the cleariest times in a lesson that I have felt the Spirit really helping me to put words in my mouth and help me remember the lessons! Marcus is very sincere, but does not quite understand the full restoration yet, as we are clearing it up this evening, but the Spirit is touching him and since the first time that we have talked with him, you can see a difference in him!

We attended a leadership broadcast that was sent from Orlando to our church building in Dothan, there were 7 members of the Seventy there, and Elder L. Tom Perry was there, and oh my gosh, it was so awesome. Elder Perry has got to be one of the funniest people that I have ever seen, he was calling people out of the audience and banging his fist, it was so awesome! He said, "I don't know why I got called to be an apostle, I hate meetings, I hate preaching, and I hate traveling." He talked about the force that our church has with other churches, with our religious freedom act, talked about how the Cardinal of the catholic church and the evangelical leader send him Christmas cards addressed "Dear Tom." The other thing he does when they eat at restaurants and the waitresses poors him coffee is he says, "What do you think your doing? I'm a Mormon. We don't drink that stuff. My body can't take it. We are the happiest, healthiest people in the whole world!" He then asks them if they know any Mormons and he hands them his card and says take this card to your friend and tell them that you met this man, hahahahaahah!! But they talked a lot about Ward Councils and Hastening the Work of Salvation! It was so interesting, they had big Q & A and they talked about the roles of each member, he was calling Bishops out of the audience. He said, "Enthusiasm is the greatest disease you can spread!"

But we also were blessed with some very cool potentials for this next week! Also Brother Nunez was at church again on Sunday. As well as the Brown family that I told you about.. I feel that, I am in Dothan for them, I don't know why. But the 2 kids and the wife and Ryan were there. I am really excited for what is to come with them, we are going to follow up and try and invite her a little more. Their daughter loves us so much, she walked into church and said to her mom "where are they?" I am very excited for what is to come! 

Love ya'll a whole lot! Sorry I didn't do the day by day thing, but I got in the highlights of the week! 

Love, 

Elder Hintze

"We are preparing for snow and ice tonight and tomorrow, nobody told me that it snowed here?!?!?!?!"

I am sorry I have been slow posting from Elder Hintze. Here is from Monday, January 27th. Thanks for your support.

"How is every one doing!? I am doing great today, it is 60 degrees outside loving the weather, we are preparing for snow and ice tonight and tomorrow, nobody told me that it snowed here?!?!?!?! What the heck? Does nobody remember when I got called to the FLORIDA Tallahassee Mission, oh well!

Monday - We had our District activity and we went mini golfing.. get this guys. Elder Hintze came up on top, I won out of the district and I finished with a score of PAR. Probably my best mini golfing score in my life. Then in the night we packed up some stuff and we started to move apartments once more!

Tuesday - Was an all day move.. we had District Meeting in the morning! And we ate dinner at Bishop's house in the evening, which was really, really good! A lady that we found and passed on to the sister's about 2 weeks ago, is set to be baptized, so that is really cool, she is the sweetest lady.. we talked to her while she was getting into her car!

Wednesday - We got back into the swing of things! We have tried to cut down our less active visits and focus on the progressing ones, and so we are focusing a lot on just potentials and investigators.. So in the morning we tried a bunch of potentials that we had found. We tried to see that Media Referral that we got, and she was not home and would not schedule an appointment with her again, so we will see if we can wrangle her down! We went and saw Barbara Phillips with Charles Bain, she again just continues to do better and better each and every day, so sweet to be a part of it. And yes she does talk just like she writes in her letters! :) We had Ward Correlation meeting in the evening.

Thursday - We had several appointments with potentials that did not work out in the morning. So we did Weekly Planning. We knocked on this ladies door and started talking to her, and apparently she used to be an old member... crazy! We just stumbled into her, she said that she still has her scriptures and her temple garments and she was smoking and says that she plans to come back to the church in three and a half years.. so I don't think that is exactly the way that it works, but the sister's are going to start working with her, since she lives alone. It is always so fun to see how the Lord leads us when things don't always turn out exactly as planned. We did a lot of finding efforts, and we saw Brother Dobbs, the less active guy! And many others, so we will see how effective it is with returning members! And we had an appointment with Marcus, but he was not there, we are meeting with him this evening, so we are very excited to meet with him! We saw the Hughey's, and only Jef was home, so we were able to talk with him for quite a long time! It really was so awesome, I challenged him to read the Book of Mormon, and asked him if he had ever read it, because it sits in their home, and we were able to read a lot about the pre earth life with him, he loves to know about the Plan of Salvation. 

Friday - We had our Hospital shift and it was a busy one. We were called down to help a family that had just lost a loved one, so we went in and we prayed with them and just offered counsel anyway that we could. It was a family and they had 3 ordained ministers in there and a lot of the family left when the 2 Mormon dudes showed  up, but we were able to talk with them for a bit. And the spirit that was with them was so sweet, as we talked about our Savior Jesus Christ and the plan of salvation with them. They had such great faith, it was actually a blessing for me to be with them. So crazy when we are called on to do things like this, always paints a much bigger picture for me. On the way to the hospital we tried to see some potentials and to see Jon Davis, his brother had a heart attack, so we haven't been able to see him for a while. On the way there, I popped my tire, so we had to walk the rest of the way, haha.

Saturday - We saw Barbara Phillips in the morning. She was not able to make it to church, because she can't walk. But it really has been neat to see her understanding grow and grow. We also saw Sister Knight, she is back in Dothan again, so she started calling us to go out and see her, she is an absolute hoot! We also had a lesson with Gloria and Zoya, they are still just as solid as can be! We are working to get them to the temple, they had a temple trip scheduled in February, but it has now been canceled, they may have to wait until May to go do baptisms. It is so difficult to think what a chore it is to go to the Burmingham Temple, a 4 hour drive... and to think we have so many temples so close to our home! We ate dinner with the Hansen's in the evening! And we visited Brother Nunez with Brother Shelly, we got him to church again!!!!! So his wife was sick, but he has been there consistently! And Yovanny the son was there and I know that he has said this before, but he told us how he sat in church and how good it felt and as he looked through his scriptures he found an old talk that he gave, and he said he wants to quit his job so he can come, so we will see!

Sunday - Sacrament Meeting was great. We taught the Gospel Principles class! We ate dinner at the Lewis Farm after church. And we headed out on the bikes and we are just going up the hill and my tube boom just pops.. again. I was about ready to throw my bike in the trees, but I was like NO. This is good, this happened for a reason!!! So we start walking and we walk to the neighborhood, and we were led there at that time to talk to the people that we did, there were many, many people outside. And we got a lot of really, really good return appointments for this next week. One we are particularly excited about! We also saw the Brown family again, and they are really awesome, they are very nice, and we have got a good friendship going with them, they said that this Sunday they are going to come to church with us, so we will see if we get them there! Then we saw Sister Burnsed in the evening.

The common factor this week, was that the Lord was leading us to be in the certain areas and certain times, were able to contact lots of old members or people that had had contact with the church! So just got to keep looking forward with Faith, and stay happy! Love ya'll!!!!"
 
Love,
Elder Hintze