"I'm sorry but. Elder Hintze.. and Elder Smith... I LOVE YOU. These two young men have been such a blessing in my life."

I am sorry for my late post on this one. Here is Elder Hintze's email from Monday, March 3rd. 

Dearest Family,

Hello family, hope everyone is well! I am doing fantastic this morning! As has been mentioned I am soon to be headed to my new home of Defuniak Springs, Florida. It is a massive area, so we will most likely be allotted quite a few miles, I also hear that we have a truck for our vehicle, we will see what the 4 wheeling capabilities are in that baby! ;) It is super sad to think that I will be leaving Dothan this week, our transfers are now on Thursday, so that President gets to spend an extra day with the new missionaries, so I will have an extra day to say my goodbyes, to the loved ones in Dothan! We did get to teach Steven quite a bit this week, will talk about that, he was progressing for March 15th baptism, and is super gung ho! But get this... right when I figured out that I was leaving... Tony Hansen texts us and says "Call Steven to say bye he is headed to boot camp this morning." So we were like WHAT!?!?!?!  He was supposed to head to marine boot camp June 2nd, but was trying to leave as soon as he could, so somebody bailed and they had a spot to fill on the bus, so they called him at 8:30 am and he left at 11 am, I got to talk to him and give him my goodbyes, I told him that as soon as he gets to bootcamp to find the church, and to not wait, to be baptized! He said that he would do it, so I will get his address and try and remain in contact with him! Just crazy how it all went down... So here is the week:

Monday - Today we are headed to Cheeburger Cheeburger to take down there burger challenge for lunch. But last week we just did some mall shopping and thrift shops. In the evening we ate at the Herrings home. Afterwards, we saw some new people on the ward list.. Gene Kelly, Stephen Hardy, and Michael Smith. One was active.. we just didn't recognize the name, Michael. The other ones, we are going to begin to start visiting, both wanted us to keep coming over!

Tuesday - We had our District Meeting in the morning! And after our meeting, we met with Steven at the church, we taught the Plan of Salvation, it was an awesome lesson, it honestly doesn't really matter what we talk to him about.. he already knows its true, so it was a good lesson, and he understood it all, still been reading, and we taught him to pray, so he has been praying more and he says that it has been coming very easy to him. After that we had an appointment set up for Daniel Guyout, but he called us and told us that he was welcomed back to his old church, so did not want to study 2 faiths.  We had dinner with the Cain's, and it was an awesome visit, we taught them about the recent family history gameplan, and Bishop really, really liked it.. he said that he felt that this is the way we need to go. After that we went to the church for basketball, it is back no baby, holla!!

Wednesday - In the morning we had a correlation meeting with the sister's, so we could coordinate who in the ward we are visiting! After that we went and sawTheresa, but she got really emotional, after the visit we tried to get her to come to church, the 1st ward's baptism, and set up a time, but she was always too busy, we just decided that she needs a break. After that we met with a new couple named Ty and DC, she works at Subway, so that where we met her, so we talked with them, just outlined our expectations and things like that, got a feel for where they are, DC doesn't believe in Jesus Christ because he doesn't think someone can come back to life, the Jehovah's Witnesses have gotten to him as well... so we will have to buff that out of him! :) So he wanted to hear about the Plan of Salvation, was really interested in why we are here. We had dinner at the Lewis's home in the evening! 

Thursday - In the morning we worked at the food bank doing the brown bag program! And after that we went to the doctor to get Elder Smith tested for diabetes, and he came up clean.. which is super awesome! After that we had a lesson with LInda, and we did some more work at Gloria's house, went to work just chopping away! Then in the evening we had a lesson with Steven at the Davis's home with Landon Davis, we taught him the Doctrine of Christ, and again it went super solid, he really is just embracing it all!! The gift of the Holy Ghost was something new to him!

Friday - We had our hospital shift, super slow day, which I guess is a good thing for a hospital, so we didn't have much to do, even the ER was empty. After that we ate dinner with the Marturello's. And after that we saw the Hughey's.

Saturday - Oh boy.. you know those storage units that you see in the movies.. in which it is packed literally to the front and to the back with all boxes, and when you open the door boxes cascade out.. ya that's what we had to move. It was with the high priest's as well! So we had to load this huge storage unit full of boxes and furniture... so we loaded two trailer fulls and 3 trucks up and then drove about 20 minutes to the new house and then unloaded all of these boxes into an empty room in her brand new trailer.  After that we went over to Gloria's and we helped her move some furniture and we began to paint their bedroom for them... hahahahaha! So gotta go back and finish up her room! Then we booked it to the church for the 1st ward's baptism's, they had two young men get baptized! Then we did our weekly planning in the evening!

Sunday - It was fast and testimony meeting, and because of the service with the high priest's we made it in many people's testimonies, all saying how miserable it was, but how upbeat we were. Steven was there again!! It really was an awesome meeting, I really really really really love testimony meeting, the Spirit is always there so strong! Gloria got up again.. this was the highlight she said, "I'm sorry but. Elder Hintze.. and Elder Smith... I LOVE YOU. These two young men have been such a blessing in my life." it was so sweet.. !!!!!!!! After church we taught Steven at Tony's house, we taught him the word of wisdom, his first
Sunday there, it came up and so afterwards he asked me about it, he said "you don't drink tea??? ?" So I debriefed him on that so since that time he had given up chewing tobacco, and had been trying to quit tea, so it was super awesome to get to talk to him about it, he was already trying to overcome it! It was great to have Tony there, because he's from Georgia, so he overcame the coffee, tea, alcohol, and smoking... obviously, it isn't as powerful coming from me, because I have never tried either of those things! Also we taught the Elders Quorum Lesson on Family History, but we are now teaching the Kriser family, family history tonight, and after our lesson with Steven, we helped Tony to get his family history work started. We went in the evening with Forest and we tried to contact a lot of people, but didn't have much success. 

So that's all from here!!! I just got my new address for Defuniak it is: 334 Crescent Drive, Defuniak Springs, Florida 32433   It appears to be very near the Lake Defuniak. So going to be some exciting changes coming.. I am not excited to pack up all of my junk that I have collected, so you may be getting a lot of packages from me this week, before I leave, as well as your peanuts and what not, can't forget about those! :) Love you all so much!!!

Deuces.

Love,

Elder Hintze