"Oh we had an axe cutting contest.. cut my tree down in 28 seconds thank you very much!"

Monday, May 12, 2014

FAMILY!!!!

It was soooooo good to see you guys yesterday... really it was so good! I wish that we could do it more often! Well here is this week:

Monday - We ate dinner at the Crosby's home and we had a lesson with all of the folks over! We had Robbie and Cherish Martin, their little little brother and their little cousin, we had Pam and AJ and Destiny Miller. We taught them about the stripling warriors parents and we had them write something they were going to stop doing and we went outside and we buried the swords in the ground! Trying to get them into the Book of Mormon!

Tuesday - Big day of service.. we went in the morning and we picked up Brother Marshall's yard and then we mowed his lawn for him.. hopped on that rider mower and took off! And then we had to jump over and we cut Brother Lasson's yard, we visited with him, his wife has 2 months to live, and it has been so hard on him.. so we are trying to help them out a lot! He says he always feels better when we come over! We had our correlation meeting at the church! And then we did some family history at the church.. there is a new program called Puzzilla to help find cousins, it is super cool, so there is lots of holes in the family tree that I saw, that can be done! We have some crazy ancestors.. read about John Gailley and read from his journal.. talking about when he was converted to the church in England, he basically just went around and baptized people right and left! Then we grabbed some ice cream with Brother Stripling. We ate dinner with the Brittens in the evening!

Wednesday - We worked with Elliott in the morning and we cut down a ton of trees for the green house! Oh we had an axe cutting contest.. cut my tree down in 28 seconds thank you very much! After that we came home and got cleaned up we went out with Vann Driskell, he got his call to Vancouver, Canada. And we went and we gave a blessing to asister named Betty Yates and then we taught Al Jackson.. that was the one that was super cool, we taught him how to receive answers and how to feel the Spirit, and then we read with him and we really did feel the Spirit, he was highlighting the book on his car, when we left it was really, really neat! Then we had an appointment to do family history, but they didn't show. Then we helped out at mutual preparing the mother's day gifts!

Thursday - We did our weekly planning and then we didn't have our car, because it was in the shop getting fixed! Had some transmission malfunction, so we biked to see John Reyes.. intense bike ride. And we had an awesome visit with him, we are going to start reading the Book of Mormon with him every time we go by and then we are trying hard to get him to get into it! Then Elder Habel picked us up and we went out and we taught Jeffrey Fiquette. So we were able to talk about the plan of salvation and what the Book of Mormon does for us, but he needs to hear the restoration, so that is what we set up for next visit! Then we did home teaching with Bro Andersen and we didn't get into any homes, but we ate with him. And then we took off to Crestview and we slept over there.

Friday - We headed down to Fort Walton and we went to zone conference and it was really good! It went super late, but we learned some cool stuff! 

Saturday - We did service with Brother Pollard in the morning cutting down tons of limbs and piling them all up! Then we ate lunch with him, came back and studied, I had to finish my talk! And then we did some OYming around the lake and we visited a Sister in the ward, Sister Hughes. 

Sunday - Church was good, I gave my talk and it went well! I talked on Fam History.. so it went well! But always could have done better. We ate dinner with Bishop afterwards. We visited quickly with the Wyman's a family we are going to start to work with! And then I called you guys!!! And then that was the night.

I love you all so much!!!!! 

Love,

Elder Hintze

"it is hard because they are investigating the church, but I don't think they know they are investigating the church if that makes sense?"

Monday, May 5, 2014

Hello Family!

How is everyone today!? Hope all is well, I am doing fantastic, enjoying a beautiful day here in Florida! Man this week was absolutely crazy.... we had the storm coming down, which I will talk about in the email, I have never seen a storm that nuts in my life! This week went by so fast as do all of the weeks these days! So here we are!

Monday - We went to eat at the Crosby's home in the evening, and Robbie, Cherish, and AJ were there, so we had the opportunity to teach them.. which it is nuts in there.. we are just trying to focus on the Book of Mormon and teach them stories from in there, but it is hard to keep everybody focused, and it is hard because they are investigating the church, but I don't think they know they are investigating the church if that makes sense? so we are trying to get into their home and teach them there! But we taught them about the stripling warriors!

Tuesday - So this is the day that the sky opened up on us... we got to Crestview for our District Meeting, and we had our conference call with President Smith, and he told all of us to go home and to stay inside and to not leave, and to not drive through standing water, and made all the missionaries in trailers get out of their homes.. so we went home and stayed inside! I have never been so bored in just about all of my life! Literally nothing to do.. and there is only so long that one man can study the scriptures.. so I took my first nap of the mission and then just chilled... it rained and came down most of the day, but toward the evening and night it got CRAZY!!!!!!!! I can't sleep when stuff like this happens, so I didn't get but 4 hours of sleep, and I was outside for most of it.. :) I had to film it! So I was on the phone with all the sisters in the district, some of them were in the bathtub and had lost power and then I stayed updated with the zone leaders. But it literally was lightning in the sky for 24 hours, just bam bam bam bam bam bam right after the other, then it started blowing wind and the rain dumped,... I got video don't you worry! And the thunder was like bombs going off shaking our windows in our house and no way you could sleep, I was filming it and it got so crazy, that I got scared and went inside!

Wednesday - Same thing.. we were inside until like 4 pm... so then we got let free.. again we were so bored.. I watched just about every church production video that there is! But finally we went to the Thomas's and they let us borrow some board games, and JT came over their son and we played with him on our porch all the board games, and we tried to put together a 750 piece puzzle, and then finally I couldn't stand it, so we went out and threw the frisbee around outside the house and the football, because it had cleared up some. So we were set free and we went and we saw the Habbards, and then Elliott called us and told us he still wanted to feed us, so we went out and we helped him to build his green house, which is pretty cool by the way, and then he fed us dinner there, so we were there the rest of the night!

Thursday - We did forever long weekly planning in the morning and then we did some lake contacting! And then we went and saw John Reyes. We shared with him Matthew 17 about John the Baptist coming to restore all things.. ie Aaronic Priesthood to Joseph Smith. But we went and we visited a dude named Rodney, who was a referral from a member, he is friends with the Pollards and he apparently took the lessons 20 years ago and was about to join the church. He is way cool! So we talked to him forever, and we set up a time with him to do family history work in the center this week, he has been really big into that! Then we went out to the lake again and were doing some contacting.. it was National Prayer Day.. so they had a huge community get together with all of the Baptist churches and what not. And then we headed out to home teaching, we went out with Brother Diviney, because he was the only one that showed up. We were able to visit a new family we had never met, his name was Jose Mendez, from Nicaragua, super cool, so nice, but just don't come because the wife doesn't speak much English. So she doesn't see the need to go, when she can't understand it.

Friday - We were sending our family history banner to the APs in the morning and on the way home we saw this older couple loading their car, so we offered to help them.. and they turned out to be episcopal's and so we talked to them, the first thing the guy said to us was "Hey you two should come over and have dinner with us on Sunday morning?" Oh by the way... here when someone says dinner that means Lunch. It goes Breakfast, Dinner, supper here! so !??!?!?!!!?!?!?!?!?!? But there church is super old, so I just asked them if they would let us see it, and they did, awesome stain glassed windows in there and it was all super old and handmade everything... and she started telling us about the church... oh my gosh. oh my gosh. We understood everything she said, but came away so confused! Basically they are Catholic, but they don't want to be Catholic! Then we did some service at the Matrix Thrift Shop! And we talked to Savannah, she is set for baptism on May 24th. We saw the Sissons family.. they are hard to get in and see, but had a chance to see them. Then we went to the Andersen's home we were set to teach Al Jackson, but he canceled, so the Andersen's fed us and then we helped them with getting their driveway poured!

Saturday - We ate breakfast with the Episcopal's in the morning, It was like their fundraiser event, so not exactly what we thought it was going to be, but it was fun! They didn't make us pay, super nice of them. We then went to a place called Pettler's Alley in the little downtown part of DeFuniak, just a bunch of street vendors that post up in this alley way. And so we just talked to everyone... I don't know what is going on lately.. but I literally probably met like 9 people with connections to Utah, one guy who is going to be in St George in a week. Just nuts.. we have been meeting so so so so many awesome people lately, just from contacting. We went up to Paxton after that... and that was a bust.. we tried to see everyone up there and there wasn't a single person home.. I did visit the highest point in Florida though while up there..... 345 feet high! 

Sunday - We went to the temple dedication in Crestview in the morning at 8... that was cool! Then we came back and we did some studies outside and we headed down to Freeport. Bob & Pam, Rosslyn, and David Royce all canceled on us.. so again it was kind of a bust. But while down there we visited with the Williams Family an active family, they are super nice! It was good to get in with them and to get to know them a little bit better! After that we came back home for the YSA Broadcast and we watched that at the church with the 1 ysa that showed up after all we invited. :) So it was really good, it was Elder Ballard speaking!

So this week was a crazy one. But all good here, I sure do love you all a whole lot and holla... this Sunday, can't wait to talk to all of you!!!!!!!!!

Love,

Elder Hintze

"apparently he has been meeting with missionaries for 25 years.. haha... and he told us he wanted to take a break from learning"

Monday, April 28, 2014

Hello Family,

How is everyone doing today!? I am doing well!  This week... oh boy where to start.. we had a pretty good week this week! 

Monday - We ate dinner with the Curtis family in the evening. A younger family here in the ward. They are cool. After that we tried a few people around the area, and then we went back and we scheduled out the rest of our week, called and set up appointments. We played some frisbee at the park for P-Day, don't know what is on the agenda for today.

Tuesday - We had our District Meeting in the morning, kind of a lamer one, but we talked about our goals that we are setting for our district this transfer. Our mission is already falling behind on our baptism goal and vision that Elder Perry set for us, so we are trying hard to catch up to it! We also watched the talk "A Brother Offended" in the meeting, the one that you sent me Dad. Then I went on a trade off with Elder Rasmussen the zone leader, so I went to Crestview for the day. Elder Rasmussen is the man! We had a pretty awesome day. We went and we saw a less active guy named Mallary King. But we got to follow up with a lot of their investigators.. we met this girl named Keke, who is a roommate of this couple they have been teaching so we went by and we saw them.. We invited ourselves to dinner, because she said she was cooking, so she said yes and then we taught her the first lesson right there on the porch and gave her a Book of Mormon and told her to read it before we come back for dinner. And then we saw another one of their investigators named Darren... he is a police officer at the jail, he has read the Book of Mormon all the way through and is working on his second time, comparing it with the Bible and really wants to get back and get into the church!! He is so cool, he asked us a lot of awesome questions, he told us that he doesn't know how to pray, so we got to teach him that, I always love teaching someone for the first time and get to describe the Spirit to him. Then we went back for dinner and met the couple and Keke for dinner couples name was Tina and Chris. They are so cool!! We played basketball in the backyard while waiting for them to come, and then they finally got there, Chris played college football and is trying to get to the NFL, he was so cool, he told us a lot about his past and where he's come from. And really they are cool, he apologized to us for not reading and said they need to put more importance on it. Crestview, has a lot of good things going on!

Wednesday - We traded back in the morning after we taught another dude at McDonald's.. apparently he has been meeting with missionaries for 25 years.. haha... and he told us he wanted to take a break from learning, and we told him if this was Jesus Christ's Church if you knew that would you join it? he said NO. So I didn't get that, but then we taught Savannah at the lake, and I learned a lot about her from Elder Rasmussen, because he taught her too. She read the Book of Mormon for the 1st time and got her answer that she knew it was true, he said she wanted to get baptized the first time she read it, so we talked to her a little bit more about baptism and the Sacrement and finally she is done traveling, so baptism is set for May 24th. We then went out and we helped Elliott, we are building a green house called a wallapini or something like that. Then we ate dinner at the Andersen's house, super awesome he is the assistant ward mission leader and comes out with us a lot, then we helped them move a bunch of cabinets through their house.

Thursday - We did some weekly planning in the morning and then we went and helped this dude named Dan Cosson he is from Tallahassee he is the land lord for like 6 apartments that missionaries live in, so he loves the missionaries, and he is hilarious. He won't join the church, but he is good to us, he fed us lunch. And we helped him unload stuff from a old house he is restoring around the lake here, he was ragging on Utah alot. Then we went out home teaching with Bro Mitchem up in Paxton, we saw David Hayes and a man named James Jeffcoats, just less active people. Then we did some lake contacting and then went out home teaching in the evening with the rest of the gang. I went with Brother Anderson and we taught Rosslyn Wood, we taught her about Baptism and we talked about the Sacrement as well, and it was cool, We then gave her a priesthood blessing to help her overcome smoking and drinking.

Friday - We taught Al Jackson with Bro Andersen in the morning and it was an awesome... straight awesome... we taught him the restoration and there was a distinct change in him, he was silent when we talked about Joseph Smith and the first vision and the Book of Mormon! He committed to read and to pray about it! We didn't get him at church.. but it was awesome! We then went up to Paxton with Andersen to check and see if we could get wifi at the church building up there and we did! So after that we went back and helped Dan Cosson out a bit more and then we ate dinner with the Habels, they had us over. And then the Browns had us over and showed us their property and we are going to go out and go fishing with them.

Saturday - We went to an air show here in DeFuniak at the airport.. we heard about it and it was cool. It is always hard in situations like that to talk to people.. because they don't care about us.. so we didn't stay long, but they had some rad displays. We then went and we taught John Reyes at the prison. We then visited Sister Miller in the rest home.

Sunday - Great day of church! Fast Sunday is always the best! Down day for investigators.. we had Zac there. We still are working on really teaching him. We took off after church down to Freeport and we taught Bob and Pam Niedermeyer... it had been such a long time since we had been able to! Saw a few more down there... but then we met this dude named David Royce.. the sister's had taught him and they passed him on.. He is awesome.. he is a deep thinker, like intense.. so he grilled us with questions, like about immortal soul, adam and eve, pre earth life, why are we here, and tons of different things. Elder Larsen is really good at this in particular, so we answered every single one of his questions and he was super impressed, so we told him that we want to teach him, not just answer questions. So we really are pumped about him and it is always freaking awesome to answer peoples questions! He is going to read the Book of Mormon, hasn't done it yet, but he says he knows there is truth in there, so he can't dispute it, he is 30 yrs old. But he knows a member, they are really good friends! So we are super pumped for that!

Well family thats a wrap this week! It was a crazy one.. this week, but some good things accomplished, sure do love ya'll a whole lot!!!!!!!

Love,
Elder Hintze