"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