"DeFuniak has a special place in my heart!!!!"

Monday, July 7, 2014

Hello Family, sure do love ya'll a whole lot!!

So yes the big news from here today is that I am Tallahassee bound to be a zone leader in the Tallahassee 1st ward with Elder Cooper.. he is awesome, I knew him in the Dothan Zone. Elder Larsen is headed to the Fort Walton 1st Ward.. I believe that I am going to be close to Elder Hammond. But these past few days have been interesting, it is sad to leave DeFuniak, I'm such a baby, a couple times I have started to think about it and tears have come easily to my eyes, it is going to be hard to leave, a part of who I am going to be for the rest of my life was formed here! DeFuniak has a special place in my heart!!!! It's been good DeFuniak... Thursday here comes Tallahassee! Elder Uriquagua and Elder Smellie, two of the elders I am really close with all of us are going to be zone leaders.. so it is funny, Smellie will be in the other zone in Tallahassee. Can I tell you guys one of the weirdest things about the mission? DREAMS. So when you dream it is about random stuff right... but not on the mission, every dream that I have is about mission stuff! It is so weird, I dream about Elder Larsen and I teaching and doing stuff, really weird. Lets get to the week!

Monday - We went to the beach again.. it was a good time, it was hott… :)  We are not going today at all! But we got back and we had dinner with the Anderson's we were just a few minutes late getting back, so we ate with them and then we had a lesson with them, to wrap up our evening!

Tuesday - We had our District Meeting in the morning, it was super awesome! We had a little mormon message testimony meeting, and it was so spiritual.. one of the Sisters fathers had passed away, so... she got so emotional with some of them, and the spirit was super strong, not a dry eye in the place. Then we ate lunch at Taco Bell. :) And got back to the church for our Correlation Meeting with the people! Then we taught John Reyes, it was a good one, we talked to him about Eternal Families! Then we had to move two fridges with Elder Habel and take them to his house, and then we got to Mark Lassen's in hopes to help him, but he just fed us... and didn't have time.. then we went and we watched the Prophet of the Restoration with Al Jackson and Bro Stripling... we popped popcorn and watched it... Al loved it, he learned so much about Joseph Smith and listed off like 7 things he learned.

Wednesday - We went with Brother Mitchem and we ate lunch and then we headed down to Freeport and we helped Sis Hunt we took apart her trailer and had to rebuild or still in the process of rebuilding all of the floors and securing the water heater all that jazz.. We got back up to town and Bro. Skayhan was in the family history center doing his work, and we stepped out and we taught Zac Gauntney with Bro Stripling, so we taught him the Gospel of Jesus Christ.. and it went super well actually!!!!!!! He seemed into it and interested and humble like he wanted to change, he is super pumped. So we committed him to baptism on Aug 2nd... and without a doubt he is going to make it, super solid! Then we broke for milk shakes with Bro. Stripling... Bro Stripling, he is the best man in the world, we have become really close.. it is going to be hard to leave him behind, we are always doing stuff with him. 

Thursday - We went to the Howard's in the morning and we helped them out... we helped load things for them. So we did that and helped load a bunch of cinder blocks and cemented stuff in. Then we got back and we taught JR Strange, it was awesome! So we taught him and he had some major doubts at the first... about Joseph Smith and about him suppressing a newspaper and going to jail for it... I just told him, what does that matter, completely irrelevant, Peter denied Christ 3 times, Paul persecuted the saints, does that make them not apostles, NO. Imperfect men... so we got him straightened out he is just so apprehensive, super into learning though! After that we saw the Ammons, the family we did Family History with, and they are so nice, they   show up to our appointment, but we talked to them for quite some time and we got the oppurtunity to share the Restoration with him and we are going back on Wednesday to teach it to them.. he was super into it! Afterward we went home teaching. I went with Bro Stripling and Bro Andersen and we taught Al Jackson, we taught him 4 of the commandments, and he had no problems he committed to live all of them, he took special interest in the Sabbath day holy, he loved that! Then we ate dinner.

Friday - HAPPY 4th of JULY!!!!!! wooow... But we did our weekly planning and then we went and we visited the Habbard's, we followed up with Bro Habbard on the calendar that we set up.. and he is still on it and trying to quit smoking cigarettes, we talked to him about the talk 'The Joy of Redeeming the Dead" and we are hopefully going to start going family history with him..  then we went up to the Crosby's they had us over and so we ate with them and visited with them for a short time and then we got back down and we went to the Jones's home, they invited us over and they had lots of members of the church over there, so we ate and then visited… Then we all went to the lake yard and they shot off fireworks over Lake DeFuniak.. so right by our house, surprisingly.. not that bad of a show for DeFuniak, we were impressed! Ohhh we had one of the cooliest experiences, we OYMed this guy around the lake, I just felt prompted we needed to talk to him, his name was Darrell. And it was probably the best OYM of my life... he said, "anyone from your church is welcome in my home!" Wooow, so the new elders are going to baptize him, I'm sure of it! :)

Saturday - We taught John Reyes in the morning, probably our last time.... so we just read to him passages about the Atonement from the Bible and then the Book of Mormon, the Bible is lacking in that... so we just read him a bunch and testified, and he was crying during the whole thing, so we said our last prayer with him, he says he is going to be out in 2017 and we are going to get his address and write him in there, he wants us to come see him when he's out..! Then we saw Sister Dunaway... trying to do family history with her, been less active for a long time! Then we didn't quite know what we needed to do, and Sis Howard called us and told us that Bro Howard's brother is at the house helping out, and we were trying to contact him, planned on it that day, and we didn't really feel very prompted about our plans.. so we ran with it and we got up there and we helped them to unload stuff again... I got to drive the tractor!! And we got to meet him, he is not a member, so hopefully something can come from that! Then the Russ's had us over for a little barbeque at their place.

Sunday - We had Zac at church! Nobody else besides, Brother Skayhan and Mark Lassen.. Skayhan has been asking me if I will be here to rebaptize him.. it was super sad, just this man in the wheelchair... I hope he can keep moving without us here... He is set up to meet with the bishop on Wednesday.. bore my testimony for the last time here, love testimony meeting! I taught gospel principles as well, and Zac introduced himself and said, "Hi I'm Zac Gauntney and I am getting baptized August 2nd." So things went well there, after the meeting we gave the Howard's blessings, some of the most powerful blessings. Then we ate with the Hughe's after church. Then we went out to Freeport with Brother Anderson, but our people weren't home at all.. so we stopped and saw the Diviney's hilarious, hilarious people, I die! Then we went out and we visited with JR again, we just talked to him some more about getting an answer, desiring to change, about how we give it, and used some of Elder Holland's talk this conference, about peoples view of a comfortable God. Then we were at the Farris's, which you probably saw pictures of…

Elder Larsen & Elder Hintze

it was our time to grill up the burgers for burger night!!!!! So we did that, and then we ran out to the Habel's their daughter is here from China, she teaches over there... so she got to do a little fireside about the Church in China, it was so interesting.. the Gov't over there is crazy.. a lot of other churches break the rules as far a proselyting, but the church doesn't at all, because the prophets have said, either we go in through the front door or we don't at all... so when it happens and China opens up look out! The Gov't over there is really afraid of the church, because they see them taking over.. .sounds about right to me, eh? :)

Family sure do love you a whole lot, miss you like crazy!!!!!!!!

Love, 

Elder Hintze