"Ain't nothing but love!"

Monday, December 15, 2014

Whats up Family!!!

Hope everyone is doing well today! It is our dodgeball tournament here, so we have got to be here for that and have to do some christmas shopping for you all! I am staying put here in Tally 1st Ward, staying as a ZL and I am staying with Elder Peterson, not too many changes for our zone.. This week was a really good week, it seemed that things go picked back up here, we were able to reach or exceed all of our 11 key indicators, so that is a dang good week right there! I love you all like crazy, here is our week!

Monday - We played dodgeball as always for our P-Day, I tried to find some Christmas presents at the FSU Bookstore, but it was pricy, so I am going to have to go to a different place this Monday, hopefully it is not too late to get the package there. After dodgeball the Tally 2 Zone Leaders so kindly accidentally stole our keys when they left, and so they got home and then when we were leaving we had no keys, so we had to wait for them to come back. We had to eat and change and get up to the other building, where we set up for the Half Mission Conference, got all of the tables and chairs set up, and then vacuumed. It was actually a lot of fun, Pres and Sis Smith were there. Then all of the Dothan Zone came into town, so we had 2 companionships sleeping over at our place, had my man Elder Urquiaga! So that was really good too.

Tuesday - Half Mission Conference! It was so much fun! As I mentioned I was asked to conduct, so nothing big, but it was fun. We started out with a little program and then in between short narrations by Sister Smith, different missionaries came up and performed musical numbers, there was some super super awesome ones, some people's talent is amazing. We then ate some lunch, by Sonny's BBQ, our official sponsor ;). And then we had or stocking exchange, so each district got to introduce themselves in a funny way, ours wrote a song, there were some really good ones. It was hilarious! Urquiaga had me in the stocking exchange, so he got me some good stuff. Then after that we watched Meet the Mormons..  now let me tell you, it was so awesome! I loved the movie!! It was really powerful, makes you feel really good about being a mormon, because before I watched it I was just like whatever about being a mormon, but now I am sold! ;) It was a highlight for me though, really well done! Afterwards, I went on an exchange with the APs, so I went with Elder Welch in the 3rd Ward. So we had to get everything all cleaned up and we had to vacuum about the whole building, it seemed. After that we had dinner and then our appointment canceled imagine that? :) I was with Elder Welch, we came into the mission together, so it was really good to be with him, he is the man!

Wednesday - Still with Elder Welch in the morning, we had to do some chores, we had to run and grab some mattresses from storage and load them up, and other stuff like that, had to go to the mission home to pick up the media supplies for their meeting, so we got to talk to Pres and Sis Smith, they are the bomb! So we again didn't have too much time to proselyte, but we we're able to teach this guy named Jamail, and it was just a very brief lesson, we just taught the Book of Mormon and bore testimony! Then we traded back, so I was back with my boy Elder Peterson. Once we got back, we popped by to see Bonnie and Cristina... and it was as if nothing had ever happened, they were both just so happy to see us, and so we were like, whats been going on, whats up? And Cristina says she has just been at home "meditating" and then Bonnie came out of the room and said, I heard you guys, I want you to know that I am still on, I still want to be baptized, but with it being postponed, and the Holidays, and she is really busy with work. She said I am thinking that it is going to have to be after the new year. And then we had a lesson with Gonzalo, he will be taking off to Miami for the break to see his family. But we talked to him about the Book of Mormon.
 

Thursday - We had our good old weekly planning session the morning as we always do. Afterwards, we had a lesson with T.R. at the church with Brother Delp, we watched the Prophet of the Restoration DVD with him, and he really liked it, we invited him to just pay attention to the spirit, and we committed him to very seriously start to seek and to know if this is true, to read the Book of Mormon and to pray. But Bro Delp has been awesome with him! Afterwards we did some service with Sister Delp. Her brother came out, he is really funny. He gave us our new saying, he always says, "Ain't nothing but love!" We ate dinner at the Baldwin's in the evening. Afterwards we contacted a super awesome referral given to us by the campus sisters, Ray Forbes, she was told about the church by a member on the bus, and then ran into sisters. So we visited her and she told us she was no longer interested which was a bummer, but a lot of her family pulled up right then, and we talked to her god mother.. I don't even know what a god mother is, for almost an hour on the porch about the church. She told us how she had just left her church and she had been praying to know what church she needed to join, and then she ran into us... but it is so interesting.. people pray that prayer, and then the run into the Mormon missionaries, but then they say I already have my faith, and keep on searching. Uh Hello!! Can't be us right? Whatever. After that we had to give a baptismal interview to a man named Bruce Howell, he has been dating a member of about 1 year, and they are engaged, he really is awesome!

Friday - We went on an exchange with the Tally 4 Elders, so I was with Elder Hildebrandt for the day here! We had an appointment to visit a member Bro Shipley. We were able to see him, but we visited him in the hospital, because his mother was there, She is not a member. And we are going to help him on his farm. We also got to see Kreg Mecham, but he was asleep. So it has been Family History week, and so we just did tons of family history finding! We know that is what President has been inspired to do! We taught Eric in the evening with Bro Miller at the church, we are just starting over with him, but he is absolutely committed he has given up the other church, and is now looking for ways that he can serve around the church here, he is so awesome! We ate dinner with Sister Presley. Then we taught Sister Daniels in the evening with Taahira Daniels, we read Alma 34 with them and it ended up being a really good lesson!

Saturday - We went to Delmara Jackson's baptism in the 1st ward, the other elders had taught her, it is a really cool story, some members picked here up walking on the side of the road, pushing her son in a wheel chair, and they invited her to church and now she is baptized. She is really cool! It as one of the most spiritual baptisms that I have been too! Then it was the Christmas party in the ward, Eric was there, and Torrez and T. R. LeBrun were there, they all went to the baptism as well! Bonnie was there! Also Cristina helped set up for everything and she was at the baptism! The Christmas party was really fun though! After that we attended another baptism in the 5th Ward for the Bruce Howell, who we gave the interview too, also such a good baptism, the Spirit was so strong! Then we taught Bonnie and it was a freaking awesome lesson, Spirit was very strong, we watched the John Tanner Story, and then talked about service and enduring to the end, went hard with some 3 Nephi 14 on them... so it was really good and we committed here to baptism on January 10th, so that is the day that we are shooting for!! Then we contacted a media referral that we got, and he is a non member, and he is married to a less active member, that we didn't; know about, not on the ward roster! So we were able to teach them for a few minutes and are going to start working with them!

Sunday - Good day at church! Bonnie and Cristina were there for Sacrament meeting, and then they had to take off. Bonnie's grandfather passed away in New York, so she is headed up there. Then Eric was there for Sacrament and T. R. was there for all 3 hours! After church we went with the Tew's and we taught Sis Groves. Then we taught that referral again, Anthony and Michelle! Then we ate with the Hargrett's! And in the evening we taught a lady named Ling, with Bro. Hollett, she is a former and we taught her to see if she was still interested, she gladly welcomed us in, she has decided to go with the Jehovah Witness, mainly because she doesn't think that Christians should be involved in politics.

I love you like crazy family!!!!!

Love,

Elder Hintze

"There is no comfort in the growth zone, there is no growth in the comfort zone."

Monday, December 8, 2014

Hello Family!!

I hope everyone is doing well!! I am doing great this morning. I think that we should Skype in 17 days, what do you guys think?? Let's get to the week!

Monday - Dodgeball is the new sport of the mission, so we played dodgeball and some basketball for our activities! Today I believe we are doing the same, I may spend sometime acquiring the family some Christmas gifts as well!

Tuesday - So we went to FSU's district meeting, it was a good one, we spoke again on overcoming fears to them! After our district meeting, we went and we did some service with Sister Lopez. And then after that we went and we helped Bro and Sis Haire with some service, they asked us to come help them put up Christmas lights... Then we ran to our meeting with the Stake Presidency. Then once we were done we went to our Correlation Meeting in the evening! Our Ward Mission Leader, won a trip to go to the movie premiere of Hobbit in London and spend the day with Evangeline Lilly. So he has been out of town.

Wednesday - MLC day, we got up bright and early.. and we headed out to Crestview, Florida, passed through good old DeFuniak Spring's area. :) MLC was really, really good! We talked about Finding, how to motivate missionaries, and how to revive dead areas in the mission, we talked about consecration oil and questions about that for the sisters. President read to us the things that Christ went through during His suffering, and that was the highlight for me, He went through so much, it hit me really, really hard. There was some cool things that happened though, I have been asked to conduct the Half Mission Conference this week, as well Elder Peterson and myself are filling in for the APs, in 2 weeks at transfers, they do a train the trainers, for all of the missionaries that are training, and it is an hour and a half, and Elder Peterson and I have been asked to teach that this time, as fill in for the APs, since they will be at the airport. So after we traveled back, we taught Gonzalo! And it was a really, really awesome lesson, we talked to him about the Book of Mormon, we also talked to him about patriarchal blessings and he is going to make an appointment with Bishop to get that. Also during the MLC, Cristina texted us and said, "My mom no longer wants to be baptized..." So we texted back and just said, how sad we were to hear that, can we come and see her to talk about it? And she said, "Won't be necessary but thanks for asking."

Thursday - Road Trip day!! We had to deliver the stockings to all of the missionaries in our zone for the Christmas conference coming up.. so from 10 am to about 5 pm we road tripped to every area in our zone and delivered their stockings Madison to Perry to Crawfordville to Tallahassee, it was a pretty fun road trip though! We ate at a delicious BBQ place in Perry, Florida, it is a po dunk town, so you know it was delicious! Also Eric called us and he prayed about his job offer at the church, and he didn't feel that it was right for him to take it and he is going to ask for Sunday's off so he can come to church, so it was seriously such a miracle!! So things are looking up for him! Once back, Sister Maurer fed us dinner and then we did Family HIstory with her once more, we are having tons of success with her. 

Friday - We taught this man named Walker in the morning for the first time, he is this 82 year old man we tracted into him, and he was pumped for us to come back, so we taught him or started to teach him the restoration, and did some HTBT, and mainly just talked to him about the Book of Mormon. We went back to the Haire's they had a few more jobs for us to do for them! We tracked down Kreg Mecham he is in the Hospice House, and so we went and we visited him, he was sound asleep, so we didn't want to wake him, we talked to the nurses about him and then called his family again! They have been updated on him.. it was so cool for me to talk to his mom, it was my highlight! She said, I want you to know that for 25 years I have been praying that my son would come back to the Lord, and now it is happening, he is leaving this life better off, she said when you get off your mission you can count this as one of your conversion stories.   It was so special, it really meant a lot, I guess I hadn't looked at it in that way, but truly that is what it is! Then we taught Eric, we talked to him about enduring to the end, we watched the video the John Tanner story of the man who gave up all, good lesson!

Saturday - We went and we saw Kreg again in the morning and he was awake and we we're able to talk to him for a bit, we tried to get him cheered up and we were able to do that! He is 62 years old, and he looks like he could be in his 90s. His mother told us he is dieing, because his body cannot fight off the infection, his liver is shot. But his sister is here in Tallahassee, I talked to her on the phone for the first time. Then we were able to see the Liedy's and that was an awesome visit as well, we shared He is the Gift with him, and talked to him about his relationship with Jesus Christ, he said an awesome prayer at the end, and he was in tears. So powerful. Because of that, he came to church and also his wife, and the kids... so it was so awesome!! We we're able to see Sister Daniels and her family. We shared He is the Gift with them as well. We did a lot finding as well, we have been knocking the doors like crazy!

Sunday - We had T. R. at church, he is just fitting right in, he might as well be a member, we haven't been able to meet with him in a couple weeks, but he is awesome! Church was good, I always love Fast Sundays.. they are without a doubt my favorite weeks! After church, we went and we visited Kregg again, it was his birthday and his sister from Provo was there, so it was really fun to get to talk to her! He is kind of out of it most of the time, but it was great to get to talk to her, 20 long years and she is just seeing her brother, it is absolutely amazing! We got out and we did some more finding, we we're able to find one super cool guy that we are going to go back and teach. Then we ate dinner at the Stuckey's, and they are so awesome! Then we went and we watched the Church's Christmas devotional! It was really good, I really liked Elder Cristopherson's talk, that was my favorite!

We have Half Mission tomorrow, so we will get to watch Meet the Mormons, we are excited for that! These last few weeks have been some really hard ones but I'm going to be alright, some of the things that have happened have hurt a little bit, but I'm just gonna trust Him, because He knows way better than we do! President shared a quote a while back, "There is no comfort in the growth zone, there is no growth in the comfort zone." I love you all like crazy!!!

Love,

Elder Hintze

 

PS - I made good use of my old bright yellow shoes... now hanging above Charlotte street on the telephone wires... we live in the ghetto anyways, am I right!? check that off the bucket list! :)

"Can we borrow some bleach we have worms coming out of our shower?"

Monday, December 1, 2014

HELLO!!!!!!

I hope that you all had a terrific Thanksgiving! I missed you guys like crazy, here is the week!

Monday - I just want you all to know how much I love you! So for P-Day today we played a few game of basketball and then we played dodgeball.. it is super fun, we play everyone against everyone, and if you get out, you sit down and they only way to get back in, is if the person who got you out gets out! So it was crazy, but it was a blast. I woke up the next morning and I was so sore, it kills me. So after we went and we visited with Bro Barber and we read Alma 24 with him, which is the story of the Anti-Nephi-Lehies and how they choose to die rather than to take up their arms, and then that was the basis of the lesson, just talked about that, and the things we can learn. And when we were leaving, Mike Jones pulled up in his car, so we just stayed and we went and we taught Mike Jones a little lesson there. So we just talked to him about his Faith, and Prayers and Scripture study, we can teach him all we want, but until he does something about it, it won't do any good.

Tuesday - District Meeting day! So we had district meeting in the morning, it was a good one, we spoke on how to overcome fears. We did a pretty good job I suppose. It was a good meeting, I'm learning a lot lately, I have a lot to work on. Then I went on a tradeoff with Elder Farris, who is on campus right now, what to say about Elder Farris, he is a fantastic missionary. It was pouring rain again here today, so we we're just getting drenched, we are just trying to keep things rolling here! 

Wednesday - Still with my man Elder Farris, we did our companion exchange report first thing in the morning. Then we headed out to get our finding on.. We were able to go and see Eric, he is just fading in and out, he won't respond to our calls, so we have to go rescue him from darkness. So we were just out doing tracting and talking to the people out on the town, we we're able to find this really cool dude who lives right next to where the Stone family used to live (moved to Utah), he is an 82 year old man named Walked.. and he just won a gold medal in the senior olympics, eh? He is really excited for us to come back. We then taught Bonnie, and she did not get a chance to go to the Orlando Temple, due to the bad weather that we have been having, but her baptism on the 13th should be really good, the other 1st ward elders have a lady getting baptized as well, so we are doing them together on the 13th at 9am, right before the ward christmas party, so we are including it right into it, so hopefully they're will be lots of support and it should be fun. So we taught her the law of tithing and the law of the fast/fast offering.. it went really well, no problems there, she already knew this commandment and so she is ready to live it! She really is awesome and is doing so well, really excited for everything! Then we did some Family History with Bro Barber! And then we visited with Taahira Daniels, Sis Daniels daughter who is 11, and we shared a lesson with her!

Thursday - HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!!!! Very good day, very good! In the morning, we played in a Turkey Bowl for the Stake.. but it was more like all of the missionaries, some YSA and some 4th Ward people, but it was so much fun! So much fun, they were serious about it, had an offensive line, and flags, but we dominated. And not too shabby of a day for myself out there on the field! :) I got challenged to a race, mid game, by this kid named Charlie, so we had to pause the game, so we could race.. I could make a whole lot of excuses, because I hate losing, but he got me barely. I'll get him again. So we came home and we did our studies. Then we headed on over to the Knudsen's home, and we ate with them, it was great!! Great food, great company, great desert. So we were there for a bit, and just got to chill a little bit, went on a short walk with them, to see that burned down house near their home. And then we tried to see Craig Mecham, but he has been released from the Hospital to a Hospice House, so we don't know where that is, so don't know if we will be able to visit him anymore. And then we went tracting, knocking doors baby! Didn't have much sucess, a lot of really nice people though, also some not very nice people.

Friday - So after our studies in the morning, the FSU Elders came over and said, "Can we borrow some bleach we have worms coming out of our shower?" Headed out to do some more finding, so we went to this neighborhood and we tracted for a good 2 hours.. and not much came of it, talked to some people, but nobody that was interested. We also chased down a bunch of potentials we had mapped out, and that worked fairly well for us.. we're able to talk to some people in the process. We met with Eric at the church, update on him.. oh boy, so the other church he has been volunteering at, he has accepted a job to go full time in the "ministry" so he will be the supervisor over the homeless service, so he will be moving out of our area, and he will be working full time there, we we're pumped for him, but we were very clear to tell him that he knows what church he needs to be at, and how this would really make it hard for him to be baptized when it came around to it, he acknowledged that, so I guess we will work on that when it comes.. he is a hard one to help! We read with him from PMG, in chapter 5 about the Book of Mormon, and then watched Elder Holland's Mormon Message, the testimony of the Book of Mormon, and then the He is the Gift Christmas video! We are trying to get him back into the Book of Mormon. After that we ate with Cristina and her mom, they prepared basically a whole new Thanksgiving dinner for us, it was so awesome, super nice of them! We didn't think that Bonnie was going to be there.. but she was, so afterwards we taught her a lesson. We covered the Priesthood in greater depth, Eternal Marriage, and Missionary Work, and then covered the baptismal interview questions, in preparation for her interview! It went really good, she has awesome questions. After that we went out and we gave the zone our new He is the Gift pass along cards. I don't know if ya'll have seen the video or not yet, but you should it is super awesome! I love the church, they do everything always super awesome! So.. #ShareTheGift!

Saturday - We did service with Sister Lopez in the morning. We were breaking up pallets for her, she is going to make a credenza out of them, so we we're breaking them up, but not breaking the boards, so we had to very carefully take them apart with a hammer and a crow bar, it was some tough stuff, took a lot of patience, because those suckers we're old! And then we had 4 beautifully planned and confirmed lessons and all 4 of them canceled. One didn't want to meet with us because we  we're strangers and you never know who you can trust, the other had to work, one didn't speak english very well, and then Cristina got sick, so we couldn't meet with Bonnie. So we were just out and about finding, we did probably 2 hours of tracting again, talked to a good amount of people. So we just spent the rest of the time tracking down potentials and talking to people. We ate with the Gray's in the evening, well just Bro Gray, I love the Gray's. So afterwords, we we're less activing hunting and doing anything we could to stay busy, had some people tell us to never return, that is always fun. But we were able to visit with the Markham's for the first time, just tried them. So we just got to know them and visited with them and then we shared He is the Gift with them.

Sunday - Church today was fantastic! It was one of the best Sacrament meetings that I have been to in quite a long time. I got to bless the sacrament with Gonzalo again! And then the speakers did such an awesome job, and there is this lady named Sister Neeley-Bey, and she can sing baby, and she goes no piano and no microphone and just belts it out, she is unbelieveable!! We didn't have any investigators there today.. We tracked into this preacher guy, and so we talked to him in the front yard for like a half an hour, he didn't agree with us, and I was just boiling up inside, the rejection had gotten the best of me, so I didn't get heated, but I made sure that he was very clear what I knew to be true and how I knew it to be true! He was a really nice guy though!

But I am good! I am really, really happy and learning a lot lately, which has been good! I am learning how to be humble and realizing what is really important in life and what is not, that is so important, we need to never lose sight of what is really important in our lives! So thankful for all of you, love you like crazy!!

LOVE, 

Elder Hintze

"Have a Happy Thanksgiving!!!!! Thankful for all of you.."

Monday, November 24, 2014

Family, Family, Family!!

Hello, hope that everyone is doing well! I am doing really well, it is pouring rain here and has been for quite some time now! Lets get to it:

Monday - For P-Day we played basketball, it isn't quite the same without all of the ballers there, they're home and transferred. We cooked dinner under our own hand, can you believe that? Then we taught Bonnie the 10 commandments, law of chastity, and keep the sabbath day holy, really good lesson, she commited to live them.. and she loved us coming over like for real though, she is inviting us back every single day!

Tuesday - Zone Training day! Also a day where we had zero proselyting time at all. So we got to the church bright and early and we go everything set up, we got the projetor all hooked up and got the computer ready to go. Also while we we're doing that, Bro Davis from the Dothan 2nd Ward was there doing maintenance on the building, it was so fun to see him! So we talked for a good while!! So we got all of our equipment set up and then we started our zone training! The program went as follows, we opened it up with same old introductions and announcements, everybody is pumped for Family History week again, that was one of the announcements, so after that we talked to them about some of our goals that we have set, just a little zone accounting, our zone goal this year for baptisms is 48 and we are currently at 36.. but we baptized 10 people in the last transfer.. so it has been crazy lately, so we are really, really trying hard to reach this goal, we commited everyone to pray each time they pray for 12 more baptisms for the Tally 1 Zone!! Then the Sister Trainer Leaders took over and they did an awesome job, they talked about Our Purpose as missionaries.. they started out doing a cooking show and they we're cooking cookies, they put the recipe up on the board, and then did not follow it at all just didn't measure and threw in random stuff... and then they talked about the categories of finding, teaching, studying, and planning. All aspects of missionary work, should fall under these things... it was really, really good! The cooking really highlighted the principle a lot! Then the other Sister Trainer Leaders took there turn, they talked about Commitments. Then we taught the things that Elder Soares taught us in MLC, about Goals, Plans, & Attitude! We hope they were able to get something out of it, because it really was important, and the way that Elder Soares taught it was so powerful! Afterwards, we watched the Pres. Uchtdorf video that was given to the Mission Presidents, and it was awesome, I think that it was most people's highlight of Zone Training,  it was really really good! We ran over to the office and we took back all of the computer supplies and what not, then we ran by President's house to give him his USB flash drive back, and we had some questions for him, we are supposed to set the new 2015 zone goal for baptisms for our zone and how we are going to reach that, so we asked him about that, and we we're with him for a bit, he showed us a bunch of graphs and stuff the church has and printed them out for us! Then we ran back and we went to our Stake President's meeting with Pres. Campbell. Then we ate dinner at the Knudsen's home, they are still awesome! Then we had our correlation meeting in the evening.

Wednesday - We taught Bonnie in the morning... and it was a awesome lesson! We talked to her about he Doctrine of Family History and Temples, because she was going to Orlando for the weekend, and going to visit the temple! It was so a good lesson, the Spirit was there.. I really feel and they do as well that they have some definite work to do on the other side, for their ancestors that have passed away! Bonnie is so awesome, she is really committed to do whatever she needs to do, and know everything that she can! We did have kind of a cool experience, there was a referral that came to the mission office for this man, named Kreg Mecham, who needed a blessing, so we were there and we took it.. so we go there, he is in the ICU, and we give him a blessing, we talked with him or tried, he was pleasantly confused, so it was hard! But the nurse was talking to his family, and they wanted to talk to us.. so I took it, his family is all in Utah.. in Provo, and get this they have not seen him in 20 years.. he just up and left his family and the church, and has been in Tallahassee for 20 years, was apparently homeless and brought in here, so I talked to his family, the first time they have made contact with him... and so they were so thankful, they are all members! Talked to his mother, just the sweetest woman, so they gave me their phone number and we have been checking up on him, and then calling them to report, because they have no other way to find out.. And they are a long way away from coming to see him! It was crazy.. absolutely humbling, what some people go through! And as well the nurse grew up in DeFuniak Springs, so I got to talk to her about it! Then we taught Gonzalo in the evening, we talked to him about Chapter 4 of Preach My Gospel, how he can better understand the Spirit, Gonzalo is still the man!!

Thursday - We taught Bonnie again in the morning... SO GOOD! So her assignment was 2 Nephi 2 to read, and she did it right after we left on Wednesday, so we talked about that, and the Plan of Salvation, in just review, and talked about the Spirit World with them. And then Cristina talked about how she talked to you Dad, which just added to the lesson, and she said, oh ya he was here in this lesson with us! Pretty cool, and again the sweetest spirit came into the room as we talked about the Plan of Salvation... and then the door slowly opened up..... and we all looked at it, and the wind had just blown it open, but I said, "Hey guys, come on in!" And it was funny, right as we talked about all of that... so cool! Then we shared a lesson on the Follow the Prophet, as a commandment, and she had some good questions about that.

Saturday - We helped a member's neighbor move, she is in prison, so she is getting evicted, so had to move all of her stuff.. it was sad to see, all of her kids there, and you can't even understand them how they talk, you see how little they have, but they trash what they do have.. all of their stuff was hammered.. it was sad, take care of your stuff, and life a healthy life, clean your house! Then we visited Bro Barber, we talked to him really heavily about church. We tried to see a bunch of our potentials.. and then we went and we saw Kreg in the hospital again, he remembered us and had been moved from the ICU, so that was a good sign, so we talked with him and then said a prayer with him... then we called his family, and they called us back and we gave them the update... they are so thankful! Then we saw Gonzalo in the evening, and we talked with him about tithing.

Sunday - Good old Sunday. We had T.R. LeBrun there, and he loved it, he was dressed in a suit this time, really hit it off with some of the youth, and he was really at home this time! We got to bless the sacrament with Gonzalo... Elder Peterson and I, and him in the middle... it was really special! My first time getting to do that in this ward! After church we taught this dude named Jake at the institute building, he is 20 and he is a student at FSU, we ran into him on the street on Saturday, and he met us there, so we will be passing him over to the FSU elders... but we taught him the restoration.. and he is the man!!! It was such a powerful lesson, and he really was into it, he is really looking for something in his life.. it is always cool to talk to people the same age as us, he is the same age as me! So cool, he is from Orlando, and we are going to meet up when he returns, he said he needs to talk to his family/friends about this.. he committed to find out for himself! Then our day was just spent chasing all kinds of people down, we got to teach this lady named Sondra. Then we ate dinner with Bishop and Sister Hargrett, they are super awesome! Then we visited with Sis Daniels, and had a lesson with her.

This week I learned a lot of lessons.. we really don't have a single reason to complain or be down about.. we've been blessed with so much, I think often of the Savior and what he went through, and take a good look at my life, and say ya know, I'm doing pretty good! I miss you and love you all like crazy!!!! Have a Happy Thanksgiving!!!!! Thankful for all of you.. LOVE ELDER HINTZE

PS - I just got a email from the missionary department, they are having us track our numbers in the next couple of weeks.. for  the "He is the Gift Initiative" I guess it is a thing for Christmas, and a video comes along with it, in 2 days or so, look for that!!