"and when he did he said he was just feeling pretty miserable, and after he felt such peace."

Monday, January 5, 2015

So hello there family!!

Welcome to a new year! I am doing fantastic today, it is a bit chilly here in Tallahassee, but other than that! I am sure you watched our FSU boys go down, the whole town has been mourning, but I was cheering for my Oregon Ducks, they are going to take it all the way baby! So a cool thing that I did not mention last week.. Steven Caldwell, from my Dothan days, he was about to get baptized, but got shipped off to boot camp. He is back, and has been in contact with the Ozark Elders which is Elder Urquiaga. So he told me, and he gave me his phone number and this last week I got a chance to talk to him!!! He has just been busy with life he says.. but I made him promise me that he would meet with the Elders... I also have Tony Hansen's phone number from Dothan, and I am going to give him a call, and get him on his case! So I will keep you posted, I told Steven that I would call him again soon to check up on him, he knew who I was on the phone, before I even told him! Alright, lets get to this week, it was a good one! Just struggling to stay busy lately, but things will get there, we had zone training this week, and it went pretty good, ran out of time again, but we'll talk about that! Here we go:

Monday - We went to the mall for last P-Day and we may make a stop there today... nothing to do in Tallahassee! And the mall just keeps calling our name! So Monday in the evening we ate dinner with the Schrader's, very good people! Then our appointment canceled... and we popped by to see a PM family.. And then it is zone training week, so you know we did some more zone training, usually they are on Tuesday, but we moved ours to Friday, I'll tell you about it later!

Tuesday - In the morning, we once again worked on zone training, we planned for the least amount of time.. out of all of the zone trainings I have been a part of! So it was nice! We then visited with Bro Barber.. he is doing really well, I think that we are going to get him to come to church here pretty soon, I hope. We have been working really hard with him, to have spiritual lessons, and I think we're getting him. And then we had a whole lot of zone stuff to do, don't really remember what we did exactly, had to run some errands... 

Wednesday - I was on a tradeoff with Elder Moore and Elder Peterson was with Elder Jackman in 4th ward! In the morning, we attempted to visit Sister Gray's son, who was in a motorcycle accident, he was just headed to an appointment.. we tried to come back to see him, but just weren't able to catch him. We also tried to visit the Tally Chamber of Commerce, we are going to get a list of events in Tallahassee, and try and get something going! Then we ran around and tried to see all of our potentials and did some good finding.. we found an awesome family, who live right by the Knudsen's, he let us right in, and showed us all of their fish tanks.. and then we talked with him about the church and the Book of Mormon and his wife and him and made a goal to get back into church this new year. So I hope we can get back in and see them, his name is Kevin Cooper! Then the Stuckey's had us over for dinner! And New Years Eve baby.. so we had to be in early, we traded back, did our good old exchange reports, gotta love em! And then we spent the new year while in the comforts of our bed.. BUT I did set an alarm at 11:55.. and I woke everybody up and we went out and we banged pots and pans!

Thursday - We did service with Sister Gray in the morning picking all of that grapefruit! And man alive it was better than any video game, I loved it, I was up on the roof, using this huge pole, and the fruit of my labors (get that joke there ;) ) taste delicious!!!

Picking grapefruit.

Then we helped out with the Atchley's funeral, they lost their son on Christmas.. so we helped them to set up with all of the funeral stuff! Then we visited with the Blime's! Brother Blime came to church this Sunday, so all is well! Then we had to do our weekly planning in the evening!

Friday - We had our Zone Training!! It was a good one... we did some good stuff, we had to introduce all of the new 2015 goals! The Tally 1 Zone goal is 50 baptisms, so going for 9 more than we got this year! I think that we can do it.. We introduced some good things in there our mission theme is "United We Stand", so we tried to work off of that, we are united in praying for 4 baptisms a month in our zone, and we are united in doing the 40 day purification fast, and fasting together when Elder Andersen comes. The STLs, did an awesome job, on teaching the Doctrine of Fam History and refreshing us on that. Then we did a bunch of role plays, on our teaching skills, I was in the corner of the Family History OYM transition it to the Gospel, talking to the random people that is my game! And then the big finale, was we had the Stake President come and talk to us about his vision for 2015 and gave us the Stake's goals.. very interesting to have them...  And then the bishop from the 4th ward came... and he is awesome! He will give it to you like it is, straight up with you. So he got into us about our example when we walk into a members home, how we can gain their trust.. he said are you talking about sports? Is that why you came here? He did an awesome job, so he talked about ward councils and what we can do to improve! I wish every bishop was like him, so so so so missionary minded! He has the highest sacrament attendance as well! After that we had a little council with our District Leaders on some things that we want them to start doing! Then we visited with a member named Bill Kosin, we are going to start working with him! Then we helped out with a move for Bro Hardee's sister, it was an easy move.. but there was this strange tree over the drive way, like an arch that grew over it, but it was so short that big cars or trucks can't drive under it... so here we loaded up a trailer that they pulled up by hand.. and now we can't get it out... so Ford Fusion to the rescue, I backed up our white chariot and they popped a hitch onto it, where our bike rack is, and I slowly pulled the trailer out of the driveway! Then we met Mark Davis here at the church and we gave him a church tour.. Mark is awesome, the Spirit was really strong, we just did a circle around and we look at the pictures of Christ, and then we took sometime in the Chapel to teach him about church, and the Book of Mormon, I think Mark has a lot a lot of potential! Then we had to email out a ton of information to our district leaders, we didn't get a chance to teach a huge section in zone training, so we are having them do it!

Saturday - Just a big old day of finding! We got out and we did a bunch of knocking doors and we covered our tracks from the caroling on Christmas Eve, trying to see if any of them were interested! So we were able to find a few people, had a chance to talk to tons of people. Then we were able to teach Eric with Sean Stone, he is the man, we had him teach us the plan of salvation, and he just shared us some verses out of Romans.. on Faith.. so we rolled with that, and then we taught him the story of Alma 17! Had our dinner and then we got out and tried to find some people on the ward roster... we have found so many people that have moved, like it is crazy! Almost half of our ward roster it seems doesn't even exist!

Sunday - First time of my mission having 11:00 am church... it was heavenly, we got to finish our studies in the morning and then church! Church was good, we had T. R. there with us.. he is still doing awesome! We had a lesson with him after church in the Delp's home and we read Enos with him and talked about prayer... this week he read the Book of Mormon a bunch and he prayed.. and when he did he said he was just feeling pretty miserable, and after he felt such peace. So fun to think about that, we have been taught to Pray since we could talk.. but yet, here he is experiencing his first time ever receiving an answer to his prayers! And then our appointments canceled on us, so we just shot around trying to make things happen, (that is trying anyone we could).. to no avail! Gonzalo is back in town, and we are seeing him tonight, so we are pumped about that!

It has been rough lately in our work.. it seems that there is always something that needs to be done, all the time! Always some planning or this and that, we have MLC this Wednesday and then we have Elder Andersen the next Thursday, so there is going to be even more to be done here soon! So we are just trying to increase our teaching pool, pray that we will be able to find some people, we are working really hard to involve members in the work! It is hard to know if your making a difference out here a lot of times, but I know that this work is true! Love you guys!!

Love,

Elder Hintze

"You know what, I really liked that you said how much Heavenly Father loves us."

Monday, December 29, 2014

Hello Family!!

I sure do love you guys, and I hope everyone is doing well today! I am doing great as always.. it was so fun to see you guys this past week, it by far was the most normal one for me, it just was fun! Plus sometimes I don't even know if you all exist anymore! Thank you so much for everything, all of the presents that were sent we're awesome! I greatly appreciated it! Happy New Year!! Here we go:

Monday - P-Day we played basketball, we didn't get to play for very long.. due to getting our haircuts at the apostate barbershop! We have go to come up with some more P-Day ideas, I am open for suggestions? It is raining here today, so I think we are headed for a lunch date at the mall with the APs. Gotta love the mall! In the evening we had dinner with the Delp's! After dinner, we had to run and grab a coconut and pineapple from Walmart for our christmas festivities... and it was hilarious all of the campus missionaries were caroling outside of Walmart, just funny. So then we got out and we were knocking doors in the darkness, we didn't have much success, but we were able to talk to some really really good people, and had long conversations with them... one dude named Joe gave us some fruit, he was feeling the Christmas spirit, I guess.

Tuesday - Crazy day here... where not much was accomplished! We had our district meeting in the morning. And then after that we met with the Sister Trainer Leaders and had a little pow wow to discuss our plans for Zone Training, it was supposed to be tomorrow for us.. but we moved ours to Friday... we have some good stuff planned, we have invited the Stake President and the Bishop in 4th ward to come and speak to us. So we got all of the agenda figured out, now we just have to plan! So it was crazy weather.. and we had planned to do some finding, but due to the weather and no appointments we hit the phones and we started making all of our phone calls, in hopes that we could get us a successful end of the week. And then we get a call that Sister Lopez's house is flooding, so we go over and we start to help her out, so we started vacuuming and mopping up all of the water, not too much! But the rain was absolutely nuts... the waters were seriously like rivers, there were roads flooded and the gutters, which are huge deep holes dug, were like raging rivers.. so it was a good time! And then we ordered everyone to be inside, so that was that!

Wednesday - Christmas Eve!!! So we just started calling members and seeing if they would allow us to come share a short little Christmas message with them.. and the Porter's invited us over for breakfast in the morning with their family, so that was super nice of them, and we had the chance to share a message with them, I love the Porter's! We came home and we did our studies and then we were able to go and share a message with Bro Kelly and his daughter, which led to us getting a Christmas dinner invite from them. Then we visited with Otia Nash, she is a member, she is 18 years old, and the only member in her family.. so it is hard for her to come very much, based on her circumstances.. Then the Tew family had us over for some dinner, and they had all of the campus missionaries and the 4th ward missionaries over for dinner, and we packaged up, packages of cookies.. and then we went around caroling to all of their neighbors and giving them the oh so classic, and terribly outdated church DVD Stories of Christmas... I am sure people are dieing to watch Mr Kruger's christmas, right? :) So we went out caroling, which that was a good time! And the Atchley's who I told you about, it was their oldest son that passed away.. they hydroplaned and crashed into a tree, so really really sad! Then the Davis's had us over for some dinner, which was fun, and that is where we got to act out the Christmas story.

Elder Hintze & Elder Peterson

Thursday - CHRISTMAS DAY!!! This Christmas was great.. it was so much fun! We had the big sleepover in our living room, around our tree and all of the presents.. so we all woke up in the morning and went around, one by one, and we all opened up our presents! I think that I came out on top... some of their families, wrapped up packages of gum, and tic tacs... so I count myself a winner! :) Then we went to Breakfast on campus with all of the missionaries.. super fun, I wooped up on some people in Ping Pong.. Elder Cooper is the only one that has beaten me... and we went back and forth. ;)

Christmas morning at the Institute Building.

We came home did our studies! And then we got to eat with Bro Kelly. Then we went to the Knudsen's, which is where I was able to talk to you all!!!!!!!!!!! Highlight of the week by far!!! After that we headed over to Pres and Sis Smith's home for dinner

Elder Welch, Elder Fredericksen, Elder Funk, Elder Peterson, Elder Hintze, Elder Sorensen, Elder Milne, President Smith.

and then we got to watch a little movie called An Ordinary Shepherd, it was like 20 minutes long about, this boy, who's father was a shepherd when the angels announced the birth of Christ, so his father told him all about it.. his father ended up passing away and the boy left crippled due to a falling rock. In the end Christ appears to him and heals him, and the little boy shares all that he has with this man, who he did not know was the Savior. I loved it! It made me think a lot.. the small boy all he knew was of the story his father told him, he had never met the Savior, he has just heard of His works and His miracles, yet that was the center of that boys thoughts, that is all that he focused on. But we know infinitely more about the Savior than just the Christmas Story, but I don't think He is the center of each of our thoughts enough!

Friday - We had our weekly planning in the morning! And then we taught a man by the name of Curtis Bauchmann, he is a guy, probably in his 50s, turns out he is actually pretty awesome, seems fairly solid! We taught him the Restoration and it went really really well, he agreed with everything, and he seemed to feel the Spirit, he calls himself a "traveler." So we will see! And then we tried to chase down some of our potentials and do some finding, we talked to our boy Dennis, and he said, "Are you guys ready to drink some beer?" "Well alright then, don't come back until you are ready to drink beer!" Uh... ur... okay Dennis! Then we ate dinner at the Bell's home, they as well, are one of the favorites for sure! And then the evening consisted of popping around and trying to see potentials again!

Saturday - We did some zone work in the morning, we have had to adjust all of the areas in the zone, and help them set their baptismal goal for 2015. Afterwards, we went to the Gray's, for a short visit. Then we were able to visit with the Markham's for just a short time, it was a good visit, got to share a little though, but the spirit was really strong. We then taught T.R. with Dean Delp and we were able to read with him out of the Book of Mormon, 1 Nephi 13 and 14... we are going to teach him all out of their now, really get him into it. He has not been praying, so we whipped him into shape on that!  Then we taught Eric Erickson, and we taught him the plan of salvation, and he is going to now come back and he is going to teach us the plan of salvation next time, Eric is still just kind of floating on, he didn't come to church because he went back to the other church for some service.

Sunday - We had Curtis and T. R. at church on Sunday, church was really good today! T. R. is still kicking it off great with the ward! We had to teach Gospel Principles and the topic was... Exaltation, hahahahahaha. So here we have a first time investigator, and we taught him how we can become like God. :) Always fun! So we did a really good job of teaching it I think, we basically taught the Plan of Salvation, and worked our way up there.. but the first question that was asked a member popped up and started talking about how we will create our own planet and have our own spirit children.. and after she said all that, I said, "You know what, I really liked that you said how much Heavenly Father loves us." Just moving on from that one! So then after EQ lesson.. our boy Curtis, starts like grilling into me about this and that, about different thoughts that he had about the lesson. Afterwards, we taught this guy named Webster Emmanuel, we did some family history with him.. We were able to visit the Whisnant's who are active members. Then were able to see Sister Daniels, great visit with them, we are getting all of the kids involved. Then in the evening probably another highlight of the week was teaching Mark Davis, he is a new investigator, apparently he has had many interactions with the church, they have helped him out, so we got a chance to teach him the Restoration, and it was awesome, he totally felt the Spirit, he told us.. and we said a kneeling prayer with him right at the end, where he asked to know if these things were true, he is super awesome! So we are excited for what is to come with him. 

Love you like crazy!!!!!!

Elder Hintze

"He found a Book of Mormon years ago in south Florida... and knew it was true, but just didn't know what the next step was.."

Monday, December 22, 2014

FAMILY!!!

Lets get to this week, this week was busy... but a hard one... nothing went well with our missionary work, as opposed to last week we did not meet very many of the key indicators, love you all like crazy!!! Here is the week:

Monday - So dodgeball tournament today.. it was super awesome again! Maybe the excitement went down just slightly, but it was still a blast! We had the bracket drawn out with the Districts as well...

Of course Elder Hintze was in charge of the brackets!

and our district won on the family history return appointments, so we had a bye in the first round and the top perk and we were playing a district with 4 and we have 12... and we lost! It was pathetic... The APs district lost first round too, so it was crazy! But they came back and ended up winning it all again... it was so stupid! I was talking mad smack talk... and then didn't back it up, very dissapointed in myself! So that is why this time wasn't as good as last, I wanted to win baby!!! But it was good time, tons of hilarious things.. really such a good group of missionaries in our zone and in the other one!

Elder Peterson, Elder Hintze, Elder ??, Elder ?? at Dodgeball!

So then we did zone vs zone matches and then a massive free for all match! It was a rushed P-Day though, P-Days are basically the worst some times the busiest days, I did get the shopping done, and the packages will be shipped off tomorrow.. don't know if they will make it in time! But they're on the way soon! The Singletary's took us to dinner in the evening they took us to Longhorn's Steakhouse... we are just getting hooked up these days. The Singletary's is a lady and her son, who is like 15, they're father/husband passed away like a year and a half ago unexpectedly, and it has been hard on them... so we have been trying to get in and see them forever!

Tuesday - Had to make a run during our studies to the mission home to get all of the mission shirts for the family! Then we had our district meeting, it was a good one. We are going to be getting a new district leader in our district, so that is kind of a good thing! :) But after that we went to the Schrader's home for lunch, and while we were over there, she makes really nice gingerbread houses every year and sells them. So she let all 4 of us elders in the 1st ward come over and we each made our own gingerbread houses to have. It was pretty dang fun! Then after that we went and we did service with Bro Shipley at his little "farm".. they have a really nice place. So it was kind of fun! After that we came home and we did a little bit of finishing on our train the trainers program, but then missionaries showed up who were spending the night with us, we had Elder Thackery and Elder Jorgenson stayed with us for a sleepover! They are both training, so they come into Tallahassee the night before and then stay for the meeting in the morning. Then we went to our Ward Correlation meeting.. Also this is big secret news... that I found out about a while ago... but now has been released, Elder Andersen of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles will be coming to our mission on January 16th and will be here in Tallahassee and every missionary in the mission will be in attendance! But I am super pumped for his visit! We don't know if we will get to do a special MLC or anything with him!

Wednesday - Transfer Day!!!! So we got there bright and early in the morning, and I got to see my boy Elder Cooper off! He is home now... so that was cool! I really like Elder Cooper, he went off with some other really cool missionaries that I knew, so it was good to see them. Then we got to do our Train the Trainers meeting! It actually went really, really well! It was basically just a discussion for the whole hour and a half, and we talked about a lot of really good stuff, we followed the AP's outline, but we spiced it up a lot... included some different activities and so it went really well! So then we road tripped all day! Went to Crestview got the job done there, and then we headed back home! It was cool we got to announce the companionship's of the trainees and the trainers over the pulpit! And then we came home and we ate dinner with the Stone's in the evening!

Thursday - We taught a man named Marvin Woods in the morning, he is a referral from Campus sisters.. we have been in communication with him for some time now.. So we taught him the Restoration, and it went really well. But then we did some planning! And then we taught T.R. with his dad at the church, we watched the movie Finding Faith in Jesus Christ, and again just had a lesson on prayer and developing faith... so it was basically just a pray and read and you can know that these things are true! Then we did some service with Sister Lopez, we raked her yard and bagged up all of the leafs in her yard! Then we did a little finding, contacted a referral that was fake and then we ate dinner with the Knudsen's, always awesome! Then we had to come home and finish our weekly planning!

Friday - Rough day here! We had all of our investigator lessons lined up and member presents and none of the investigators showed up... so we had to finish some of our weekly planning! And then we tried to visit Kreg Mecham in the morning... and he passed away just a few hours before we got there.... so it was sad, we were hoping to see him one more time! But then his family called us and just thanked us for all that we did, it was a really special unique experience for us! We then visited a member in the hospital, Brother Hollett, I love the Holletts, he seems to be doing better though, he had no blood flow to his legs. And then we had to meet up with Elder Jackman and Elder Moore and we gave Elder Jackman a blessing, he tore a tendon in his shoulder and is now in a sling! We were able to teach Sister Daniels and Taahira again, we read from the Book of Mormon with them! And then I gave a baptismal interview to Oscar the 4th ward's investigator. I will tell you Oscar's story in a bit!

Saturday - We went out and visited the Whitfeld's... she is a member and her daughter is a member was there, and we were able to have a little lesson with Casey.. And then I gave the baptismal interview to Oscar again... just had to work out somethings with him learning about President Monson! Oscar lives on Charlotte Street with us, and we always have seen him cruising up and down the street in his electric chair walking his dog, he is a big man... and no missionaries had talked to him until 3 weeks ago.... and now he got baptized on Sunday. He found a Book of Mormon years ago in south Florida... and knew it was true, but just didn't know what the next step was.. didn't even know about the church! And it was such a pleasure of mine, to give him the interview, he understands it all better than anyone that I have ever seen! He just gets it, and it is just beautiful, it really strengthens your testimony to see him! Just such a good person.

Sunday - Had our Christmas program on Sunday! It was good, the whole thing was just kind of weird, but it was good! We had T. R. there, and he is still doing awesome.. just fitting in right perfect with the youth in the ward! We taught a man named Webster Emmanuel after church he is from the Virgin Islands, where he grew up is 90 miles from Barbados, so we just talked to him and shared the Book of Mormon with him and The Family A Proclamation to the World, he is really interested in Family History work! After that we headed way way way out west in our area, farther than I have ever been, and we just tried to contact some ward roster people.. found some that want us to return! We traveled back and we attended Oscar's baptism. Elder Duncan the brand new missionary who lives in the shack at the compound got to baptize him, so it was pretty special! It is fun to have a new missionary that we can all take under our wing again!

But lets talk about how I will get to see you all in 3 days!!!! And I am beyond pumped... I think that I am more excited for this one, than I have been for any in the past! I love you like crazy family, and miss you!! HOPE YOU ALL HAVE A MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!! See you in 3 days!

LOVE YOU