Coming Home!

Wednesday & Thursday, June 13-14, 2015

The group of missionaries going home enjoyed some dinner on Wednesday evening 

with President & Sister Smith and the Assistants.

Studying the scriptures in the Mission Home on Thursday morning before breakfast.

A picture at the airport of the group prior to departure.

"I am so grateful for my testimony and for my membership in this great Church, this is the Church of Jesus Christ restored to the earth! It has been a dream to represent our Savior each day, to go out and to represent Him, I know that He is our Savior, I know that this is His work! I am grateful to have been able to serve Him!"

Saturday, June 6, 2015

Hello Family!!!

Hope you are doing well today, I hope you know how much that I love each and everyone of you! In case you might have forgotten this is my last P-Day thus last email from the mission, I can't thank you guys enough for your prayers and support over these last 2 years! So with that being said, I'll see you guys next week!!!! :) Here is the week!

Saturday - After we finished up our emailing we started our proselyting! We did some family history with Therese, but it was kind of hectic, because we were also getting set up for the other elders baptism, so we filled up the font and then set up the room. While doing some family history. Then we attended the baptism the girl's name was Zoie, good baptism as always, Therese gave a talk in it, so that was pretty cool. It is so cool in 5th ward, because there are so many recent converts, so it is cool to watch all of them grow! So after the baptism p-day began, and so we got our shopping done and then we went to the FSU fields and we just played football and ultimate frisbee, and then we went for some ice cream afterwards, and man was it good! So it was a good day today!

Sunday - Before church we did some weekly planning, gotta love it! Then we went to church and we had Alexander Farabee there and Jen Kovak was there. Church was good! Jen could only stay for sacrament meeting, but we had Alexander there for the full 3 hours! Afterwards we did some family history work with Therese, it is getting really really complicated. Dusty and Therese during church got callings to be ward missionaries, so that was super cool! Also Therese got her temple recommend, so she's ready for Utah. After the family history, we came home for some dinner and then we finished out the night with our weekly planning!

Monday - We did family history with Dusty in the morning! So then we went and we did some contacting on campus and we went on splits, so Dusty and I went and Otu and Carlile went together, and we weren't able to be out there for very long before it started dumping rain on us... like pouring! So we get caught a bit away from the church, so Dusty and I just start sprinting across campus to get to his car, so we can pick the other two up, but the time we got to the car it was as if we had gone swimming, it was crazy! So we went and rescued them from the rain. After a bite of lunch, we went to the church for the dodgeball tourney! And as you guys well know, we took home the championship again! I must say though we got to the finals and we lost, but it is double elimination, so we had to beat another team, then we came back up to the finals and we had to beat Tally South District twice (my old district) and my faith was wavering, I didn't know if we could do it! BUT WE DID! I played pretty well myself, so I retire with 4 dodgeball tournament rings! After it was all concluded, we got picked up by Alexander Farabee and we went to dinner and a lesson in President and Sister Smith's home! It was great!! We taught him about enduring to the end, but mainly temples/eternal marriage/and family history work. It was a great lesson! And plus the mission home is amazing and plus Pres and Sis Smith are the bomb, so it was a good evening!

President Smith, Sister Smith, Elder Hintze, Elder Otu, Elder Carlile, & Alexander.

Elder Hintze, Elder Carlile, Sister Smith, Elder Otu.

Tuesday - District Meeting in the morning, it went well! We had a mission wide conference call as we usually do, but President took a lot longer than he normally does and he talked about Responsibility, Accountability, Attitude, and Desire, how we need to improve all of those things! The Tally 1 Zone is killing it, and the Campus District is killing it! Once we are done with June our district will have already exceeded our baptismal goal for all of 2015 and already reached our stretch goal! After district meeting we had a lesson with Alexander and Therese came, we taught him tithing and fast offerings, and he is pumped to pay tithing! He was raised in the Catholic church always paying, so he already has a testimony of it! Took a little lunch break afterwards and then we had a lesson with Jen Kovak. We taught her the Restoration, and it went well! Then we made a few phone calls, before we had a lesson with Emilee McGann, and Angy came with us, it was such a fantastic lesson!! She said, "every Mormon that I have ever met has been the nicest person in the whole world!" So we read 1 Nephi 1 and 2 with her, and she already started to gain things from it, so it was killer! And then she stayed for Institute afterwards, and so we were there with her, and then we had dinner there and then bounced home!

Wednesday - We got a call to head with the Dalleys to give a blessing to a woman who was in the hospital, so we ran and we took the priesthood with us and gave her a blessing, she was a member from Quincy Branch! We then hopped onto campus and we did some contacting up until the time that we met Farrah on campus for a lesson! It was another marathon one we had with her, we didn't actually get to teach a lesson lesson, we just had to answer tons of questions and she literally just has picked apart the chapters in the Book of Mormon that we give her to read, so it was awesome. We headed back and did a late lunch and we made some phone calls. And then we got picked up for dinner with the Havlicak's (Bishop), they fed us and it was awesome! She gave us the Cafe Rio ranch stuff that she made afterwards and you best believe I have been putting that stuff down! After we came back, we hit the campus and did some more contacting!

Thursday - We had a member lesson with Quinn Berven in the morning, it went very well! We are still trying to get our member lessons down and fine tune our system! Immediately following him, we taught a new guy named Michigun with Quinn, so we taught him the restoration.

FSU Campus

Elder Hintze

Elder Carlile, Elder Otu, & Elder Hintze

After that we hit the campus and did some contacting and some lunch, and we got back to have another member lesson with Angy Vasquez. Immediately following we had a lesson with Jen Kovak, and we taught her the Plan of Salvation and it went well too! After her Errick Spradley made us some dinner at the institute. And then we taught Emilee McGee with Celine at the lesson, it as well went really well! And she asked a ton of good questions about it, she plans to come to FHE and Institute next week, she unfortunately won't be at church this weekend. Then we did some contacting to finish off the evening!

Friday - We went on an exchange with the Assistants, so I went to FAMU campus with Elder Sorenson and Elder Fortin, and Palau came to FSU with Otu and Carlile, turns out they had an amazing day on FSU, so that was cool! And we had a killer day on FAMU as well it as a blast to be able to serve with Elder Fortin and Sorenson, they are both amazing missionaries! We taught an investigator in the morning his name is Chris Wright, we taught him the Plan of Salvation! After some running around and some lunch, we hit the campus for some contacting! Such a difference in the two campuses, people are soo nice over at FAMU, so it was cool! We went to do some Family History survey tracting in this apartment complex and the first door we knock they let us right in and then we started doing family history with both of them, two roommates, so it was awesome!!! Got them hooked up on Familysearch.org, and set up return appointments at the FH Center. Then we had a lesson with Celine Burton, she is the recent convert, we taught her about Missionary Work! Then some dinner and then we had a lesson with their investigator named "Buddha", we read Alma 34 with him and we talked about the Book of Mormon/Plan of Salvation, so it ended up being a good lesson. After that we had a lesson with Zoie, their recent convert, she just got baptized, and she is awesome, so we taught her about Lehi's Dream, great lesson!

Saturday - We traded back this morning and then we hit FSU campus for a bit of contacting! And then we taught this new girl named Zoie, the Restoration.. the girl was awesome! So we taught her the Restoration and the Spirit was killer in the lesson, it was so strong! After that we were there while Alexander got his baptismal interview, so he passed and is all ready to go, Elder Milne who gave the interview said, Alexander has a better understanding of everything than anyone that I have ever met! So that is killer, he asked Elder Otu to baptize him, so I am pumped for that to go down! Then we ate some lunch at Newk's! And now are here!

I can't thank everyone of you enough and express my love to you all enough, I am so grateful to have been given this opportunity to serve a mission for 2 years!! It has been the most amazing to years of my life and I would not trade it for anything in the whole wide world, the good the bad, all of it has been nothing shy of a giant blessing in my life!!! I am so grateful for my testimony and for my membership in this great Church, this is the Church of Jesus Christ restored to the earth! It has been a dream to represent our Savior each day, to go out and to represent Him, I know that He is our Savior, I know that this is His work! I am grateful to have been able to serve Him! I feel like I am in a glass case of emotion! ;) It is bittersweet, sad to think of this being over, but I am very excited to see you all!! So with that, I shall see you all soon! Love you!!!!

Love,

Elder Hintze

"To be perfect, does God have to be the most rational or logical? Or, is he perfect due to a lack of logic or reason? In other words, is logic the tool of a sinner or a mark of/stride toward perfection?"

Saturday, May 30, 2015

Saturday - P-Day! After we finished up our emailing we went home and got a bite to eat, and our day didn't turn out exactly as we had planned. They had MLC here in Tallahassee. I got to see Elder Peterson, so that was way cool, I love Elder Peterson! And all the other peeps, got to see Elder Urquiaga. So we then got our shoppng done and then the Knudsen's took us out for some dinner, and we went to Burger Fi, and it was delicious, seriously sooo good! Afterward, we also went to this frozen yogurt place, so we were full, and it was all delicious!

Sunday - So before church we did some good old weekly plannig and then we scurried on down to the church for our coordination meeting. Church was good, because we had 3 investigators there!!! We had Alexander Farabee, Jamael, and Jason Fuller. All 3 of them had to take off after Sacrament, but it was awesome to get them there and they all seemed to really enjoy it! Afterwards, we came home got changed and ate some dinner, and then we hit campus shortly for some contacting. But then we went with a member Robert Strobel and we went and we had a lesson with Ahmad Balzubi, we taught the Restoration to him and it seemed to go fairly well. After his lesson we came home and we got finished up all of our weekly planning!

Monday - We taught Alexander Farabee in the morning with Therese, and he is still the absolute man! We taught him the commandments of Follow the Prophet and the Word of Wisdom. He also loves the idea of modern day prophets, he said that was one thing that really, really stood out for him on when he was researching. Afterwards we hit the campus to do some contacting, Therese and Taylor came with us, to talk to some peeps. It was a pretty dead day on campus, because it was Memorial Day, so there was no class, and nobody to talk to! We made some phone calls to potentials afterwards, and then we had some dinner with Taylor and his roommate Peyton. And then we had a sports night, we played dodgeball! And it was actually super fun, we had a way good turnout and Therese brought two of her non member friends, so it was fun! 

Tuesday - We had zone training in the morning, so no District Meeting! It was a good zone training, I once again had to bare my testimony as a departing missionary! They did what we did for a zone training a few back, they had recent converts come, so Dusty and Therese came and talked to the zone. That was probably the best part of it all! After that we had to go to a doctors appointment for Elder Otu, he had to get some blood drawn! We came back and we had a family history appointment with this girl named Stephanie, it was our first time meeting her, and we had a ton of success on her family.. but she won't be able to meet until August, so she will be gone until then! Then we had a lesson with Therese's friend named Jen Kovak with Therese there. We were just trying to get to know her and ask her questions.. We just read Alma 32 with her and talked about/asked her to exercise some faith in what we have to share! After that we we are at Institute, because Alexander came, so we stayed there for the lesson and then dinner afterwards with him! 

Wednesday - We taught Alexander Farabee in the morning with Therese, and we taught him the Plan of Salvation, and it was a killer lesson, he loved it! It was his favorite lesson thus far. He had already known/read about a lot of the Plan of Salvation, but never all together like that, so it was super helpful for him.. He cooked us lunch, so afterwards we ate lunch with him and Therese, made some delicious chicken and rice, and we all know how much I love that, and we told him jello was a Utah thing, so he made that! After his lesson, we had a lesson with Therese and we talked for the most part about the temple. Then the rest of our day was on campus contacting, it was kind of a bummer day, because it rained for a good bit, so we had to seek refuge and then we just forged on in the storm, the only problem is when its raining there is no one else outside! Contacting has still been super tough lately, and it is crazy because we have literally talked to a good portion of the people that walk the same path as us each day!

Thursday - Happy Birthday Mother!!!!! Our morning started out on campus doing some contacting, and it was a warm day today! We contacted this girl named Jashett on campus, and we ended up teaching her right then and there, we taught her the Restoration, and it was super cool! She understood everything and was actually pretty excited about it, she prayed really well at the end, and she committed to read the Book of Mormon! After some more contacting, we had a lesson with Jen Kovak. We had planned to teach the Restoration, but ended up teaching the 2nd half of the Plan of Salvation dealing with after life. Did some contacting and then we did some Family History with Therese, and we killed it this time found a bunch of family names to take to the temple! After that we ate dinner and then finished off the evening with some contacting, we also gave Carson Draney a blessing, she is a member.

Friday - Super crazy day, on our lessons, we taught 2, but they were long ones! We taught Farrah on campus again! She says stuff that I don't even know what these words mean, so I always have to have her define things for me. We taught her the Restoration, but also answered tons of her questions and we taught about the spirit world, so some of the plan of salvation. She asked this question, "To be perfect, does God have to be the most rational or logical? Or, is he perfect due to a lack of logic or reason? In other words, is logic the tool of a sinner or a mark of/stride toward perfection?" After some good contacting we had a lesson with Jamael. We watched the Prophet of the Restoration video with him, Therese was there as well as Carson and James Burrows his member friend, so we watched it and afterwards we talked briefly and committed him to gain a spiritual witness that these things are true, and afterwards, the Spirit was strong!!! Finished off with some dinner and then some good contacting on campus!!

Saturday - Don't know what we will do today for P-Day, we have the dodgeball tourney this Monday, and since it isn't our P Day on that day we will be taking the 2 hours out of today.. so we will proselyte for 5 hours today! :) And there is a baptism, so may not have much time to do anything crazy fun today!

FAMILY I LOVE YOU ALL SOOOO MUCH!!!!

Love,

Elder Hintze

"Are we dating the Book of Mormon or are we hanging out with it?"

Saturday, May 23, 2015

Hello Family!!!!!!!

Saturday - So after our morning proselyting, we had one of the sickest P-Days!!!! We seemed to get everything done super quick today, so that was awesome.. so we played some frisbee and it started to rain, so that was fun. It is crazy, we are now into the heat and the summer, so that means it rains every afternoon here for a short time, I love it! But man alive, it sure is hotttt! After that we went to McDonald's and got a ton of food, 7 of us.. 14 McDoubles and 14 McChickens, and 7 fries.. then came back to the institute and we watched Meet the Mormons, the APs have a copy, it was soooo fun! Love that movie!

Sunday - We had our correlation meeting in the morning. Then we came home for a quick bite to eat, then church! We had Stephanie there for Sacrament Meeting, she really really liked it! Elders Quorum, we talked about the Book of Mormon, but as to be expected in the YSA ward, it kept jumping to a discussion of dating. The teacher last week said, "Are we dating the Book of Mormon or are we hanging out with it?" Hahaha it was funny. After church we had a lesson with Therese, and we taught her the Doctrine of Family History, did our little scripture chase with her, it was as always killer! Then we came home and ate some dinner, and finished our sabbath with a delightful weekly planning session!

Monday - Here is something crazy for you before I start telling about the day.. so at the compound we have only wood floors all throughout the place, so first off man I miss some good old carpet, so I have been here for a year and I have worn calluses (don't know how to spell that?) on my knees from praying so much, how cool is that am I right? :) So we taught Jackie our Family History investigator in the morning, and the internet at the church was down so we had a lesson with her instead we taught her the Doctrine of Family History work, so spirit world and temples.. and then connected it into the restoration and Book of Mormon. Then we had a good lesson with Dusty. After that we had a lesson with a girl named Yarelis, we met her on campus a few days back. We went into it thinking that we needed to teach the Plan of Salvation, so we started... and it wasn't it, but we didn't know what was it.. so we continued on, and I was just praying and praying to try and figure out what she needed, turns out we just talked to her about God loving her and we watched the mormon message The Hope of God's Light, which was it! It was on the money and it helped her a lot. Came home for a bite of lunch, and then we took some time to call our potential investigators, followed by some great contacting time. Which led up to a lesson that we had with Emilee McGee, she was the girl that we helped to move out of her apartment twice, Alex Hauter came to the lesson with us, and we taught her the Restoration, she has been all over the world, so she knows all about other religions. So it was actually super cool and she took the lesson and understood it way more than most, and so she was excited about it and the Book of Mormon! Had a brief bit of contacting before FHE, we stayed just for the spiritual thought and not the activity, then we dipped home for some dinner.

Tuesday - District Meeting in the morning, went well! We learned a bit about charity and did some good old role plays with the Pamphlets. After the meeting we headed home for a change and a lunch, then booked it back to the institute for a lesson with Jamael. We taught him the gospel of Jesus Christ, he is loving the Book of Mormon and loved the lesson. Afterwards we hit the contacting, had a really good time, met some great people. Carlile and I taught a girl named Brittani on the spot on campus, while Otu just OYMed.. we taught her the Restoration.. she was easily the most solid and knowlegeable person in terms of Gospel things. So it was lovely, we agreed on so many things.. but she didn't believe us when we talked about Joseph Smith and the First Vision.. but we gave he a Book of Mormon, so that should settle that! Then we had a lesson with Therese! Spirit was way strong, we talked about Forgiveness and Charity, read D&C 59:21, one of my favorites! Following we had a lesson with Stephanie with Therese there, she didn't have much time.. so we read 2 Nephi 31 with her, but basically just taught baptism and the Gift of the Holy Ghost + Endure.. and we invited her to be baptized as well, she said she had already been baptized, so we expained authority! And then she said if she gains a testimony, she will.. so things are going awesome with her, she is reading and she loved church. Following her lesson, we hit the campus for some contacting for about 2 hours, and then came back to the institute at 8:30 to enjoy the dinner that is provided, very delicious meal! We also heard from Alexander Farabee today. He is awesome. He has read all the way to Jacob.. and he jumped to Alma because it was calling his name, plus he was texting Therese a bunch about all of his readings. So then we heard from him the next day (Wednesday), and he said, I can't wait for our next meeting!!! And I can't stop reading.. so the Spirit's got him! He's cool!!!!

Wednesday - Today was sooo awesome, well ya.. it was sooo hottt today, and we had very few lessons, so we were on campus all day contacting! So I went through 2 white shirts today. But it really was an amazing  day, we walked so much, and so now as we are about to go to bed, we are exhausted, sleep is best when it is earned! So in the morning we had a member lesson with Quinn B, and then following we hit campus! I will tell you, it is hard to contact.. because we have literally talked to so many people, or other missionaries have, it is wild how many people we have been able to hit on this campus.. sometimes I contact people and they will say, Dude you just talked to me 2 days ago. And so then I have to make them laugh or something, or just apologize, ya know make the best of the situation! :) So we did that for about 2 hours, came in for lunch, had to dry off and change the clothes. Then we headed out for another run at some contacting. Which led up to our lesson we had with Therese and we just did some family history work! After that we had a member lesson with Kelli Longfellow. And then dinner, and then to end the evening we hit it again with some contacting on campus.

Thursday - oh guys... what a day! Ah tough one! But a good one, ya know, one that puts hair on your chest! So it was another scorcher of a day today, and we taught one lesson, hahaha so everything else was spent out in the sun contacting all day! And get this all day and I didn't even get one phone number from anybody, I think Carlile and Otu got 2 combined, so it was one of those days. I met sooo many rude people today, so I just kill them with kindness!!! :) So we started out in the morning contacting for a bit, and we had a lesson with this super awesome dude named Bernard, and he texted us and told us he was on his way.. and he never showed up and we couldn't get a hold of him after that hahaha, so he pulled a fast one on us, but we will forgive him for he knows not what he does! :) So we headed back for lunch and then more contacting... made a few phone calls. And then we had a member lesson with Claudia, and she is the bomb, we really, really like Claudia! I gave her, her baptismal interview back in January when she was baptized! So we did some contacting before and after dinner, but dinner was the highlight! Therese's mom told her to take her friends out to dinner, so she took us out to Longhorn's Steakhouse, and we told her she had to bring a friend so we could share the Gospel over dinner, and she did her name is Jen, and we now have an appointment with her for Tuesday, so we are super pumped about that! We are on a tradeoff with Elder Jorgenson plus Elder Otu, so should be a good day tomorrow, excited!

Friday - Today was a good fun day! It was fun being with Jorgenson today, love him a lot. Plus the weather today was quite delightful, not near as hot as it has been which is a nice relief for once. Our day started out in the morning we taught this new girl named Farrah on campus, she is super cool, didn't really get a chance to teach her anything as far as lesson, but she had a ton of questions and we just did some HTBT. She is super cool, she has a lot of good questions! I learned a lot today that it is so hard to explain to someone about faith, who literally has no faith, it is like describing to them the taste of salt, had a bunch of experiences with it today. So after her, we scooted on over to the institute for a lesson with Alexander Farabee, with Therese, he is so awesome! So he has read up to Jacob, and then skipped up to Alma in the Book of Mormon, he knows that it is true he told us, he has been praying about it! And he said it became real for him when he read about the Liahona, he loved that. :) So we taught him the Gospel of Jesus Christ lesson and it was really good! So then we cooked us up some delicious lunch, and we did a little comp study, Jorgenson had never heard of the doctrine of family history scriptures, so we role played that, I taught him that. Then we headed out and we had a long session of contacting on campus, we had some fairly good success, we found some potential investigators! It is crazy the amount of disbelief and just negativity we have faced lately... been crazy! People swearing at us and yelling things at us from cars, and then just the overall rejection and disbelief in God, its been heavy lately! But ya know we are still just trucking right along! There was this one dude today on campus with a camera and I talked to him and he said he is interviewing people, so I was like dude sign me up... thought it would be pretty cool, so all 3 of us together, and then he just asked us questions and we got to share in the camera, it was good and bad, we were bearing some serious serious testimony and the spirit was real! But at the same time, he was just trying to catch us with our words, he was like, "for the sake of this video, and for a non believer like myself, could you just have God drop down an apple from the sky right now for us." Dumb, just like Korihor from the Book of Mormon, and we all know he had a sad ending. :) Nice guy though, we left him with a Book of Mormon! Then we had a lesson with Therese. After the lesson we had dinner with Carson Draney, she fed/made us dinner at the institute, super good and nice little meal! And then we headed back for a few more minutes of contacting on campus, and then we headed home to do our exchange report. Kind of funny, exactly one year ago, Elder Jorgenson and I were in exact opposite positions.. hahaha he was on Campus and I was in 1st Ward, now we have switched up roles! It's funny Elder Otu and I do this thing where when one finishes praying we'll say something like, "Hey how is He?" Talking about Heavenly Father, and I asked him that tonight and he said, "He's good.. He's thinking of us and He's mindful of us, He knows our faith has been tested." and I said, "I know He is, I'm going to thank Him." Otu, "Tell Him I said thanks again." Just funny, make me laugh, but I know above all that, that is true! He's watching over us and He knows every single person that we talk to each day! He is mindful of us and HIs work! :)

Saturday -  It's my Birthday! It has been a great day so far, had some nice festivities this morning at the compound.. thank you for everything!!!! We enjoyed all of the party supplies and the pinata, very fun!!! The Knudsen's also Happy Birthdayed our front door, and then Therese baked a cake for us and brought it... she also gave me a $50 iTunes gift card, so stinking nice of her! So we hit the campus this morning to do some contacting and it was absolutely dead.. so an oppurtunity arose to go visit a recent convert named Erin Lustria in the hospital! I think we will be headed to the mall soon or something for P-Day. And Brother and Sister Knudsen offered to take us out to eat tonight for my birthday, so we will be headed out with them!!!

Love you all very very very much!!!!!

Love,

Elder Hintze