"She has been studying and wrote down some beautiful testimonies on paper"

Monday, April 14, 2014

Hello Family!!

So today is transfer day! The time has gone by soo quick here in DeFuniak!!!!!!!!!!!! So no news.. this time! I am staying here and so is Elder Larsen.. so it is all good with me! Also the sisters in DeFuniak are staying one of them, Sister Bennion came out with me.. she has been here for her whole mission. Elder Smith is staying in Dothan! I talked to him and this next Saturday the Brown Fam is set to be baptized AWESOME!!! They are the ones that we visited and challenged to take the lessons.. also Cindy Spivey got baptized in Dothan 1st ward this week.. remember them.. Elder Stubbs and I found them!! Really cool!!!!! I'm not trying to take any credit for anything.. because I didn't do anything.. but cool to see how things pan out!!!!!! Here we go:

Monday - We went out to the Crosby's house for dinner as we are this evening.... And they had a family that they invited over.. it was 4 kids.. so we had a chance to teach all of them! Their parents weren't there, but we are hoping to get them as well, the kids are really really interested in the church, two of them came to church this week, we talked to them about all kinds of stuff Baptism, Gift of the Holy Ghost, Prayer, and God is our loving Heavenly Father. Really, really excited to continue to teach them as a whole family!!

Tuesday - We had Zone Training down in Niceville, Florida.. so we got permission and went to Crestview and had a sleepover with them Elders and we rode with them to the conference.. it was good! Talked about church attendance and OYMing people! So then we headed back up to DeFuniak.. we did some contacting around the lake.. found some awesome guy named Shane! Then we saw Bro. Jewell a less active guy.. talked all about his mission in Utah.. I love talking about Utah with people! Then we went and we provided service for Brother Skahan.. a less active single guy.

Wednesday - We jetted out and we did some service with Elliott.. we planted some garden and we fed some of his puppies by the bottle.. Then we came back and we ate dinner we visited the Habbards... tried a few others.

Thursday - Holy cow.. we did service with Brother Pollard. We went with him afterwards and we taught Rosslyn.. she is so awesome... we had such a spiritual lesson with her, we have been sending her scriptures, she is shy sometimes and she has been studying and wrote down some beautiful testimonies on paper, it was so awesome! She is feeling good, gaining a lot of confidence. We taught her the Law of Chastity.. but we talked extensively on how much Heavenly Father loves her it was such an awesome lesson! Then we did home teaching.. which I went out with Elder Habel.. and after several failed visits we tried an investigator named Jeff, who I had never met.. we caught him there and his wife! He was introduced to the church in Arizona, he watched last zone conference.. so we got to know him. So, did some HTBT and we are going to go back in 3 weeks.. I guess and teach him and his wife more, they really are such good people, they know the bible very well, and are sincerely seeking. 

Friday - We did our weekly planning, and then we went with the Habels and Rosslyn.. Rosslyn's parents who were members have a house here that has been abandoned and she went up there and somebody had broken into it and has been tearing out the ceiling.. it was really sad to go in there with her.. she was crying, because somebody had just desecrated the place.. but there was a lot of stuff there, so we used our truck and we loaded all of the stuff that she wanted up... and then I found a hammer and some nails.. and I boarded up the door and I boarded up a window where people had been coming in and out.. so nobodys getting back in the place! I also stepped on two nails......... it was gnarly they went in my foot for real, so I had Larsen pull them out.. and my foot has been tender! Tried a bunch of people afterwards had nothing.. Then we ate dinner with the Cobb's, neat family. 

Saturday - We went out in the morning had an awesome day lined up... many really solid people we needed to see... had none of them. So we then began to contact some FH referral people from our event.. and we were able to contact this couple and we set up a time to do family history with them this next week, and then we found a relative of a member and we set up for the sister's to go teach here this week! But then we had a Family History class at the library here.. we had a whole 2 people show up... woooow! But it actually was super awesome.. one dude named Aleweshe Jackson.. we got him hooked up with family history and got to know him really well, he knew Rosslyn's parents.. so we are going to teach him this Wednesday morning. 

Sunday - Church!!!! We had the Martin kids there! Rosslyn wasn't feeling well, Bob and Pam were sleeping and had work :( Savannah is out of town, and Rick who we taught only once has had 2 BCDs set.. is just gone, can't find or contact him! So Bob and Pam canceled on us.. so we went down to Freeport and we contacted a bunch of previous and potential investigators that this sister's gave us.. missionaries used to cover just Freeport.. so we had several great contacts down there.. met a man named Gary.. he is awesome, so we are headed back to teach him in 2 weeks. Then we went with the Cobbs down to Fort Walton for the Lamb of God musical performance that the Stake put on.. it was pretty awesome.. they had an orchestra and a choir and performed the Lamb of God. 

Family I sure do love you a whole lot! I am sitting here and thinking you are not getting the full potential of my experiences, so try and ham them up! Sorry if its lame.. confession I have to make.. I have not been a good journal keeper! But I am trying to catch up the days!!!!!!!! Family, I love you and miss you dearly!!!! Love Elder Hintze

"God's prophets and apostles speaking to us... this event should be the most popular event in the world!!"

Monday, April 7, 2014

Hello Family!!!

How it do!?!? I hope that everyone is well and happy this day.. we are enjoying some nice thunderstorms here in DeFuniak! But lets get to it!

Monday - Last Monday.. I did not get to play some ball with the kids... the court was empty.. so we played some tennis instead! Don't know what will happen today with the rain... but last Monday we headed out to the Crosby's for dinner and we had an awesome lesson with them, we have been trying to teach PMG, and she asked "I have a friend who I want to share the Gospel with, but don't know how?" BING.. we got you!! And tonight we are headed out there, and there is a family.. that they are bringing for us to teach, so pumped for that!

Tuesday - We had District Meeting and it really was an awesome one! I didn't really do anything I had planned... we talked a lot about investigators how we can help them and Sister Bennion spoke on being bold and she said some things that really struck me.. so I rolled with that and just went with the flow. We ended up talking a lot about our sacred calling. We then had Correlation Meeting. And we jetted over to the penitentiary to teach John Reyes.. Then we got called upon to help the Howard's probably the most solid family in the ward.. super awesome, just a couple. So we shared a message with them, ended up not having to move the dog cage and then they took us out to eat! Then we saw the Marshall family.. the Habel's baptized them not too long ago. 

Wednesday - We went in the morning and we gave Connie Brown a blessing with Elder Habel. And then we came back and we did service with Brother Pollard. Then we did some lake contacting we found these 2 girls.. Casey and Cassidy one had taken a class on Mormonism, so we talked to them and she was super interested to talk to us, so we are excited to set up a time with them. Then we saw Mark Lasson, an inactive member.. he fed us dinner.. he is a big man who plays in a band and is from Montana.

Thursday - We did service out at Brother Reeves house.. he leaves on a big farm... and it was nuts..... it was exhausting work. We got all of this bread out of his truck.. tons and put it in to barrels.. then I used a fence post digger to dig like 5, 3 feet by 2 feet wide holes.. exhausting work, but it was good to get out and work!... We ran home and we taught Savanah.. she is headed out of town until basically May.. so we set a Baptismal date of May 10th for her and taught her the law of chastity and the word of wisdom, committed to live both. She really has no problems at all. So I hope that nothing interfers. Then we saw the Farris's.. Then we did home teaching in the evening we went out with Brother Diviney, didn't have to much success.. we saw the Adkinson's.. but then he took us out to eat.

Friday - Oh boy Friday.... all day all day. We helped Tarek Thomas move into his house... so we had to travel about an hour to Baker, Florida load up a Uhaul and then drive like over an hour to Freeport, Florida to help him unload. This morning when jogging it was a sauna out here, so humid, I was cooked. Any whom we moved him from this hanger that Brother Thomas our neighbor has. But then we had Sports night in the evening.. it was really good, we had some none members out that a member invited, and they're coming back next week.

Saturday - Oh baby, conference weekend!!! Wasn't it absolutely stellar, am I right!?!??!?!!? man it was soooooo good, I love it all! Besides conference we ate lunch and dinner, did our weekly planning and we contacted a potential Tracy Porter.. who was unable to meet with us, but is super pumped to do it. But lets talk about conference... I was like a little kid at Christmas Saturday morning.. I had chills. My favorite talks were Elder Holland's, Sister Reeves, Elder Andersen, and President Eyring. They were all so good. It was just us in the church the sister's and Brother Pollard, so nice to watch it in the chapel. Then Saturday afternoon was good, not quite as good as the morning but still fantastic. And then holy cow Priesthood Session!!!! Dear woman in the family, if you didn't watch Priesthood session you should have... man it was phenomenal! Elder Oaks talk right off the bat talking about men and women in the priesthood and the priesthood keys! Mind blowing when he talked about how there are priesthood keys that we do not hold in this dispensation.. Namely ressurection, creation, and in essence we don't have the keys to give women the priesthood. My favorite line was: "In the Priesthood Authority we should forget about our rights and think about our responsibilities." Bam.. so good! I loved it all so much! President Uchtdorf, President Eyring, and President Monson all killed it too. "Are you sleeping through the Restoration?" One of my favorite quotes from President Monson: "Courage is not only to die manfully, but to live decently." So good. I can't even put it in too words, it WAS AWESOME!!

Sunday - Again.... ooooh baby all 10 hours, I couldn't get enough!! Sunday morning was awesome again… "President Uchtdorf.. don't even think about it!" Ah man.. gotta love our beloved Prophet! President Uchtdorf and Elder Ballard and President Monson. And then the afternoon session. I loved Elder Corbidge's talk. After conference we ate at Bishop Everett's house... man you should see the road to get to his house.. that thing is intense. We had an awesome visit with them. 

Kind of interesting conference this time around... last conference was all about missionary work, no doubts about it. This time around what was the theme? I don't know if there was one true theme. The major things that I got out of it were Matthew 22:36-38 "Master what is the great commandment in the Law? Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and Great commandment." and then also John 14:15 "If ye love me keep my commandments." The theme for me was spiritual strength, loving one another, and not being afraid to stand alone. Family, if you believe that this church is true, as I do... Then nothing else matters!!!!! I think the brethren know what is ahead of us, and the world continues to get uglier by the minute. We will always be the minority, Christ's church, the truth will never be widely accepted as they said. They killed Christ, they killed his Apostles, why would we expect it to be any differently now? We live in a magnificent time, we truly do, I hope and pray that none of us took for granted what we just had the oppurtunity to view this weekend. God's prophets and apostles speaking to us... this event should be the most popular event in the world!! But it never will be, we need to stay strong, protect our families, from the whirlwinds that our sure to come. Family I would hope that you take the time to rewatch the talks that were given, and I pray that you guys go to the temple often, take family names to the temple! It is a whole different world down here to hear about temples that aren't that close to the members? We have them all over the place.. how often are we using them!? Family I sure do love you guys a whole lot.. I miss you a whole lot!!!

Love,

Elder Hintze

"It was a good one, we talked about teaching people the doctrine of the Sabbath and how to help them get to church!"

Monday, March 31, 2014

Hello Family!!!!

I sure do love you guys a whole lot, hope that everyone is well and happy today! It is a beautiful day here in DeFuniak Springs just lovely. 

Monday - Last Monday we played some tennis with the Sister's and with Savannah... And then I cleaned our apartment.. got the fridge looking really nice.  The Thomas's took us out to dinner in the evening.. We went to a La Rumba Mexican Grill. The Thomas family is awesome, they are our neighbors. . But anyway today we are going to head to a park that is over in the ghetto, where we saw some kids playing ball, so we are going to try and go play with them!

Tuesday - We had District Meeting in the morning. It was a good one, we talked about teaching people the doctrine of the Sabbath and how to help them get to church! The Zone Leaders were there observing my skills and then afterwards we traded off, so I went to Crestview for the day with Elder Foster. But the kicker in District Meeting was I opened it up for testimonies, where everyone bore their testimony on a principle of the Gospel and how they came to know it was true, the spirit really was so strong. So I went to Crestview for the day, we had a good day. We taught Jamie one investigator briefly in her garage, about reading and praying. Then we saw a PM fam, who the husband hid, but the wife fed us ice cream and punch, mmmmm. Then we ate dinner with the Boyd's.. super awesome they used to live in Dothan, so that was cool to talk to them! They were headed back, because a girl from the 2nd ward, was marrying her brother, who I knew them both! Funny! We taught 2 more recent converts. One was Chris super cool, only member in family, he is a professional air soft gunner, and then we taught Angie, who is moving to Dothan, weird the connections. Any whom it was a good trade off, I enjoyed it a lot!

Wednesday - We traded back in the morning, and then we did some role plays with the ZL's to practice things with them. After that we headed out to Elliott's and we did service for him.. we finished up laying all of that concrete around the driveway. Put my initials in it. Then we were headed to the Methodist church near our home for a service, to meet Savannah's family, but it didn't turn out.

Thursday - We had an awesome day... we spent the whole day out seeing people with members. We did our weekly planning in the morning.. which we're getting better at!  But we headed out with Brother Mitchem up to Paxton and Florala, at the top of our area.. or area is so big, it is half the stake.. its nuts.  So we went up with him, he bought us lunch. Anyway we were able to see the Coleman's, the Crosby's, Tabatha Britton and her sons, and then Rob and Nikki Thomas. Nikki Thomas is an investigator, I met when I was first here, apparently she isn't interested.. but if we taught her it would make so much sense, her family is really anti mormon. Then we got home and we went out again with members for our weekly home teaching run, I went with Tarrick Thomas, the neighbors son, he is married got a fam, and we found a new guy Charles Ambrose a LA we are going to work with and we saw Gale Miller, active lady in the nursing home. And then we all rendezvoused for dinner the the Golden Bowl.

Friday - Oh my gosh Thursday night it was raining like crazy.. and it was thunder and lightning like mad, the most I have ever seen! There was one that woke us up in the middle of the night, I don't know how to describe it.. I thought the next world war had started, or Christ was coming back to the earth. It was nuts, so then I had to go outside and watch! :) But we worked at the Matrix Thrift in the morning, didn't have much for us to do. 

Saturday - Oh boy service like crazy. We did service with Brother Jones from about 10 am to 5 pm. Then we got out and saw the McAnally's, from Utah.. she is so sweet and active, but he just doesn't come don't know why. Then we saw Will Wilkinson, a PM family, who his wife is interested in the church, his mom is really active, so we are working with them. 

Sunday - Our investigators got sick, so we only had Rosslyn Wood there today! It was fast and testimony meeting, so I had on my tie. I bore my testimony as well, it was a really awesome meeting, I wish every Sunday could be fast sunday, I have been assigned to speak again in sacrement meeting, the last week in april, I am very excited for that! After church we taught Rosslyn, and we finished the Plan of Salvation with her, Rosslyn is super awesome, she is progressing for baptism, she had some great questions about the plan of salvation, she essentially asked if Jesus Christ was a mormon.. well Yes! :) And about denominations so it was cool. We talked about baptism and setting a day with her, she doesn't feel that she is ready... and it was super cool, she broke down and was balling, and told us she just needs to be ready, she doesn't want to be baptized and then fall back into sin.. she was so sincere. It was sweet. Some people grew up in the church and then go to other churches.. you don't see that very often.. most just go inactive. So I just want to ask them, did you pay any attention at all? :)

So this week was good!  I am feeling good. Feeling super happy! I really have been loving my stay so far here in DeFuniak... it has flown by.. like mad! I have almost been here a month.. and I am approaching 10 months on the mission.. I have been gone for so long! I sure do love you guys a whole lot! It is incredible how my love for each and everyone of you has grown! I love you all, and I love being a misionary! 

Love ya!

Elder Hintze

"Cheeburger, Cheeburger"

Before leaving Dothan, Elder Hintze, Elder Smith, and other Elders serving in Dothan ate the "pounder" at a place called Cheeburger. That's all we know! Actually, sounds really good.

"I Ate The Pounder"

"I sure am loving this place. There is a lot to be done here and I really want to be the means for good here, to be able to help out this ward."

Monday, March 24, 2014

How are things going??

This week was a great one for us. We are continuing to see many successes in the work. When walking into the library this morning, we heard someone call "Elders!" So we didn't know these people, walked up to them, they were members from Minnesota visiting here, he had grown up in the area, so it was cool to meet them!

Tuesday - We had our second district meeting, well second since I have been here! And it was  a good one as well, it is interesting being district leader, I am trying to get a hold of it so far, but I think it has been good so far! We meet down in Crestview, because that is where the Olive Branch sisters meet for their church meetings, it is interesting, so all of us have to commute quite a distance to get there. After that we ate lunch in Crestview, and after a little bit of searching, we were able to find a place that could print us some giant maps, so we printed maps of all of the cities that we cover and then one large one of the whole area, I think that it is going to help us out a lot in helping us to be more effective. We then went with Brother Pollard and we taught Thomas Copeland, his wife was there for part of it as well, we taught him the Restoration lesson, and it was kind of a different one, we taught some things we normally don't. We talked about John the Baptist, and why it had to be him for his mission. With the priesthood and all, it was cool to have Pollard there, because they used to work together. But he said to us, that "you are making me want to come to church." In the middle of the lesson, he pulled out a large print B of M too, that he already had with D &C and P of GP. 

Wednesday - We had to help a family move in from Arizona, they are related to the Andersen's who are already in the ward. So we went and helped them out, ran to try and teach a lesson, he wasn't there, so we went back and helped them finish out and then they fed us lunch. Then we traveled out to help Elliott with service and we helped him to poor cement and to fix his driveway. Then we ate dinner that evening with Sister Peeples and the Habels. She is a single lady in the ward, just as sweet as she can be we call her Mama Nell, delicious food too. A lady came as well named Tracy Harbuck, she wanted a blessing, and so we gave her a blessing and it was so powerful! And she came to church on Sunday, so that was good. 

Thursday - We taught Rosslyn Wood in the morning with Brother Pollard. We taught her the Plan of Salvation. She has many family members in the church, she liked the Plan of Salvation, she knew a lot of the answers. Halfway through, her neighbor walked over and sat in on it, and both of them came to church. 

Friday - We did service in the morning at the Matrix thrift shop, we cleaned and sorted through shoes that had been donated! After that we did our weekly planning session. We did a little bit of finding and visiting, but then we got to the church and we helped them set up for the Ward Steak Dinner that we had, which was awesome, they grilled steaks, and we got to take lots home! It was a pretty fantastic turn out, we had Rick Birch, who is an investigator there, and his GF who is a member Jane Christensen, so it was an awesome event. 

Saturday - In the morning we did some finding around the lake, and then we went out and we saw a bunch of less actives. We saw Richard Skahan.. who is a man in his 70s lives alone now, his roommate who was a member just passed away. We saw Gary and Bryan Mitchem, related to members, just less active. We tried to see the Mays family. Then we saw the Habbard's. But it was good, so we split early and went and got some milkshakes.

Sunday - We had church, with was really, really good! We had Rosslyn and Linda her neighbor as I mentioned. And then Robert and Pam came again.. only their family, or his family, drove up 5 hours to come to church with them, so his sister and brother in law and his 2 daughters were there at church with them, which was way cool!!!! After church we went out and we taught Rick Birch and Jane Christensen, we taught them the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and it was an awesome lesson, the Spirit was there. We taught Rob Niedermeyer. So we taught him the Restoration and committed him for baptism on April 26th, and he accepted, he didn't know if he was ready. But he is reading the B of M, he doesn't understand it.. but he is reading and praying! 

So it was a good one! I sure am loving this place. There is a lot to be done here and I really want to be the means for good here, to be able to help out this ward. I'm working my guts out, I am exhausted at all times, so that's a good thing. But I sure do love you guys a whole lot, think about you and pray for you often!

Love,
Elder Hintze

"I can't stop walk with me, so I just walked with her around and talked to her"

Monday, March 17, 2014

Hello Family,

Hows it going!?!?!? Things are going really well here in Defuniak.. I really have grown to love this place so much in the short time I've been here!!! The Lord really has blessed us a lot this week in the way of work! Things have just been really, really good! I will get to it:

Monday - We ate at the Crosby's house, they feed us every Monday, and it is a ways drive to get out to them, so it was basically our whole night!

Tuesday - We had our District Meeting, first on for me! It was really, really good! It is a ways drive again, we meet in the city of Crestview, so that everyone can be there! We talked a lot about goals, we have to set a lot of goals! Then we talked about OYMing, talking to everyone that we see.. I have been an OYMing fool these days! But we rode with the Habel's, to save some mile that we used, an then after that we went to Bro Reeves house he is in the bishopric, we picked up some bread to hand out to people in the ward, he picks up literally truck loads of bread, for his farm to feed to the animals and it is all still good! After that we had our correlation meeting with the ward at the church. Then we went and we taught a man named John Reyes.. he is incarcerated here in DeFuniak.. but his GF is a member, so we had about 45 minutes with him and we taught him in those room where you talk through a big pane of glass! He has been reading the B of M. We have been taking a lap around the lake here almost everyday during the day, and we talk to all of the people there, some of them are pretty fun! One lady says I can't stop walk with me, so I just walked with her around and talked to her. In the evening we saw Gale Miller a lady here who is in a nursing center. Then we saw the Habbard family, he is inactive, but the wife is very active.

Wednesday - We did some finding in the morning, talking to people around the lake. Then we taught Savannah Nowling outside by the lake, we taught her the Plan of Salvation, and it went really well, Elder Larsen and I are still honing in on one anothers teaching tendencies  but it was a good one! Savannah really is super awesome, she is over a third of the way through the Book of Mormon! Then we taught Sean Purdue in the evening... we taught him the Gospel of Jesus Christ, he is a returning member, one that is just coming back to church, the sisters here have done some awesome things!!!!!!!!!! they have reactivated a lot!

Thursday - We did service basically all day with Brother Pollard I will have to send you a picture of him, he is great! We worked with him on his property and we picked up a bunch of downed limbs and we piled them up. Then he took us to get fried chicken at the gas station.. yes the gas station! We went and talked to more people at dinner and then all of or some of the high priests and elders quorum all get together and we split up and we all go make visits to a ton of people in the ward. I went with Brother Mitchem.. But we visited some of his LA family members! Then they took us to Pizza Hut!

Friday - We provided service in the morning at the Matrix thrift store, so we just cleaned things up there. We saw a family named the Sisson's both from Utah, husband works at McDonalds and wife works at Burger King... :) So it actually was good.. they're familys are active, but are just away from home and don't come! Then we did some more finding! I called a man on the roster and someone answered and told me that he had passed away.. so that was super awkward! Then we tried some other ones, and finally we talked to a man named Chris Brown.. Then we tried a former investigator Thomas Copeland and we had an awesome visit with him, we are now going to begin teaching him! All of the people that were previously taught here, we have been checking them out. We got a call from a man named Robert Niedermeyer... who was a media referral we got before I got there, but weren't able to contact him, he called us and said he needed to talk to us, so I called him and he asked if he could come to church with us, he has family in the church, his daughters and his sister and his nephew, he has seen the temple, he is reading the Book of Mormon, so it was super awesome! So we arranged for him to get a ride to church.

Saturday - In the morning we met with the missionaries and we are searching out lost people trying to find their addresses, it is headed up by the Habel's. But then we studied, and oh yeah, Thursday we got asked to talk in sacrament meeting. Then we had an awesome visit with a less active but it was her non member husband, the sisters had seen him and he told us to get lost, but we kept talking to him and now we are teaching him next sunday! We had an awesome visit with him, but anyway he said I like your persistence, I will try it out, I have been wanting to read the Book of Mormon.

Sunday - Sunday was super awesome!!! We talked, well Elder Larsen talked.. and he went over.. and so they told me just to introduce myself and bear my testimony, so that is all I had to do. The sisters played the violin and the piano and it was so awesome! It has been pouring rain and while they did it there was the loudest thunder, it was surreal. The Spirit was so strong! But we had to teach the youth class, so we did that. But we had 4 investigators at sacrement meeting!!!!!! Savannah was there, and Rossyln was there (I haven't taught her yet), And Robert (Bob) was there and he brought his GF, it really was super awesome! So after Sacrement we went with Bro Diviney and we taught Bob and Pam. But Bob's daughter is going on a mission, he just has never payed attention to the church, but now is. But the GF is super on board, Elder Larsen and Elder Rasmussen previous guy, gave Pam a Book of Mormon at Carls Jr about a month ago, so it was an awesome connection that we made there! Then we ate dinner with the Diviney's, they are super awesome.

Really it was a fantastic week! I don't know if it was my best email, describing it.. but I am really loveing this place! Elder Larsen and I are a pretty good team! So I am super excited for things to come! The Lord really has blessed me a lot and helped me a lot! Loving it!!

Love you all so much!!!!!!!!!!
Elder Hintze

"DeFuniak Springs"

Here is Elder Hintze's First email from his new area sent Monday, March 10th.

Hello Family!!

My oh my... I feel that I have so much to tell you guys!! SO MUCH!!! There has been a lot of happenings over this week.. a lot of hard goodbyes, and a lot of changes here in this new area! I guess we don't have very good email facilities here in Defuniak.. we only have the library and it is only for an hour.. so I may get cut off here shortly, I don't know what is happening! But I got lots to say, so I am going to get into it!

Dothan!
Monday - We did our P-Day normal things.. and in the evening we ate dinner at the Kriser's home! So that was good.. had only eaten there once before, and it was even kind of sad saying goodbye to their family! Then we taught Marcus with Brother Thomley... we talked to him a lot about Baptism, and the Gospel of Jesus Christ, it was such an awesome lesson. He said, "well Brethren I have enjoyed this very much!" It was hard to tell him I wouldn't be back, Smith did an awesome job in the lesson though, and Marcus really liked a lot of the things that he had said. I really don't have any doubt that Marcus will progress!

Tuesday - We had our District Meeting, all of us parting missionaries, had the oppurtunity to bear our testimonies, so it was a super spiritual meeting. After that we had our district activity, we all went out to eat at La Padilla a mexican restaurant there in Dothan. After that we went to Gloria's house and continued to paint her room... and then after that we said goodbye to the family... I love Gloria so much!!!!!!! When we left we had a nice long conversation with her in her kitchen, and she just balled her eyes out, and bore her testimony to me. We then ate dinner at the Bess's in the evening, love them so much! She texted us and asked for my favorite dessert, so we had homemade cheesecake, at my request, so nice of them! A lot of fantastic people I left behind.

Wednesday - In the morning Smith and I went and got our last Loyless donuts.. so good! Then we went and saw Barbara with Brother Prigmore, got to say goodbye to Barbara, she gave me the biggest hug as well, she is so hilarious, I called her and told her when I found out, and she was so upset I was leaving, love her. I also got to say goodbye to Brother Prigmore, a fantastic man, spent a lot of time with him, him and his wife are headed back to the temple in the coming weeks!!! Then we ate lunch with Tony Hansen.. that stunk to say goodbye to him.. Then we ate lunch with the Coggins.. man that family is so awesome, got a chance to talk to them about the temple! Then we went and saw Linda Pulliam... I called her on the phone and told her and she was crying so much. So we got to see her and say goodbye, she was crying again, I got to sign her bench at her house that the missionaries sign.. and I just got an email from Elder Smith and she is moving back to Arizona.. once I told her that I was leaving she told us she wanted to move back, so she could be closer to Stubbs, Smith, and I ... so she is headed back to Kingman, Arizona. It was really hard to leave her as well! Then we ate dinner at the Blunk's, love them as well!!!!! Super cool couple, hope to stay in contact with them. Then we saw Brother Nunez, you just don't know how much I love that man... He gave me the biggest hug. Then we saw the Hughey family.. and Carol Hughey was crying as well when I left, love them too!! So many people!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thursday - Departure day. We had to be at Transfer spot at 8:45 am so Elder Nelson and I headed down there together, and the 2 new guys drove the car back.. so I got off on the next transfer spot.. so it took about an hour and a half to get there, so a lot of the day was spent traveling.. so I got to unload all of my stuff and I got to move in!! The house that we live in is pretty cool.. we live right next door to the Thomas's they are members and they let us live there. Right near the lake!! So we just got settled I did some cleaning, and then we took off to see someone, but we got lost and so he went to turn around and he pulled way to far off the road, I am just watching him silently as he gets us .... STUCK!! hahahahahaahaha, even with the truck in 4 wheel drive and all, he just got us straight deep in mud. It was ridiculous, I was laughing so hard, especially since I was talking to dad about that, just know it was not me! So somebody stopped to help us get out as well as the sheriff stopped... :)

Friday - We did our studies and we then went and helped at a thrift store. There is this girl there named Savannah Nowling, she has a BCD for March 29th, which will have to be moved back, she has been taught once. So after that we did our weekly planning. Then we saw a family named the Petry's, just stopped in and said hi. Then we saw a family named Rob and Nicki.. part member, Rob want us over to teach the wife, he wants to come back to church, so we talked to them.. set up a return.. she has had the lessons before.. so gonna teach her!! There are so many part members, so many lost members, it is so nuts!! A 20 page roster. Then we ate dinner with Sean Purdue in the evening, and then had to drive home.. it takes forever to drive places!

Saturday - From 8am to 3pm.. we worked a family history booth at the local fair, it was super awesome!! We got a lot of contacts to go and set up family history in peoples homes! They had a tractor pull at the festival. This place is crazy family... like this is the south!!!!!!! Then we biked and we saw some less active, talked to several people and we got return appointments for them! Then we ate dinner at the apartment. 

Sunday - Holy smokes.. The Church building here is so nice, it really is a big building and it is in great shape.. Everyone that I met is so nice though, I really do love this ward so far! There is a senior couple in the ward and a set of sisters, so the seniors are working on cleaning up the roster, and the sister missionaries are super awesome, they are absolutely killing it up here!!! After church we just went after searching for less actives. Then we went with a member of the ward, Brother Diviney and we went and saw a church of christ preacher. Brother Diviney raises pigeons, he breads them, just like Pres Monson! Then we met Barbara Hunt a lady baptized about a year ago, she is so awesome!! She lit us up a fire and we roasted Smores, super cool!! Then we had to head back home!

I heard from Elder Smith.. the Brown Family the ones I told you about, he has decided that him and his wife are going to take the lessons!!!!! Also it was actually super sad to leave Elder Smith, it was super sad!! I love that dude... he is cool. So it was sad to leave him alone!! :(

The Lake is next to the house and it has a trail around it, so I have been running 2 to 3 miles in the morning, Defuniak is where I get in shape!! The area here is huge, so it is going to be tricky to manage people and miles!! But so far this place really is saweeet!!

I am probably missing a lot of information.. but I love you all a whole lot!!!!!! I am so looking forward to my adventures in Defuniak, many great stories to come!!! Love ya'll!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Love,
Elder HIntze

"I'm sorry but. Elder Hintze.. and Elder Smith... I LOVE YOU. These two young men have been such a blessing in my life."

I am sorry for my late post on this one. Here is Elder Hintze's email from Monday, March 3rd. 

Dearest Family,

Hello family, hope everyone is well! I am doing fantastic this morning! As has been mentioned I am soon to be headed to my new home of Defuniak Springs, Florida. It is a massive area, so we will most likely be allotted quite a few miles, I also hear that we have a truck for our vehicle, we will see what the 4 wheeling capabilities are in that baby! ;) It is super sad to think that I will be leaving Dothan this week, our transfers are now on Thursday, so that President gets to spend an extra day with the new missionaries, so I will have an extra day to say my goodbyes, to the loved ones in Dothan! We did get to teach Steven quite a bit this week, will talk about that, he was progressing for March 15th baptism, and is super gung ho! But get this... right when I figured out that I was leaving... Tony Hansen texts us and says "Call Steven to say bye he is headed to boot camp this morning." So we were like WHAT!?!?!?!  He was supposed to head to marine boot camp June 2nd, but was trying to leave as soon as he could, so somebody bailed and they had a spot to fill on the bus, so they called him at 8:30 am and he left at 11 am, I got to talk to him and give him my goodbyes, I told him that as soon as he gets to bootcamp to find the church, and to not wait, to be baptized! He said that he would do it, so I will get his address and try and remain in contact with him! Just crazy how it all went down... So here is the week:

Monday - Today we are headed to Cheeburger Cheeburger to take down there burger challenge for lunch. But last week we just did some mall shopping and thrift shops. In the evening we ate at the Herrings home. Afterwards, we saw some new people on the ward list.. Gene Kelly, Stephen Hardy, and Michael Smith. One was active.. we just didn't recognize the name, Michael. The other ones, we are going to begin to start visiting, both wanted us to keep coming over!

Tuesday - We had our District Meeting in the morning! And after our meeting, we met with Steven at the church, we taught the Plan of Salvation, it was an awesome lesson, it honestly doesn't really matter what we talk to him about.. he already knows its true, so it was a good lesson, and he understood it all, still been reading, and we taught him to pray, so he has been praying more and he says that it has been coming very easy to him. After that we had an appointment set up for Daniel Guyout, but he called us and told us that he was welcomed back to his old church, so did not want to study 2 faiths.  We had dinner with the Cain's, and it was an awesome visit, we taught them about the recent family history gameplan, and Bishop really, really liked it.. he said that he felt that this is the way we need to go. After that we went to the church for basketball, it is back no baby, holla!!

Wednesday - In the morning we had a correlation meeting with the sister's, so we could coordinate who in the ward we are visiting! After that we went and sawTheresa, but she got really emotional, after the visit we tried to get her to come to church, the 1st ward's baptism, and set up a time, but she was always too busy, we just decided that she needs a break. After that we met with a new couple named Ty and DC, she works at Subway, so that where we met her, so we talked with them, just outlined our expectations and things like that, got a feel for where they are, DC doesn't believe in Jesus Christ because he doesn't think someone can come back to life, the Jehovah's Witnesses have gotten to him as well... so we will have to buff that out of him! :) So he wanted to hear about the Plan of Salvation, was really interested in why we are here. We had dinner at the Lewis's home in the evening! 

Thursday - In the morning we worked at the food bank doing the brown bag program! And after that we went to the doctor to get Elder Smith tested for diabetes, and he came up clean.. which is super awesome! After that we had a lesson with LInda, and we did some more work at Gloria's house, went to work just chopping away! Then in the evening we had a lesson with Steven at the Davis's home with Landon Davis, we taught him the Doctrine of Christ, and again it went super solid, he really is just embracing it all!! The gift of the Holy Ghost was something new to him!

Friday - We had our hospital shift, super slow day, which I guess is a good thing for a hospital, so we didn't have much to do, even the ER was empty. After that we ate dinner with the Marturello's. And after that we saw the Hughey's.

Saturday - Oh boy.. you know those storage units that you see in the movies.. in which it is packed literally to the front and to the back with all boxes, and when you open the door boxes cascade out.. ya that's what we had to move. It was with the high priest's as well! So we had to load this huge storage unit full of boxes and furniture... so we loaded two trailer fulls and 3 trucks up and then drove about 20 minutes to the new house and then unloaded all of these boxes into an empty room in her brand new trailer.  After that we went over to Gloria's and we helped her move some furniture and we began to paint their bedroom for them... hahahahaha! So gotta go back and finish up her room! Then we booked it to the church for the 1st ward's baptism's, they had two young men get baptized! Then we did our weekly planning in the evening!

Sunday - It was fast and testimony meeting, and because of the service with the high priest's we made it in many people's testimonies, all saying how miserable it was, but how upbeat we were. Steven was there again!! It really was an awesome meeting, I really really really really love testimony meeting, the Spirit is always there so strong! Gloria got up again.. this was the highlight she said, "I'm sorry but. Elder Hintze.. and Elder Smith... I LOVE YOU. These two young men have been such a blessing in my life." it was so sweet.. !!!!!!!! After church we taught Steven at Tony's house, we taught him the word of wisdom, his first
Sunday there, it came up and so afterwards he asked me about it, he said "you don't drink tea??? ?" So I debriefed him on that so since that time he had given up chewing tobacco, and had been trying to quit tea, so it was super awesome to get to talk to him about it, he was already trying to overcome it! It was great to have Tony there, because he's from Georgia, so he overcame the coffee, tea, alcohol, and smoking... obviously, it isn't as powerful coming from me, because I have never tried either of those things! Also we taught the Elders Quorum Lesson on Family History, but we are now teaching the Kriser family, family history tonight, and after our lesson with Steven, we helped Tony to get his family history work started. We went in the evening with Forest and we tried to contact a lot of people, but didn't have much success. 

So that's all from here!!! I just got my new address for Defuniak it is: 334 Crescent Drive, Defuniak Springs, Florida 32433   It appears to be very near the Lake Defuniak. So going to be some exciting changes coming.. I am not excited to pack up all of my junk that I have collected, so you may be getting a lot of packages from me this week, before I leave, as well as your peanuts and what not, can't forget about those! :) Love you all so much!!!

Deuces.

Love,

Elder Hintze

Transfer Day!!!

Morning email from Elder Hintze on Monday, March 3rd!

"So here is the big news.... I am moving...........

Headed to Defuniak Springs, Florida... to be with an Elder Larsen, don't know anything about him.. I think that he is young.. I am also the District Leader there!!

It is a massive area.. like huge.. it is in the Fort Walton Zone/Stake.. so it will be interesting... way different than Dothan, it is going to be a rural area. Elder Smith is staying with Elder Tautolo."

"I used the analogy from Hitch... you gotta come 90% and she'll come 10%, only there ain't no kissing! :)"

Here is Elder Hintze's email from Monday, February 24th. Almost nine months in Dothan, Alabama!

Hello Family,

How is everyone? I must say I am doing so well! We had a phenomenal week this week. The Lord really blessed us and we are starting to see lots of successes! Not to mention the weather is still delightful! Anyway lets talk about it should we:

Monday - Nothing special at all, we just updated our area book and did our a lot of planning and scheduling in the evening!! 

Tuesday - No District meeting do to Zone Conference. Some appointments fell through, but we went and we saw Theresa, we set her up to be in the Blunk's home for Feb. 19th... but we were teaching her a lesson, getting ready to read out of the Book of Mormon and in walks this lady, and she says, "Is that the Mormon bible?" So she comes over and starts talking, and then she feels the need to sit down and start adding her two cents into the lesson, and she was a Jehovah Witness. So she starts going off and telling all Theresa all about the things they believe. I took her on the journey in the scriptures to show that Jehovah is Jesus Christ I'll share that with you briefly: read Isaiah 12:2-6 with her, say "it says Jehovah is the Holy One of Israel. So I was thinking well, who is the Holy One of Israel?" Read Isaiah 41:14 with her. "So it says the Holy One of Israel is the Redeemer, so I start to wonder who is the Redeemer?" read Isaiah 43:3 with her "So this says the Holy One of Israel is the Savior?" then I say, "So in your mind who is the Redeemer and Savior?" Isaiah 43:11, there is no other Savior. So then her answer is "Heavenly Father" WHAT!?!?!? Anyway it was really frustrating to have her there, we just let her do her thing, then once she left we were able to point something really good out. We said Theresa right as we started to read, she walked in, said that is not a coincidence, just as Heavenly Father wants you to accept His gospel, Satan does not. So we testified that there is going to be opposition, thankfully she recognized it too. In the evening we were able to teach Daniel Guyout again. He told us a lot more about his past, he has been through a lot. We talked to him about the Atonement, Baptism, Gift of the Holy Ghost, Book of Mormon, all of these things, it was kind of all over the place, but it was so Spirit driven, and he feels it and knows it, was all they way into 2 Nephi, still reading like a mad man, he didn't come to church yet, but tomorrow we have a church tour with him to get him in the building.

Wednesday - We saw Manice at the library. We were able to talk to him and he still wants to investigate and figure out if it is true, but he does his school literally 24/7. We saw a new less active guy his name is Jim Smith, we had to meet him at the Troy Dothan campus, but he lives all the commandments, still pays his tithing, but doesn't come to church cuz his ex wife is there, so need to get him to come back! We saw Barbara with Charles Bain. I think I might have already told you all, but our family picture is now framed and up in Barbara's living room.. soo hahahahaha :) We had dinner in the evening with the Blunk's and with Theresa and it was awesome.. It was so cool to teach someone in their home like that, just changed the whole spirit about it! We retaught the Restoration and taught it so clearly. She is seeking for answers, she asked if she would get an answer if she prayed, read from the bible, and went to another church.. uh No. I used the analogy from Hitch... you gotta come 90% and she'll come 10% only their ain't no kissing! :) So she is definitely searching, but don't know if she is putting in the effort! After that we met with Linda and Gloria in the FH center and we also gave Gloria a blessing.

Thursday - We did service pretty much all of the day. We helped Linda clean up her shed, and then her neighbor came over, so we helped her clean up all of her yard, and then we washed Gloria's windows and we trimmed down so many trees, like I was just going nuts, like Huntsville house crazy, they had the biggest pile of trimmed trees. I loved it! Then we get cleaned up and we get a call from Tony Hansen who says meet me at the mall, my friend wants to learn about the church. So we rush up there and meet him, his name is Steven Caldwell. And before anything else, he is so probably most likely getting baptized. So we talked to him briefly there, met him, got to know him, then they had to leave quick, so we rolled to our dinner appointment with the Prigmore's. Then after we went to Tony's house and we taught Steven... Tony is so awesome, he had already talked to him about everything. So we shared with him the Restoration, and he is so sincere, it was awesome! He is joining the marines. So prepared.

Friday - We had Zone Conference all day pretty much... it was really awesome, I sometimes wish that I could serve all 3 years with President Smith, I love that man so much. Our mission is a testing mission for Family History for all of the missions worldwide. So that's the way we are headed, introduced a lot of things for us to do, how to teach baptisms for the dead, it is so clearly explained in the Bible! The Church is True.

Dothan Zone - February 2014

Dothan Zone Conference February 2014 - Elder Smith, Elder Hintze, and other missionaries.

Then we had the Young Women's dessert auction in the evening, and Theresa came to that, and she loved it, she bought so many desserts! It was such a fun event! Athen was there as well, I have committed him to begin praying about meeting with us. I talked to Cathy Coggins on the phone for on hour, it was so awesome!!! So they are coming!!!

Saturday - Saturday morning we met with Steven again and we watched the Prophet of the Restoration video with him, that video is so powerful... he started clapping when it finished, he is also reading the Book of Mormon!!! Then we played basketball, its up and running again, I got permission from President, I had to go to the top!! After that we saw Barbara Phillips and Barbara Erb. We also talked to the Brown's... and talked to him alone on the porch. I challenged him and his wife to meet with us and take the lessons and go from there, he seemed excited about it and is going to get back to us! We ate dinner at the Thompson's, and then went with him to see Brother Nunez.

Sunday - Church, so Steven came to church.. I'll just get to the kicker! So he came to church and he told me that he had been looking up things online about the Mormons and I told him to be very careful you will find a ton of lies and false information on there, so I gave him all of the church websites.. he really seemed to enjoy church. Then that night he texts us and says... "I would like to say the website you gave me Mormon.org has answered a lot of questions I was curious about, as I read into the Church of Jesus Christ and Ladder Day Saints the more I feel that this is somewhere I can see myself belonging." SAY WHAT??!???!?!?!?!?? Are you kidding me, I was freaking out... We immediately said a prayer of thanks and while I said it, I was crying. It really was so powerful. I'm so excited for what's to come with him!! We had to do our weekly planning after church. Then we went and we saw Marcus with Brother Thomley, and we talked to him about receiving answers and how the Spirit communicates with him.. we read Alma 32 with him.. and he loved it... about faith and planting a seed, so we said Marcus the seed is planted, so not it is time for you to nourish it and see if it doesn't sprout into a tree, the Spirit is working on him. He just has to work on Sundays. But get this, his boss is Bonifay who we taught when she was in Dothan, and we visit with her often, so we are gonna try and pull some strings. Then we went to the Hughey's and they had steak and chicken prepared for us, and we had an awesome conversation with them about the bible questions they had, and about prophets, all of it came from Christian the boy, I love that family so much! Our lessons we have been teaching have been phenomenal lately, I have really gained a lot of confidence, and feel that my teaching skills are on point these days!

The Lord has blessed us greatly this week and blessed me a lot. Recently it has been like the hardest thing I've ever done in my life, but things are so good, looking up and up. Just in time for transfers I guess.. we will see what happens, next Monday! :/ But I sure do love all of you so much!!!!


Love, Elder Hintze

"If I didn't have that walker I would drag you out there."

Here is Elder Hintze's email from Monday, February 17th. Thanks for reading.

Hello Family!!!

How is everyone doing!? Great, good to hear, I sure do love you guys a whole lot and can't quite get over how awesome you all are. Hope everyone had a Happy Valentines day. Anyway we had a pretty fantastic week this week, really it was, we were able to teach way more people than we had in a long time! So lets get to it:

Monday - Nothing happened, two of our appointments fell through, so we found a new less active guy, he said to visit him at work!

Tuesday - We had our District Meeting in the morning! We have had some crazy meetings this week, on Sunday they called all of the missionary leaders in, having them miss their church, and all of the stake presidents for a big meeting, basically we were all worried about what was going down. But basically it was just a meeting that we aren't doing enough! For all of the southeastern missions, so all of Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, and Louisiana, ya know just all of that, and we are averaging 1.3 baptisms per missionary per year. We were able to teach Jon Davis that one guy we found on the street! So we will see what happens. We ate dinner with the Marturello's in the evening, and after that we taught Daniel Guyout again! We met Brother Evans and it was awesome to have him there, in two days he had read all of 1 Nephi, so awesome!! He feels that he got an answer to keep studying, Bro Evans and him were able to connect with their military background. The lesson seemed to just be flowing the spirit was there, it was clicking, it was awesome. So we are excited!

Wednesday - Wednesday I was in first ward, and we didn't have the car, it was a miserable cold freezing day. And nothing happened!

Thursday - We had to make some boxes in the morning at the food bank. Then we did our weekly planning. We were able to meet with Linda and have a lesson with her, she is doing so awesome, really it has been so fun to see these converts to just fully accept the Gospel and go head on. Linda and Mike Thomley (another one) were baptized right before I got here, and both of them are doing so awesome, I have had so much fun continuing to teach these two! We ate dinner at the Lewis's house, the dairy farmers. In the evening we went to see the Hughey's and we were able to again have such a good conversation with him, we were able to watch a lot of videos from mormonchannel on youtube, he is fascinated with videos about the creation and things like that! He is so close yet but doesn't even know it! I want him to read Moses.. so going to try and do that!

Friday - We worked at the food bank in the morning! And then we had our hospital shift, nothing big happened there. Then on the way home we popped by the library to meet with Manice, and set up a time to meet with him, but we ended up having an awesome conversation with him ,the Spirit was there and we were able to ask him a lot of questions and figure out where he is at, and it came down to his relationship with God, he didn't know fully if He existed, so we gained a lot of ground with him. Then we went to the Valentine Dinner at the church, for couples and single adults.. it was on our calendar, so we went and it was awesome! There were so many non members there, just about all of the part members, the Nunez's were there, and they came to all three hours of church this Sunday! Also the Brown's were there... and it was awesome, they are hilarious, and the members are welcoming them in so much! They weren't at church on Sunday, but next Sunday they said... they also opened it up for some dancing and it was hilarious watching all of the couples and the old people dancing, Barbara said, "If I didn't have that walker I would drag you out there." Hahahahaahaha. But it was awesome, I also would be lieing if I said that I didn't bust a few moves, and steal the show, the members were dieing, so ya know, I was breaking it down.

Saturday - In the morning we went to a baptism in 1st ward, a family of 3 that got baptized, super fantastic service! Really happy for the family! Pres. & Sis Akeuma then took us to lunch, he is in the mission presidency. We had a lesson with Anita McBride and then we met with Manice.

Sunday - Great church service, sadly didn't have anybody out! But it was good, there was a baptism after for a girl being baptized from the ward. After that we went with Tony and we met with Marcus and "Slab" two guys that we met on the bikes, we met with them and we talked to them about the Restoration, and it really hit home with them, particularly Marcus.. he is a really solid individual and is very spiritual, he said he is going to begin to search, and at the beginning he said he didn't want to change church, it totally changed. Then we helped Tony to do some work at his house. Then we taught Marcus in the evening with Brother Thomley, it was awesome. They knew each other, and didn't know it until they went in. We taught him the end of plan of salvation and then a little restoration, and we committed him to be baptized and he accepted!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So we are preparing for him to be baptized on March 22nd, we are going to have some work to do... but way excited!!! It was a great lesson, and the Spirit again was there working on him, and not a coincidence at all that Brother Thomley and him knew each other!!!

So it really was a good week this week!!! Very excited for the things that are happening, hopefully we will begin to continue to progress! Love ya'll!!!!

Love, Elder Hintze

Here is Elder Hintze's letter from Monday, February 10th.

Hello Family!

 

How is everyone!? I am doing fantastic this afternoon. Let me first tell you about the weather that we have been experiencing this week, nothing short of delightful, it is has been 70 degrees, not a cloud in the sky, light breeze, it has felt absolutely delightful!!! Had a pretty good week for us this week, I am very excited about this next week ahead of us!

 

Monday - As I mentioned we had our appointment set up with Marcus for Monday and he was not there... so we had to reschedule with him again for this evening, so we will try and see him tonight! We went with Brother Thompson and he cannot go with us tonight.

Tuesday - We had our zone training, which was just with the zone leaders, we have our big zone conference with President Smith coming up in a couple of weeks on the 21st! But the zone leader training was really great. We ate dinner with the Myer's they fed us some big steaks for helping them move furniture. We were able to visit Linda Pulliam and Sister Rush. In the evening we tried to find some individuals, that is a huge problem down here, individuals are just gone, we have their names on the ward roster, but we don't have any number or address, so I found a roster with notes from Elder Leyba who was here for a year, and combined them with my notes, so we have done some awesome things with tracking people down, it has been a huge push from the General Authorities. I have called everyone on our ward roster, hahaha, so many disconnected phone #'s and so many people that want nothing to do with the church! so sad. Also March 8th in Tallahasee, Elder Ballard is coming to speak to us, just us missionaries!!!!! Way pumped about that!!

Wednesday - We worked at the food bank in the morning! We were able to talk to the new librarian here in Dothan, the libraries are so nice, and we are hopefully going to begin to teach family history classes. We saw Barbara in the evening, still progressing slowly. 

Thursday - We worked at the food bank again in the morning! And we did our weekly planning! We were able to see Brother Dobbs, and we have been trying family history with him. We ate dinner at the Sturridge's they are from Jamaica. After that we saw the Hughey's, we didn't get much of a teaching time with them, but we're able to see them, and we gave Jef the restoration pamphlet, but there was just too much crazyiness, to get to talk to him about it.

Friday - We had our Hospital shift. And in the evening we were able to meet with Theresa, she bought us dinner and wanted to have a lesson with us, so we did that. And we got to talk to her a lot about the Restoration, which is exactly what we were planning on talking about with her. After it she told us, "well it sounds like I need to do some serious praying and reading." I continually have high hopes for her.

Saturday - We met with Barbara in the morning with Brother Prigmore. And after that we tried a new guy in our complex named Daniel Guyout, retired Marine and he is a riot, but he is very, very interested in learning about the church. It was a really powerful lesson that we had with him. So we were able to talk to him about the Book of Mormon and the power that comes from reading it each and every day. He has great potential. We had a lesson with Anita McBride in the library. We were able to get a hold of Manice, the guy we taught from a few weeks back, and he came to church with us, getting ahead there. But on the way we met these guys that had met with missionaries before, I was razzing them for wearing so much bling, but it ended up being really awesome and a sincere talk with them, I'll keep you posted, one of their names is "Slab." :) We ate dinner with the Hansen's in the evening, and then we went out with Brother Sullins to visit some people.

Sunday - Church was good as I said, we had Manice there, which was really, really cool. He enjoyed it and the ward was so great to him as far as welcoming him in! He loved the artwork of the Savior, so we have a church tour set up in the week with him. We didn't have the Nunez's or Brown's, but I talked to Brother Nunez on the phone and he said he had a cold, and we talked to the Browns that evening, they were out of town. After that we had lunch with the Thomley's and then went with Brother Thomley, we went to see a guy we tracked into named Keon.  We visited with him, it was an awesome lesson, we just shared with him the Restoration, and he was like locked on us the whole time and when we started telling him about Joseph Smith, I thought that he was frozen.. The Spirit really was working on him and it was there so strong! I also went and gave a blessing to Maxine, I just want to say that the Priesthood is real, it was a very, very neat experience to be able to give her a blessing.

Love ya'll a whole lot!!!!

Love,

Elder Hintze

"The big hit so far has appeared to be the weather here in Dothan"

Here is Elder Hintze from Monday, February 3rd. Hope you enjoy.

"Hope everyone is well and happy! The big hit so far has appeared to be the weather here in Dothan.. let me just talk about that for a second, but first lets just enjoy a good laugh together, Hahahahahahahaha. 3 stinking snow days for school down here, members texting us warning us of the treacherous weather, nobody would drive to lessons with us, we had to be in at 6 pm on Tuesday, all roads shut down at that time, and nothing happened Wednesday all day inside! People are so crazy, it was just rain for the longest time, and everyone was nuts, the water and crackers get bought out at the store. Workers at the Hospital here in Dothan slept over. Anyway, just know that it literally was NOTHING. And it was like the storm of the century. And then this weekend it was in the 70s. I can take that!

So Wednesday was all day inside, and basically all day Tuesday this week, and we weren't able to teach anyone on Monday night.

This snowman was made by someone in Dothan, Alabama and posted on Facebook!

Thursday was cool, we were able to go out with Justin Beals in the ward, he is a senior in high school and I was praying that we would have some great experiences. We were just trying some potentials after the appointment fell through, one being this girl named Kelsey who we tracted into, we weren't able to teach her much, but talked to her a lot about what we do and what we come and teach, so we shared the Book of Mormon with her, and we are going back this week to teach her and her boyfriend, they are both looking for a church.

We also visited this young kid named Fuller, who we tracted into.. and it was so weird, his dad answered and just said come on in guys! Like way friendly to us, and made Fuller sit down and listen to us, despite his interests.. so we taught him the Restoration lesson it was all over the place, he wasn't interested, he had to go to life guard training, and his dad was cooking dinner, I invited him to listen as well, and so he did from the kitchen, but we got all through it, and Fuller did not seem at all interested, but then his dad comes in and is like well you better do what they have told you to do, you better read that Book... so it was so weird! His dad was so gung ho about it, you would have thought that he was a member of the church, the dad said that he had friends who were Mormon.. so I am excited for the family as a whole and the dad, not so much Fuller, because he is like 16 and not real interested, but we are headed back this week!

We also got to teach Marcus this week, we taught him the Plan of Salvation, easily probably one of the best lessons that I have been in, Brother Thompson comes with us, (Luke's dad), it was so inspired that he came, they hit it off just great, and Bro. Thompson talked a lot about losing a daughter and Marcus had lost a daughter. The Spirit was in the lesson, and Marcus invited us back for tonight. One of the cleariest times in a lesson that I have felt the Spirit really helping me to put words in my mouth and help me remember the lessons! Marcus is very sincere, but does not quite understand the full restoration yet, as we are clearing it up this evening, but the Spirit is touching him and since the first time that we have talked with him, you can see a difference in him!

We attended a leadership broadcast that was sent from Orlando to our church building in Dothan, there were 7 members of the Seventy there, and Elder L. Tom Perry was there, and oh my gosh, it was so awesome. Elder Perry has got to be one of the funniest people that I have ever seen, he was calling people out of the audience and banging his fist, it was so awesome! He said, "I don't know why I got called to be an apostle, I hate meetings, I hate preaching, and I hate traveling." He talked about the force that our church has with other churches, with our religious freedom act, talked about how the Cardinal of the catholic church and the evangelical leader send him Christmas cards addressed "Dear Tom." The other thing he does when they eat at restaurants and the waitresses poors him coffee is he says, "What do you think your doing? I'm a Mormon. We don't drink that stuff. My body can't take it. We are the happiest, healthiest people in the whole world!" He then asks them if they know any Mormons and he hands them his card and says take this card to your friend and tell them that you met this man, hahahahaahah!! But they talked a lot about Ward Councils and Hastening the Work of Salvation! It was so interesting, they had big Q & A and they talked about the roles of each member, he was calling Bishops out of the audience. He said, "Enthusiasm is the greatest disease you can spread!"

But we also were blessed with some very cool potentials for this next week! Also Brother Nunez was at church again on Sunday. As well as the Brown family that I told you about.. I feel that, I am in Dothan for them, I don't know why. But the 2 kids and the wife and Ryan were there. I am really excited for what is to come with them, we are going to follow up and try and invite her a little more. Their daughter loves us so much, she walked into church and said to her mom "where are they?" I am very excited for what is to come! 

Love ya'll a whole lot! Sorry I didn't do the day by day thing, but I got in the highlights of the week! 

Love, 

Elder Hintze

"We are preparing for snow and ice tonight and tomorrow, nobody told me that it snowed here?!?!?!?!"

I am sorry I have been slow posting from Elder Hintze. Here is from Monday, January 27th. Thanks for your support.

"How is every one doing!? I am doing great today, it is 60 degrees outside loving the weather, we are preparing for snow and ice tonight and tomorrow, nobody told me that it snowed here?!?!?!?! What the heck? Does nobody remember when I got called to the FLORIDA Tallahassee Mission, oh well!

Monday - We had our District activity and we went mini golfing.. get this guys. Elder Hintze came up on top, I won out of the district and I finished with a score of PAR. Probably my best mini golfing score in my life. Then in the night we packed up some stuff and we started to move apartments once more!

Tuesday - Was an all day move.. we had District Meeting in the morning! And we ate dinner at Bishop's house in the evening, which was really, really good! A lady that we found and passed on to the sister's about 2 weeks ago, is set to be baptized, so that is really cool, she is the sweetest lady.. we talked to her while she was getting into her car!

Wednesday - We got back into the swing of things! We have tried to cut down our less active visits and focus on the progressing ones, and so we are focusing a lot on just potentials and investigators.. So in the morning we tried a bunch of potentials that we had found. We tried to see that Media Referral that we got, and she was not home and would not schedule an appointment with her again, so we will see if we can wrangle her down! We went and saw Barbara Phillips with Charles Bain, she again just continues to do better and better each and every day, so sweet to be a part of it. And yes she does talk just like she writes in her letters! :) We had Ward Correlation meeting in the evening.

Thursday - We had several appointments with potentials that did not work out in the morning. So we did Weekly Planning. We knocked on this ladies door and started talking to her, and apparently she used to be an old member... crazy! We just stumbled into her, she said that she still has her scriptures and her temple garments and she was smoking and says that she plans to come back to the church in three and a half years.. so I don't think that is exactly the way that it works, but the sister's are going to start working with her, since she lives alone. It is always so fun to see how the Lord leads us when things don't always turn out exactly as planned. We did a lot of finding efforts, and we saw Brother Dobbs, the less active guy! And many others, so we will see how effective it is with returning members! And we had an appointment with Marcus, but he was not there, we are meeting with him this evening, so we are very excited to meet with him! We saw the Hughey's, and only Jef was home, so we were able to talk with him for quite a long time! It really was so awesome, I challenged him to read the Book of Mormon, and asked him if he had ever read it, because it sits in their home, and we were able to read a lot about the pre earth life with him, he loves to know about the Plan of Salvation. 

Friday - We had our Hospital shift and it was a busy one. We were called down to help a family that had just lost a loved one, so we went in and we prayed with them and just offered counsel anyway that we could. It was a family and they had 3 ordained ministers in there and a lot of the family left when the 2 Mormon dudes showed  up, but we were able to talk with them for a bit. And the spirit that was with them was so sweet, as we talked about our Savior Jesus Christ and the plan of salvation with them. They had such great faith, it was actually a blessing for me to be with them. So crazy when we are called on to do things like this, always paints a much bigger picture for me. On the way to the hospital we tried to see some potentials and to see Jon Davis, his brother had a heart attack, so we haven't been able to see him for a while. On the way there, I popped my tire, so we had to walk the rest of the way, haha.

Saturday - We saw Barbara Phillips in the morning. She was not able to make it to church, because she can't walk. But it really has been neat to see her understanding grow and grow. We also saw Sister Knight, she is back in Dothan again, so she started calling us to go out and see her, she is an absolute hoot! We also had a lesson with Gloria and Zoya, they are still just as solid as can be! We are working to get them to the temple, they had a temple trip scheduled in February, but it has now been canceled, they may have to wait until May to go do baptisms. It is so difficult to think what a chore it is to go to the Burmingham Temple, a 4 hour drive... and to think we have so many temples so close to our home! We ate dinner with the Hansen's in the evening! And we visited Brother Nunez with Brother Shelly, we got him to church again!!!!! So his wife was sick, but he has been there consistently! And Yovanny the son was there and I know that he has said this before, but he told us how he sat in church and how good it felt and as he looked through his scriptures he found an old talk that he gave, and he said he wants to quit his job so he can come, so we will see!

Sunday - Sacrament Meeting was great. We taught the Gospel Principles class! We ate dinner at the Lewis Farm after church. And we headed out on the bikes and we are just going up the hill and my tube boom just pops.. again. I was about ready to throw my bike in the trees, but I was like NO. This is good, this happened for a reason!!! So we start walking and we walk to the neighborhood, and we were led there at that time to talk to the people that we did, there were many, many people outside. And we got a lot of really, really good return appointments for this next week. One we are particularly excited about! We also saw the Brown family again, and they are really awesome, they are very nice, and we have got a good friendship going with them, they said that this Sunday they are going to come to church with us, so we will see if we get them there! Then we saw Sister Burnsed in the evening.

The common factor this week, was that the Lord was leading us to be in the certain areas and certain times, were able to contact lots of old members or people that had had contact with the church! So just got to keep looking forward with Faith, and stay happy! Love ya'll!!!!"
 
Love,
Elder Hintze