Sister and Elder Hintze: 5/22/23

 

Monday, May 22, 2023

Cheers to another great week in the mission field! We are really growing quite close to the

people that we’re teaching and meeting with every week. When Megan shows up to church with

her daughter, Samantha will climb over anyone she must in order to sit next to me. Kelly and

Wyett’s little two-year-old always beelines into Elder Hintze’s arms whenever she sees us. It just

slightly allays the sting of our absent grandkids!

We started off this past week with the second of our Come Follow Me lessons for Family Home

Evening. We knew we would not get as many people as we had the first time, but interestingly,

we had only three. We were a little disappointed at first, but it ended up being such a special

discussion. With only a few people, all of whom knew each other well, we were able to really

personalize the parables and apply them to our own lives. Some personal stories were shared. It

was a really great evening.

We had the best visit yet that we’ve had with Mike and Mary. They are a couple about our age.

They’ve been married just over a year. Mary grew up in the church, and Mike grew up going to

the Lutheran church with his mother and the Catholic church with his grandmother. Sadly, he

grew up believing that God was just waiting for him to slip so that he could be punished. So, he

believed that he would never be able to earn eternal glory. He is beginning to see the love of

God in his life and to understand that he is a son of our Heavenly Father with divine potential.

We had a movie night with Mike and Mary and the Elders. Elder Hintze popped popcorn and we

brought individual bags for each person to munch on as we watched the movie on the

Restoration of the Gospel. It was the first time we’d ever seen Mike come alive with the spirit.

He loved learning the story of the restoration of Christ’s church and coming to understand the

true nature of God. They have been attending church only sporadically because Mary’s health is

not 100%. This past Sunday, when I saw them sitting in a pew waiting for the service to begin, I

went over to say hello. Mary confided that she wasn’t feeling great and that she tried to convince

Mike to stay home with her. And he said, “No, I told her to get dressed, we’re going to church!”

Now that’s an incredible about-face for Mike to be the one to get them to church. We are really

happy that he’s feeling good about the principles of the gospel that he is learning and is

motivated to come to church.

And that is about all the teaching we did last week because we took our first little adventure!!!

We spent from Thursday until Saturday visiting Savannah! On my, what a gorgeous town so

incredibly full of somber history. We had a wonderful time. We chose a hotel right on the

riverfront downtown with easy, close access to all of the sights. We parked our car when we

arrived on Thursday afternoon and didn’t get in it again until we left on Saturday afternoon. We

walked and we walked and we walked, and our prayers that my knee would hold up to permit all

that walking were answered!!! Jerry and I usually like to take some type of tour when we’re

visiting a city to get some narration from someone who is knowledgeable about the local history.

Sometimes they’re great and sometimes, well, not so good! We already had a food tour booked

on Saturday. Food tours are fun and allow enjoyable tastes of the local cuisines, but often are

lacking in historical narration. So, as he was driving, I started perusing the internet looking for

history tours. I never imagined at that late date that there would be any availability, but not only

was there a tour available, but it was by far the most first-rate, outstanding tour we’ve ever

experienced! It was a private tour for just the two of us, so our tour guide, Fritz, invited our

questions and was attentive to our comments. He was just overflowing with knowledge and

stories of the people. We learned about Tomo-Chi-Chi, a tribal leader who was indispensable in

negotiating with James Oglethorpe the treaty upon which Georgia was settled in 1773. Although

they were at times poignant and brutal to listen to, Fritz told the stories of the slave history with

such fervor as to make it seem as though the people were still there. We heard the story of “The

Weeping Time”, the largest sale of human beings in the history of the United States, where 436

enslaved people were sold. Toward the end of the tour, we walked on what felt like sacred

ground, as we listened to a recording of 500 children singing about their freedom as they walked

to school for the very first time. Their classroom was on the upper floor of the very same

building where the slave auctions were held. This experience touched us in a very profound way.

We’re so glad we got to have this experience.

To close my email tonight, I want to share a thought I heard in a talk given in church yesterday.

The statement was,

“If you want to go where He can be with you, then you have to go where He is.”

And where is that? Where can we go where we will find Him? He is in our scriptures, He is in

our gospel conversations, He is in our prayers, He is in our service to one another, He is in our

teaching and learning from each other, and wherever we consider aligning our choices with His

desire for us.

He has promised us that “Thou shalt abide in me, and I in you, therefore walk with me.”

Moses 6:34

I pray that we will all have a desire to walk with Him.

Have a wonderful week.

Love,

Elder and Sister Hintze