Sister and Elder Hintze: 6/12/23

 Hello family and friends. Once again, my email is a day late. But this time I have a good

reason! Guess who came to visit this past weekend?!? Yep, lucky for us, one of Todd’s annual

business meetings was scheduled to be held in Atlanta this year! After his long week, he was so

gracious to stay an extra day to come to Thomaston to visit us and get a glimpse into our

mission. We picked him up Saturday morning at the hotel he’d been staying at all week and

started our visit with breakfast. We had talked about getting breakfast at one of the many Jewish

delis in Atlanta, but unfortunately, they were all 20-30 minutes in the wrong direction. So, rather

than adding extra time to our two-hour drive to get back to Thomaston, we opted for IHOP. You

can never go wrong with IHOP. However, it mattered not one bit where we were, because the

focus of our breakfast was catching up with Todd. It seemed like we were talking as fast as we

could to get everything in in the short period of time that we had.

After breakfast, we headed south toward Thomaston. He was amazed, as were we, at first sight

of the tree-lined, rural streets dotted with large, farm-style homes on rolling acreage. It’s

absolutely beautiful in Georgia. Thomaston is a town that was built in the 1940s in the heyday of

textile manufacturing. The streets are lined with little brick homes that remind me of the home in

St. Louis where I was born. On the outskirts of the town, there are some very old, large

antebellum-type homes. But there are also some slum areas in Thomaston, and we drove through

those areas as well so that he could encompass all that we are experiencing. We have members

of our ward living in all of these areas and in all types of homes (and trailers). After our drive,

we came back to show him our humble but very comfortable apartment. After a short rest, he

helped us set up the tables and chairs for the BBQ that was planned for Saturday evening. About

thirty of our friends from the ward were invited to come and meet Todd and socialize for the

evening. Our next-door neighbors, (and landlords) Kevin and Linda, set up a wading pool in the

front yard for the little ones. We borrowed a smoker and Jerry smoked some pork for pulled

pork sandwiches, which always comes out delicious. I made my traditional coleslaw and pasta

salad, and everyone brought a dish. We had a lovely time. Toward the end of the party, I turned

around after ending a conversation and found that all of the tables and chairs had already been

packed up! My, how a lot of hands make for short work! The Elders, Jerry, Todd, and Kevin,

and our friend, Jeremiah, put them all on Kevin’s trailer and returned them to the church. I guess

while they were there, Kevin happened to hear Todd playing the piano in the chapel and he asked

him if he would come over to their house when they got back to play their grand piano. They

have a gorgeous piano that was built in the 1880s that nobody plays. So, we all went over to

their house and enjoyed a beautiful concert by Todd. Linda’s daughter and granddaughter are

living with them, and Linda went and got her six-year-old granddaughter out of bed to come to

listen. After playing some beautiful hymns and a few show tunes, Todd played some Disney

songs for Gracelyn. Kevin and Linda were so filled with gratitude for the concert that Kevin

came over shortly after we left and brought Todd some Swiss chocolate that he had recently

brought home from Switzerland. He is a flight attendant and has occasionally brought us

specialties from his travels. The evening was a smashing success.

On Sunday morning Jerry went to pick Todd up at his hotel while I stayed home to make

breakfast. We had a hearty breakfast of omelets, English muffins, bacon, and fruit, and off to

church, we went. Todd very graciously agreed to play a musical number during the sacrament

meeting for us. He played a gorgeous hymn medley of “Sweet Hour of Prayer” and “We Thank

Thee Oh God, For a Prophet. There were many tear-stained cheeks in the congregation as people

were moved by the spirit that Todd’s music brings. We had to take off directly after church to get

Todd to the airport on time for his flight. And he was off! I can’t begin to express how

wonderful it was to get to be with Todd for these few hours, to hear about all that is going on in

his life, to share with him some of our mission experiences, to get to enjoy the beautiful music

that I miss so much, and to have him get to meet the people that we’re teaching and interacting

with.

We did have a few other exciting things that happened in the past week. On Tuesday we

accompanied Vicky, along with five sisters from the ward to the temple to receive her

endowment. What a glorious day that was! Vicky was well-prepared and her joy was

experienced by all of us. I didn’t know Vicky before her mighty change of heart, but she has

shared her life story with us. She wants her daughters to have a better life than she had, and she

is serving as an incredible example to bring those girls up in a righteous home environment.

What a blessing it is to be associated with Vicky and get to share these sacred experiences with

her.

We also had the opportunity to return to teach Sam and Elaine. She had a list of questions this

time, so instead of teaching what we had prepared, we addressed her questions. We had another

wonderful discussion with them.

Unfortunately, in missionary work, there are times when people simply stop responding. We call

this “ghosting”. And that is what happened with Jasmine, whom I mentioned last week. I had an

appointment to go teach her, along with Linda, last week. She texted and said she wasn’t feeling

well and told me to call or text her to reschedule. She has not responded to any of those calls or

texts. I texted her to tell her that I was leaving the cookies on her front porch that I had prepared

to bring with me to our lesson. I got no response. Elder Hintze has texted her to ask to set up an

arrangement for him to get his jump drive returned that we gave her to print the flyers for

Emancipation Day. And no response to that. Oh well, it’s all in a day of being a missionary!

Last night we held a spirit-filled meeting in our apartment to discuss this week’s Come Follow

Me lesson. It covered Chapters 14-17 in the book of John. These are some of the most powerful

scriptures in all of the New Testament. It’s hard for me to wrap my brain around the fact that

although He was about to face the most agonizing experience of suffering in Gethsemane, the

betrayal of His closest friends, and His harrowing death on the cross, His focus was on preparing

his disciples for His departure. He was focused on making sure they had what they needed to

know for the days and years ahead that they would be without His physical presence. In His

intercessory prayer, he is not only praying to the Father for His disciples, but He is also praying

to the Father for each one of us. During the meeting last night, together we compiled a list of all

of the things that Jesus was asking the Father to bless us with. A few of the things on that list are

that He prayed that we would have joy, be with Him where He is, be kept from evil, have the

Father’s love in us, be sanctified, and be made perfect. Can you even comprehend what it means

that the Savior before He left this earth, asked God the Father to bless us with those blessings

that we would need to obtain eternal life? It was such a powerful message to us, that we decided

to keep the list that we compiled visible to us by hanging it on the wall.

Well, it’s off to do some missionary work. We wish you all a wonderful week, or as they say in

the South, “Have a blessed week!”

Much Love,

Elder and Sister Hintze