Sister and Brother Hintze: 8/21/23

 

Monday, August 21, 2023

Hello everyone! This long-awaited time has finally arrived! This is the week that Todd and

Alexandria are due to give birth to their first child, a baby boy! Of course, we all know that first

babies notoriously take their time arriving, but nevertheless, Elder Hintze and I are sitting on the

edge of our seats waiting for that special phone call!

It’s been another memorable week of missionary work. The Lord has His hand in so many

beautiful things happening here in this little corner of the world.

Last Monday evening we had our bi-monthly Come Follow Me study group. It was the best

turnout yet! A dozen people filled our little family room. The most exciting guest was Julianne,

Lisa’s mom. It’s so wonderful to see her learning and growing in the gospel. She not only

attended but openly asked questions. Lisa normally works evenings at Walmart, but she got a

promotion and spent two weeks in training during the day, so she was free in the evening to

attend. She was also free to attend a Stake Women’s activity, and Julianne accompanied Lisa to

that as well. Lisa has shed tears of joy over her mother attending church and church activities

with her. After our last visit with Julianne on Tuesday, we realized that we had not given her a

reading assignment for the week. So, I sent her a text asking her to read King Benjamin’s

address in the book of Mosiah. The content covers four chapters, and after sending it to her, I

fretted that I had given her too big of a chunk at once. After a day or two, when I hadn’t received

a response from her, I really began to fret! When I saw her two days later at the Stake women’s

activity, I told her that I thought I had given her too much to read, and told her to read just the

first chapter for our next meeting. She responded with, “But I’ve already read two chapters!”

Not only was I incredibly relieved, but I was filled with joy to see Julianne’s zeal in learning the

gospel.

We have two new wonderful families that we have the opportunity to share the gospel with. The

first family is a couple named Angela and Robbie. Angela was raised in the church but has not

been coming to church for quite a few years. At one time she served in the primary in the

Thomaston ward. Her husband, Robbie, grew up in the Baptist church. We made several

attempts early in our mission to visit them. They were always friendly but were never ready to

invite us in or accept a message from us. However, just recently, Angie has begun responding to

our texts. We asked them if we could come by to deliver a loaf of bread that Elder Hintze baked

and she said we could. So, we had our first brief visit to deliver the bread. While we were there,

we asked if we could return to share a message about Jesus Christ with them. They accepted that

offer. We had a wonderful lesson with them about the apostasy of the early church and the

restoration of Christ’s church on the earth. Robbie shared with us that his father passed away a

few years ago, and that has caused him to ask some deep questions. We’re so grateful we’ve had

a chance to get to know this amazing man! Elder Hintze asked him if we could come back and

share with him God’s plan of salvation so he could know where his father is now. He is so

anxious for us to come back to teach him more.

The other family we have the great opportunity to teach is the Coley family. I mentioned her last

week. She is an amazing woman, a single mother of ten children, who has not been active in the

church all of the years she has been raising her children. Subsequently, she has grown children

who have not been baptized. We had a marvelous meeting with Sister Coley, her eighteen-year-

old son, her daughter, and her son-in-law. The entire family wants to learn the gospel and they

will be reading the Book of Mormon together. There is a great spirit of love in this home. Her

son, who is a high school senior, is on the football team. At Elder Hintze’s request, he has given

us a copy of his football schedule and we can’t wait to go watch him play.

The crowning event of the week was serving as Megan’s escort in the temple on Saturday as she

received her endowment. As I’ve mentioned in the past, Megan’s entire countenance has

changed since we first met her. By inviting Christ into her heart, she has changed from a fearful,

withdrawn young woman to a young woman who is building confidence and setting goals. She

was absolutely glowing with the light of Christ in the temple. Megan and I have grown quite

close, and I’m beginning to worry about her progress after I leave Thomaston. She is quite

introverted and doesn’t have any friends in the ward. I had the YSA (Young Single Adult) leader

reach out to her to let her know about the various activities that their group has going on. I’ve

talked with Megan about the importance of getting involved with others her age and she said

would begin attending some of their activities. Megan has a very bright future in store if she will

stay on the covenant path.

This past week we had mid-transfers, which is a transfer halfway between the regular transfers.

The reason for this is that we had a large group of Elders and Sisters complete their missions and

depart for home. Therefore, some positions had to be moved around. So, we have been given

the great fortune of having Elder Dunn, the very first missionary we served with in Thomaston,

back in our district!! We developed a great, fun relationship with him while we taught some

people together here in Thomaston. So today we drove to Griffin to get together with all the

Elders and Sisters in our district. Some of the young folks played pickleball while some of us

played a game called Fast Track. I have to give kudos to Sister Lewis, a former tennis player,

who kicked the socks off of all the Elders in pickleball. We ended the fun at Chick-Fil-A for

lunch. A little recreation is a great way to gear up for a new week of sharing the gospel. These

young Elders and Sisters are so amazing in the growth they’ve all made during their service.

They will truly be the future leaders of our country!

We wrapped up our week with our Zone Conference in Macon, which happens every six weeks.

President Farias and his wonderful, sweet wife always provide us with a great spiritual feast at

our Zone Conferences. President Farias gave us some deep food for thought when he talked

about Joshua 3:5 which says, “Sanctify yourselves: for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders

among you. He taught us the importance of becoming sanctified ourselves first so that the Lord

can bless us in our efforts to take the gospel to the world. And after we sanctify ourselves, we

can petition the Lord, as it says in Alma 31: 34-35, “O Lord, wilt thou grant unto us that we may

have success in bringing them again unto thee in Christ. Behold, O Lord, their souls are

precious, and many of them are our brethren, therefore, give unto us, O Lord, power and wisdom

that we may bring these, our brethren, again unto thee.

And this is our whole purpose as missionaries – to be an instrument in the Lord’s hands to bring

souls unto Him.

Love,

Elder and Sister Hintze