Sister and Elder Hintze: 8/14/23

 

Monday, August 14, 2023

This has been a very rewarding week of missionary work. When we are serving the Lord, we

plant many seeds that sometimes grow and other times do not. And even the seeds that take root

often grow very, very slowly. But this week we did get to see some fruits growing and

developing!

Before I talk about the great week of work, let me share the wonderful Pday we had last week in

Macon. We go to Macon every six weeks for zone conferences, but we do not have time to

explore anything in the town. The first place we went was to Buc-ees! If you’ve ever been to

the south, hopefully, you’ve had a chance to experience Buc-ees. It’s a gas station/truck

stop/convenience store/gift shop on steroids! The one difference is that they do not allow trucks!

The store is massive and the atmosphere is fun. We took the opportunity to taste one of their

famous BBQ brisket sandwiches and were utterly surprised that these mass-produced sandwiches

were far better than any we’d ever had in a BBQ restaurant. We bought a wooden plaque in the

shape of the state of Georgia for our travel wall at home and we both left Buc-ees with a souvenir

t-shirt. I got to shop in a quilt store and we had dinner in a hole-in-the-wall Cajun restaurant that

was outstanding. It was kind of an off hour of the day, so the chef actually came out to our table.

It’s always rewarding when you have good food in a restaurant to be able to praise the chef!

Now on to the missionary work. One of the rays of sunshine in our teaching right now is a sister

named Freida. The change in her since we first visited her seven months ago is astounding. She

is alive with the light of Christ and so excited about progressing in her covenant path. Many of

the members of the church here in Georgia were raised in evangelical churches, which is the case

for Freida. We realized when she offered the opening prayer for our temple preparation lesson

that we have something we can learn from our evangelical friends. In their prayers, they always

give praise to God for His glory and for the Atonement. It was as foreign to us in the beginning

as always hearing “yes ma’am and yes sir”, but all of this verbiage is growing on us. We think

that it’s beautiful to verbally express all of the glory to God for all that He’s given us. Freida is

progressing beautifully, and we look forward to escorting her to the temple when she is ready.

Our friend Megan, however, has completed her temple preparation and is ready to go. We will

be taking her this coming Saturday with many other sisters in the ward. Seeing members

progress on the covenant path and making those temple covenants is one of our greatest joys!

Another place we are planting seeds is with our friend Lisa and her mom Julieanne. Our first

encounter with Lisa is when she approached us in Walmart at the beginning of our mission when

she recognized our missionary badges. She hadn’t been attending church for several years, but

for some reason was drawn to the missionaries. We set up an appointment to go visit her, and

she has become a very good friend. We have visited her many times in her home. She comes to

church and sits with us every week. We’ve also gotten to know her mother, Julieanne quite well.

Julieanne is not a member of the church, and in the beginning, she claimed to be agnostic,

although she was raised in the Lutheran faith. We have been teaching her the gospel, and have

seen the light begin to shine. She is coming to church with Lisa now, and they even both

attended our Family Home Evening last night!! Lisa sometimes works evenings, so we invited

Julieanne to come to our home for dinner with another sister in the ward whom I’ve told you

about, Sister Druce. Sister Druce is a rock star! She is 88 years old and still drives every

Saturday for two hours to work in the Atlanta temple. She hosted nine ladies in her home this

past week for lunch and bingo, and she hosts a weekly Scrabble group. Julieanne is 82 years old

and still takes care of the horses on her small farm and does heavy yard work. We thought these

two ladies might connect, and they sure did! We had a wonderful evening having them both for

dinner. And after church on Sunday, we saw them hugging!!!

Last week I shared with you our porch visit with Sister Belinda. After many, many attempts to

text and call her, we finally decided to just show up at her house. We ended up having a

wonderful visit with her. This past Sunday she was out of town, but the son who came with her

to church last Sunday came by himself this week! He told us his mother was visiting a friend

and was attending church with her friend in her friend’s ward. Sunday evening, she reached out

to me with a text inviting us to come and teach her family. We are excited to get to know this

family and teach them the gospel.

Also, this week we had the pleasure of serving at a community event called “United”. All of

the churches in Thomaston (47 churches in this town of 10,000) come together to feed as many

people as possible. The goal this year was to feed 1,000. Grills were fired up and the goal was

achieved as hamburgers, hot dogs, and pulled pork sandwiches with chips, cookies, and a drink

were served to over 1,000 people. Afterward, there was a worship service in a large, community

gymnasium and a choir that sang. We enjoyed the opportunity to serve and make new

friendships. I have included a picture of Elder Hintze with his new friend, pastor Bob Hubbard.

As we are studying the Book of Romans in the New Testament, I am learning more and more

about the early Jews in the Holy Land who became believers in Jesus Christ. I’m beginning to

understand how the law of Moses was the preparatory law to prepare the Jews to accept the

higher law of the gospel and to truly become God’s covenant people. We talked a lot this week

about how our outward efforts to live the gospel should not be for the glory of man but should be

to deepen our conversion and strengthen our faith in Jesus Christ. In Romans Chapter 6, verse 4,

Paul teaches that “we are buried with him by baptism into death; that like as Christ was raised up

from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. One of

the greatest joys of serving as a missionary is seeing people accept the newness of life that comes

from faith in Jesus Christ and from walking the path of gospel living.

We love you all,

Elder and Sister Hintze