Sister and Elder Hintze: 12/13/23

 

Dear family and friends,

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas here in Thomaston!! The town of Thomaston does a

terrific job of bringing in the Christmas spirit with lots of decorations in the town square. I have

to admit, I always thought I could never get in the spirit of Christmas in a warm climate without

snow, but I think I’ve changed my mind. It’s been quite nice to be outside in short sleeves in the

sunshine while I get reports from home of snow covering the ground and below-freezing

temperatures!

The day after Thanksgiving we started on our goal of visiting one more time with every person

that we’ve worked with, taught, or otherwise interacted with in some way during our mission.

We came up with a list of 83 people! So, that very day we popped our first batch of popcorn,

turned it into delicious homemade caramel corn, bagged it up with an ornament of the Savior

attached, and took off to start delivering. We have made 60 deliveries and we’re still going

strong. This week on Monday, instead of our weekly game day with the Elders, we stayed home

and finished making the caramel corn for the remainder of the deliveries. We will be hitting the

streets for the rest of the week.

We have a regular assignment to inspect the apartments of the Sisters and the Elders in a few

towns about an hour's drive away. Last week when we went to do our inspections, we saw a

flyer hanging on the Sisters’ refrigerator announcing a nativity show at a nearby stake building.

We decided to treat ourselves to a quick look, and what a treat it was. The entire cultural hall

was beautifully decorated and filled with hundreds of nativities from all over the world. They

were all so gorgeous. It was hard to choose one picture to share, but I included one nativity that

particularly spoke to me. The incredible details on their faces allowed me to feel the humility of

these three kings as they knelt before the Christ child. This event was a great bonus to our

inspection assignment.

This past Friday night we had a really fun ward Christmas party. The youth did a live nativity

enactment, the bishop and his counselors dressed up as wise men, and our friend Kasun, who

was recently baptized, was chosen to play the part of Joseph. All of a sudden all of the young

women were vying to play the part of Mary.

We’ve also been busy working on completing one of the most important things before our

mission comes to a close, and that is getting our newly baptized members to the temple. So, with

only 13 days left of our mission, we are squeezing in two separate trips to the temple. The

Atlanta temple is a 2 – 2.5 hour drive, depending on the time of day, so it pretty much takes up

the day. In addition, we have one more district meeting, one zone meeting, a dinner with the

mission president and his wife, and speaking assignments in church. Whew!!!

This coming Saturday is the annual Thomaston Christmas parade. A few years ago, our church

was the first to offer a Christmas-themed float complete with the youth dressed as wise men,

angels, and even donkeys! The following year four other churches followed suit competing for

the award for the best float. Thomaston continues to be the winner.

We had our final Family Home Evening Monday with a record-breaking attendance of sixteen

people! We even had one young man attend who is not a member (yet). It was a beautiful

evening with the sharing of testimonies and many expressions of gratitude for our service here.

Next week we will be facing the final week of our mission. It will be a very bittersweet ending.

We’ve come to love this place and the wonderful, genuine, humble people that we’ve had the

pleasure of serving.

We wish you all the peace and joy of the Christmas season.

Much love,

Elder and Sister Hintze