Monday, December 28, 2009
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
December 7, 2009
Dear Family,
So Rosella got baptized on Sunday. It was a way cool experience especially for me since I was able to baptize her. My companion confirmed her. So this next transfer is going to be amazing. We are the only area in the mission to have multiple sets of Elders per one unit. It is way exciting the incredible amount of work that will get done. They sent up the 2 new Elders with a car so now we just share with each other instead of the Elders in Poplar. Elder Llewellyn is my new companion. We were companion in the office. He was the only Elder I have ever been with longer than a transfer but I am so happy to have him back. We are going to thrash the nations. Now since there are more Elders and a vehicle we will now be able to cover our whole area at last. Once a week Elder Llewellyn and I will go to Frazer and Oswego. That will be fun and there is a lot of work there. So we are sharing an apartment it will be kinda crammed but I think the only hassle will be the hot water heater. Haha Well anyways last night here in Wolf Point it was minus 21 degrees and with windchill it was minus 35 degrees. That is flippen cold. Well anyways, send me more mail! Haha
Love ya, Elder Hinton
Note: Mark asked Kyler about members feeding them dinner, he said it is not a regular scheduled thing, but they do quite often get fed dinner by the members. He said they get a lot of fry bread, Navajo tacos, and pacos. Pacos are like fry bread, but they are sealed up, you open them, then add the lettuce, cheese, etc. on top. Just FYI.
So Rosella got baptized on Sunday. It was a way cool experience especially for me since I was able to baptize her. My companion confirmed her. So this next transfer is going to be amazing. We are the only area in the mission to have multiple sets of Elders per one unit. It is way exciting the incredible amount of work that will get done. They sent up the 2 new Elders with a car so now we just share with each other instead of the Elders in Poplar. Elder Llewellyn is my new companion. We were companion in the office. He was the only Elder I have ever been with longer than a transfer but I am so happy to have him back. We are going to thrash the nations. Now since there are more Elders and a vehicle we will now be able to cover our whole area at last. Once a week Elder Llewellyn and I will go to Frazer and Oswego. That will be fun and there is a lot of work there. So we are sharing an apartment it will be kinda crammed but I think the only hassle will be the hot water heater. Haha Well anyways last night here in Wolf Point it was minus 21 degrees and with windchill it was minus 35 degrees. That is flippen cold. Well anyways, send me more mail! Haha
Love ya, Elder Hinton
Note: Mark asked Kyler about members feeding them dinner, he said it is not a regular scheduled thing, but they do quite often get fed dinner by the members. He said they get a lot of fry bread, Navajo tacos, and pacos. Pacos are like fry bread, but they are sealed up, you open them, then add the lettuce, cheese, etc. on top. Just FYI.
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Friday, December 4, 2009
November 30, 2009
Dear Fam, How’s everyone doing? So this week was kind of a crazy week. Monday was P-day, Tuesday we were in Poplar on teamups. Wednesday we had a normal working day, Thursday was Thanksgiving. Friday we helped set up for a wedding all day. Saturday we were at a wedding all day. The wedding was well worth it though. Two amazing members here in Wolf Point got married. Jake Goodbear and Janet Runsthrough. Jake served a mission here like 30 years ago. But our Branch President, Pres. Headress asked Jake if he would be his 2nd Counselor. He didn’t know they weren’t married yet. Haha But missionaries have been working with them a long time. He is one of the coolest members in the Ward. Well anyways Friday we decorated all day and had a lot of fun sucking in helium. Haha Sunday was a normal day except we had Rosella Archdales’s baptismal interview, she passed and we are having it on Sunday! So I am way stoked! Oh ya for the wedding we got to wear flowers too and guess what ???? I actually did my hair for the wedding. Lawl! So Friday is another transfer, can you believe I have already been here 6 weeks. So Saturday we will find out who the 2 new missionaries are that are coming to help us out! It will be very exciting, our apartment might be a little cramped though. Haha Oh, I spoke in Church again on Sunday and Sis. Silk who had some pictures of Grandma and Grandpa afterwards came up to me and thanked me. She said, “I heard every word, I forgot my hearing aid today, but you are so boisterous I didn’t have a problem.” I am writing this letter and as of today I have 298 days left. Haha C ya soon, Now write me back before I bust a cap! Love, Elder Hinton
Nov. 23. 2009
Dear Family, Wolf Point is going great, hard to believe I have been here for 5 weeks already. Time flies by. Ya, I was extremely lucky. I came from Livingston which had tons of snow on the ground and in 0 degree weather to Wolf Point who right now has no snow and has been in the high 20’s to mid 40’s. How cool is that? The worst is yet to come though. Haha. Well I told ya we had to push back Rosella’s baptism date to Dec. 6th because she had strep throat and couldn’t come to Church. Well anyways last night we had another lesson with her and we went over the Plan of Salvation and a few of the commandments. We knew she drank coffee, so we threw the Word of Wisdom at her and after we got done explaining it, we committed her to live it and she was like alright I can get rid of my coffee maker. She had absolutely no problem with it. She is indeed a golden investigator! So that is awesome that Sadie had her puppies. Keep sending me names of people and pictures from Grandma’s scrapbook. Poplar is 20 miles down the road. But we go there for teamups and we play volleyball there every Monday night. It is way sweet. I love the Res! Up here we don’t have to tract, #1 because we are so busy already and #2 everyone lets you inside, it is awesome. The only thing that slows us down is having to walk everywhere, but the extra missionaries will be getting here in 2 weeks, and will help out a lot with that. We have another investigator we found a few weeks ago, Karl Hausen. We have taught him and he has been coming to Church. We are going to commit him to baptism here in the next couple of lessons! So how has everyone been doing? I miss you all and expect a lot of mail real soon. Say hi to everyone for me. Love, Elder Hinton
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
November 9, 2009
Dear Family, (letter received Mon. Nov. 9th)
I just had probably one of the coolest experiences happen to me so far on my mission. So let me start from the beginning. Elder Tabor and Elder Robison (the Elder I took the place of) had a lady drive up and say “Hey come over to my house sometime.” This was before Elder Robison left, so then Elder Tabor and I go over there and finally set up an appointment with her. So we go over and she had heard about Joseph Smith, but knew nothing about him except his name. So I decide to show her “Joseph Smith, Prophet of the Restoration.” While she is watching this movie (the natives are really in tune with the spirit) she is saying how remarkable the things that happened were. And saying, God gave him the power to head people, etc. By the end of the movie this lady (Rosella Archdale) says her heart is overflowing with emotion. We then we tell her there is a way that she can know for sure that these things are true. So we pull out a Book of Mormon and she has never heard about it before. So we spend about 20 minutes explaining the background of it. We then tell her that if she reads and prays about that book she will receive an answer from God that it is true. She then says “I already know it’s true! The feeling I have right now is unlike any other.” We then tell her that the child she lost at birth she would see again and live with. We found out she lost her oldest son when Alvin Smith died in the movie. She said, “I lost my oldest son to death also.” By now something kicked up in me and said to commit her to baptism! I’m like hey hold on now, this is the first time we have taught her and it told me again “commit her to baptism.” So I did. And she said YES. I then start telling her that she has to come to Church consistently and we have 4 lessons to teach before the baptism can happen. Then something kicked up in me and said “set a date” so I was like alright, I flip open my planner and it lands on Sunday , Nov. 22. I think to myself we usually have baptisms on Saturday. Then it kicked up in me again and said, “ask her if she will be baptized Sun. Nov. 22, so I did. She then is taken back and says “Oh my, I would love to, that is my birthday and that would be the greatest birthday present ever.”
How flippen cool is that?????? It was way awesome, oh ya, we have it scheduled to teach the rest of the lessons and have the baptism interview with 2 weeks. It was a way cool experience. It was way awesome. I love you all. Thanks for the Halloween package.
Love, Elder Hinton
I just had probably one of the coolest experiences happen to me so far on my mission. So let me start from the beginning. Elder Tabor and Elder Robison (the Elder I took the place of) had a lady drive up and say “Hey come over to my house sometime.” This was before Elder Robison left, so then Elder Tabor and I go over there and finally set up an appointment with her. So we go over and she had heard about Joseph Smith, but knew nothing about him except his name. So I decide to show her “Joseph Smith, Prophet of the Restoration.” While she is watching this movie (the natives are really in tune with the spirit) she is saying how remarkable the things that happened were. And saying, God gave him the power to head people, etc. By the end of the movie this lady (Rosella Archdale) says her heart is overflowing with emotion. We then we tell her there is a way that she can know for sure that these things are true. So we pull out a Book of Mormon and she has never heard about it before. So we spend about 20 minutes explaining the background of it. We then tell her that if she reads and prays about that book she will receive an answer from God that it is true. She then says “I already know it’s true! The feeling I have right now is unlike any other.” We then tell her that the child she lost at birth she would see again and live with. We found out she lost her oldest son when Alvin Smith died in the movie. She said, “I lost my oldest son to death also.” By now something kicked up in me and said to commit her to baptism! I’m like hey hold on now, this is the first time we have taught her and it told me again “commit her to baptism.” So I did. And she said YES. I then start telling her that she has to come to Church consistently and we have 4 lessons to teach before the baptism can happen. Then something kicked up in me and said “set a date” so I was like alright, I flip open my planner and it lands on Sunday , Nov. 22. I think to myself we usually have baptisms on Saturday. Then it kicked up in me again and said, “ask her if she will be baptized Sun. Nov. 22, so I did. She then is taken back and says “Oh my, I would love to, that is my birthday and that would be the greatest birthday present ever.”
How flippen cool is that?????? It was way awesome, oh ya, we have it scheduled to teach the rest of the lessons and have the baptism interview with 2 weeks. It was a way cool experience. It was way awesome. I love you all. Thanks for the Halloween package.
Love, Elder Hinton
November 7, 2009
Dear Family, (Letter received Sat. Nov. 7)
I decided that I better write you a letter before I get killed by one of you. Haha Well life is going great. Out here in Wolf Point is fantastic. We are 1 of only 7 companionships in our mission that are still in an apartment. The natives here on the Fort Peck Reservation are way awesome. There is a ton of history here in the Wolf Point area. 5 miles out of town is a city called Oscwego. That is where Chicken Hill is. If I were you I would look up all the things that happened at Chicken Hill by Melvin J. Ballard. He performed mighty miracles and prophecied of great things. 100 years ago he prophecied that one day a temple would be built at Chicken Hill. I am here to tell you that I am going to be a major part of that prophecy. We have enough members for 2 wards in Wolf Point, 1 in Frazer, 3 in Poplar, 1 in Plentywood and 1 in Scobey which are all on the Ft. Peck Reservation. We have enough members to have a Stake here. We are so excited to get this work going and to reactivate the members that we went to Pres. Gardner this past weekend when we were in Glendive for Stake Conference. We told him our feelings and how we wanted to make this work blossom and how we were going to be a defining factor for this prophecy to come to pass. We asked that we get more missionaries in Wolf Point and Poplar. Pres. Gardner loves this sacred ground especially since his father served a mission here 70 years ago. So he told us he would do whatever he could. He called me yesterday and told me he was going to make it happen. We are so excited. You don’t understand the amount of work we will be able to accomplish now. Right now we have a branch building that at like maximum capacity holds 50 people. I plan on reactivating flippen everyone. I am going to see this building overflow week after week so that the First Presidency will have to step in and start building us full-sized ward buildings and eventually a Stake Center. These natives are the most kind hearted, gracious people I have ever met.
The BuckElk family also knew and loved Grandma and Grandpa. All I have ever heard was by far they were some of the best missionaries that have ever been here. To hear stories about Grandpa Hinton driving over peoples lawns cracks me up. Haha Sister BuckElk who's maiden name is Headress was saying they were laying sod in their front yard and here comes Elder Hinton driving up over the sidewalk and across the lawn haha.... she said he was a hoot. To see pictures of them and the people is a heart toucher. There is still a seminary program here today but they only do it once a week on Wednesday night. Hey mother, this is something that will freak you out. 20 miles away in Poplar where Elder Beck and Elder Searle are serving (they both came out with me and I go over there a few times a week) anyway it has the highest stabbing rate in the country! How cool is that. Haha But you don’t need to be scared. We are loved by everyone and people don’t mess with the “God men”. I am completely in love with Wolf Point. By far it will be the best place I will ever serve on my mission. Every person we talk to invites us back and sets up an appointment. We have too much going to focus on both our investigators and reactivation so that is why we are getting more missionaries.
Okay, here is a cool experience that happened last night. We went over to an investigators house. They both will be baptized but we are waiting for them to get married. Well Cynthia’s soon to be husband is not home for our appointment, but her brother Karl from Hardin is there. So we start talking and visiting with them a bit. And pretty much our attention turns to Karl who is telling us that his kids have been taken away from him (who mean the world to him) but we find out it is because he smokes weed. He is explaining to us he does it to solve his problems for a temporary time. I then proceed to tell him that I have something very special that could solve his problems for life and even for eternity. He turns to me, crying, and tells me that is what he wants and that is what he needs. I end up teaching him about 2 lessons and I give him 2 chapters to read and pray about from the B of M. We are coming back today to see how his reading last night went. He is coming to Church on Sunday and we are bringing him to the addiction recovery program. It was way cool. Oh, this Sunday I get the opportunity to talk in Church. That will be great. We have a new branch President, who is native which is awesome. We have so much going for us. It’s funny when everyone else who doesn’t live in Eastern Montana and the rest of the missionaries do not understand the things they are missing. This will become the most coveted spot in the mission because of what happens here in the next few months. I really think this is my last area. It would be 10 ½ months but stranger things have happened. I told Pres. Gardner in my President’s letter about how I always knew I would serve in Wolf Point. It was only a matter of time. I love you all lots. Now send me letters and names of people Grandma and Grandpa taught.
Love, Elder Hinton
I decided that I better write you a letter before I get killed by one of you. Haha Well life is going great. Out here in Wolf Point is fantastic. We are 1 of only 7 companionships in our mission that are still in an apartment. The natives here on the Fort Peck Reservation are way awesome. There is a ton of history here in the Wolf Point area. 5 miles out of town is a city called Oscwego. That is where Chicken Hill is. If I were you I would look up all the things that happened at Chicken Hill by Melvin J. Ballard. He performed mighty miracles and prophecied of great things. 100 years ago he prophecied that one day a temple would be built at Chicken Hill. I am here to tell you that I am going to be a major part of that prophecy. We have enough members for 2 wards in Wolf Point, 1 in Frazer, 3 in Poplar, 1 in Plentywood and 1 in Scobey which are all on the Ft. Peck Reservation. We have enough members to have a Stake here. We are so excited to get this work going and to reactivate the members that we went to Pres. Gardner this past weekend when we were in Glendive for Stake Conference. We told him our feelings and how we wanted to make this work blossom and how we were going to be a defining factor for this prophecy to come to pass. We asked that we get more missionaries in Wolf Point and Poplar. Pres. Gardner loves this sacred ground especially since his father served a mission here 70 years ago. So he told us he would do whatever he could. He called me yesterday and told me he was going to make it happen. We are so excited. You don’t understand the amount of work we will be able to accomplish now. Right now we have a branch building that at like maximum capacity holds 50 people. I plan on reactivating flippen everyone. I am going to see this building overflow week after week so that the First Presidency will have to step in and start building us full-sized ward buildings and eventually a Stake Center. These natives are the most kind hearted, gracious people I have ever met.
The BuckElk family also knew and loved Grandma and Grandpa. All I have ever heard was by far they were some of the best missionaries that have ever been here. To hear stories about Grandpa Hinton driving over peoples lawns cracks me up. Haha Sister BuckElk who's maiden name is Headress was saying they were laying sod in their front yard and here comes Elder Hinton driving up over the sidewalk and across the lawn haha.... she said he was a hoot. To see pictures of them and the people is a heart toucher. There is still a seminary program here today but they only do it once a week on Wednesday night. Hey mother, this is something that will freak you out. 20 miles away in Poplar where Elder Beck and Elder Searle are serving (they both came out with me and I go over there a few times a week) anyway it has the highest stabbing rate in the country! How cool is that. Haha But you don’t need to be scared. We are loved by everyone and people don’t mess with the “God men”. I am completely in love with Wolf Point. By far it will be the best place I will ever serve on my mission. Every person we talk to invites us back and sets up an appointment. We have too much going to focus on both our investigators and reactivation so that is why we are getting more missionaries.
Okay, here is a cool experience that happened last night. We went over to an investigators house. They both will be baptized but we are waiting for them to get married. Well Cynthia’s soon to be husband is not home for our appointment, but her brother Karl from Hardin is there. So we start talking and visiting with them a bit. And pretty much our attention turns to Karl who is telling us that his kids have been taken away from him (who mean the world to him) but we find out it is because he smokes weed. He is explaining to us he does it to solve his problems for a temporary time. I then proceed to tell him that I have something very special that could solve his problems for life and even for eternity. He turns to me, crying, and tells me that is what he wants and that is what he needs. I end up teaching him about 2 lessons and I give him 2 chapters to read and pray about from the B of M. We are coming back today to see how his reading last night went. He is coming to Church on Sunday and we are bringing him to the addiction recovery program. It was way cool. Oh, this Sunday I get the opportunity to talk in Church. That will be great. We have a new branch President, who is native which is awesome. We have so much going for us. It’s funny when everyone else who doesn’t live in Eastern Montana and the rest of the missionaries do not understand the things they are missing. This will become the most coveted spot in the mission because of what happens here in the next few months. I really think this is my last area. It would be 10 ½ months but stranger things have happened. I told Pres. Gardner in my President’s letter about how I always knew I would serve in Wolf Point. It was only a matter of time. I love you all lots. Now send me letters and names of people Grandma and Grandpa taught.
Love, Elder Hinton
Monday, November 2, 2009
November 2, 2009
Mon. Nov. 2, 2009 (From email) Kathy writing
Elder Hinton says: “Wolf Point is so awesome… I am in love with it... this will by far be the defining part of my mission.” I don’t know exactly what he means by this but anyway he seems happy, except for the fact that he got a speeding ticket driving from Livingston to Wolf Point. He was 250 miles from WP when a “jerky cop” pulled him over for going 40 in a 25 mile zone. He said he thinks he could have got out of it, but he doesn’t have enough miles on his vehicle to travel back there for the court date, so he paid the fine!!
The first Sunday at the small branch building, he met people who Grandma and Grandpa Hinton had taught Seminary to on their mission there in WP 20 years ago. Kyler was born while they were there serving, we think that is so cool. He met the Birdbills and the Pilgrims (who were baptized back then) and says they all absolutely love Grandma and Grandpa and say they were the best missionaries ever in WP. He says everyone remembers them and says they were so loved! There are like 600 less active members there and about 40 who come regularly. He says he loves the people and that they are going to make prophecy come true. Apparently many, many years ago, Melvin J. Ballard gave some prophecy about a Temple being built there on Chicken Hill. I don’t know all the details, we will have to research this.
Anyway, he sounded good, said they were only in the 40’s with no snow yet, so he was happy with that. He is in an apartment with Elder Tabor who has been out about 4 months, there are 2 Elders in Poplar which is about 20 miles away. He gave us a local address: 321 ½ Eureka St. Wolf Point, MT 59201.
Elder Hinton says: “Wolf Point is so awesome… I am in love with it... this will by far be the defining part of my mission.” I don’t know exactly what he means by this but anyway he seems happy, except for the fact that he got a speeding ticket driving from Livingston to Wolf Point. He was 250 miles from WP when a “jerky cop” pulled him over for going 40 in a 25 mile zone. He said he thinks he could have got out of it, but he doesn’t have enough miles on his vehicle to travel back there for the court date, so he paid the fine!!
The first Sunday at the small branch building, he met people who Grandma and Grandpa Hinton had taught Seminary to on their mission there in WP 20 years ago. Kyler was born while they were there serving, we think that is so cool. He met the Birdbills and the Pilgrims (who were baptized back then) and says they all absolutely love Grandma and Grandpa and say they were the best missionaries ever in WP. He says everyone remembers them and says they were so loved! There are like 600 less active members there and about 40 who come regularly. He says he loves the people and that they are going to make prophecy come true. Apparently many, many years ago, Melvin J. Ballard gave some prophecy about a Temple being built there on Chicken Hill. I don’t know all the details, we will have to research this.
Anyway, he sounded good, said they were only in the 40’s with no snow yet, so he was happy with that. He is in an apartment with Elder Tabor who has been out about 4 months, there are 2 Elders in Poplar which is about 20 miles away. He gave us a local address: 321 ½ Eureka St. Wolf Point, MT 59201.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Being Transferred!
Excerpts from Kyler's emails from his Mom:
10/26/09
Elder Hinton has been in Livingston for many months now and just got a transfer, he is in Billings for a few days waiting to be sent to Wolf Point, MT on Wednesday the 28th. This is on the Ft. Peck Indian Reservation. His Grandma and Grandpa Hinton had served a mission here, teaching Seminary on the Reservation. I told Kyler that they probably requested from heaven for him to be sent there! He says that he hears you can get snowed in for weeks at Wolf Point and that it gets like 60 below.
He has been working hard in Livingston, but no recent baptisms there! He is now a District Leader. He has been having some ingrown toenail trouble also. He had 2 cut out prior to leaving on his mission, but got another one many months ago and has been struggling with it, and finally had it cut out, then they waited for the infection to go away and did a permanent procedure on it just recently. So he was complaining that he wouldn't be able to play basketball today on his pday because of the toe!
He just had Elder Condie from the Seventy there last weekend and here is an excerpt from the email about that: Elder Condie from the seventy..... was at billings stake conference and had Sister Lingmann come up and tell a nonmember what missionaries did and committed him to baptism and after Elder Condie talked him into committing...this man has been coming to church for 7 years, they taught all 4 lessons at the mission home last night and baptized him and Elder Condie confirmed him...way cool experience....
Well that is the scoop for now on Elder Hinton, he did mail us home a black cowboy hat that he bought as a souvenir for himself. I guess he is going to be a cowboy when he comes home!
10/26/09
Elder Hinton has been in Livingston for many months now and just got a transfer, he is in Billings for a few days waiting to be sent to Wolf Point, MT on Wednesday the 28th. This is on the Ft. Peck Indian Reservation. His Grandma and Grandpa Hinton had served a mission here, teaching Seminary on the Reservation. I told Kyler that they probably requested from heaven for him to be sent there! He says that he hears you can get snowed in for weeks at Wolf Point and that it gets like 60 below.
He has been working hard in Livingston, but no recent baptisms there! He is now a District Leader. He has been having some ingrown toenail trouble also. He had 2 cut out prior to leaving on his mission, but got another one many months ago and has been struggling with it, and finally had it cut out, then they waited for the infection to go away and did a permanent procedure on it just recently. So he was complaining that he wouldn't be able to play basketball today on his pday because of the toe!
He just had Elder Condie from the Seventy there last weekend and here is an excerpt from the email about that: Elder Condie from the seventy..... was at billings stake conference and had Sister Lingmann come up and tell a nonmember what missionaries did and committed him to baptism and after Elder Condie talked him into committing...this man has been coming to church for 7 years, they taught all 4 lessons at the mission home last night and baptized him and Elder Condie confirmed him...way cool experience....
Well that is the scoop for now on Elder Hinton, he did mail us home a black cowboy hat that he bought as a souvenir for himself. I guess he is going to be a cowboy when he comes home!
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Funny Story
Elder Hinton hasn't sent a real letter for awhile, he has just been answering questions on email, but here is a funny excerpt from an email:
OHHHHH U ARE GONNA HAVE TO TELL EVERYONE ABOUT THIS..... so i dont know how
much i weigh but listen to this..... saturday right before we started our fast
for sunday we go to this restaurant named kelly's and they have a 3 lb nacho
challenge.... they say only 4 people have ever finished it.... Elder Thomas and
i walked in there each ordered 3 lbs of nachos...so we had 6 lbs and we both
completely finished them.. .we are #5 and 6 to ever complete the challenge....
man i felt terrible afterwards hahahahhaha
OHHHHH U ARE GONNA HAVE TO TELL EVERYONE ABOUT THIS..... so i dont know how
much i weigh but listen to this..... saturday right before we started our fast
for sunday we go to this restaurant named kelly's and they have a 3 lb nacho
challenge.... they say only 4 people have ever finished it.... Elder Thomas and
i walked in there each ordered 3 lbs of nachos...so we had 6 lbs and we both
completely finished them.. .we are #5 and 6 to ever complete the challenge....
man i felt terrible afterwards hahahahhaha
Monday, September 21, 2009
Sept 16, 2009
Dear Family,
So another transfer has come and gone.... Happened yesterday... The Lyon's Train as we call it.. .the big 15 passenger van pulling a trailer came through picking up Elder Clyde and dropping off Elder Thomas.... Elder Thomas is from Sacramento, California... He has been out 6 months... he came out with Elder Lanham who was my companion 2 transfers ago... Man time flies... I turn 20 in 4 days and hit my year mark in 7.... Holy cow I am an old fart.... Livingston is still awesome... it’s pretty out here.... we will probably go down to Yellowstone again in a week or 2 and stay in Mammoth again... that’s a fun trip and then we go to the Gardiner branch... it’s a nice little branch and they have a tiny building, it’s pretty sweet... We will probably make it out to Big Timber one of these weeks... I’ve been in Big Timber once but I have never had a chance to go to the branch. I hear they have a tiny building too... Hopefully we can get the work picked up even more than what it has been at.... 30 lessons a week just isn’t cutting it any more gonna shoot for at least 40... we can get it done... flip I’m Elder Flippen Hinton I get stuff done... So I’m still district leader here in Bozeman thats cool... Life is good.. I’m about to blink and I will be home drinking Dr. Pepper eating Chipotle burritos and chilling with my home dogs. Man won’t that be the life. Well I love u all hope u have a wonderful week
Elder Kyler Hinton
So another transfer has come and gone.... Happened yesterday... The Lyon's Train as we call it.. .the big 15 passenger van pulling a trailer came through picking up Elder Clyde and dropping off Elder Thomas.... Elder Thomas is from Sacramento, California... He has been out 6 months... he came out with Elder Lanham who was my companion 2 transfers ago... Man time flies... I turn 20 in 4 days and hit my year mark in 7.... Holy cow I am an old fart.... Livingston is still awesome... it’s pretty out here.... we will probably go down to Yellowstone again in a week or 2 and stay in Mammoth again... that’s a fun trip and then we go to the Gardiner branch... it’s a nice little branch and they have a tiny building, it’s pretty sweet... We will probably make it out to Big Timber one of these weeks... I’ve been in Big Timber once but I have never had a chance to go to the branch. I hear they have a tiny building too... Hopefully we can get the work picked up even more than what it has been at.... 30 lessons a week just isn’t cutting it any more gonna shoot for at least 40... we can get it done... flip I’m Elder Flippen Hinton I get stuff done... So I’m still district leader here in Bozeman thats cool... Life is good.. I’m about to blink and I will be home drinking Dr. Pepper eating Chipotle burritos and chilling with my home dogs. Man won’t that be the life. Well I love u all hope u have a wonderful week
Elder Kyler Hinton
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Aug 31, 2009
Dear Fam,
How the heck is everybody? How is the Ward back home? Everyone still kicking? My big 20th birthday along with the big 1 year is only a few days away. Holy cow if the second year goes faster than this year did, I will be home before I can count to 10. So how is the fam? Dad enjoying school/work? Mom enjoying preschool/this crazy new job? How about Kasey and Kurtis? How is high school treating them? How are my 2 sistas and their fams dong? Montana is as great as ever! I was kinda bummed… Neil L. Anderson came to the Stake Conference in Stevensville (which is next to Missoula) and all the missionaries close by got to meet with him. I guess I was privileged enough to be in the office when Dallin H. Oaks came through. But anyways I’m still kicking…Not looking forward to yet again another winter… but I shall survive. So I’m thinking of going on this big one year diet. But I don’t know if I’m really going to do it… we will see. Transfers are in 2 weeks. I hope I stay but we will see what happens. I will have to haul around that bike now if I move. Haha. So I heard Kurtis got a cell phone….DAD… say what????? You know my 2 cents I would add to that! Haha Well anyways no new baptismal dates yet. Still working my butt off trying to get people to commit. … you know I can be rather forceful! My District is doing awesome. Bozeman 2 and 3 wards last transfer were teaching 3-4 lessons a week and now they are reaching 15 each week.
It is awesome. Everything in Livingston is still green, which is way unusual but that is because the rain won’t let up. I her the big 70 mile and hour winds pick up in September/October. That will be interesting. This next week we may be in Big Timber for the weekend and go to Church there. Miles limit us to getting around to all these places. It is a possibility that I will in Billings on Wednesday to go to the Temple, so my email schedule may be a little outta whack. So I’ve pretty much been working my tail off like usual. That is so exciting Kevin is leaving on Wednesday. He is going to tear it up! So I am here to call you all to repentance (I can do that as a missionary) You better be sending me more letters and pictures. Especially since it is my birthday!! Ha Ha
Love you, Elder Hinton
P.S. Tell grams I appreciate the jerky! Tell Grandpa and Grandma that I love them!
How the heck is everybody? How is the Ward back home? Everyone still kicking? My big 20th birthday along with the big 1 year is only a few days away. Holy cow if the second year goes faster than this year did, I will be home before I can count to 10. So how is the fam? Dad enjoying school/work? Mom enjoying preschool/this crazy new job? How about Kasey and Kurtis? How is high school treating them? How are my 2 sistas and their fams dong? Montana is as great as ever! I was kinda bummed… Neil L. Anderson came to the Stake Conference in Stevensville (which is next to Missoula) and all the missionaries close by got to meet with him. I guess I was privileged enough to be in the office when Dallin H. Oaks came through. But anyways I’m still kicking…Not looking forward to yet again another winter… but I shall survive. So I’m thinking of going on this big one year diet. But I don’t know if I’m really going to do it… we will see. Transfers are in 2 weeks. I hope I stay but we will see what happens. I will have to haul around that bike now if I move. Haha. So I heard Kurtis got a cell phone….DAD… say what????? You know my 2 cents I would add to that! Haha Well anyways no new baptismal dates yet. Still working my butt off trying to get people to commit. … you know I can be rather forceful! My District is doing awesome. Bozeman 2 and 3 wards last transfer were teaching 3-4 lessons a week and now they are reaching 15 each week.
It is awesome. Everything in Livingston is still green, which is way unusual but that is because the rain won’t let up. I her the big 70 mile and hour winds pick up in September/October. That will be interesting. This next week we may be in Big Timber for the weekend and go to Church there. Miles limit us to getting around to all these places. It is a possibility that I will in Billings on Wednesday to go to the Temple, so my email schedule may be a little outta whack. So I’ve pretty much been working my tail off like usual. That is so exciting Kevin is leaving on Wednesday. He is going to tear it up! So I am here to call you all to repentance (I can do that as a missionary) You better be sending me more letters and pictures. Especially since it is my birthday!! Ha Ha
Love you, Elder Hinton
P.S. Tell grams I appreciate the jerky! Tell Grandpa and Grandma that I love them!
August 24, 2009
Dear Fam,
Here you go Mommy Dearest……Thought I would finally write you a letter, today is the big 11 month mark. How cool is that? The big 1 year is pretty much here. I’m still 19, I’m in denial, as soon as I turn 20 next month I am an old man. So how is everyone doing? Kasey and Kurt doing well in school? Dad teaching going good? Kinsey and Robbie and kids still trucking? How about the WAX’s? Trent and Kari and the kids, Daisy, Trey and Ryyyyyyyland? I hope everyone is doing well. Well, life is great. Last week we were able to teach 33 discussions. Still rocking it! Tuesday I have another District meeting and then I am going on teamups all day long with the Bozeman Elders since they are in my District. So that will be fun. We will spend the night there and then stay the day in Bozeman for P-day! We don’t have any more baptismal dates as of yet. We had to drop a few people who just weren’t progressing. But we have this investigator we didn’t really know what to think of progression wise but he has come up to Church 2 weeks in a row and surprised us each week. (Digusting story next, ask Kathy for details if you want to be grossed out, but I’m not printing it!!!) Last weekend we went down to Gardiner Branch for Church. So we spent Saturday there in Gardiner, MT and Mammoth, WY which is in Yellowstone. I got to see the Hot Springs there. They are pretty neat looking. We stayed with a member inside the park. That was a lot of fun, too. We stayed in his ginormous house overlooking the Hot Springs. He is one of the Park Managers. So I talked a little about my interview with Pres. Gardner in my email. But as soon as I sat down he just went off for a long time about how when he was a kid he used to work behind a workhorse and the load they could carry was much greater than any other horse and they would exceed everyone else. He is like… you are the workhorse of the mission. You can carry the greatest burden and still exceed everybody else. It was really cool.
Well love you lots, Elder Hinton
Here you go Mommy Dearest……Thought I would finally write you a letter, today is the big 11 month mark. How cool is that? The big 1 year is pretty much here. I’m still 19, I’m in denial, as soon as I turn 20 next month I am an old man. So how is everyone doing? Kasey and Kurt doing well in school? Dad teaching going good? Kinsey and Robbie and kids still trucking? How about the WAX’s? Trent and Kari and the kids, Daisy, Trey and Ryyyyyyyland? I hope everyone is doing well. Well, life is great. Last week we were able to teach 33 discussions. Still rocking it! Tuesday I have another District meeting and then I am going on teamups all day long with the Bozeman Elders since they are in my District. So that will be fun. We will spend the night there and then stay the day in Bozeman for P-day! We don’t have any more baptismal dates as of yet. We had to drop a few people who just weren’t progressing. But we have this investigator we didn’t really know what to think of progression wise but he has come up to Church 2 weeks in a row and surprised us each week. (Digusting story next, ask Kathy for details if you want to be grossed out, but I’m not printing it!!!) Last weekend we went down to Gardiner Branch for Church. So we spent Saturday there in Gardiner, MT and Mammoth, WY which is in Yellowstone. I got to see the Hot Springs there. They are pretty neat looking. We stayed with a member inside the park. That was a lot of fun, too. We stayed in his ginormous house overlooking the Hot Springs. He is one of the Park Managers. So I talked a little about my interview with Pres. Gardner in my email. But as soon as I sat down he just went off for a long time about how when he was a kid he used to work behind a workhorse and the load they could carry was much greater than any other horse and they would exceed everyone else. He is like… you are the workhorse of the mission. You can carry the greatest burden and still exceed everybody else. It was really cool.
Well love you lots, Elder Hinton
Monday, August 24, 2009
Aug 19, 2009
Alright here goes an attempt at a letter.... So these past weeks have been crazy, last monday was leadership meeting where we drove to Helena, so missed a whole day of proselyting....Then we went down to Gardiner, MT and Mammoth, WY for the weekend which was a lot of fun, not the most amount of work down there but its good to get out in those areas and attempt to get work started. "Yesterday (Tuesday) was Zone Conference... that was a lot of fun it was president Gardners 2nd round of zone conferences and they were extremely good.... Tomorrow the Zone leaders are on teamups with us, so we will be able to get alot of work done.... Next Tuesday I will be on Team ups with the Bozeman Elders since they are in my district, so i will lose another day in livingston but no big deal it will help them out and i will still be able to get atleast 30 discussions so that will be a lot of fun. We are working our butts off... Still low on miles on our vehicle but that is life we will get over it.... Biking is good for the health anyways... One of these P-days we will be going into Billings for the temple that will prolly be in 3 weeks but im not sure.... We have alot of people progressing who have made giant strides now we are working on getting them to commit to baptism, so we will see what happens.... Well i hope u all have a great week love u alot.... now send me letters and pics thx = )
> Love Elder Hinton
>
> Love Elder Hinton
>
Aug 7,2009
Dear Fam,
What is happening? So transfer calls came yesterday and I am staying here in Livingston and I am the new District Leader over Bozeman. Elder Lanham is getting transferred down to Riverton, WY and I will be getting an Elder Clyde. So that will be fun. I will be able to see all my buddies at Leadership conference in like a week. I will also get to go on teamups with all the Elders in my District. That will be cool. Things are going great. Working my butt off, working on the big 11 month mark! Yipee. So since I am staying in Livingston and will have extra miles since I am a DL and since we have been rocking it up so hard core here, just maybe I will have enough miles to get down to Yellowstone a few time this next transfer. So what is everyone up to? Life going good? School Starting to get closer and closer? You are going to hate me when I say this but the other day it was 61 degrees outside here. Haha This has been the wettest summer Montana has seen in 20 years. That doesn’t look well for winter…. It could be grueling (frowny face). So anyways I thought I would send you a quick update on what was happening.
Lvoe, Elder Kyler Hinton
What is happening? So transfer calls came yesterday and I am staying here in Livingston and I am the new District Leader over Bozeman. Elder Lanham is getting transferred down to Riverton, WY and I will be getting an Elder Clyde. So that will be fun. I will be able to see all my buddies at Leadership conference in like a week. I will also get to go on teamups with all the Elders in my District. That will be cool. Things are going great. Working my butt off, working on the big 11 month mark! Yipee. So since I am staying in Livingston and will have extra miles since I am a DL and since we have been rocking it up so hard core here, just maybe I will have enough miles to get down to Yellowstone a few time this next transfer. So what is everyone up to? Life going good? School Starting to get closer and closer? You are going to hate me when I say this but the other day it was 61 degrees outside here. Haha This has been the wettest summer Montana has seen in 20 years. That doesn’t look well for winter…. It could be grueling (frowny face). So anyways I thought I would send you a quick update on what was happening.
Lvoe, Elder Kyler Hinton
Monday, August 3, 2009
Letter and Pics! Good Ol Kyler!
Even though I am emailing you today I figured I would write this letter to appease Dad! Yesterday we had the baptism for Heather Burrill. Way exciting! We had like most of the Ward come to it. Crazily spiritual! Elder Lanham got to baptize her. It was super sweet. So yesterday morning before District Meeting we are helping this nonmember family move to Bozeman. After District Meeting this family that we helped move picked us up to give us a ride back to Livingston. As we are leaving they hand us 2 gifts cards each. She is like I know you told me you don’t accept anything but I already paid for these and you are taking them. Elder Lanham and I each got a $25 giftcards to Chili’s and Applebees. That is indeed a tender mercy. Then when we got home we went for 3 ½ hours cleaning some crazy ladies house before we went to the baptism. So last week we indeed taught 30 discussions again. So far in this transfer including the last 2 days we have taught a total of 161 lessons since I have been in Livingston. We find out in 2 days if we are getting transferred or not. So my 10 month mark came and went and now I’m working on the big 11. Time flies. So we are getting good use out of those bikes. Biking like flippen crazy. If I find out I am getting transferred I am going to have to go find a bike box. This evening we have a lesson with Shelby Felkins who we will be setting a date with. Keith Brown, who I hardcore committed to stop drinking coffee, doesn’t feel he should so we are back to square one with him. But he did promise to come to church on Sunday. So I am using WOW to help people, met this 20 year old kid and since I’ve been coming over every week, talking WOW with him and then blasting him with the spirit, he has been coming back to Church which he hasn’t been in 2 years and is now working on receiving the Melchezidek Priesthood. Oh last Saturday we were biking down a street and the Fawcett family in our Ward calls out to us. They are having a family reunion and they want us to come eat watermelon with them, so of course we do and they have some family members from Peoria, AZ there and we get to talking and the lady is like WHAT??? You are a Hinton? And I am like Duh.. that’s what the tag says. She is like , I have some Hinton’s in my Ward back home. I am like, “Sean and Micole”? She is like “Yeah, he was my Bishop.” She was probably in her high 20’s but I forgot to get her name. But Holy Cow you can find a connection anywhere. Even in good ‘ole Livingston, MT. How funny is that? Well umm guys and gals, you owe me some flippen letters and pictures. So send them or else. (smiley face)
Monday, July 27, 2009
July 20, 2009
Dear Family,
So everything is going good. 2 more weeks left in the transfer, man time flies. So we have been biking our butts off since we have no more miles on our truck. How lame. Well anyways last week we had zone conference. So we lost a full day Thurs. and also Wednesday night we were traveling, and at the end of the week we had still taught 27 discussions. Flippen insane! Well anyways we street contacted into this C.U.T lady, (Church Universal Triumphant), pretty much they believe whatever the freak they want. We went and taught her a lesson and she wouldn’t flippen shut up and all of the sudden she would stop and pray and be like, I am sorry these men came to witness to me and all I have been doing is talking. Then she would look up and keep right on going. Flippen crazy lady. She kept saying weird things too like “you gotta search your inner Christ self God” Well, long story short, don’t think we are going back. Heather Burril gets her baptismal interview tomorrow and the baptism is next Tuesday. That will be sweet. So there is this kid who is like 19 we have been trying to get a hold of. He is the only member in his family, but is less-active. Well anyways after all these weeks we catch him home and guess what? He is logging onto World of Warcraft!!!! I’m like BOOM show me your characters. He had a bunch of level 80’s. So we talked WOW for a little while. Won his heart with WOW, gave him a few tips and pointers. Taught him a lesson. Then he came to Church and sat by me for the first time in years. Tight World of Warcraft ftw!!! So I told you about that sweet place we have to live in Big Timber. But the problem is we have so much work here in Livingston it is extremely hard to find time to go out there, it’s pretty much impossible. So next Friday I will find out if I’m staying here or going. Oh did I tell ya here in Livingston we get free Dairy Queen. We eat it once a week so we don’t abuse it. It’s a nice little treat. So do we know when Kevdog reports to the MTC? By the time you get this letter I will probably be over 10 months and working on my 11 month mark. Yayayaya. So what has been going on around town? Anything exciting happening in the family? I was reading the Conference Ensign and it said President Anderson who served as the Mission President of Guadalajara Mexico mission from 2002-2005 was called to the Seventy. Was this one of Korey’s mission President’s?? (Note from Kathy: NO, he wasn’t) I think the other day it got up to 90 degrees. Oh boy it was hot. Hopefully we will be able to find a ride into Billings on Wed. If we do I will email after the Temple. IDK why I am telling you this since you probably won’t get this letter by then. Haha Wed. we are setting a baptismal date with a girl named Shelby Felkins who came to Church yesterday. That will be way sweet. A few more are right there and we are working our tails off to get dates set.
Love you all a ton, send me letters and pictures, Thx, Elder Hinton
P.S. Zone Conference was awesome and President Gardner is tight!
So everything is going good. 2 more weeks left in the transfer, man time flies. So we have been biking our butts off since we have no more miles on our truck. How lame. Well anyways last week we had zone conference. So we lost a full day Thurs. and also Wednesday night we were traveling, and at the end of the week we had still taught 27 discussions. Flippen insane! Well anyways we street contacted into this C.U.T lady, (Church Universal Triumphant), pretty much they believe whatever the freak they want. We went and taught her a lesson and she wouldn’t flippen shut up and all of the sudden she would stop and pray and be like, I am sorry these men came to witness to me and all I have been doing is talking. Then she would look up and keep right on going. Flippen crazy lady. She kept saying weird things too like “you gotta search your inner Christ self God” Well, long story short, don’t think we are going back. Heather Burril gets her baptismal interview tomorrow and the baptism is next Tuesday. That will be sweet. So there is this kid who is like 19 we have been trying to get a hold of. He is the only member in his family, but is less-active. Well anyways after all these weeks we catch him home and guess what? He is logging onto World of Warcraft!!!! I’m like BOOM show me your characters. He had a bunch of level 80’s. So we talked WOW for a little while. Won his heart with WOW, gave him a few tips and pointers. Taught him a lesson. Then he came to Church and sat by me for the first time in years. Tight World of Warcraft ftw!!! So I told you about that sweet place we have to live in Big Timber. But the problem is we have so much work here in Livingston it is extremely hard to find time to go out there, it’s pretty much impossible. So next Friday I will find out if I’m staying here or going. Oh did I tell ya here in Livingston we get free Dairy Queen. We eat it once a week so we don’t abuse it. It’s a nice little treat. So do we know when Kevdog reports to the MTC? By the time you get this letter I will probably be over 10 months and working on my 11 month mark. Yayayaya. So what has been going on around town? Anything exciting happening in the family? I was reading the Conference Ensign and it said President Anderson who served as the Mission President of Guadalajara Mexico mission from 2002-2005 was called to the Seventy. Was this one of Korey’s mission President’s?? (Note from Kathy: NO, he wasn’t) I think the other day it got up to 90 degrees. Oh boy it was hot. Hopefully we will be able to find a ride into Billings on Wed. If we do I will email after the Temple. IDK why I am telling you this since you probably won’t get this letter by then. Haha Wed. we are setting a baptismal date with a girl named Shelby Felkins who came to Church yesterday. That will be way sweet. A few more are right there and we are working our tails off to get dates set.
Love you all a ton, send me letters and pictures, Thx, Elder Hinton
P.S. Zone Conference was awesome and President Gardner is tight!
July 19. 2009
Dear Fam,
Okay, I got a cool experience to share with you. So we walk into downtown to try a guy named Bill Weathington. We go and he doesn’t answer so we walk back and we are like, hey lets get some ice cream, so we take like a 5-10 minute break to get ice cream. (I got moose tracks) mmmm good. Well anyways, it is getting close to dinner and Elder Lanham says well we better start heading and for some reason I’m like lets walk back to Bill’s place and my comp says like whatttt? We’d have to go all the way back there and then be late for dinner and I’m like oh I see your point and then I make a wah wah face QQ (2 eyes crying if you didn’t catch it) and I’m like K lets go. IDK why because he wasn’t home 20 minutes before. We get all the way back there and we are in this side room and there are a bunch of buttons to page all the rooms in the building (you can’t get in without them letting you in) Well, we page Bill W. and no answer?!?!? ZOMG!?!?!
We are in there for like 2 minutes and another guy walks in and pages a different room, no answer from the guy he was looking for either. We start talking and long story short, we teach a 1st lesson and part of the plan of salvation and we are going back on Friday. He was way stoked and solid. Amazing how the Lord works to lead us to someone. He was prepared for the gospel, it was tight. But ya you were probably surprised to get 2 letters in one week. KaBang. Well anyways Love Ya, thanks for the package and the pics and letters. Send more pics and letters PLZ. Elder Hinton
P.S. So I bought a bike and when I was in line, some member passing through bought my helmet, saved me $25 dollars, was pretty sweet!
Okay, I got a cool experience to share with you. So we walk into downtown to try a guy named Bill Weathington. We go and he doesn’t answer so we walk back and we are like, hey lets get some ice cream, so we take like a 5-10 minute break to get ice cream. (I got moose tracks) mmmm good. Well anyways, it is getting close to dinner and Elder Lanham says well we better start heading and for some reason I’m like lets walk back to Bill’s place and my comp says like whatttt? We’d have to go all the way back there and then be late for dinner and I’m like oh I see your point and then I make a wah wah face QQ (2 eyes crying if you didn’t catch it) and I’m like K lets go. IDK why because he wasn’t home 20 minutes before. We get all the way back there and we are in this side room and there are a bunch of buttons to page all the rooms in the building (you can’t get in without them letting you in) Well, we page Bill W. and no answer?!?!? ZOMG!?!?!
We are in there for like 2 minutes and another guy walks in and pages a different room, no answer from the guy he was looking for either. We start talking and long story short, we teach a 1st lesson and part of the plan of salvation and we are going back on Friday. He was way stoked and solid. Amazing how the Lord works to lead us to someone. He was prepared for the gospel, it was tight. But ya you were probably surprised to get 2 letters in one week. KaBang. Well anyways Love Ya, thanks for the package and the pics and letters. Send more pics and letters PLZ. Elder Hinton
P.S. So I bought a bike and when I was in line, some member passing through bought my helmet, saved me $25 dollars, was pretty sweet!
July 13, 2009
Dear Family,
Had another crazy, extremely tiring week. We ended the week at 33 lessons! On Thursday alone we were able to teach 12 discussions. I was so pooped after that day. Lawl This week might be a little slower but I hope not. Tuesday we are probably going to be gone all morning building a fence. That will use up a lot of our teaching time, but I don’t mind serving people. We may drive into Bozeman Wed. morning and stay all day. Since we have to be in Bozeman again very early on Thursday to drive to Helena for Zone Conference. So we may miss out teaching lessons Wed. night also. Then Thurs. is Zone Conference and it will take 3 hours to drive all the way back to Livingston. We got shorted hardcore the amount of miles allotted to us this transfer so we borrowed some bikes from the ward. They are extremely lame sauce. I might have to get a bike but I am considering how much I would actually use it since you can’t ride it in the winter. So, IDK. Like I said we had a baptism just over a week ago. We have another on the 28th of July for Heather Burril. She is solid, found her the first week I was here so I am stoked. We are setting another date but Shelby Felkins missed Church so we are going to have to push it back into the first week of Aug. probably. Chris Norris is completely solid. We taught him the first discussion the first week I was here. He has been reading and praying. We taught him the second and committed him to come to Church. We are going to be setting a date with him real soon also. He works a crazy shift at the mine, 4 days on and 4 days off so its either we catch him or we don’t but his 4 days off is this next weekend and he committed to be at Church. Last week we found this girl named Tony Kostman. Taught an amazing first lesson. She committed to read and pray. Found out her husband is actually a member, went to 4 years of Seminary and then kinda fell off the band wagon. He said he has never prayed to know so he committed also. Hopefully that will go well and we can se a date. We are teaching so much it’s insane. President Gardner told us that we are leading the mission with discussions taught. Craziness. We are already in week 4 of the transfer. IDK why but I think I’m going to get transferred but you never know. My butt feels completely bruised because of all the bike riding we did on these craptastic bikes. Haha. So we went out to Big Timber on Friday. It is one of the branches we cover and we met a member, Bro. and Sis. Spackman. They picked us up and fed us dinner. But they have a sweet set up for missionaries. They have a complete basement with our own bathroom, kitchen, the whole chabang. But I called Pres. Gardner and he approved that we live there when we go to Big Timber. So that means we can spend more time in Big Timber without wasting tons of miles and it means we get some relief from the cramped Vandvorfs. Well, Love you all a ton, Elder Hinton
Had another crazy, extremely tiring week. We ended the week at 33 lessons! On Thursday alone we were able to teach 12 discussions. I was so pooped after that day. Lawl This week might be a little slower but I hope not. Tuesday we are probably going to be gone all morning building a fence. That will use up a lot of our teaching time, but I don’t mind serving people. We may drive into Bozeman Wed. morning and stay all day. Since we have to be in Bozeman again very early on Thursday to drive to Helena for Zone Conference. So we may miss out teaching lessons Wed. night also. Then Thurs. is Zone Conference and it will take 3 hours to drive all the way back to Livingston. We got shorted hardcore the amount of miles allotted to us this transfer so we borrowed some bikes from the ward. They are extremely lame sauce. I might have to get a bike but I am considering how much I would actually use it since you can’t ride it in the winter. So, IDK. Like I said we had a baptism just over a week ago. We have another on the 28th of July for Heather Burril. She is solid, found her the first week I was here so I am stoked. We are setting another date but Shelby Felkins missed Church so we are going to have to push it back into the first week of Aug. probably. Chris Norris is completely solid. We taught him the first discussion the first week I was here. He has been reading and praying. We taught him the second and committed him to come to Church. We are going to be setting a date with him real soon also. He works a crazy shift at the mine, 4 days on and 4 days off so its either we catch him or we don’t but his 4 days off is this next weekend and he committed to be at Church. Last week we found this girl named Tony Kostman. Taught an amazing first lesson. She committed to read and pray. Found out her husband is actually a member, went to 4 years of Seminary and then kinda fell off the band wagon. He said he has never prayed to know so he committed also. Hopefully that will go well and we can se a date. We are teaching so much it’s insane. President Gardner told us that we are leading the mission with discussions taught. Craziness. We are already in week 4 of the transfer. IDK why but I think I’m going to get transferred but you never know. My butt feels completely bruised because of all the bike riding we did on these craptastic bikes. Haha. So we went out to Big Timber on Friday. It is one of the branches we cover and we met a member, Bro. and Sis. Spackman. They picked us up and fed us dinner. But they have a sweet set up for missionaries. They have a complete basement with our own bathroom, kitchen, the whole chabang. But I called Pres. Gardner and he approved that we live there when we go to Big Timber. So that means we can spend more time in Big Timber without wasting tons of miles and it means we get some relief from the cramped Vandvorfs. Well, Love you all a ton, Elder Hinton
Thursday, July 16, 2009
June 30, 2009
Dear Family,
Holy cow, I have just come off of the best, most tiring, absolutely incredible week of my mission. We were able to teach 30 discussions in one week. This is absolutely unheard of for the Montana Billings Mission. We also found 5 new investigators. We have a baptism next Friday. The week before I got here the Elders taught 7 lessons. So Sunday evening we weekly planned for exactly 30 lessons. I told Elder Lanham, I always reach my goals. We worked like the pig dogs and prayed even harder than that. We were indeed blessed for our actions. I am so extremely tired that we are taking 5-10 minute power naps in the car every once in a while. This next week we are going to do a repeat, especially since we have all of our lessons pretty much set. Every time we try to set a new one it’s almost impossible to find another time. Holy Cow I’m exhausted I will finish this letter later. This week will also be another interesting week. President Fisher is officially released on Wednesday. It will be an extremely sad moment. Especially since I got to know him so well in the office. But President Gardner I am sure will be amazing. It sounded like the Reunion went great. That will be sad if they switch to every 2 years the year I get home. That means I won’t be to a Reunion for 4 years…weird. Well anyways I thought getting up after gaming all night was tiring. But I’ve learned that I will never be more tired in my life than I will be here on my mission. You peeps need to start writing me more letters, you don’t know how nice it is to stop by the house, fix me a PB&J and kick back and read letters for a few minutes before we go back to teaching. But anyways I will try and write more. Love you all. Have a great week. Love, Elder Hinton
Holy cow, I have just come off of the best, most tiring, absolutely incredible week of my mission. We were able to teach 30 discussions in one week. This is absolutely unheard of for the Montana Billings Mission. We also found 5 new investigators. We have a baptism next Friday. The week before I got here the Elders taught 7 lessons. So Sunday evening we weekly planned for exactly 30 lessons. I told Elder Lanham, I always reach my goals. We worked like the pig dogs and prayed even harder than that. We were indeed blessed for our actions. I am so extremely tired that we are taking 5-10 minute power naps in the car every once in a while. This next week we are going to do a repeat, especially since we have all of our lessons pretty much set. Every time we try to set a new one it’s almost impossible to find another time. Holy Cow I’m exhausted I will finish this letter later. This week will also be another interesting week. President Fisher is officially released on Wednesday. It will be an extremely sad moment. Especially since I got to know him so well in the office. But President Gardner I am sure will be amazing. It sounded like the Reunion went great. That will be sad if they switch to every 2 years the year I get home. That means I won’t be to a Reunion for 4 years…weird. Well anyways I thought getting up after gaming all night was tiring. But I’ve learned that I will never be more tired in my life than I will be here on my mission. You peeps need to start writing me more letters, you don’t know how nice it is to stop by the house, fix me a PB&J and kick back and read letters for a few minutes before we go back to teaching. But anyways I will try and write more. Love you all. Have a great week. Love, Elder Hinton
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
June 24,2009
Dear Family,
Wow, I just got done with one of the most tiring days of my mission thus far. Sunday I got transferred to Livingston, MT. I cover Livingston Ward, Gardiner Branch (which is right pretty much in Yellowstone Park) and the Big Timber Branch. President made me Senior companion to greenie Elder Lunham. So I got to Livingston and kinda unpacked my stuff and we weekly planned then went and had two lessons. The numbers for the week reset after Sunday so I was pretty much going into a fresh week. We are supposed to have 15 lessons and 3 new investigators each week. Well Monday rolled around and I got up at 6 o’clock and we went running down by the river. It is amazingly beautiful here and later this week we will be taking a trip down to Gardiner to see some potentials and I can’t wait. We have a brand spanking new 2009 Chevy Colorado I get to drive.
Wednesday’s we will drive into Bozeman or take the train, one or the other. The reason I am so tired is that Monday we were able to teach 7 lessons and we also found a solid family and they committed to read and pray about the Book of Mormon. We are way stoked. We set a goal of 30 lessons this week. If we reach that we will be the third highest teachers in the history of the mission since President Fisher has been here. But more important than numbers we have some solid people we have found that will be baptized here soon. President goes home on July 1st, that’s pretty much in a week. It will be weird to have a new President but it will be a good experience. Oh I’m backtracking, but when I got transferred to Livingston I got to drive 2010 Ford Fusion here, it was fun so I didn’t have to ride on the big bus. Oh ya and the mail, you can just keep sending all my tons of mail you send (wink, wink) to the mission home and they will forward it to me. Elder Lunham is tight, he has only been out 2 transfers so I will break him in nice and easy. Haha
One of these days I will send you all some pictures. Maybe on p-day when we are in Bozeman I will print a ton off and mail them. I will also see if the computers we use will allow me to upload any photos.
Love, Elder Kyler Hinton
Wow, I just got done with one of the most tiring days of my mission thus far. Sunday I got transferred to Livingston, MT. I cover Livingston Ward, Gardiner Branch (which is right pretty much in Yellowstone Park) and the Big Timber Branch. President made me Senior companion to greenie Elder Lunham. So I got to Livingston and kinda unpacked my stuff and we weekly planned then went and had two lessons. The numbers for the week reset after Sunday so I was pretty much going into a fresh week. We are supposed to have 15 lessons and 3 new investigators each week. Well Monday rolled around and I got up at 6 o’clock and we went running down by the river. It is amazingly beautiful here and later this week we will be taking a trip down to Gardiner to see some potentials and I can’t wait. We have a brand spanking new 2009 Chevy Colorado I get to drive.
Wednesday’s we will drive into Bozeman or take the train, one or the other. The reason I am so tired is that Monday we were able to teach 7 lessons and we also found a solid family and they committed to read and pray about the Book of Mormon. We are way stoked. We set a goal of 30 lessons this week. If we reach that we will be the third highest teachers in the history of the mission since President Fisher has been here. But more important than numbers we have some solid people we have found that will be baptized here soon. President goes home on July 1st, that’s pretty much in a week. It will be weird to have a new President but it will be a good experience. Oh I’m backtracking, but when I got transferred to Livingston I got to drive 2010 Ford Fusion here, it was fun so I didn’t have to ride on the big bus. Oh ya and the mail, you can just keep sending all my tons of mail you send (wink, wink) to the mission home and they will forward it to me. Elder Lunham is tight, he has only been out 2 transfers so I will break him in nice and easy. Haha
One of these days I will send you all some pictures. Maybe on p-day when we are in Bozeman I will print a ton off and mail them. I will also see if the computers we use will allow me to upload any photos.
Love, Elder Kyler Hinton
June 8, 2009
Fam Fam Fam what is hanging in Gilbert? This weekend it snowed, imagine that, flippen JUNE and snowing geemaneez. We have been working crazy hard. This past week we got 15 lessons again and 1 new investigator. For only proselyting 2 hrs. a night President is absolutely floored. He told me today that he is leaving me in for the new President so I will be here at least another 8 weeks from right now. So Saturday we were on team ups and we spent the entire day in the office folding Talons (our Newsletter) and we were only at 11 lessons when Sunday came around. Sunday evening there was going to be a Jenny Phillips Fireside (famous LDS singer who is on a lot of efy stuff and others) To motivate my companion I said I really want to go to this fireside but there is no way in heck I’m going to go to it until we have 15 lessons. Well guess what, before 5 oclock hit (when the fireside started) we were at 15 lessons. We went and it was a neat experience. They go through the life of pioneers coming across the plains and all the hardships they went through and she sings throughout the fireside with her husband. It was quite impressive. So I have been having a blast working my tail off. Its kinda funny as I work my tail off the rest of the mission gets their tails reamed because the flippen office elders are having more discussions than they are. Zone Conference is tomorrow and I’m sure u will hear all about that on Wednesday during email. I have a killer outfit I’m going to wear. Very tiny purple running shorts and a bunch of other junk for the basketball game. It will be great u will have to wait and see the pictures lawl. Well I hope all is going great and here is your written letter daddy, lol.
Love, Elder Flippen Hinton
Love, Elder Flippen Hinton
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
May 27, 2009
(From e-mail) So this week was a very exciting week we were able to find 3 new investigators and teach 15 lessons which is the goal for full time proselyting missionaries, this week we are going for 20. I’ve learned its all about desire and to always be inspired. The other day we were gassing up and I had a guy get right in my face just screaming at the top of his lungs, it was kinda hilarious because everything he said was exactly what we believe. When you get negative opposition like that its easy to back down but idk what it is about it but it just makes me want to work harder and harder. President Fisher is now currently doing his last round of zone conferences. The end of June he will do his final transfer and then leave 10 days later so we are swamped in the office and these next couple transfers will be interesting ones since the new President will be switching alot of stuff I’m guessing. So I have a lot on my plate I’m pretty sure I will survive this transfer President told me its possible for me to be in there 9 months that’s a long stinking time but my goal in the office is to downright dominate other companionships in lessons so it makes them look stupid that office elders are smoking them on lessons. We had a few investigators at church and the ward is really excited to see a lot of missionary work getting done, since the others have been lazy pieces of hud. Elder Ellenberger is willing to work I just have the wonderful ability of being able to push people higher and higher it may be my intimidating personality idk well I hope you all have a great week love you all. Last week President Fisher’s granddaughter who was visiting cracked her head open while Pres. and Sis. Fisher where in a leadership meeting so we were able to give her a blessing, that pretty much the excitement. hehe Tell Sean to man up gonna smoke him in any sport he can think of in 15 months and something days lol
Friday, May 15, 2009
May 14, 2009
Everything is going great here in montana, we are working hard and loving it. The office is keeping us swamped with work and then we leave each night for about 2 hours to proselyte the missionaries before me were teaching on avg 0-4 lessons we are avging 11, which is amazing for just 2 hours each day im going for 20 by the time i leave the office each week or even more if i can. I pretty much just tell my companions how it is, I am here to work and party while doing it if u dont like that i dont give a crap, thx lets go teach. This week new missionaries came in and we got to train them plus get alot of good food while doing it. Today old missionaries are going home so we get a really good meal but our p-day is cut short to go get ready for it. We have been playing some pretty hardcore ultimate frisbee/basketball on p-days its great. Im still giving old man Elder carter a heart attack atleast once a day, i am usually rolling on the floor laughing when it happens. I wore this amazing tie and president did not like it and banned it hahahah same with sister fisher, i have some great pictures haha. I also have the ugliest tie in the world which is being saved for zone conference but that is our secret. Everything is going great in montana except its like 27 degrees today WHAT THE HECK ITS LIKE SUMMER, but oh well hopefully it gos back to being warm i hate suit jackets lawl. Well love u all it was great talking to u on sunday dont party too hard without me, 16 months and we will have a drpepper/chipotle party haha
> Love
> Elder Flippen HINTON
>
> Love
> Elder Flippen HINTON
>
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Elder Oaks Visit
4/22/09
We saw Elder Oaks a few times this past weekend he is a really enthusiastic, very crazy speaker, in the Saturday adult session we were laughing all the way through it, he was just making jokes the whole time. Sunday we got to have a special just us missionaries meeting with him. You know he is only like 5 foot 7. We got to go up and shake his hand. Conference Sunday he went around to everyone before the meeting and shook everyone's hand it was cool to be in the presence of an apostle. He opened the missionary meeting up for question/answer it was really cool. He talked about keeping our line in the water always and told the story behind what he wrote in preach my gospel. It was extremely cool. HE then described the missionary selection process in detail. Saturday night he told us sooo much stuff and he had to of said at least 10 different times, now I don't want to read this on the internet tomorrow hahahaha. It was a pretty cool experience, we cleaned the mission home up real nice and the office, because there was a high possibility he was going to stop by. When we were eating dinner Saturday night I was like 5 feet from him.
We saw Elder Oaks a few times this past weekend he is a really enthusiastic, very crazy speaker, in the Saturday adult session we were laughing all the way through it, he was just making jokes the whole time. Sunday we got to have a special just us missionaries meeting with him. You know he is only like 5 foot 7. We got to go up and shake his hand. Conference Sunday he went around to everyone before the meeting and shook everyone's hand it was cool to be in the presence of an apostle. He opened the missionary meeting up for question/answer it was really cool. He talked about keeping our line in the water always and told the story behind what he wrote in preach my gospel. It was extremely cool. HE then described the missionary selection process in detail. Saturday night he told us sooo much stuff and he had to of said at least 10 different times, now I don't want to read this on the internet tomorrow hahahaha. It was a pretty cool experience, we cleaned the mission home up real nice and the office, because there was a high possibility he was going to stop by. When we were eating dinner Saturday night I was like 5 feet from him.
Saturday, April 18, 2009
April 15, 2009
Okay here goes nothing, since Mommy is complaining so much about a letter not being able to be posted on the blog, here is the letter. This week has been the same old same old. The weather has turned to the worst again this week it is now snowing outside again and it is supposed to be getting worse and worse towards the end of this week. Last month we had a total of 45 baptisms it wasnt bad but 8 were not confirmed in the month of February so Salt Lake's report says we had 53 which is awesome!!! In the mornings we study, then we hitch a ride to the mission home where i will forward all the mail each and every day, call all the referrals out and call everyone with non contacted referrals and get on their case and then I will submit all the baptismal records that we have received from missionaries and send them to salt lake then i pring up a report for the stake president from the stake where the person was baptized i then type up a form letter and send it to the recent convert, I then update the numbers on our huge baptismal board. Usually we get picked up for dinner around 5 and then dinner drops us off where we need to go after that. But it has been really hard to get dinners lately since the ward we cover (Which is Blue Creek) is south of the river all the way until Wyoming Border so getting out to proselyte in our area is a huge pain in the butt and sometimes it is rough when a dinner falls through an when appointments cancel because we cant really get out to where we need to go since the sisters always have the car. So we do eat out alot being office Elders mainly i grab 69 cent tacos from Del Taco. Yesterday for District meeting we went to Red Robin afterwards, there were 6 of us and a member from our ward the olsons paid all of our bills it was really nice. Sister Granja the Brazillian sister left tuesday and flew back to finish her mission in nauvoo, so now Sister parks who just got back from BYU Idaho is now a temporary sister for the next 3 weeks until a new missionary flies in to be companions with sister lingmann. President Fisher has been gone this whole week because he is touring the mission doing Zone Conferences and Sister Fisher is back with her so that is really good. Our Zone Conference is next monday or tuesday i believe. This Sunday will be great, all the missionaries are going to The Heights stake conference (the other stake in Billings) we are then going to listen to Elder Oaks then following his talk we will be fed and the Elder Oaks is going to speak specifically to the missionaries, and only the missionaries around billings will get to hear him since it is too much to bring the missionaries from wyoming and missoula/kalispell. but ya thats pretty much what is happening. IS THIS A BIG ENOUGH LETTER FOR YOU???
Love
Elder FLippen Hinton
Love
Elder FLippen Hinton
Thursday, April 2, 2009
April 1, 2009
This week has been transfers, so I have been crazy busy in the office. We had the new missionaries come in yesterday and we had lunch and dinner with them and we trained them also. We had a big 15 passenger van break down in missoula so the missionaries on it had to get bus tickets into Billings and then last night Elder Llewellyn and I and also the assistants went and picked them up so I didn't get too much sleep. Tonight we have the Devotional/dinner for the missionaries that are going home which will be cool too, they always have good food! I may be driving up to Missoula on Friday to go drive the 15 passenger van back because that's when the new transmission will be ready. We were going to have to drive down to wyoming today but we got out of it and the assistants have to do it. But ya we get to do a bunch of stuff normal missionaries never get to do so it's very cool. Elder Heywood came in with the new missionaries yesterday so it was cool to talk to him especially since I played football against him, and he was in Kevin's/Sis. Florence's ward. P-day is cut short since we have to be in the office by 4 to help set up for the dinner tonight so that is kinda lame but we don't really have a certain time we have to be in by we can stay in the office all night long if we had to lawl. So what is everyone up to? How is the other missionaries doing? How is Kari, Trent, and the kids? (aka RYDOG DOING) <------Going to give him the Squuueeezzzeee when I get home! Can you believe I am working on 7 months shoot I am almost done haha =). So how is everyone in Gilbert doing? Still winding down the Kyler is gone party? How are the Ellsworths doing? Sean down to 180 yet? haha I hear dad is on a diet holy cow what is he at now 140? is Kasey 7 foot 10 yet? I hope he is really tall when I get home because the taller he is the harder the fall is when I own him haha! How is Kurtis doing? he have all my toons level 80 yet? lawl. Long enough for you woman? haha jk love you all
oh there is this Brother Piatt in the ward i'm in, he served in Alabama from 96-98 and he says there was an Elder Hinton in his mission, I think it's Brett is that where he served? but anyways he said an elder hinton gave him a blessing while on his mission before he went into a hospital and he said that blessing put a stop to kidney disease for 5 years. Elder Hinton
oh there is this Brother Piatt in the ward i'm in, he served in Alabama from 96-98 and he says there was an Elder Hinton in his mission, I think it's Brett is that where he served? but anyways he said an elder hinton gave him a blessing while on his mission before he went into a hospital and he said that blessing put a stop to kidney disease for 5 years. Elder Hinton
Friday, March 6, 2009
February 28, 2009
Dear Everybody, So I have been in the office a few weeks. Now it is awesome, I have my own office computer, whatever I need I got it, haha. I am the Mission Historian/Referral Secretary and Mission Computer Tech. Pretty much I fix everything from the President's 2 laptops, his tablet, Elder and Sister Carter's (the office couple) 2 computers and my companion's computer, plus all the printers, phone system, and Pitney Bowes Machine (stamp machine). We work there Mon-Sat and then go proselyte in the evenings. As the mission historian I keep track of all the baptism and all that jazz. We share a lipstick red 2009 Corolla with the sisters, Sis Christensen and Sister Granda. So we are stuck doing everything with them on P-day (Wed), except after 2:00 we drop them off and we play ball until 5, then at 6 we are back in the office. We had an investigator commit to baptism and we went to set a date and she was like well I was thinking Sept 27th because it's my birthday. I said ya I don't think so. That won't fly. So we discussed why sooner than later and I told her to pray about it and we would too. So we will see what happens this week. So time is flying by. I am coming up on the big 6 now. Oh ya! I got to go to the Billings Temple this morning with the Sisters, we aren't supposed to go until after studies but the sisters get away with anything. I have no clue why we don't live in the mission home, there are like 15 bunk beds upstairs. I know they used to, I might have to ask President. I've been pretty much told I'm going to be in the office a long time. Good thing I like computers. So the computers at Montana State University where we e-mail are absolutely crappy, so it is a pain in the butt. It takes forever to send stuff because they always freeze. Its cool as office Elders if the President wants us in the office we go in, the other night we came back in at 9 pm and didn't leave until 11:30 pm, it was pretty tight. I've just been chilling, loving the mission, it is great. So I was working out hardcore in Missoula, now I sit at a desk all day eating candy and drinking soda. Oh Yeah! But everything is going great. Love, Elder Hinton
Monday, March 2, 2009
February 25, 2009
Dear Family, Just writing a quick note especially since I am super busy, didn't have time to write with doing all the transfer stuff. But ya I am an office Elder. President Fisher told me I will most likely be there a while. He said I will be in that chair when the new President comes in July which will last 6 months and however long Pres. Larry Gardner from St. George wants to keep me there. We live with members, not at the mission home. We share a car with the sisters. How is everyone doing back home? Oh ya just send all the mail to the mission home. Hopefully I will have time to write a longer letter later but you never know. Love, Elder Hinton
Note from Kyler's Mom: Yes, this short little letter is all we have gotten in the last 2 weeks, but I have chastised him so hopefully a better letter will come. From my e-mail conversations with him, I think he was happy in Missoula and liked his companion and they had some things going so the transfer was a little hard. But he seems to love the cushy job he has now. He says his companion is lazy though. Anyway his big diet and get in shape program has gone by the wayside. The President is always bringing food in the office for the Elders and the office couple takes them out to lunch and yes even brought Dr. Pepper for Kyler. Shameful!! But he seems happy and says he is keeping the President's computer working because, quote "all the other Elders were RETARDS" and didn't know what they were doing. When I got the phone call from Pres. Fisher telling me my son was in the Office now, at first I thought maybe he was in trouble, haha, but I guess he heard Kyler was good on computers. Anyway he is the records secretary and he keeps all the statistics, newsletters, etc. and is in charge of the referrals, the highest the referrals were before Kyler came was 98 percent and he says he will get it to 100 percent soon and the President will reward him with a dinner to whatever restaurant he chooses!! So all is well in Montana!
Note from Kyler's Mom: Yes, this short little letter is all we have gotten in the last 2 weeks, but I have chastised him so hopefully a better letter will come. From my e-mail conversations with him, I think he was happy in Missoula and liked his companion and they had some things going so the transfer was a little hard. But he seems to love the cushy job he has now. He says his companion is lazy though. Anyway his big diet and get in shape program has gone by the wayside. The President is always bringing food in the office for the Elders and the office couple takes them out to lunch and yes even brought Dr. Pepper for Kyler. Shameful!! But he seems happy and says he is keeping the President's computer working because, quote "all the other Elders were RETARDS" and didn't know what they were doing. When I got the phone call from Pres. Fisher telling me my son was in the Office now, at first I thought maybe he was in trouble, haha, but I guess he heard Kyler was good on computers. Anyway he is the records secretary and he keeps all the statistics, newsletters, etc. and is in charge of the referrals, the highest the referrals were before Kyler came was 98 percent and he says he will get it to 100 percent soon and the President will reward him with a dinner to whatever restaurant he chooses!! So all is well in Montana!
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
February 4, 2009
Dear Family, What is going on in Gilbert? Is the 2 year party still a go from the time I left? That party is almost a fourth done! So the infamous week of transfers, we will get calls on Friday. I am really hoping to stay. Well one reason is I don't want to have to pack my bags! Our Mission President said I don't care what you have to do to get 8 hours of tracting weekly but you will be able to find a way. So we ditched out of our 2nd Church block, well just Elders Quorum to get to our last hour in. haha It was all sunny on Sunday, the snow nice and melting, clear sky. Wake up Monday morning and boom, like 2 inches of new snow....Boo...I want it to be summer! So these 10 lb ankle weight I have strapped to me have given my right ankle a fatty blister, hah since I wear them all day long. But no pain no gain! We are having what we call Zone Olympics on P-day. It is where our whole zone gets together for a tom of different competitions. Basketball being the big one. Oh yeah for my 6 month mark I am going to burn a tie. The one I am going to burn is one that Elder Barrera gave me. He fave me 3 that are as ugly as sin so I have 3 to pick from. Elder Barney and I are doing great. I hope I get him for one more transfer, but knowing my luck, I've had a new comp every transfer. So we tag team tract a lot with the Zone leaders. Well for a few reasons, they cover the University Ward with all the college students and it is in our boundaries and also we count it as double tracting time. Haha. Well have a great week. Love, Elder Hinton
Friday, February 13, 2009
Transferred!
Kyler is now living in the mission home in Billings. He is now an office elder, so any mail just send to the mission home.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
February 2, 2009
Dear Family, This has been a pretty good week. Been working out hardcore each morning and drinking 3 gallons of water every day. So the weirdest thing happened. We got picked up by a member for dinner and were going to teach his wife a lesson, she is about to be baptized. But he said she is sick so I am going to take you out to eat and then we are going to a basketball game. I don't know if this was legit or not but he is like ya my 18yr old daughter is a cheerleader and wants to start taking the lessons. So we went to a full length basketball game. I felt out of place, haha, 2 missionaries sitting in a gym. President might not like that one if he found out! I weighed myself Sunday night and I was 210, so hopefully 180 soon! Can you believe transfers are in a week and a half? Isn't that nuts? I am really hoping I stay here with Elder Barney another transfer but we will see what happens. It was a cool experience. Their house was haunted. It was crazy. But I was able to give a lot of blessings this week too, one of our investigators and her 3 kids were all sick and we were able to give each one of them a blessing. Oh by the way... about Kasey growing taller, all that means is the harder he will fallwhen I get home... haha. So I've been watching what I eat, and I have turned down soda 3 times now at dinner and just had water, what am I doing??? Don't worry it is only temporary I swear, then I will be back to my Dr. Pepper. Keep the letters coming! Love, Elder Hinton
January 25, 2009
Dear Family, So the weather has been pretty mild since I have gotten to Missoula the past week and a half. It has been in the 20's but on Sat. night snow just let loose. We bundled up and went to our appointments. When we got out of one about 8pm a weird inversion was taking place. Because Missoula sits in a valley the fog and everything does something weird. It looked like it was early morning and it was light outside. It is very cool. But ya the weather is dropping back down. Tonight (which is Sunday) is supposed to be 1 degree and then tomorrow will probably be negatives again. Ughh. We have another investigator that we have an appointment with this next week who we are getting a baptismal date with. February we should have 7 which is insane but that would be so cool. Monday night a member picks us up and is like so what restaurant are we going to?? RED ROBIN... oh yeah! I got the A-1 Peppercorn Burger .... sooo good! The work here in Missoula is going great. I just got out of an appointment with a young couple who were kind of iffy, but I saw a poster of an MMORPG Game (similar to WOW) and I went off. We got in and we were able to teach a first lesson and get new investigators. It was sweet! I'm putting my gaming knowledge to good use! Yeah baby! So we can't ride bikes in the snow and we always either don't have the car. We walked like 4 miles to the University on Tues. afternoon for no one to be home but that comes with the nametag, at least we got good exercise. Have a great week. Love, Elder Hinton
Thursday, January 29, 2009
January 15, 2009
Dear Family, So This is kind of gonna be my journal. I figure I will try and write part of the letter home and describe what I did each day. So today is Thursday Jan. 15 and President told us we have all got to step it up with finding new people and we have to get at least 8 hours of tracting each week, he would prefer 12. So we find this out on Tuesday, Monday we were on team ups with another Elder, Elder Sorenson because his companion got sent to Helena for a leadership meeting, well anyways we didn’t tract because 3 missionaries is kind of intimidating especially with me there, haha. So Monday zero hours, Tuesday we get 1 hour, Wednesday is party-day. JK So today we have 1/8 of our tracting done. So we are hoofing it on foot since its not our day with the car and we busted out 3 hours today. So we are now ½ done with our tracting requirement. Tomorrow is cut short because of weekly planning. We pretty much just got to tract 2 hours tomorrow and 2 on Saturday. Since Sunday we can’t tract because I have 8 ½ hours of Church to sit through. But after dinner we were abld to go over to the ICU and give a blessing to a lady who is not doing so hot. We have an eventful day tomorrow with a lot of walking involved, we won’t get our car back until next Tues. So on Friday I have a cool story. We are out tracting for 3 straight hours, we have the other missionaries drop us off in timbucktoo and we are going to tract our way back home. We are trying this new technique that popped into my mind while we were doing a workshop in our district meeting and I committed my district to say a prayer every 5 houses whether people answer or not, so me and Elder Barney are tracting, it is a colder day than it has been. It is snowing and it is extremely foggy. For 3 hours we are knocking doors and praying every 5 doors. Nothing, no one is interested. But we keep going. Its been about 3 hours and we have nothing to show, no investigators, lessons, or potential investigators. There are 4 more houses left on this insanely long street. We say 1 last prayer and go to finish our afternoon and head to dinner. We were able to set up 4 return appointment and all of them were genuinely interested. It goes to show if you put effort in you will be able to find. We had nobody all day and after 3 hours who would of thought, the last 4 houses! We could of been like this is pointless, lets go do something else, but perserverance is the key. So there you get a spiritual story this week. Oh and last night we had a lesson with Argentina and Kenya Stack, we are setting a date in Feb. Kenya who is 14 was really embarrassed about this but said her lifelong goal is to be like us and serve a mission. They are from Guadalajara so you can tell Korey. We also had a lesson with a less active guy who told us God is an Alien and that we were beamed down to earth and other junk
Si it is now Sat. night we just got in and planned. Right before this we did a 44 oz Dr. Pepper run. But we just got through nairing Elder Barney’s chest. (You know the hair removal cream) I was going to take pictures but I don’t think you would have appreciated them. haha Today was a good day, we were able to tract and reach our goal of 8 hours. And we gave a newborn baby a blessing. We taught a family at a members house and we are setting baptismal dates. So tomorrow will be brutal..we have ward correlation at 7:45 and Church until 4:30, then over to the Stake Center for Stake General Priesthood Meeting. It is going to be a looooong day. Oh my freaking gosh…I just got home from a crazy day just sitting in meeting for a little over 12 hours. We got picked up at 7:40, did 2 blocks of Church, ate dinner inside the Church because we didn’t have time to go over to the Robinsons house and make it back for Priesthood meeting. They then drove us to the Stake Center. That is 12 hours and 20 min. of sitting in Church Arggghhh. Well yay it was fun and I got updates as the Cardinals played. The year I go on my mission is the only year the AZ Cardianls do good. Will you tape the Super Bowl for me? Please do. We had 5 investigators come to Church, how cool is that? On Tues. night we buy body wax from Walmart, we spend the night at the zone leaders apartment and we start waxing Elder Barney, he is like bleeding from it. But we waxed my right leg and left my left leg hairy. Pretty gross. haha Have a great week. Love, Elder Hinton
Si it is now Sat. night we just got in and planned. Right before this we did a 44 oz Dr. Pepper run. But we just got through nairing Elder Barney’s chest. (You know the hair removal cream) I was going to take pictures but I don’t think you would have appreciated them. haha Today was a good day, we were able to tract and reach our goal of 8 hours. And we gave a newborn baby a blessing. We taught a family at a members house and we are setting baptismal dates. So tomorrow will be brutal..we have ward correlation at 7:45 and Church until 4:30, then over to the Stake Center for Stake General Priesthood Meeting. It is going to be a looooong day. Oh my freaking gosh…I just got home from a crazy day just sitting in meeting for a little over 12 hours. We got picked up at 7:40, did 2 blocks of Church, ate dinner inside the Church because we didn’t have time to go over to the Robinsons house and make it back for Priesthood meeting. They then drove us to the Stake Center. That is 12 hours and 20 min. of sitting in Church Arggghhh. Well yay it was fun and I got updates as the Cardinals played. The year I go on my mission is the only year the AZ Cardianls do good. Will you tape the Super Bowl for me? Please do. We had 5 investigators come to Church, how cool is that? On Tues. night we buy body wax from Walmart, we spend the night at the zone leaders apartment and we start waxing Elder Barney, he is like bleeding from it. But we waxed my right leg and left my left leg hairy. Pretty gross. haha Have a great week. Love, Elder Hinton
Sunday, January 25, 2009
What's For Dinner?
Okay, so our family has been debating on whether or not to post this, but Kyler really has this in his freezer and will not tell us how and why this squirrel is there. Just another example of Kyler's fun personality!Monday, January 19, 2009
January 14, 2009
Dear Family,
What is happening in Gilbert? Power Road all nice yet? So I went sheep sampling with a member and we will be shearing them completely in another 3 weeks. But it took our whole afternoon, grabbing a fistful of fur per sheep, recording their numbers and sorting them, we sampled 300 sheep and geez they are the most stupid animals. Church on Sunday was long, we went straight from 8 am until 4:30 pm with no breaks because of meetings. That wears you out more than a full day of proselyting. We have a ton of people about ready to be baptized this month. We are shooting for 4 in Jan. and 4 in Feb. This month we have a lady who went to church every summer when she lived with a friend, she is taking the discussions and wants to be baptized so we are hopefully going to set a date with her tonight, her son is 12 and will be baptized also. We then have a Spanish mother and daughter who want to set a date. Their names are Argentina (the mom) and Kenya (the daughter). Kinda funny, they are countries. Ha ha But ya the city is sweet, tons of people to teach. I met Sis Florence yesterday at district meeting, turns out she is in my zone and meets in the same building for district meeting, we may even be taking her and her companion to a lesson with us because her companion speaks Spanish. She said that Jana was her best friend growing up. Hiked the big M today, Kari got the story, your gonna have to ask her about it!
Love, Elder Hinton
What is happening in Gilbert? Power Road all nice yet? So I went sheep sampling with a member and we will be shearing them completely in another 3 weeks. But it took our whole afternoon, grabbing a fistful of fur per sheep, recording their numbers and sorting them, we sampled 300 sheep and geez they are the most stupid animals. Church on Sunday was long, we went straight from 8 am until 4:30 pm with no breaks because of meetings. That wears you out more than a full day of proselyting. We have a ton of people about ready to be baptized this month. We are shooting for 4 in Jan. and 4 in Feb. This month we have a lady who went to church every summer when she lived with a friend, she is taking the discussions and wants to be baptized so we are hopefully going to set a date with her tonight, her son is 12 and will be baptized also. We then have a Spanish mother and daughter who want to set a date. Their names are Argentina (the mom) and Kenya (the daughter). Kinda funny, they are countries. Ha ha But ya the city is sweet, tons of people to teach. I met Sis Florence yesterday at district meeting, turns out she is in my zone and meets in the same building for district meeting, we may even be taking her and her companion to a lesson with us because her companion speaks Spanish. She said that Jana was her best friend growing up. Hiked the big M today, Kari got the story, your gonna have to ask her about it!
Love, Elder Hinton
Monday, January 12, 2009
January 7, 2009
Dear Family, What is up? How is AZ going? I am so excited to serve in Missoula, there is tons of people here. The apartment we are living in is tight! My new companion is Elder Barney from California. He is a crack up and has my same sense of humor if you know what I mean. I am going to have to look for Lisa and Patrick Palmer’s family. Ask what ward they are in. We cover Missoula 2nd and 3rd ward. I am pretty much in the middle of Missoula, it is tight. We have been doing a lot of tracting and have had a few lessons. But this area has a lot of potential and I think this will be one of the most fun transfers. Lot of missionaries are around and lots of fast food restaurants. I can’t wait to eat at Red Robin. There are so many people who go down to Arizona for the winter, everyday we run into people who at one point and time have been in Mesa. The area we cover is huge, there are houses everywhere. In Sheridan we had fully tracted the whole town in a few weeks but now we have tons of stuff to do. Kasey and Kurtis what are you up to? Did you get your characters to level 80 yet? How is being back in school? Can’t wait until I get all the letters!
Love, Elder Hinton
Oh, and every Tuesday is dollar scoops at Baskin Robins, so we go there every week! Ice cream FTW!
Love, Elder Hinton
Oh, and every Tuesday is dollar scoops at Baskin Robins, so we go there every week! Ice cream FTW!
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
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