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

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!

Snow, Snow, and More Snow!

Just Kyler

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

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!

Obssesed With Deerheads?

These are the recent pictures, but if you go back to the other pictures and slideshows there are even more of... deer heads!

December 31, 2008

Waz up Hinton fam? And all those who read this on the blog!! Keep sending me the other Elders letters, that would be cool beansssss. So this week was pretty lame thanks to my compadre. He was sick the day after Christmas pretty much until Sunday and guess what he is still sick, I know what the sickness is. . . wussyitis, but anyways the days I stayed inside I pretty much wanted to beat the living hud outta him. I did read 250 pages in the B of M one day but geez . .. some peoples kids. But anyways Christmas was pretty tight being able to talk to you guys. We went and had tamales and then played games. This week was pretty slacked, I wanted to murder my compadre but I restrained. We did get to tract a city named Virginia City which is really tight, it’s like an old abandoned ghost town which was supposed to be the capital of Montana but like lost by one vote or something. Today (New Years Eve) we got permission to stay up till midnight. We went and had New York steaks at our ward mission leaders house and then went over to another members house and had more food and played more games, foosball, air hockey, guesstures, chess. The Bishops family was there and a bunch of others it was cool, but right now it is 11:40, 20 minutes until 2009! Well have a great week, I love you all!
Love, Elder Hinton P. S. Tell the Heningers thanks for the Christmas present, I appreciate it.