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

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.

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

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!