JULY 2013

7/29/13

Dear Family (and friends? I'm not really sure who all sees these emails),

This week was a good one.  We worked ridiculously hard.  Our daily average of accountable hours was like 8.  That probably doesn't mean much to most of you, but Cameron will probably understand. By the end of the week we were SO burned out.  It seemed to pay off though.  Betime is on date for baptism on September 1st, as long as she figures out her immigration status and can be married by then.  She really wants to be baptized and is all on board to get married so she can be, but because of outside factors she might not be able to for like 6 months.  We're just praying that she'll come through for September 1st.  

We also have another investigator on date for September 8th.  He's a super great guy.  He is in a bit of a tough financial situation right now.  He's living in a church under condition that he helps with their services, but he doesn't like the way they do things.  He told us he is always pointing out things that they are doing wrong, and they don't like that very much.  He doesn't think the ministers should be driving Mercedes and Aston Martins on the churches bill.  I would have to agree with him.  He's looking for a better church and his wife told him that the best church is in Muswell Hill and something about the Latter Day Saints.  We found him on the street and he saw our name tags and immediately set up an appointment with us.  He wasn't able to come to church this week because the church he is living at required his help in their service which is at the same time, but he said he'd come up with an acceptable excuse to miss next week so he can come sneak over to our church.  He was super receptive to the message of the restoration and started reading the Book of Mormon in the park we met him in as we were walking away.  I just hope he has a super good experience at church this week.  He's looking really hard for a job so he can get out of the church he's living at and make a respectable living for himself again (and also be a great member of our church).  The Lord definitely placed one of his prepared children in the path of his prepared servants last week.

Rosa is still doing very well.  I'm glad you guys found her on google.  She's great.  I think I look forward to lessons with her more than anyone else.  The only problem is that she has expressed that coming to church isn't time as well spent as painting.  I think we'll get her to come around though.  I just don't want to be pushy at all.  When she really comes to know that what we are teaching her is true I think she'll want to come to church.

I've got a few funny stories this week.  

1.  Me and Elder David were on an exchange on Wednesday and we were sitting in a park for lunch.  We noticed a man laying face down on the grass a ways out in front of us, had a little laugh about it, and didn't really think about him too much more until he stood up and stumbled over to us.  He looked at us and said "I'm blessed."  I said "wow, really?"  He then silenced me and said "SHHHHH, listen" and looked up into the sky for a solid 10 seconds.  He looked at us and said "Take a big shot of salvia and see where you go from there."  I just kind of looked at him and he repeated "SALVIA."  I said "ok. . . . . thanks."  He said, "you're welcome.  I'm blessed.  Bless you."  and then as he was walking away he turned back to us and shouted "A BIG SHOT OF SALVIA!  DON'T FORGET!"  Neither of us really knew what to think.  Apparently salvia is some sort of super crazy hallucinogen drug with affects similar to heroin but stronger.  We probably won't take his advice because I'm a little bit concerned about where we would "go from there."  Plus I might get in a little bit of trouble if President Jordan found out I've been doing drugs.

2.  The next day me and Elder Duncan were back together and we were sitting at a bus stop.  We looked down the road and there was this super old man walking up towards us.  We just kept waiting and looked back down the road about 30 seconds later and we noticed that the old man was in the exact same spot as before.  He was definitely moving, but I don't think it would have been possible for him to go any slower.  I timed how long it took for him to get to the stop and it took 3 minutes for him to get about 30 yards.  We would have helped him, but he was really grouchy and he probably would have whacked us with his cane.  When he finally got to the bus stop the bus pulled up and he attempted to step up into it.  He almost fell flat on the ground twice as the bus driver was full on yelling at him to wait for him to lower the ramp and me and Elder Duncan just stood there paralyzed not knowing what to do.  He eventually made it onto the bus and me and Elder Duncan spend the whole bus ride trying our very hardest (unsuccessfully) to keep in the laughter that follows such ridiculous spectacles.  Maybe it was something you had to be there to think it's funny, but I thought you might enjoy it anyway.

Speaking of Old Men – Here is Elder Hein at the “Elderly People” crossing

3.  Yesterday me and Elder Duncan decided to try our luck at tracting. Shoot, I'm being kicked out of the internet cafe, so I can't finish this story.  I'll tell you next week

I wanted to put some pictures on here, but I'm not going to be able to.  Sorry.

I got the package!  I love it.  Thank you so much.  Sorry this is such a bad ending to an email.  Talk to you next week!  Love you all

- Elder Hein

7/22/13

Dear Family,

We'll start out with the bad news and make our way to the good.  Only one of the people I was supposed to baptize this week actually got baptized.  Joshua, the little kid in the ward.  Kelsey freaked out last minute and didn't even come to church.  I don't really know what's going to happen with her.  I hope she'll come around.  She had a super stressful week with graduation and prom and the fact that her dad is being released from prison next week.  She just has a lot of things weighing down on her.  And she's only 11.  Ade, the sister's investigator wasn't baptized for some personal (once a month) issues, but she'll be baptized soon.  It was a pretty stressful week all around.  Joshua's mom, Angela, can't find her records, so the ward called off Joshua's baptism because he wasn't technically a child of record.   Our bishopric is new as of 2 weeks ago, so they didn't really know how they were supposed to handle the situation.  They had called and told Angela that he couldn't be baptized and she was crushed.  Joshua was crushed too.  I got a couple of phone calls from members in tears and took things into my own hands, even though technically I had absolutely no authority or responsibility to do so. I stuck my neck out for him and said we could do it as a convert baptism if we need to, but we weren't going to crush his dreams of being baptized.  I got permission from president, made some calls and saved the day.  The baptism went really nice.  We had two primary baptisms, including Joshua, and a lady from Iran who hasn't been able to be baptized for a really long time now because she would be killed if she went back to Iran a christian.  It would have been even better if Kelsey had been baptized with them, but I'm just glad it went as well as it did.

Elder Hein, Joshua the little kid in the ward, and Elder Duncan 

I'm teaching this super amazing lady named Rosa Branson.  She's an incredible artist.  She sells paintings for upwards of £1,000,000.  And she does it all for charity.  You should google her.  She's amazing.  Me and Elder Baker helped her with her bags one day and then me and Elder Duncan ran into her on this last Tuesday and helped her with her bags again.  We taught her lesson 1 and gave her a book of mormon.  Yesterday when we met her again, she told us that when she saw me for the second time, she had this overwhelming feeling that she needed to find out more about us and who we were.  She's been reading the Book of Mormon for an hour every morning before she does anything else.  She's just golden.  The hardest thing is going to be getting her out to church, but I think we'll get there.  She's like 80 years old, but very willing to learn.  She's just amazing.  I really hope we'll get to see her baptized.

It's crazy that Cameron's wedding is coming up so soon.  I still need to work on my toast for his wedding breakfast or picnic or whatever it is.  The living room is looking great.  The house is going to be a completely different place when I get back in 22 months.  Can you believe I've already been out for over 2 months?  It doesn't feel like it's been that long.  I have a feeling these two years are going to fly by super fast.  Me and Elder Duncan are getting along really well.  I think I just need to trust him more.  I'm starting to realize that he's a lot better of a missionary than I thought he was at first.  We're doing pretty well together.  We have very different teaching styles.  I'm a lot more animated than he his.  I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing though.  It's just something we need to figure out how to work with better.  We're figuring things out.  Neither of us really know how to do this whole missionary work stuff because we only got half of our training, but we're doing ok.  

Hopefully I'll have some baptisms to report on before long.  Betime has agreed to get married to her boyfriend so she can be baptized, so that's going well, and we have found a lot of really solid new investigators as well.  By the end of next week we hope to have 2 or 3 of them on date.  We'll see how that goes.  I think the hardest part of missionary work is getting up in the morning.  As soon as I hit like 10:00 or so it's better, but those couple of hours in the morning just thinking about how on earth you're supposed to get everything done during the day are definitely the hardest. I always just try to remember that I have so many friends who are out doing the exact same thing and we're all managing to change lives even though we're only a bunch of unqualified 19 year old kids.  It's crazy what we're able to accomplish because we're doing the Lord's work.

Well, I'm out of time.  To answer a few questions quick we usually have band performances on Friday nights.  I have been receiving letters from Dad and I've received one from Camilla.  I have not yet received the Package.  Did you send it to my flat or South Kensington?  Hopefully I will get it soon. Some personal money would be nice.  I've pretty much used up all of the money I came out with.

Well, I hope you guys have a fantastic week!  I'll send some baptism pictures and pictures of me and Elder Duncan.

Love,

Elder Hein

p.s. the best place to send mail is probably the mission office.  It's just more secure.  Just make sure to stop sending mail to my flat the last two weeks of the transfer just in case I'm not there the next transfer.  That just complicates things when you have to get other missionaries to bring things into the office for you.

7/15/13

Dear Family,

Man, I had no idea how much I relied on Elder Baker until he was gone. This missionary work stuff is really hard.  I'm doing well though.  My numbers this week were just as good as they had been with Elder Baker, so assuming they're an accurate depiction of how I'm doing, I seem to be doing alright.  I just wish Elder Duncan had a trainer like Elder Baker.  I feel like I'm training him from scratch.  I'm pretty confident in my own abilities, but it’s really hard to do everything on your own.  He works hard, I'm learning how do work with different types of people, but we're working on his teaching skills a lot.  Our first roll play exercise was a really scary moment for me.  It's definitely more of a training situation I've been put in than a Co-Senior.  I think he has a lot of potential, and I have learned a couple of things from him, but I just can't wait for him to really blossom.

Elder Duncan and Elder Hein

This last week has been a HUGE growing week for me.  I've learned so much about how to do missionary work.  I've really had to just rely on the Lord and take my own advice that I sent home last week to you guys.  A 12-year-old girl gave a talk in church yesterday which was exactly what I needed to hear.  I haven't felt the spirit so strong in a really long time.  She just told a story about being caught in a storm off the beach in California last year and how she dealt with that situation and then compared it to the storms we face in our lives.  It was incredibly simple but for some reason really touched me.  She talked about the enabling power of the atonement.  If we will ask for help for a worthy cause, we'll receive help.

So much went wrong this week, but a lot went right too.  We only had one investigator at church when I was expecting at least four, but at least that one who came is being baptized next week.  Her name is Kelsey.  She comes with a family in the ward and I've been teaching her ever since I got here.  We just need to teach her about tithing this week and she'll be baptized after church on Sunday.  Elder Hutchins is doing her baptism, but I'm baptizing an 8 year old in the ward who's mom has been having us over to teach him before he gets baptized.  I told him to think about who he wants to do it and yesterday his mom told me that he's chosen me, so that's fun.  He's a really funny little kid. One of the kids in the family that brings Kelsey is also being baptized, so we're going to have quite the fun baptismal service on Sunday.  I'm also baptizing one of the Sister's investigators on Saturday.  Me and Elder Duncan found some really good potential investigators this week so hopefully I'll have more to report on next week.  

I don't have much time left, so I'll just let you know that I really do love you guys.  It sounds like you're keeping pretty darn busy with Cameron's wedding, remodeling the house, and with Mom's new calling.  I appreciate your words of encouragement and love each week in your emails.  Thanks for everything you do!

Until next week,

Elder Hein

7/9/13

Dear Family,

Sorry this email is a day late.  I didn't realize that on transfer weeks p-day is Tuesday.  It sounds like you guys had a fun time at the lake.  The pictures were fun.  Did you get mine from last week?  I'm glad you liked the music and videos.  I haven't got to listen to them all, so I hope they sound good.  In case you couldn't tell, I have decent parts in Homeward Bound, Be Thou My Vision (harmonies), I Will Rise (high harmonies), Hallelujah, and I'm in almost all of the others just in the background.  The other main male voice is Elder Baker.  It's going to be weird without him and Elder Tingey the guitar player.

So, transfers!  I am staying right where I am in North London and am follow up training with Elder Duncan from my MTC group.  It's fairly uncommon, but I'm super excited.  It's actually what I was hoping for.  He's super solid but on the same level as me.  I think we'll work really well together.  Elder Hutchins is on his 3rd transfer and is our new district leader and is also training a new missionary who will arrive tomorrow.  The sisters in our district are on their 4th transfer and 2nd transfer.  So basically we have the youngest district in the mission.  It's super cool.  We're going to work our tails off and lead the mission.  That's the plan anyways.  We'll see how it goes.  All that really matters is that we try hard, but me and my companion alone have potential for 4 or 5 baptisms this transfer and the others all have at least 2 investigators on date.  It's going to be super cool.

Elder Hein and Elder Hutchins playing with screaming balloons in the park

My last week with Elder Baker was really fun.  We got a lot of good work done.  I hope I learned everything I can from him.  I was seriously so blessed to have him as my trainer.  It gives me a HUGE advantage.  He was literally the best missionary in the mission.  Almost all of the training programs and other planning platforms and things were created by him when he was an AP.  He was a super solid guy.  I hope I find that I haven't been completely dependent on him this whole time.  My new companion doesn't know the area at all so I'll kind of be the senior companion for the first week or so even though we're technically co-seniors just because I know my way around better.  I think this transfer it going to be a ton of fun.  Our flat will have 3 of Elder Baker's 4 posterity: me, Elder Hutchins, and Elder Hutchins' trainee.  Unfortunately Elder Baker didn't get to baptize anyone on Sunday :(  Fiona (the 9 year old) chickened out and decided she wasn't ready to be baptized, Betime had all sorts of family issues (which have been mostly cleared up and I'm hoping to baptize her in August), and both of the Sister's investigators cut off all contact.  It was super bizarre.  They were both super solid and then they both went completely AWOL.

My only noteworthy investigators right now are Betime and Sister Gomez.  Sister Gomez is the wife of a member in our ward boundaries who attends a Spanish ward, but speaks Portuguese and English.  I'm not really sure what to think of it, but he's a great guy and he's having us teach his wife so she can get baptized, so I can't really complain.  Betime is getting a lot better at English and is doing really well.  She really wants to be baptized, we just need to take some time with her and make sure her Muslim family and fiance are alright with it.  They seem to be fine with it right now, but I don't want everything to blow up in her face later.  There are a few others who have a very high potential for baptism in the coming weeks, but none of them are quite to that point yet.  There's a super solid 19 year old guy who lives in a different ward, but we're teaching him at a member's home in our ward, so I still might be able to baptize him.  There's also a funny little family who has quite a funny finding story.  We were sitting in a chinese buffet with Lisa (the crazy Albanian woman who finds half of our investigators for us, in fact we've started to list her as our finding method on the records, haha) and Lisa sees here come in and starts talking to her.  I guess their children go to the same school.  She introduced her to us, and she didn't want anything to do with us.  She said, ''church isn't for me.  I'm really not interested.''  She went over to her table and about five minutes later came up to us and said, ''What are Mormons, anyways?  Are you some sort of a cult or something?  I'm really curious what you do.  Is there some time we could talk?  I don't want to join, I'm just curious.''  Lisa, as crazy as she is, sure brings a lot of miracles about.  The lady, Amanda, came to church with her two little girls (10 and 12) and came up to us afterwards and asked us what the requirements were for joining.  She said her two daughters really enjoyed it and want to be baptized.  We have an appointment set for next week after church with her and her daughters.

It's amazing how much we see the Lord help us in the work.  My experience with Amanda and many others were definitely not feats of my own.  I'm not that enticing of a person.  It makes me think of Enoch in Moses chapter 6 when he gets called to be a prophet and his response is that he is ''slow of speech and all the people hate him.''  He knows that on his own he could never bring people to repentance.  He questions the Lord and says ''wherefore am I they servant?''  And then the Lord gives him this amazing list of promises.  He is told that all of his words will be justified and that with them he will move mountains and rivers, the Lord just gives him one condition.  He says, ''therefore, walk with me.''  When we are walking with the Lord, by simple reasoning, it means that he is walking with us.  Enoch went on to do all of the things he was promised he would accomplish and more.  I think the same thing applies to all of us in our own callings.  As missionaries we are promised that ''the field is white all ready to harvest.''  As long as we involve the Lord he will help us harvest the field and accomplish things that we could never do on our own.  I've been sharing that message lately to some of our less actives and members, but I apply it to them.  In any calling from the Lord there is a way prepared for us to accomplish it (1Nephi3:7).  Whether that calling is to be a mother, a father, a relief society teacher, a counselor in the bishop brick, or a Stake President, we can fulfill our calling if we will just walk with the Lord.  He will help us through all of our challenges and trials.

On a different note, I was reading in D&C during personal study a couple of days ago and read section 130.  There's some super cool stuff in the first half.  The second half is the part everyone knows, but the first half is way cool.  You should read it.  It might blow your mind a little.

Alright, well I'm out of time.  I'll email Elder Baker your phone number and he might call you when he gets to Utah.  He said he'd love to stop by some time.  I hope you have a fantastic week!

Love,

Elder Hein

7/1/13

Dear Family,

The water situation sounds terrible!  I'm glad they called it off last night.  That would be pretty rough.  Did I forget to wish Cameron a happy birthday in my last email?  If so, I'm very sorry!  I hope he had a wonderful day.  I thought the weather had been ridiculously hot here lately, but it's only been like 22 degrees (Celsius of course).  I often wonder whatever possessed those early English saints to leave this country and move to Utah.  The only thing that's better about Utah is the mountains.  They're kind of cool.

I'm not having a very easy time thinking of anything to write today.  I don't think I even wrote anything in my Journal all week.  It hasn't been a bad week, just super uneventful I guess.  On Saturday I had my first exchange, so that was fun.  One of the zone leaders came to my area and we just did the normal stuff.  It was a good experience to run the area, though.  I had to pay a lot more attention to everything because Elder Baker wasn't there.  It made me appreciate having Elder Baker as my trainer.  He's seriously the best missionary in the mission.  I'm just glad he got moved from AP to Trainer before I came.  He trained me and my flat mate Elder Hutchins, so it's kind of fun to know my brother.  Also, Elder Hutchins is from Lindon, did I ever mention that?  His family lives up in the Cambera area.  We act a lot like real siblings.  It's kind of funny.  Every once in a while our dad has to come sort us out and tell us to behave ourselves. haha.  Elder Hutchin's companion Elder Miller just plays the role of the indifferent uncle or something.  But in all seriousness, I do really enjoy having someone from home to talk to.  We both know a lot of the same people because we went to the same high school.  We all work hard and help each other stay motivated and stuff.  It will be interesting when I get moved to an area where it's just me and my companion in a flat.  The increase in bathroom time at the beginning of the day will be nice, but other than that, I think I'll miss having other people around.  The zone leader told Elder Baker that I was doing a good job, so that was nice to hear.  He didn't have any suggestions or critiques or anything, just compliments, so I guess I'm headed down the right track.

I found out that men don't wear chapstick here the hard way. . . one of the members (Adrian) just started laughing at me one day as I put on my Burt's Bees on the bus.  I keep my chapstick application more on the down low now.  Oh, by the way, me and Elder Baker sent you a video yesterday from some free email booth on the side of the road.  Did you get it?  It might be in your junk mail.  Check and see.  Today we recorded all of the songs the band plays at our performances, so hopefully they'll be somewhere you can access them within the week.  I'll let you more next week.  We'll probably put them on Youtube, so you can start checking there if you want.  It will probably be under London Mission Band or something.  Adrian's Facebook is apparently super locked down, so maybe I'll have him send you a friend request.  Don't get too friendly with him though, he'll never leave you alone.  He's super invasive in a very kind, but very annoying sort of way.

Anyways, all is well here in London.  We've hit Elder Baker's last week, so this week there will be a big effort on making it the best week of missionary work to leave on. Unfortunately Betime won't be baptized this week, she has some relationship issues we need to figure out.  She may or may not be married to a Muslim whom she has not yet informed about her desire to be baptized.  yeah.  It's tough.  It would be really nice if we could at least understand her without Lisa's very skewed translating.  Fiona, Lisa's daughter, will hopefully still be baptized this week.  Her father isn't super all for it, but I think he'll come around pretty soon.

Elders Baker, Hein, Hutchins, Miller

Well, I'm out of time.  I hope you all have a fantastic week full of all sorts of fun things.  I received two letters from Dad this week, and I will most likely be at the same address for another 7 weeks, but I really don't know for sure.  If you send things there, I'll be able to get them regardless of whether or not I'm still around so don't worry about that.  Hopefully I'll be able to get some pictures attached to this email!  I haven't been very good at taking pictures.  I should be better.

Much Love,

Elder Hein