Christian on a Mishun

1/13/2014

1. The England London Mission Drive is in my area. Cool, eh?

Dear everyone who reads this blog,

I would like to formally apologize for any offence previous posts may have caused. My intent is never to put anyone down or hurt any feelings. The purpose of my letters home and this blog is to inform my family about how I am doing, how I feel about the work, how I am progressing both as a missionary and as a person, and to share experiences I've had that I feel are appropriate to share with those I love. My family is keeping up my blog and they have posted everything I have written to them. They have removed the information that has been requested to be removed. I have but one suggestion to make in the case of further issues and that is to please address me or my father personally. My mission president has many better things to do than receive phone calls complaining about what one of his missionaries has been writing home to his family. My father's email is dmhein89@msn.com and my personal email is john.hein@myldsmail.net. Thank you for your concern, and I again apologize for causing any offence or hurting any feelings. – Elder Hein

Dear Family,

It's been such a good week here in Hatfield! Elder Hart and I are being blessed like crazy. I don't feel like we're necessarily working harder than I've worked in the past, but we've been able to accomplish so much. I think it's down to the way we work together. After the initial awkward getting used to each other and the way we work, we've really fallen in sync and are doing great things. In our time together so far we haven't had a single conflict or disagreement that couldn't be very easily worked out. I think we're just very patient with each other. We feel very blessed to be working together in this great area and in a great ward who loves and supports us.

Boon is doing quite well. He didn't accept an invitation to be baptized because he feels like he still doesn't know nearly enough to make that kind of a decision. Fair enough. He did accept an invitation conditional upon him receiving answers to his prayers and coming to know what we are teaching him is true. That's all we can really ask for. We're taking him to a FHE in the ward again this week.

The big news this week is two other investigators Daniel and Jude. These two are rockstars. I love them so much. They're both from Nigeria and met at the University here in Hatfield. They're best friends to the point where they introduce each other as "My brother." We found Daniel around the University one day and he invited us over to teach him. When we showed up for our appointment, Jude was there too and we taught them both about the Book of Mormon. Since that time we have taught them 2 or 3 more times and they came to church yesterday. They loved it. Elder Hart asked Daniel after sacrament meeting what he thought, and he said "It was good. I'm thinking about joining." They are both on date for baptism for the 8th of February. They're just so stinking solid. They got lost on their way to church and ended up just calling a cab and spending 20 pounds to get there. That's what I call commitment. We're taking them to a family's home this week for dinner and a lesson. This ward is great. I love them so much.

In other news, I hear that Angela and Mehdi from London North are both still on date for baptism! Hopefully I'll be able to report on their big days in the next few weeks. I'm sure Elder Nolan is doing a great job with them. Another point of interest is that the missionary band is getting back together. We all got a call last night to come in to London this morning for band practice. It's been boiled down to just 7 members, though. It makes transportation easier because we all fit in the mission van. This also makes receiving packages and post very convenient. I will be in the mission office most Mondays to collect post. Continue sending everything there.

This week really was just superb. We finally hit the benchmark of 30 lessons taught in one week. And what's even better is that 12 of them were taught with a member present! Things are going really well for us. There's not much room for me to complain. I even got my birthday package on Wednesday. It was great! Thank you so much. It was a really great package. The Emergen-C came right in time as well. I got a cold on Thursday that stayed around until yesterday; perfect timing! I do have one question about one of the presents. The tie makes a pretty big claim on the back. It says "The World's Best Missionary Tie." That's a pretty big thing to claim. I was wondering if you had any grounds for that? It's a great tie, I love it. But, the best? . . . . that's just a little bit much.

The Subaru looks great! I'm very excited about that. I also like the little glimpse of the Ginger Van in the background. I'm all out of time, but I hope you all have a wonderful week! Take luck and care.

Love,

Elder Hein

2. Proof that I do eat semi-healthily sometimes.