1/27/2014

Elder Hein at Big Ben next to an iconic London phone booth

Dear Family,

My days!  Dad has my permission to use my shot gun if any boys come around looking for Catherine.  She's become far too pretty.  You need to get her involved in Hockey or something.  I'm glad you had an enjoyable week.  Sometimes uneventful weeks are the best kind.  I'm looking forward to those after my mission.  Every week here is an eventful week.

This week was really good.  We had band practice on Monday and then took a nice stroll through Hyde Park with a big group of missionaries.  It was really nice.  It was probably the most relaxing thing I've done for quite some time now.  Everything has just been full speed ahead here in Hatfield, it was nice to slow down and just walk through a park with some friends.  The smaller version of the band is going really well.  It's a lot easier to get things done, but we're all friends, so it's also very easy to get way off topic.  Our next performance is in February.  We're adding quite a few new songs into our repertoire.  It's going to be a lot of fun.  It was sure a lot more convenient when I lived in London.  We have to take a train in every week.  It cuts back on the amount of time we have to do other P-Day things.  It's always fun to be back in London, though. I took Elder Hart to Big Ben for the first time today.

Wednesday was another noteworthy day.  We had a big leadership conference in Hyde Park for all of the District Leaders, Zone Leaders, and Sister Trainer Leaders.  It was a lot of fun.  What made it a great day though, is that all of the companions of the district leaders in my Zone were working with Elder Hart in Hatfield!  It was great.  The worst part about meetings is that I always worry about all of the work that I could be doing in my area instead of being there.  This meeting was complete bliss.  I got to just focus on the trainings and came back to 8 lessons having been taught.  It doesn't get better than that.

On Thursday we realized that we hadn't received any new referrals yet during the week, so we decided to change that.  We were asking everybody all day, but didn't anything out of it.  In the evening we decided to stop by at the new home of one of our investigators.  When we got there he wasn't in, but one of his roommates who we had taught in the past was there.  We asked him if he had a minute that we could come in and talk, but he said he was busy so we asked if he knew anybody else that would be interested in our message.  He said, "the only people who come to mind are already really religious.  They probably wouldn't be interested."  I told him that you never know if they might be open to learning something new, to which he agreed and ended up giving us 4 referrals!  We went off to contact them, who all lived in the same home, and when we got there one of them answered the door.  He assured us that he wasn't interested in our message and that nobody else living there would be either.  We gave him a card with our number on it and asked him to give it to the room mate who wasn't home at the time and he said he would.  We then asked him if he knew anybody else that might be interested.  Originally he said he didn't, but I pushed a little harder and ended up with two more referrals that we immediately went to contact.  They had a baby last week and said they were busy, but would love to hear our message about family sometime next week.  We got their phone numbers and we're seeing them later this week.  The next day, we got a text from an unknown number that said this, "Hi, I am Niketa.  I have got your contact details from a card which was left at my door and I strongly believe that Jesus must have come to my door to tell me that 'my child it's a time you should fulfil your life's main aim for which you took human body'.  Can you please help me?"  We texted her back and we're seeing her tomorrow evening.  It was probably the most fruitful referral trail I have ever followed.  I'm very excited to see these people this week and I'm so glad I didn't just take no for an answer.  Everybody knows someone who might be interested.  You just have to get it out of them.

Investigator update:

There's some sad news this week is about Daniel and Jude.  It came out this week that they're in their current church's band, and the week they came to church with us really threw their whole service off because they didn't have anyone playing the keyboard or drums.  They said they aren't going to just drop all of their commitments at their current church yet.  We need to get them a more firm testimony of the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith.  If we can secure that, it'll give them a reason to give the other things up.  They said they're still open for baptism if they come to know it's true.  They just feel like they need more time.  Hopefully I'll still be around when they make the commitment.

Michael and Emanuel came to church again this week.  Michael is very open to the church and he loves bringing his son to a place where they teach him about the Bible.  He loves the Bible.  He doesn't go more than a couple of lines without quoting something from it.  The good news is that he also loves the Book of Mormon and believes that Joseph Smith was a prophet.  He wants to get baptized, but unfortunately is living with Emanuel's mother and they're not married.  He's not technically even breaking any commandments.  They just live in the same house for the sake of the child.  It's a tough situation.  We're calling President Jordan about it tonight.  Hopefully he'll have a better idea of how to move forward than I do.

Malachi is a new investigator this last week. He's 8.  He comes to church with a family in the ward.  His mother was investigating the church several years ago, but decided it just wasn't for her.  She doesn't believe in God, but she thinks that if her son does, it might be a good thing for him.  As long as it's something he wants to be a part of, she'll let him.  The problem is that she doesn't want to be present when we teach him, and she definitely isn't the support he needs to be successful in living the gospel.  She said it's like Football.  If her son wants to play football she'll take him to the practices and games and such even if she hates football.  The gospel requires a little bit more than that.  We need to assess whether she'll help him come even when he doesn't necessarily want to or not.  He wants to be baptized and I just don't want to set him up for failure.  It's a tough situation.  Obviously we can't withhold baptism from someone over 8 years old because of their parent’s problems, but it is a legitimate concern.  We're also going to talk with President about him.

That's all for this week!  Next week is the end of the transfer, so P-Day will be on Tuesday.  Don't fret when my email doesn't come on Monday.  Have a wonderful week!

Love,

Elder Hein

p.s. The mission office is the best place to send things, especially with transfers being right around the corner.  I go there every week for band practice.  Did you ever send those books?