3/18/2014

1.  Waiting at a member’s home to teach a lesson with them.  I was confirming appointments and Elder Hart was studying.

Dear Family,

I guess I'll start with the transfer news first this time.  After spending three months in the blessed land of Hatfield with Elder Hart we are going our separate ways.  Elder Hart is going up to Northampton and I'll be staying right here in Hatfield.  My new companion is . . . . . . . still in the MTC until I meet him on Wednesday.  I'm training again!  I'm going to miss Elder Hart a lot.  We got along really well.  He's basically the same person as Josh Brown but without the acting.  Our time together has been a lot of fun.  It's been nice to have a companion who knows what they're doing (nothing negative towards Elder Duncan, Gregson, or Nolan.  They were all great too, just not as experienced), but I guess there's still something I need to learn from training again.  It will be sad to say goodbye Wednesday morning, but it will be exciting as well to meet the new missionary.  On the phone it made it seem as though President Jordan had already decided who my companion was going to be.  He also told me that it was a sign of trust that I'm training for a third time.  I guess not that many people do that?  Not really too sure.  I'm excited though.  It'll be fun.  Sister Pope is staying in St. Albans and so is Elder Hutchins.  I just can't seem to get rid of these missionaries I knew back home, haha.  Not that I would ever want to.

This week was a really good one.  The highlight would be the teaching of two new families!  One of them on Monday and the other on Sunday.  I'll start with the first.  2 weeks ago we were walking from one appointment to another and we took a different street than I've ever taken before.  I didn't even actually know where it went, I just decided to walk down it.  As we were walking past one of the homes we saw the word "family" painted on a kitchen wall through a window.  We decided it would be a good door to knock on.  We did, and we set an appointment to see them this last Monday. We taught them about the Book of Mormon and they were very interested to learn more, so we're going back tonight to teach them the first lesson.  They're a young family with three kids all under the age of 6.  I'm very excited to see where it goes.  The mother was brought up Baptist and the father is very agnostic.  They really want to learn about the gospel though.  Hopefully I'll have more good news on them next week.

The second family we met on Sunday.  An appointment with a bunch of African students fell through so we decided to contact one of our neighbours we met a few days earlier.  We buzzed their flat, and nobody answered.  So we buzzed their next door neighbours and a lovely Ghanaian lady answered and asked who it was.  We said we're missionaries, and she said "well come in!"  (just so you know, that doesn't happen here . . . . like ever)  We came in and found her and her  husband and 3 children, one of which being only 2 weeks old and incredibly adorable, eating their dinner.  We had a nice little chat with them and are going back to teach them on Friday evening.  We promised the kids we'd bring a game for them.  Families are a miracle.

There's one more story I'd like to share this week that really illustrates the fact that the Lord prepares people for us to teach.  Every morning we pray that we will be led to those who are ready to accept the gospel, and every once in a while we follow the right prompting and find one.  Yesterday we were doing some street contacting on one of our favorite student filled streets and I stopped a man on his way to a lecture.  I asked him what he thought was the most important thing in life, and he responded "finding peace of mind."  I then asked him what he has done to find that, and he responded that he was still trying to achieve it.  He was born Muslim but has looked into many of the world’s religions trying to find one that makes sense.  His main problems with them all is that the word of God seems to be subject to man's changing to meet their own desires, people try to speak for God having no authority to do so, and the fact that both Christianity and Islam have someone they regard as a final prophet, but he feels that God would continue to call prophets just as he always has to guide the people and keep the doctrines pure.  I shared a brief summary of the restoration with him and set the easiest appointment of my life for this coming Saturday.  This is the Lord's work.  He is preparing people and we are left to do the harvest.  It's a beautiful thing.

This week I gave the Fufu another chance.  It went so much better!  Any African would have been pleased to eat my Fufu.  The soup is still a work in progress . . . but the Fufu was great!  I'll attach a picture of this week's African meal.  It consisted of the Fufu, a fish soup, a roll, a malt drink, and a full stomach.  I actually ate the whole thing this time, so that's a sure sign of progress.

Well, that's about it for the weekly report.  I hope you all have a fantastic week.  I look forward to telling you all about my new companion next week.  I'm sure he'll be a great man.

Love,

Elder Hein

Pictures:

2. The African Meal

3.  A door we didn't knock on