Week 12 - Nashville, GA

Dear Family,

I had a really busy week!  Elder Hatch and I have been working hard!  I am a little sore from Saturday because we did service all day.  For some reason I guess when a service project comes up in Nashville it gets put on the Elders Quorum, which is basically the missionaries and two other people.  Needless to say that puts a lot more on the missionaries.  So this lady in ward needed help moving into her new house.  After about 5 hours, and a lot of heavy lifting, we finally got it all moved.  So I was really tired at this point, but I guess somehow we got volunteered to help put in another members mail box.  So an hour later we finally got finished.  We barely got home right before some severe thunderstorms came through.  Severe was the right word, because there would be a lightning strike at least every five seconds.

Our investigator is doing better and came to church yesterday.  We did have an awesome miracle happen this week too!  There is a recent convert and she has a daughter.  We have been trying to see the daughter ever since I came into this area because this Sister really desires that her family to be sealed in the temple one day.  One evening this week we ran out of things to do.  I felt inspired that we should go stop the daughter’s house.  So we stopped by and the daughter wasn't there, but her boyfriend was there.  We got talking to him and he told us that it was so weird that we showed up right as we did.  He told us that they were actually talking about coming to our church sometime and he had been looking up on his phone about our faith.  His phone died right before we knocked on the door.  We taught him the first lesson, and he loved it!  We left him with a Book of Mormon and helped him download the Gospel Library.  We stopped by later in the week and he said he read the Pearl of Great Price, Joseph Smith History, and up to chapter ten in 1 Nephi!!  The best part was that he said that he had confirmations that he knew it was true!

The next time we stopped by the daughter was there as well.  She said that she has seen what the gospel has done for her mother in the past year and she wants that glow that her mother has!  It was amazing to be led by the Spirit to see them at the right time!  I know that they will join the church and I hope to be able to see them baptized!  This week has just been awesome!  This Friday we are having a Zone Conference in Macon with Elder Zwick of the Seventy, and I have heard he is really good.  I hope to be able to get someone on a baptismal date this week out of all the people we are working with.  We will see. Thank you all so much!

Love,

Elder Hinrichs

Visiting A Nature Preserve

Gators

Week 11 - Nashville, GA

Dear Family,

I had a great week full of miracles!  Yesterday for example, one of our investigators tried to drop us.  We felt inspired that we needed to see him since he didn't show up to church.  We stopped by and right as we sat down he bluntly said that he didn't want to go to church or meet with us anymore.  My initial instinct was to doctrinally throw down and prove him that he would be a fool to drop us.  But I suppressed that feeling and patiently asked a questions so we could identify the source of the sudden problem.  After a long conversation and finally finding out his reasons, Elder Hatch and I bore simple and plain testimony and strongly stated that this is the only true church.  We felt the spirit strongly testify through us to him as his heart was prompted to change.  We are supposed to meet with him again today, so hopefully we can get him back on track. 

We also got to go fishing with another investigator this week.  He is married to a member and he comes to church, but won't join for some reason.  He has a super nice fishing pond in front of his house, and he invited us to come fishing with him sometime.  So we fished for a little while until it got dark, and of course I caught the most fish.  We put our poles down and just had a really good heart to heart to with him.  He really opened up to us and we committed him to read the Book of Mormon daily.  He said he wants to find the truth and he wants to understand why his wife believes what she does.

I love you all so much!

Love,

Elder Hinrichs

Fishing in Nashville

 

Friendly Dragon Fly

 

Elder Hatch & Elder Hinrichs

Week 10 - Nashville, GA

Dear Family,

Both Elder Hatch and I are staying here in Nashville!!!  Funny thing is that no one in our District got transferred.  Elder Evans went home to Idaho on Sunday, and Sister An is going back to the Temple Square mission.  So this next transfer will be great!  This will be Elder Hatch's last transfer, so we are going to make the most of it!  Elder Hatch and I cover a big area which includes: Nashville, Adel, Ray City, Sparks, Cecil, Lenox, Alapaha, Enigma, and all the wide open space in between.  Both Valdosta Elders cover north and south of Valdosta.  The Sisters cover the YSA Ward.  And the senior couple are military relations and work with all the people on the military base.  Our investigators are doing well.  We mostly did some solid work with less-active members this week.  

Fishing down here is on fire because it is spawning season!  You can literally cast in your line for 10 seconds and have a fish on!  Most of them are small fish but they are loads of fun to catch.  We had dinner with an investigator of ours and we asked him how the fishing was.  He said he had a bad day of fishing and only caught 53 fish!?  He said on a good day you can pull out 200 fish from the river he fishes!  We actually found this less active guy and he has two ponds behind his house and loves fishing, and we have an investigator we are hoping to fish with on Tuesday that is ready for baptism. I am so glad I was called to the South and have the opportunity to multiply my talents!  I am so thankful for the Atonement of the Savior and I know the power it has in people's lives.

I love you all so much!!

Love,

Elder Hinrichs

Week 9 - Nashville, GA

Dear Family,

General Conference was fantastic!  I loved every minute of it!  In almost every talk there was something that a speaker said that would answer a question of mine, or would allow the spirit to touch my heart and answer my questions. Ever since we were challenged by Elder Kopiske to come to all church meetings with at least one question in mind, I have always been trying to do so. Especially for General Conference, I wrote down all of my questions that I had on my mind and all of them were answered!  I have really grown to appreciate the inspired messages that the speakers have so carefully prepared.  I used to not really pay attention to what they said, but now their words are as good as Christmas to me!

We had a really wonderful experience with our investigator during General Conference.  We asked him to prepare some questions, like we had, before hand and let the Lord answer them.  One of his questions was how we are saved by grace.  Right after he told us this, Elder Bednar gave his talk about being saved by grace.  After the session we talked with our investigator and he said that he would like to be re-baptized.  It was awesome!

Another one of our sister investigators came to almost every session.  She asked us after the Saturday afternoon session of conference what she needed to do to be baptized.  Elder Hatch and I have been so happy to see success come from our efforts to share the gospel!  I am looking forward to getting these people prepared to enter the waters of baptism.  I know that they will make it one day, no matter how long it takes.

We are going fishing today at a member’s pond, and it sounds like it is super full of fish!  I love y'all so much!

Love,

Elder Hinrichs

 The Nashville District

 

 

Our neighbors actually have a baby pet squirrel.  I guess they saved it from a tree and it acts like it is domesticated.  They open the door from outside and it will come in the house, and the squirrel will climb up on their shoulders and go to sleep. It was awesome!