Bonjour (for the last time)!

Bonjour (for the last time)! 

Honestly this past week was a blur. It was a lot of goodbyes, packing, and contacting. Probably the coolest part of the week was when the last door I ever knocked on became the only person to ever let me in during two years. It was Friday afternoon, we were busting out the last door to door stuff of my mission, and the last door we knocked on let us in. Her name is Irene. She was really interested in our message and what we do as missionaries. It's unfortunate that I will never be able to teach her again, but what a blessing it was to have the last door be the first success. Knocking through the nos to get to the yes. Haha. 

It was hard saying goodbye to he members in Colmar. They held a giant Italian meal for me on the last day in Colmar. That branch was probably the closest I have been to any other unit before. It was a family. 

Well today was spent in Strasbourg with the district doing a Segway tour of the city followed by a planetarium and observatory visit, and finished off with a fancy french meal. The best pday of my mission. Haha. It was super fun. 

Well I guess this it. Two years are gone and I've grown a whole ton. I will be forever grateful for the experiences I had and the people I met. God loves us all. He has a plan for us. Trust Him, be patient and things will be alright. 

I know Jesus is our Savior. I love Him. 

Thank you for your love, support, and letters. I will see y'all soon! 

Have a good week. God Bless

Elder Hein

Last P-Day Segway Tour

Elder Nagloo at the first of our missions

Elder Nagloo at the end of our missions

Week before my last week

Bonjour! 

I'm going to keep this one short because, well I'm home in 10 days, but it was a great week. 

On Wednesday one of members needed help at his work so we got to help him out. He works in construction putting up insulation dry wall. He was running behind on some of his homes so he put us to work. We worked on an attic room on the sides where the ceiling hits the floor at a 30 degree angle. We had to squeeze dry wall in those spots, hold it in place, and drill it in. It was tough, but I learned a lot more about dry wall. To thank us the member invited us over to eat twice during the week. We spent some great evenings at their place. 

Friday we had exchanges with the St Die Elders. They came into Colmar with their car so we put it to use. We went and knocked on doors in a neighborhood that's too far for us normally called Kaysersberg. It actually just got voted prettiest city in France, so we got to kill two birds with one stone. 

On pday we went to a falconry, which was so cool. We got to see falcons, eagles, vultures, hawks, and owls flying around us. It was great. Afterwards we went to a castle called Haut-Koenigsbourg. It's the most known castle in Alsace because it is perched on top of the mountains looking over the region. The Beauty and the beast castle was also loosely based off it as well. 

The work in Colmar is going well. It was a lot of finding this week with not much success. The first weeks in August are always the worst in France so we are just trying to endure it well. We got to see Daniel this week again. It's been like 4 weeks so we were worried he would be disinterested but he was engaged well in the lesson. 

Have a great week. God Bless

Elder Hein

Members home playing some weird pig game

Falconry

Castle

Castle

Two Weeks Left

THIS BLOG WAS POSTED LATE - IT WAS SENT ON 8/1/17 BUT POSTED ON 8/6/17

Bonjour! Wow. Two weeks left. This past week flew by. For the first time since arriving in Colmar we actually had quite a few investigator appointments set up. Unfortunately a lot of them fell through but we were still able to meet some cool people. 

One of the newer investigator's name is Marie. We met her outside of the train station a few week ago and were finally able to meet with her last week. She has incredible faith for being a 20 year old in France. She seemed pretty stuck in her evangelical ways, but was open to the Book of Mormon so we will see how that goes. 

Memid is doing solid like always. 

We are really going to try to make the push to get him to church this week. Thierry can't meet with us till September so I won't be able to meet with him again unfortunately, but I still got faith that he will get baptized sometime in the near future. That guy is incredible, just always busy with work. 

My Family from Switzerland and Idaho

On Sunday a lot of my family came and visited from Switzerland, and even from Idaho! It was a lot of fun. They came to church, which nearly doubled the size of the branch and then we picnicked afterwards. It was a whole lot of fun. I was able to speak to them in french which was an incredible experience. Last time they heard my french it was my terrible French 4 school french, so it was fun to have the ability to say a little more than bonjour. 

Monday was spent in St Die doing district meeting and hiking this mountain that looks over the St Die valley. I've never been a huge fan of hiking but the view was pretty amazing. 

Have a good week. God Bless

Elder Hein

Hike to look over the St. Die Valley

Overlooking St. Die Valley

Five Guys

Bonjour! 

Elder Silva and Five Guys

Tuesday was a good solid work day finished off by a Strasbourg District Meeting. We actually were able to meet two new investigators that day who seemed really interested. 

Wednesday was nothing too special. We got fed by my favorite family in the branch in the evening but for the rest of the day it was good ole fashion finding. 

Thursday we taught Memid and then headed into Paris for Elder Pixtons legality. When missionaries hit their one year mark they head into Paris to renew their visas. The cool part about that is we stayed in the Paris apartment for the night. I got to relive some memories and hang out with Elder Silva again for an entire evening. It will probably be he last time I see him before I leave. We had a really good time catching up on the last year of our missions. 

Friday was spent in governmental buildings of France, on trains, and in Five Guys. It was a fantastic. 

Saturday we held a finding day for the district in Colmar. It went well even though we didn't find anyone. We went out to a surrounding city named Ribeauvillé which is the city that inspired the setting for the Disney movie Beauty and the Beast. The goal was to knock on every door in the entire city in two hours. We almost achieved the goal but arrived short at only 250 doors. On a side note, the village is one of the most beautiful cities I have ever seen. 

Sunday was solid. I had to teach priesthood and the lesson was on raising children. I don't know why I was in charge of that lesson seeing as how I have never raised a child but it turned out ok nevertheless. You just get the members talking and time passes quick. Haha. 

Have a good week. God Bless

Elder Hein

Paris

Vineyards in Alsace

Ribeauville

Love the Colmar Members!

Gerardmer

Bonjour! 

Tuesday we went to St Die for exchanges with the District Leader. St Die is a beautiful a town but it is just tiny and terrible for missionary work. I believe that you can find people anywhere, it's just harder in certain places and St Die is one of those places. Haha. We spent a lot of the day finding but we went up to this city called Gerardmer in the evening and wow that is an incredible city. It's got this giant lake in the town that has mountains (large hills) falling into it. I'll attach some pictures. 

Wednesday was my birthday. I'm no longer a teenager. Thursday we had Zone Conference with the new mission president. He came down hard with a lot of new rules and stuff to straighten us out. He is a super personable man though so it was taken well by he majority of the missionaries. I had my last interview as well. I told him things he needs to do and then he told me what I need to do when I go home. It was an interesting moment because afterwards I just kind of felt like it was over. Just one of those moments when it hits you that you are going home soon. Don't get me wrong, I'm still chugging along but it's becoming more and more real everyday. 

Friday was the national holiday for France so we had giant BBQ with the branch at the church! We had a lot of success, we even got a new investigator from it. 

Saturday was spent in a city called Munster doing door to door stuff. It's a smaller city in our sector but here are still quite a few people that live there so we decided to check it out for a day. No success but we had a ton of fun. 

Sunday was a good Sunday. One of the children in the branch got baptized so a lot of the day was spent at that event, and the rest was spent planning. 

We got fed 3 times this past week by members! Our connections with them are just growing deeper and deeper. I've never felt this involved with a unity since Brussels. It's just great when it is such a team effort and everyone is involved even if you aren't seeing success. 

Have a great week. God Bless

Elder Hein

Munster

Random things you find going door to door.

Summer of the Monkeys

Bonjour! 

We hit the ground running this week with a mini Zone Conference in Nancy on Tuesday to meet the new mission president, President Sorensen. The conference went well. It's a definite change of pace from President Babin but he will do well here. It's funny to see how much new missionary fire he has. He expressed to us his high expectations centered on member missionary relations and the use of Preach Gospel. It was a lot of idealistic thinking and a little less on the pragmatic side of things, but that's to be expected of any new missionary. 

Wednesday and Thursday was spent on nothing but finding efforts. It's definitely the grind but I love it. Elder Pixton and I were able to celebrate the fourth together with hot dogs, Doritos, and Coke. It was a great evening. Friday we got to head up to Strasbourg for District Meeting, and a doctors appointment for my companion. Elder Pixton has had this ingrown toenail for 9 months now and I finally got him to set up an appointment with a doctor. Turns out the doctor is actually the foot doctor for the Strasbourg soccer team. Apparently they get their feet checked every two weeks by him. Anyways, he was able to successfully complete his procedure and Pixton is now pain free. 

We spent the night in Strasbourg because we had to travel the next day to Nancy for a Zone finding day. The finding day was pretty successful. I got to see my MTC teacher! It was fun reliving memories from almost 2 years ago and what made it even better was the fact my MTC companion, Elder Nagloo, was there as well. 

Sunday was a normal Sunday but Pday was incredible. We went to this place called Monkey Mountain. On this mountain there are 150 free roaming Barbary Macaques that you feed with popcorn that they give you at the entrance. It was phenomenal. I've never been so close to monkeys.  

Have a great week! God Bless

Elder Hein

4th of July

New Mission President and Zone

Monkeying around with Nagloo and Conant

Water Leak

Bonjour! 

Another week has come and gone. Tuesday through Thursday was nothing but contacting and door to door stuff. We actually had one appointment with Memid. I don't know if I've already explained who he is but if not he is an immigrant of 50 years of what use to be Yugoslavia. We have seen him already 5 times since we arrived in Colmar. He believes strongly in the apostasy and during this last lesson he accepted the Book of Mormon to be true as well as Joseph Smith being a prophet. That was pretty cool. I'm a little worried to see how he will fit into the branch. He has some rough edges and I hope no one judges him too harshly off the bat. He is a really nice dude. The finding efforts were ok. 

The closer we get to summer vacation for the frenchies the rougher it is. Colmar citizens leave Colmar on vacation and tourist come to replace them. It's tough. This upcoming week is the last week of school and then it will be just crazy. We are trying to take advantage of the last normal week. 

To preface this next story we have had a leak coming from the tank of our toilet for the past two weeks. It started off relatively slow but recently it had been pumping out a liter every hour. We have been doing our best to catch it all with bowls and towels but because we are gone so frequently it's been getting pretty bad. Haha. We called the senior couples to help us fix it and they were in the process of getting us a plumber. Thursday night though we get a knock on the door at 10:40 from a disheveled neighbor who has water dripping into his garage on the first floor. We live on the fourth. We quickly put two and two together and he told us to shut our water off immediately until we can get a plumber. That evening, in preparation for the worst we filled up anything that could hold water and through it in the fridge. Haha. 

Friday was a hectic day in the apartment. We had to get a hold of plumbers, neighbors, and office couples to fix the mess all while finding creative ways to relieve ourselves. It was fun. By the end of the day we were able to get it fixed and we headed off to Strasbourg for District Meeting and a crepe party. 

Saturday and Sunday were just your average missionary days. We were able to have an appointment with a Sudanese investigator, Daniel, on Sunday that went relatively well. We are worried the communication barrier is causing a bigger problem than we think, seeing as how his main language is Arabic. 

My companion worked at Jamba Juice for a year and a half before the mission so he has been whipping up some milkshakes and smoothies all week. It's been incredible. 

Have a great week. God Bless

Elder Hein