Pain in my side - literally!

Snow!

Bonjour! 

This past week was great, but also bizarre. We had a lot of interesting things thrown our way that we did not foresee.  

So Tuesday we went down to Paris to do exchanges with the Assistants in Versailles. Those went pretty well. We did a whole lot of contacting, It seems thats all we do on exchanges with them, but we saw a lot of success. 

Wednesday we were able to surprise Elder Pande for his birthday in Paris. We got him to believe that there was a stranded missionary in a train station in Paris and he needed to go save him. So he got to the station and we were waiting for home with gifts and stuff. It was super fun to see him again. 

Thursday is when things started to get interesting. We were on exchanges with Elder Bytheway and Asato. At about 11 at night i woke up with a massive pain in my right side. I thought it was just food poisoning from the fast food we ate but my body didn't throw up anything. So for two hours i was just in intensive pain. It hurt especially bad when I put pressure on it. The little relief i had was standing in a hot shower. At about 1 in the morning I woke Mansfield up and he stayed awake with me until 6 am when the pain finally was bearable. We were worried for a long time that it was going to be appendicitis, but Manny kept my mind off things with a lot of card games. Friday the pain was still there but it was not as bad as the day before so I just slept all day. As of now we dont really know what it is or what it was. It still hurts a little bit when I put pressure on it. The joke around the zone is that Hein is passing a kidney stone. Haha. I guess we will see. 

Today we got to play handball with some french members. Terrible sport. Honestly so easy. France always wins the World Cup of Handball but if America put together a team of Lebron, Gronk, JJ Watt, Kershaw, and Brady we would win every tournament there is.  Ha Ha!

Primary student.

Primary student.

Have a great week. God Bless

Elder Hein

Driving Range

Bonjour! 

This past week was another good one. I realize I say that every week but I swear it's true. Haha. 

On Tuesday we had exchanges with the elders from Lille. They are great guys. We learned a lot from them. It's always great to learn from other missionaries experiences and perspectives. 

In the Trap!!

Wednesday we celebrated the birthday of one of our investigators at his apartment. His name is Thomas and he is practically a member. He and his girlfriend, Lula, are super solid. The only reason they are not baptized is because they are waiting for their marriage next year. Thomas turned 25 this year. We spent the evening with them eating cake. 

Thursday we had to attend the district meetings of Calais and Lille. Needless to say we spent a lot of times on trains. The day went really well though. 

This next story needs some back-history. Elder Mansfield made us promise to try and train for a half marathon that we will run at the end of the transfer. Everyone in the apartment hates running besides him but somehow he coaxed us into it. So for the past 3 weeks I have been dying every morning. On Friday morning he told us we were going to run 6 miles round trip to a castle. We believed him and starting running. Wrong decision. Turns out it was something like 7.5 miles in the pitch black, in the freezing cold rain. Terrible. I survived though and we are doing it again tomorrow so pray for me please. Haha. 

Saturday we got to teach one of the Malagasy recent converts, Amina. Seeing as how we don't speak Malagasy and that is the only thing she speaks, we set her up with the APs in the Madagascar mission. They were so happy to meet another Elder Hein, younger brother of the legend. They were talking about how they still watch our family DVD on Sundays because of something Jessey created called "Trunky Sundays". It's good to know that Jessey left an incredible legacy in that mission. Haha. 

Sunday was alright, but Monday was so sick. We found a golf course near our apartment and decided to go hit balls on the range. I thought it was going to be really expensive but it turned out to be not bad at all. It was sooooooo much fun. It brought back the good memories I had at Ridgeview and Waters Creek. And just for the record I haven't lost my touch, if anything I have gotten better. Haha. Watch out Grandpa Lyman. I am coming for ya.
Well have a great week. God Bless!

Elder Hein

Sleepy Companion

Train Rides with Amiens

New P-Day Rules

Bonjour! This past week was another busy one. We actually only got to spend a few days in Amiens. 

Biggest Cathedrale in France

It started off on Thursday when we had to go to Lille to buy all the food for Zone Conference the next day. We decided to do baguette sandwiches. I have never bought so much meat and cheese in my life. Haha. The good news is we got all the leftovers so grocery shopping is going to be cheap for the next couple of weeks. We slept over that night in Arras and then went back to Lille in the morning for Zone Conference. It went really well. It was all about the new missionary schedule and stuff. Ill save the details (you can find those on Mormon newsroom), but the big news is pday starts at 8, lunches are now only 30 minutes, and studies can be moved around during the day. They are trying to give us more freedom to follow the spirit in our missionary work. Risky, but it might just work. Haha. 

Saturday was spent in Arras helping the members do a less active finding day. That went really well. I got to meet some pretty cool members.

 

One of the brighter spots of the week was with a man named Jefferson. He speaks Portuguese and a little bit of French. His mother, who is not a member, translates for him during appointments. He use to be a missionary for his church and is super knowledgeable in the Bible and was having a hard time understanding authority. Elder Manny and I planned the most incredible plan of salvation lesson for him and then pulled it off. After about an hour and a half in the appointment of battling it out over the Bible, and lots of intense work from the Holy Ghost, he decided he wanted to get baptized. We are going to be fasting with him to choose an exact date soon. It was honestly one of the most spiritual lessons I had. 

Oh yeah we also went ice skating for pday. That was super fun and I am getting pretty good. Can someone call the Stars and tell them I will be suiting up next year?

That's all for now folks. Have a terrific week. God Bless.

Elder Hein

First week in Amiens

ZLs and DLs of the Zone at a meeting

Bonjour! Well I am officially out of Paris and in a city called Amiens.

I was a little worried to be leaving Paris because of the great times that I had with Pande but things have been really solid in Amiens.

To start off, the branch is absolutely incredible. It is for sure the strongest unity I have seen in France/Belgium. There are a lot of really solid families that love to do missionary work. The back story is that about 2 years ago the branch was really struggling, so in response, President took the ZLs out of Lille and put them in Amiens. Since then the work just took off. 15 baptisms in the past 2 years and we not done yet. We are only 2 Melchizedek Priesthood holders short of becoming a Ward. This past Sunday was the first Sunday I really felt at home since I have arrive in Europe. It was such a terrific feeling.

Oh yeah I went to Five Guys this past week. It was super goooood.

The other upside is that the work is still progressing really well. We have 2 baptismal dates and 6 progressing investigators. Yesterday we had all 6 of them at church! Garoux and Irene are our two dates. They are a couple from the Congo with a 18 month old son. Irene will be giving birth in early February to another child. Garoux will get baptized on the 4th of February and Irene will wait till the end of March when everything is settled after giving birth. I have already been able to see them three times and they are incredibly solid.

With all that being said there are definitely still some downsides. Firstly, I miss the business of Paris. Contacting in small Amiens reminds me of Charleville. We got about one road and that’s all we do. Haha. Secondly, it was really tough to say goodbye to Pande. He was such an amazing companion and friend. Good news is my new companion is

super cool as well. His name is Elder Mansfield. He is from Idaho.

Lastly, the zone is not doing as well as it could be. I am ready to make the change. Our slogan for this transfer is "Make the Lille Zone Great Again". Haha

All in all the change wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I am happy where I am and love the challenges that lie ahead. I love the work, and I love God. I hope that is the case for all of us.

Thanks for the love and support. Have a good week. God Bless

Elder Hein

P.S. SLC has dropped some new rules in regards to the missionary
schedule. I will update yall next week when it becomes official but
lets just say I will have a lot more time on P Day.

Zone Slogan and Picture

I've been transferred!

Bonjour! 

This is the Paris District, our numbers show how many transfers we have experienced.

Well I will just drop the bomb right off the bat, I am getting transferred to Amiens. Amiens is a relatively big city one hour north of paris. The work in the city is apparently doing really good. So I am exited for that. I will also be the zone leader of the Lille zone. The zone includes cities like St Omer, Calais, Lille, Arras, St Quentin, etc.  It should be lots of fun. I am very sad to be leaving Paris but at the end of the day Amiens will be a blast. My new companion is Elder Mansfield. I have served around him for a good part of my mission so we will get along pretty well. He is from Idaho and he is a Stars fan! Should be fun. 

Other than that our week went really well. On Wednesday we threw a surprise birthday party for one of the members. We had all the missionaries in Paris show up to a Chinese buffet. The member was really surprised and happy. He is a recent convert who just loves working with missionaries, so it was good opportunity to thank him for what he does. 

On Thursday we went to city called le Havre with 8 other missionaries. Honestly it was a really crappy day. It was just down pouring rain the whole time and we were just outside contacting for 4 hours. I was soaked and freezing cold. It was still fun to be with all the other missionaries and try to talk to people in the street. Additionally there was a moment during the day where I slid and fell hard on my butt. I got a video of it so hopefully yall will be able to watch it. 

Saturday we had this missionary training thing we did with prospective missionaries in France, Switzerland, and Belgium. They all came to our chapel in Paris for a day and we got to practice teach with them. It was a lot of fun. My companion for the day was Elder Nagloo and we would make it difficult for the future missionaries when they were trying to teach us. We tried to make it as realistic as possible. Haha. 

I got to meet a couple young adults from Geneva who knew the Allenbachs and Lehmanns (my family from my mom's side). That was really cool. Its a small world in the church. 

Well thats all I got for this week. Ill be heading off to the 6th city of my mission this week. I guess I am just the rag doll of the mission. Haha. It will be a lot of fun. Missionary work is always fun. Love yall. God Bless

Elder Hein

Found my companion!

Elder Pande and I at Versailles

Bonjour! 

I hope everyone is doing well like always. I heard the Cowboys will be playing the packers this weekend so I imagine that everyone is on edge. Heck, I am nervous for the game and I am across the Atlantic. Haha. 

The missionary work has been going well here. We did a lot of moving around last week. We went to a city called Cherbourg on Thursday. Cherbourg is a coastal city 3 hours away from Paris by train. It is pretty small but it was super fun to see the ocean for the first time in a while. We spent a terrific day with 6 other missionaries finding for the elders that work there. We were able to see a lot of success. We also went to Rouen to give a baptismal interview on Saturday, and then to Versailles to do the same thing later in the day. 

As far as the work in our sector, its going well. Bridgette and her kids (Maurice's family) are really close to all accepting baptismal dates. We had an appointment with them over the weekend and they also came to church. They are really fun to be around. I have never met someone from the Congo who wasn't fun to be around. Haha. Nothing really notable from any of our other investigators. One guy read all the way to Alma between our first and second appointments but he wasn't super interested, so we will see if we can spark a flame in him. 

Elder Pande and I got separated for a little bit in the busiest metro stop in Paris. It was pretty funny and frightening at the same time. I was in front of him and I had passed through the entrance gates and walked to the train we were taking. I turn around after walking for a good minute and he isnt there. Haha. So I ran up the escalator looking for him in a huge crowd of people. It took a good 10 minutes before we found each other again. He said that he passed through the entrance and all of a sudden I disappeared into a crowd of people. Haha. The funniest part is that he ended up running into members from Utah when he wasn't with his companion. Im sure they were really confused. Haha.

 

Well thats all I have for this week. I am happy and I feel great (and I found my companion). Have a good week. God bless and Go Cowboys

Elder Hein

Work is picking up!!

Bonjour! 

This week went by fast and the work has started to explode. Elder Pande and I have started to find some really cool people. 

We have one member in the ward named Maurice who invited us to teach his family. They come from Congo and there are 5 kids all above the age of 8! It's so perfect. We went and taught them on Tuesday night and it went really well. Another cool person we found is Clovis. He hails from Congo as well. We got to teach him once this week and things seem to progressing very well. One of our new investigators is named frank. He is a film director and photographer of fashion. He was really interested in our message so we hope to see him again. 

New Year's Eve went well. There was a Muslim man on a metro yelling at everybody saying that he was going to kill us all. It was pretty crazy but at the next stop some police ran on and destroyed the dude. It was nuts. 

That evening was spent with an investigator named Marie. She is like 80 years old and her husband was the chief financial dude for France when Charles de Gaulle was the president. It was cool to hear stories about that time. 

On Pday we went to the Rolland Garos tennis courts (French Open). They were all closed but we got to see a little of the famous red clay. Afterward we saw the PSG stadium. To be quite honest it is really ugly and boring from the outside. I was expecting something a lot cooler but nevertheless we had a good time. 

Have a terrific week! God Bless Go Cowboys!

Elder Hein

The PSG Stadium (that's Elder Jackson, he is 7'3", he plays bocci ball for Collin County Community College)