French Toast and Zone Conference

From left to right: Thomas, me, Fanja, Elder Mansfield, and Lula

Bonjour! 

Sorry I did not write on Monday! We had Interviews on Monday and then zone conference on Tuesday. So, we decided to take pday on Wednesday. It's been a good 10 days though. It was tough saying goodbye to some of the members in Amiens but I've become a pro at it after doing it 6 times already. Haha. 

Wednesday we moved into the Lille apartment and boy was it a mess. We have already put so many hours into cleaning it up. It's just terrible. Don't get me wrong, I love a messy room, but this apartment hit a whole new level. Haha. Thursday was filled with planning for the Zone and then we went to a meeting with the ward mission leader to learn about our new sector. The work has been moving along pretty well here. They had a baptismal date with a guy named Maxime and they also have another who is close to a date, Cristo. Cristo made it to church this week and we were able to see maxime on Sunday after church. He is a pretty cool 20 year old french kid. He is actually a referral from the church website. 

Friday we went into Paris for most of the day for mission Council. I got to see some familiar faces, Pande, Silva, Nagloo, Lamothe, and many more. It was really fun. I don't know if I mentioned this last week but Elder Silva, my son from Charleville, replaced Pande in Paris as zone leader. I'm a proud father. Haha. Saturday we played soccer in the morning with a bunch of members and investigators. The rest of the day was more meetings and then a ward cooking activity. 

Oh update on a situation from a few weeks ago: so remember the time Mansfield and I played against some people in futsal and got wrecked? Well we later learned that that was a team that competes on a national level in france. Haha. No wonder we lost so hard. Haha.

Easter Sunday went well. We had church and then got invited to eat at an American members home with 10 other ward members. It was a lot of fun. I even got to drink root beer and eat ritz crackers! 

Monday we had Interviews with president Babin and then we set up and cooked for Zone Conference the next day. We made/bought french toast, biscuits and gravy, scrambled eggs, cereal, fruits, and juice. It was a huge success but took a lot of time in the kitchen. 

Tuesday was Zone Conference and it was really focused on the consecration of ourselves in line with the fact the temple in Paris will be consecrated soon. Sacrifice is what helps us pass from something good to something better and then from something better to something "best". 

Have a terrific week. God Bless and Go Jazz

Elder Hein

Zone Conference

Jefferson

Amiens Branch

Moving to Lille!

Last primary lessons with these clowns!!  Love them!

Bonjour. 

So I will just start with the exciting news first, Elder Mansfield and I are being transferred to LILLE! The mission realized that it didn't make sense to have zone leaders in Amiens for multiple reasons, so they decided to keep us together for a third transfer and move us to a more central location. I am super excited to be moving to Lille. It's a big city, the members are cool, and I get to be with Elder Mansfield for another transfer. It will be sad to leave Amiens though. The members and investigators have been incredibly kind to us and it feels like leaving a family. 

This past week was super busy like always. Tuesday and Wednesday was filled with a ton of rdvs so that we could leave Thursday, Friday, and Saturday open for different cities. We were able to see Djamal on Tuesday. He is doing incredibly well. I was able to teach the restoration again to him and he gets it. The church has Conference translated in Arab already so he was super excited to hear Thomas S Monson speak. It was a really cool appointment. Thursday we were in Arras, Friday St Omer, and Saturday Lille for finding Days. They all went really well. Saturday evening we had a farewell dinner at Thomas and Lula's place, and on Sunday we packed all day. 

All in all it was a great week with lots of blessings scattered throughout. Have a wonderful week. God Bless

Elder Hein

Candid picture of the 4 Amiens Elders

Fanta and her cool car

District Photo

A little B-Ball, Finding and Conference

Bonjour! 

I'm going to start with one of the fun parts of the week. On Wednesday we got invited by one of the young adults to come play basketball with his non member friends. We cleared up some room in our schedule and headed down to the local street courts. It was fun!!  One of them had the ugliest bank shot I have ever seen from the 3 point line but he never missed. I played really well myself.  I don't know if that is just how it is when you play basketball as a missionary, or if the rims in France are bigger, but I was on fire. They couldn't handle me - Ha Ha.  

The rest of the week was great. We got to have dinner at two members homes and found ourselves in Valenciennes and Calais for finding Days. On Friday we had 11 missionaries in Amiens to contact for 4 hours. We got 13 new investigators and 28 other potentials. It was a lot fun. There is just an indescribable feeling you get contacting in the same town square with 10 other missionaries. It's really fun. 

Sunday we watched 3 sessions of general conference at the church. All 4 of us missionaries brought our comforters and lots of snacks to the church for a long day full of inspiring talks. I really enjoyed Elder Choi's talk (and the sour cream and onion pringles). It was a great day. 

That's all I got for this week. Have a good week. God Bless

Elder Hein

Finding New People.......

Bonjour! 

So Tuesday we were in Paris on exchanges with the assistants. I got to teach a lady from Haiti who spoke creole and limited french. That was an interesting experience and she is totally interested in baptism. 

On Wednesday we had the Calais elders come in to Amiens for exchanges. Since this was our only day in the sector we had to see all our investigators, recent converts, and less actives. It was a busy day. Djamal is doing excellent. He is just blowing through the Book of Mormon, Bible, and any pamphlets we give him. He now understands the importance of Jesus and we are slowly moving into the restoration with him. We discussed apostasy and he asked who the next prophet is. He is just one of those investigators who gets it. I love investigators like that. Once his English and French improves baptism will happen shortly thereafter. Other than him we are working through new investigators. We get anywhere from 4 to 6 a week, most of them don't stay around, but just like anything in life missionary work is a process. 

Thursday we were in Dunkirk, Friday we were in Lille, and Saturday we were in St Quentin. We did these things called Finding Days where, put simply, we find all day with an entire district in one city. It's tiring but rewarding. After having a week of 24 new investigators in the zone we pulled in 54 new investigators this past week. Out of 7 zones in the mission, our zone accounted for approximately 30% of the new investigators found. We were really happy. 

The only other big news is when we were in Lille we found a restaurant that sells pizza in a cone. Yeah, PIZZA IN A CONE. Genius. So we for sure tried it and it was pretty good. Nothing life changing but not half bad. 

Thanks for reading. Have a good week. God Bless

Elder Hein

St. Quentin

Top of Cathedral

Busy as usual

Bonjour! 

This past week was another one for the books as we managed to cram in 4 different exchanges. It started off on Tuesday with an exchange in Calais with the Elder there. It went very well. Elder Christensen and I were together all day. We taught one of there investigators in a small town outside of Calais. This lady lives in home that the only way I could describe it is a larger Barbie doll house. Her house is literally painted pink. Haha. The lesson went really well though. She has already read some in the Book of Mormon and she told us that she believes Joseph Smith is a prophet of God. It was pretty cool. The rest of the day was spent going door to door in a rainy, ugly day in Calais. 

Wednesday was a pretty normal day in our sector. We had a bunch of administrative stuff to do so we took some time to do that, but we were also able to get 5 new investigators. 

Thursday we had exchanges with elders from Villeneuve Dasq in Amiens. I got preached at by one of our Nigerian recent converts, who use to be a preacher in an evangelical church, for 1.5 hours. It was an exhilarating experiences. There were lots of hallelujahs thrown around. 

Friday we had exchanges with the other Amiens companionship and then Saturday Elder Mansfield and Elder Shenkal got sick so Brotherson and I got to do another exchange together. It was a pretty full week but not like the one to come. Paris, Dunkerque, V Dasq, and St Quentin are all on the travel plans for next week. It will be exhausting. 

 Time flies so fast. Have a good week. God Bless

Elder Hein

Lille

Bonjour! 

So we spent 4 days in Lille this past week and a little bit of time in Dunkirk. It was exhausting but fun. 

Tuesday we had exchanges with the elders in Lille so we left Monday night and spent all day in Lille. It was a great exchange! They even set up a dinner appointment for me. It was terrific. Tuesday night we stayed in Lille again because the next day we went to Dunkirk for district meeting and then came right back to Lille for their district meeting. That evening we got back to our own beds in Amiens only to leave the next day after our district meeting at noon for Lille. So if you are still following this goose chase we are now on Thursday in Lille. We had to prepare for the zone conference the next day by buying all the supplies for lunch and preparing our training. We decide to cook burritos for everyone. It turned out super well. So Thursday evening we spent another night in Lille, and woke up the next morning to head over to zone conference. That lasted till about 6pm and then we finally made it home. 

As you can see this week we did not have much of a chance to teach our investigators but we had 4 of them at church so that was super solid. We had one investigator named jamal who read in the book of mormon from the start until halfway through mosiah, in 4 days. That guy has some real intent. We will see how it turns out. Things are looking good in Amiens and I am happy. Have a terrific week. God Bless

Elder Hein

District Meetings with Elder Taylor

After playing basketball on P-day

Futsal

Bonjour! 

This past week was another stellar one. It was week one of the transfer so we had lots of planning and meetings going on but things turned out to be great. 

On Tuesday we got to go play futsal with one of our investigators.  It was super fun besides the fact that when we showed up we realized these guys were serious. We were just so out of place. This guys were 25, in shape, and playing soccer everyday. We were 19, out of shape, and having not touched a soccer ball for a year and a half. It was rough to say the least. It was like showing up to a formal event wearing something that you would wear on a midnight run to Wal-Mart. Embarrassingly bad.

Wednesday was Transfer Day and we got a new Elder in the apartment, Elder Shenkal! He is from Utah like all the rest of them. Haha. But he is super cool.

Thursday we had only 2 hours to do some finding and we got 6 new investigators in 30 minutes. It was crazy cool.

Friday we were at mission council in Paris, and Saturday we were at district leader training meeting in Lille. Both those days were great. I got to see a lot of faces I haven't seen for a while. Also, while in Lille we ate at this burrito place and they had Jarritos! I haven't had that stuff forever. It was really good. Sunday was great as always. We have started a weekly podcast for our zone. Ill see if I can attach it. It's pretty good.

Today we went to Jules Vernes home. He lived in Amiens! And then we went to an American restaurant for their bottomless steak fries. It was delicious. Well thats all I got for this week.

Love yall. Have a good week.

God Bless

Elder Hein

Double Rainbow

Farnworth, me, Mansfield, and Brotherson at the train station before Farnworth left for Orléans 

Burrito place in Lille with the new companion of elder Brotherson, elder Shenkal. 

Jules Verne

Jules Verne