Matthi's Mission

More pictures Keighley, july 4th, 2011

2011-07-05T16:38:00.002+02:00

Pictures Keighley, july 4th, 2011

2011-07-05T16:34:00.002+02:00

Keighley, july 4th, 2011

2011-07-05T16:33:00.001+02:00

Hellooo :)

Yes, this will be one of my last e-mails to write from England. As everybody seems to be reminding me, I have 10 days left. I'm gonna make it the best 10 days ever. The weather is beautiful, this past week we were really blessed to see standards of excellence in our area. Elder Cumming is doing really well, he's been remarkably quick in developing his missionary skills and I'm very impressed with him. He'll continue to grow and learn and do well over the next few months in his mission.

This coming week is booked with tea-appointments, people are trying to give me dinner and tea-appointments and fatten me up in my last week before I go home, they are so kind :) But yeah, it will have to all go away through running when i get home :)

This sunday I had to do the Gospel Principles class on the Atonement, it was a wonderful lesson and we have wonderful converts that participate in it. Its such a wonderful feeling to see how much my converts have progressed here and how they have gained in knowledge.

This past week Richard, Joan and Christina and Diane were able to go to the Preston temple which was such an exciting feeling for me to have and they all loved it!

We went to the presidents fireside this past sunday and that was a blast, me and Elder Cumming wore our Tartan Ties and they were a great succes, everybody loved them ^^ Way to go for Scotland! :)

We've found a lot of potentials so hopefully we'll be able to contact them this week. I'm going on exchange tomorrow with Elder Laine so that Elder Cumming can practice again on taking over the area. I think Tom Mcnee was a bit worried about it happening so quickly but I believe Elder Cumming will be fine!

Today we had a fun zone p-day, we went to Mallam and that was a great succes! :) It was hot as ever and I believe i got a little sunburn but i'll survive, I need to get some more color on my face, arms and legs, its the eternal mission whiteness I need to get rid of lol :)

Well I gotta go! I look forward to hear from all of you and seeing you when I get home!

Love

Elder Matthias Heinrichs

Keighley, June 27th, 2011

2011-06-27T12:50:00.003+02:00

My beloved

Keighley...

A pillowcase

I got from

the ward.

Me!

Hellooooooo everyone!

Man, it's hottttt today! It's like 25 degrees, and me and Elder Pearse have decided to go in Shorts today! We're going to Leeds today to do some shopping, for me it will be my final shopping day before I go home. Everybody I meet is trying to trunk me out by talking about going home and telling me how many weeks I have left, it's quite annoying sometimes.

Dilligence is the biggest challenge at the moment, I think this week we did well, Elder Cumming and I are daring eachother at the moment to chase people and talk to them so that we really talk to everyone!! We're working a lot with Danny at the moment and hopefully with Presidents Okay he'll be baptized before I go home..

This past week was pretty tough, we're struggling as a District still to find new investigators, but we're doing our best. We found a lot of potentials this past week so this coming week should be promising!

We have Leadership training tomorrow, and I look forward to that! That way I get to see most of my friends still before I go home, like Elder Leclerc!

My studies of the scriptures have become so valuable to me and I love them. Im sad that I see so many people that I talk to that don't understand what the Bible teaches and that they don't really see the example that Christ gave, or even when they do see it they don't value to follow his example with exactness, they often say that following His general creed of loving one another is important enough but all the ordinances and organisation that He established is often left on the side.

I know that Christ lives and that His living Church is on the earth again today! It's such a wonderful blessing and it blesses me with hope. I love being a missionary and dread the day that I will have to take the Saviors name off of my chest, but I'll make sure to never take it from my heart!

Love,

Elder Matthias Heinrichs

More pictures, Keighley, june 20th, 2011

2011-06-20T15:06:00.001+02:00

skipping rocks...

Baptism of Diane.

Pictures Keighley, June 20th 2011

2011-06-20T14:49:00.002+02:00

Bolton Abbey!

Package! :-)

Keighley, June 20th 2011

2011-06-20T14:47:00.000+02:00

Hey everyone

Here I am again! :) Well this week was a good week. We had a p-day at bolton abbey which was fun, we went with the district and bradford.. We really enjoyed it, we went walking together and just chilling out, it was something different than just watching movies.

Today we're going to watch Kung Fu Panda 2, a friend got it for us!

This past friday we had Diane's baptism and that was a great succes, she was so well prepared and it was a good baptismal service, even though it was not well attended...

We've been ill this week and had to stay in for 3 days because we had a really bad throat infection..that was not good, rather painful but we're feeling better now.

Church was great, the ward is so good and I really enjoy fellowshipping with them. I'm trying really hard to get another baptism before I go home, we're working with a young man named Danny who is just a great guy, he's had a rough life but wants to change and he seems eager so I have a lot of faith and hope for him!

Well I look forward to hearing from all of you, sorry that today's e-mail is really short but I don't have much time, the liberary is a pain today!

I love you all!

Take care and write me!

Love,

Elder Matthias Heinrichs

Keighley, june 13th, 2011

2011-06-13T16:21:00.002+02:00

Hellooo everyone!

Here's your favorite missionary again! :) This week has been a wonderful week full of excitement and fun, we've been so blessed here to see 6 people at church, we have 5 people that are moving towards baptism of which 1, Diane will be baptized this Friday by Elder Cumming, it's so exciting, Diane is a great lady, she's been golden since we found and taught her and she's been enjoying church a lot. She had a really strong spiritual experience last week sunday and that has helped her a lot. She has already started to do missionary work with her family. I love her a lot and look forward to see her get baptized!

It's amazing to see how recent converts just catch the vision of missionary work, the regular members should really take heed to their example. Richard and Joan just have been amazing in their efforts, half of the investigators at church were related or friends of the family, all this has happened thanks to the referral from the Zsirmans, amazing how the Lord works through people... I'm really hoping and praying that Emma will get baptized before I go home, she is a great girl and has so much going for her, so much potential, if she keeps her commitments these coming few weeks she'll get there, so I invite all of you to pray for her!!!

Today we're having a great p-day we're meeting up with a few teams and we're going to Bolton Abbey, it was fun because this morning we had the Skipton Elders have studies in our flat. Its great how I've come to love my missionaries, even though they all struggle in their individual ways I want to help them and I feel it a priviledge to serve them.

Thats something I've noticed I've come to love the people on my mission so much, that I think of how Alma must have felt (i believe it was Alma) that wept and wet his pillow by night and by day cried repentance unto the people!

Today should be great and I'm looking forward to it! Elder Cumming my stallward Scotsman is a lot of fun and he's getting used to missionary life real quick, he's a poshboy and he's definetely my son because he's crazy about ties aswell! I love that kid! :D

Well I'd better go! Write me! I still love post! :)

Love you all!

Elder Matthias Heinrichs

Mailing address:

2011-06-06T14:16:00.002+02:00

This is still my address where you can send my mail to for another 5 weeks!

Elder Heinrichs
74 Mannville Road
BD22 6AT
Keighley
England

Pictures Keighley, June 6th, 2011

2011-06-06T14:04:00.002+02:00

Pres. and

Sister Lindley,

Elder Cumming

and I.

Elder Cumming's

MTC-group.

Elder DeGraw

and I.

Me and

Elder Bant.

Elder Cumming

is a bit sad at

the display

of all the

english flags.

(he's Scottish!)

Keighley, June 6th, 2011

2011-06-06T14:02:00.001+02:00

Hellooo everyone!!

Here's you're favorite missionary!!! Oui, c'est moi! Another week flew by full of excitement and fun things! Well it was a sad departure of Elder Bant on wednesday and many tears were shed during the wednesday morning testimony meeting we held in Richard and Joans house with our closing hymn 152 'God be with you till we meet again'. I love that little man a lot!

Well then it came to transfermeeting on wednesday afternoon, and there came all the greenies, everybody was already congratulating me and telling me how excited they were for me to train, for some reason I didnt quite feel the excitement yet, moreso a lot of nervs and anxiety.. :P Well I then saw the greenies and met with Elder Cumming because my mom had told me that Jonathan's Little brother would come into this mission, so we had a brief chat and then went into training with President Lindley and then we went into the transfermeeting.(Jonathan Cumming is the older brother of my new companion and is in my home ward in Holland).

As President sat down all the new missionaries he told a little bit about each and every one of them. For some reason I just knew that I was going to train Elder Cumming, which was so weird, it just was so clear to me. As soon as President Lindley started talking about Elder Cumming, my heart started racing and I got sooooo excited and I just knew I was going to train him. When he called out my name as his trainer I just jumped up in joy and ran to him and hugged him. We then afterwards took him to Keighley and got him working!

I'm so excited about Elder Cumming, he seems a wonderful kid, he's a lot of fun, very eager, and he seems very prepared. He has a strong testimony of the gospel and fits right in. He will learn many things but he has got the right stuff and the right attitude so he'll go far!

We were able to make standards this week and the members were so involved in the work which was wonderful. We had a lot of investigators and less-actives at church. So i know that when we invite others to come unto Christ and put in our efforts the Lord will make miracles happen! We also went to the investigators fireside at President Lindley's house and heard from Elder Donaldson again! That was great and I was so happy I could get my greeny there on his first week!

I'm very tired now that i'm training and being a DL, my nights seem to be very very short. I cant remember the last time i've been this tired but oh well, i'll live!

I love you all, please keep praying for me, my companion and Keighley! I look forward to hearing from you!

Find my adress on the blogg!

Love,

Elder Heinrichs

Keighley, may 31st, 2011

2011-06-06T13:56:00.002+02:00

District picture.

and again...

Elder Bant

is proud

to be an

american!

Keighley, may 23rd, 2011

2011-06-06T13:49:00.003+02:00

Nice

fruit smoothie.

Leah, one of

the children

of our

investigator

Lisa.

rainbow...

Exchange

in the Leeds

apartment.

More pictures Keighley, may 9th 2011

2011-06-06T13:44:00.003+02:00

Elder Bant,

Rachel

and moi.

Serious accident

that happened.

they needed to

use the

jaws of life...

Did you know

that is a

dutch invention?

Elder Turvey

balancing the

conducting stand

on his chin.

Oh my,

what the fetch!

Zone picture.

Pictures Keighley, May 9th 2011

2011-06-06T13:37:00.003+02:00

Zone picture

with Sister White

going Matrix style.

Elder Bant on

our scary

bustrip.

Hightech plumbing

system in England.

;-)

Helping change a tire after church.

Keighley, May 31st, 20111

2011-05-31T16:32:00.002+02:00

Helloooo everyone :)

Time for another e-mail session and this week is transferweek! Well... the news is... I'm not getting transferred, but I am losing my better half :( Elder Bant is leaving me after 4,5 wonderful months. Probably some of the best months of my mission and my life so far! He's been a wonderful teacher and example, a great friend and a reliable support for the district, area and me as a person. He has rare qualities that have helped me in a great deal and I love him very much. I know that President Lindley was inspired to put us together for 4,5 months! Elder Bant is now getting transferred to whitewash again, this time in Grimsby 2, I know he'll do a good job and baptize there soon aswell!

As for me.... I'm training! Yes... i'll repeat that again... I'm training a new missionary... why.....I dont know but President said he felt inspired to do so.... Am I nervous..? Yes... a little... do I know who I'm training.. nope. I'll find out tomorrow when they announce the trainers at the transfer meeting. I'm excited though, this transfer an Elder Cummings is coming in the mission and it would be funny if I were to train him, since his older brother is in my home ward!

This past week was a challenging one with highlights and disappointments. It was wonderful to have a regional stake conference where the Prophet spoke aswell as Elder Kearon, they both had wonderful talks that were inspiring for me and the investigators we were able to bring to church. We were disappointed because 5 people we had counted on didn't show... But that didn't make it any less joyful to have the people there that we did have.

David, one of our scheduled investigators is doing well, and I hope and pray he can cut the cords of his smoking addiction, that is truly one of satans biggest traps. I hope and pray that he will get baptized in my last 6 weeks here, I love him very much, he's a great kid! I'd invite all of you to pray for him!

We have a good teaching poole in Keighley at the moment and the ward is doing wonderful in fellowshipping our investigators. We just need to continue to find new ones and that is the struggle for us. I'd invite all of you to follow the guidance that the General Authorities have given you for the sundays in June. That way we will be able to bring many souls unto Christ and into the fold.

At the moment we're teaching another one of Richard & Joans daughters, Emma, she's epic. She has so much potential and she just needs to climb out and cut away from the temptations and the world that is clawing after her and go the distance (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5jDlLJPz1A ) to reach her potential!

There are so many wonderful people out in the world, there is so much good. It's so sad that these days the bad things seem to outweigh the good. If all would just find their true nature, if only all would realize that they are children of Heavenly Father and strive to reach that potential!! The world would be such a wonderful place! I've been blessed to be able to meet many wonderful friends on my mission, many of which I call my family now. We are all children of Heavenly Father, all over the world, no matter what colour, language, or creed, if only we could have a bit more unity with eachother!

I have 6 weeks left and I will do my best to serve my fellow brothers and sisters as well as I can!

I love you all! I would love to hear from you! :) My adress is somewhere on the blogg!!

Love,

Elder Matthias Heinrichs

Keighley, may 23rd, 2011

2011-05-31T16:31:00.000+02:00

Hello everybody! :)

Yes time for another e-mail! Well this week we had a blessed week. I was on exchange most of it. Monday we had a great p-day with the Zone where President and Sister Lindley made food for us, American Hot Dogs from the Base, they were yummie. Afterwards we played volleyball and my team with Elder Bant, Laine, Heumos and Eggleston smashed everybody else! I miss playing in the volleybal tournaments back home!

The rest of the week I was on exchange first in Leeds 1 untill wednesday which was great fun, I got to eat at the stake presidents house on tuesday and he's a great man! Elder Hua cooked us some of his chinese egg fried rice which is great aswell! We had good fun and were able to find an African lady from Congo to teach!

Following my district meeting on wednesday which was all about inviting people to be baptised and the importance of stating our purpose I went on exchange to Dudley Hill with Elder Laine which was good fun. He's such a good missionary, I taught him English in the MTC and we're both going home together next transfer so it was fun to catch up with him and find out how he has experienced his mission.

We were so blessed with the members performing their missionary duties this week. We recieved referrals, found 4 new investigators through them and we were able to invite 3 people to be baptised. We had 8 people at church and the members were just fantastic in fellowshipping them. I hope and pray that our investigators will feel of the spirit and be converted to the truth and apply it in their lives.

Today we have another day of Crossgates P-day with the rest of the zone so that should be fun! Post is still great for me to recieve so if any of you want to write, just look up my adress on the blogg! :D

I love my mission, it's a priveledge to be out here and serve the Lord full-time. As we serve with all our heart might mind and strength we will truly see the blessings of our Heavenly Father. I invite all of you to repent and come unto Christ with full purpose of Heart and have faith! The Book of Mormon is true, its revealed through a prophet and we are so blessed through the modern day prophets these days. Make sure you check out www.lds.org and www.mormon.org regularly because thats where we'll find the latest news from our prophets and leaders!!

I love you and cant wait to hear from you all!

Love,

Elder Matthias Heinrichs

Keighley, May 16th, 2011

2011-05-31T16:30:00.000+02:00

Hello everyone,

Today I only have a very little time because our libarary had problems with the computers and in Skipton we can only use it for 30 minutes, so after reading all e-mails I only have 10 minutes left!

This past week was a very good week, it was awkward because at Zone Conference I already had to bear my departing testimony even though I still have about 2 months left... so that just felt weird but it made things a lot more real for me aswell that yeah, my mission is actually going to be over sooner than i'll think :(

We were able to find 5 new investigators last week which was a marvelous blessing, we got close to achieving standards of excellence but Elder Bant was a little ill for a few days so we missed a few hours of work.

I was able to perform my first baptismal interview for one of the investigators in Skipton and she passed, she'll get baptised this coming week in the Keighley chapel which is so exciting! :)

The weather here has been absolutely horrible the last few days, just rain, rain and more rain. This is the typical English climate i've come to dislike so much :P

Oh well, the work is moving onward so that keeps me in a well enough mood :)

Today we have a zone p-day in president Lindley's backgarden, thats going to be fun and the rest of the week i'll be on exchange till Friday, today im going to Leeds till wednesday, then I have to do my district meeting in Keighley and after that i'll be going to Dudley Hill on exchange with Elder Laine, yay! :)

Well I love you all, I hope to hear from you all soon!

Love,

Elder Heinrichs

Keighley, May 9th 2011

2011-05-15T16:35:00.000+02:00

Helloooo everyone :)

Well i've been able to speak with most of you for like FOREVER yesterday, which was a lot of fun. I don't want to sound horrible but I had no problem hanging up in the end, it's so awkward while I know it's only a few weeks till I'm going to see my family again and I get to talk to you as often as I want... so I suppose I'd better enjoy my peace and quiet as long as I still have it eh?? ;) JK JK !

This week we were so blessed with the Baptism and Confirmation of Rachel!! Oh my goodness, it was so wonderful, it was a very spiritual baptism and many members of the church were able to come and show their support which was great. I felt humbled in because I know that it was a pure miracle and outpouring of blessings that Rachel was baptised, that she found the strength to overcome some challenges and be able to endure. I know she'll be a wonderful support to the ward here in Keighley. We've been so blessed with wonderful converts here the last few months, its almost too good to believe!

This sunday was pretty epic, we had 50 visitors from BYU Idaho that were doing a Europe tour for their literature class, so basically it was like 47 girls and 3 guys, Bishop Hancock made a funny joke about that. I'd not seen the Keighley chapel packed like that ever before... funny enough when me and Elder Bant finally found some seets, we sat down next to a girl that was best friends with a sister missionary that just got in the mission this past transfer.

Sadly enough this past sunday Bishop Hancock got released, he was a wonderful man, an example to me in living the gospel and concecrating his life to the Lord. He's an example in how to make and keep and live covenants. I've been blessed to see many wonderful leaders throughout my mission and serve under them and work with them which hopefully will help me throughout my life to follow their example in emulating our savior Jesus Christ more.

Bishop James Stewart was called as the bishop now and I'm excited for him aswell because he's a great man and I know he's going to help press forward the work here in Keighley.

As we all raised our hands in sustaining our new leaders, bishop Stewart made an important statement that we raised our hands to show that we were willing to put our hands to work and that by our works we will show how much we actually sustain our leaders.. it reminded me of the Dutch Hymn 'Steek uw handen uit de mouw' :) (compatible with Hymn 252, put your shoulder to the wheel)

We're really struggeling with finding new investigators here at the moment, last saturday we were in Cullingworth and a guy grabbed me at his doorstep and he started shouting abuse, not just at his door but throughout all the street, it was just a terrible shame, he threatened me with fysical abuse but it was funny because Elder Bant said, "well he's threatening you but when he grabbed your arm to try and dragg you off he didn't even move you 1 inch" hehe oh well drunk people...

Thank you for everyone that has been writing me and sending me cards, I still very much enjoy it! :) Sorry if I dont have as much time to write you back now but I'll keep doing the best I can! I need to make loads of T-book entries etc etc...

Last thursday we got on the wrong bus to a village in our area and instead of taking 15 minutes to get up there it took us over an hour... it absolutely shot our day... as soon as we realised that we were done for we had a pretty funny reation on our faces... hence Elder Bant's picture!! :P

Today we're going to Leeds to do some shopping because Elder Bant has ripped through 4 shirts over the last week, it's crazy, it seems to work like clockwork, all of them ripped on the same spot, his right elbow, the weirdest spot to ripp at aswell... hmm... crazy american shirts!!

Well we were introduced again to some of Richard and Joan's friends on Sunday after church at their home and we were able to share with them a bit more about the gospel, the restoration and the Book of Mormon, she wanted a copy so we were able to hand them one and we hope and pray that we'll be able to start teaching them aswell so that they can recieve the gospel blessings into their home for them and their children as they apply the principles of the gospel and are baptised!

Please join us in mighty prayer (Alma 6:6) for the people in our district that we are able to find prepared people and be able to teach the Elect of our Heavenly Father (D&C 29:6-7).

Thanks for all your support, I look forward to hearing from all of you!

Love,

Elder Matthias Heinrichs

More pictures Keighley, May 3rd 2011

2011-05-03T16:33:00.002+02:00

Birthday

gifts.

Birthday cake.

Haggis!

I'm really

eating it and

it's not to bad!

Pictures Keighley, may 2nd 2011

2011-05-03T16:26:00.003+02:00

Ward activity.

Young Women's

fashionshow.

On the

'runway'

because it

was our

birthday.

Keighley, May 3rd 2011

2011-05-03T16:25:00.001+02:00

Helloooooooo everyone!

Yes, again on tuesday due to the silly bank hollidays here in the UK. Oh well, it happens... :) Anyways! Thank you everyone for the birthdaycards, packages and everything else that you've done for me. The members were amazing and spoiled me with gifts and good tea appointments and cake!

We had a good week and were able to teach many people again which was wonderful. I love teaching. We're still struggeling with finding new investigators though which is sad, we try everything that we know, I believe that patiently enduring and trusting the Lord will allow us to recieve the desired blessings. But even though I know that, it doesnt make it easy!!

The district is doing very well aswell, we had 9 investigators at church as a district and that is the highest we've ever reached the entire time i've been here in Keighley and I believe much longer than that aswell!

I'm grateful for the set of missionaries I am able to serve in my district, they are wonderful, very capable and talented and even though none of us are perfect, I love every one of them!

On my birthday on Saturday we did some work but in the evening we had a ward activity, it was a fashion show organised by the young womens, which was done very very well. The people that did the clothes and make-up were amazing and worked really hard. It was a lot of fun to see and afterwards they provided a 3 course meal as a fund-raiser for EFY for them this year.

After all of that me and brother Kitsell were called up on the catwalk because it was our birthdays so we did a little walk over it while everyone sang, which was pretty cool but pretty nerv-wrecking aswell, I hate standing in the spotlight!

This week on Friday Rachel is getting baptized! It's so amazing, she's a miracle in my eyes, she's overcome smoking and she's so determined. I've seen a change in her countenance and she glows because of the spirit! :)

Yesterday was a fun p-day, we went over to the Simcock's in Skipton Branch and we chilled out there and watched a few movies, Surf's up and Dispicable Me, then after that we played monopolie which I won, yay! :)

Yesterday night I walked into a screw which was on the floor and it pierced my shoe and my foot which really hurt, luckely I had my tetanus shot and I put some anti-biotic cream on it so ill be fine, it did hurt like flippin heck though!!

I'm loving the work, even though it's sometimes demanding, especially all the call-ins and follow-ups. I feel that I'm moving closer to the Lord, even though because of my stubborness its sometimes only an inch at a time.

I know the gospel is true, I know it's our responsibility to tell others about this because we promise to stand as a witness! I pray to all the people that read this blogg that you'll desire to know about the Restored Gospel yourself! Check it out at www.mormon.org !

I hope to hear from you all!

Much love,

Elder Heinrichs

Keighley, april 27th, 2011

2011-04-27T14:41:00.005+02:00

With

Elder LeClerc!

Elder Bant's art.

Breakfast at an americanized cafe. For my birthday.

Thanks Elder Bant! :-)

Helloooo everyone! :)

Here's the long expected e-mail! Thank you so much for the many e-mails and e-cards you all have sent, I'm sorry I can't reply to all of you but I love hearing from you through e-mail or normal post! This week has been hectic so far, Monday P-day, Tuesday leadership training and today my first District Meeting. It's been so busy with all things I had to organise. It's been a very spiritual experience so far, seeking inspiration to know what to teach and aswell being spiritually edified during Leadership training was amazing, to learn from the many many leadership examples in the book of mormon, such as King Benjamin and Captain Moroni!

Our teaching pool has almost completely ceased to exist. We are struggling to find new investigators so far these past few weeks! I know we need to trust in our Heavenly Father because there are people here that are ready and prepared. We need the members and their work and their faith. Without them it's impossible. They provide almost 30% of the referrals that turn into converts.

Being DL is fun but it's also very humbling, they say about leadership that once you get it you regret it. It's true that it's different than what you expect but I love being able to talk more to the Elders in my district and to try and serve them more!

I love how these experiences are shaping me for the rest of my life!

This past P-day we just chilled out and we watched movies which was fun but I like chilling out more with people in the district!

This saturday is my B-day and its going to be fun because there's a ward activity going on so thats great I get to see the members! :)

Today I'm going on exchange with Elder Eggleston in Dudley Hill, I've been looking forward to that because i've always wanted to go more to different area's in my district so now it's fun I can visit and work in all the areas!

I love the gospel, it's so great to be a missionary, it's exciting, I hope all of you members are excited and actively engaged in the work and that all of you that are not part of this wonderful restored Church of Jesus Christ, learn of it, investigate the truth, get in touch with missionaries via www.mormon.org !

Thank you for all you do to support me, i know i'm soon coming home but till then i love hearing from you and i'll just focus on the work, i promise!! :)

Love,

Elder Matthias Heinrichs

Mailing address:

2011-04-19T12:43:00.000+02:00

Please send all mail and birthday mail to:

Elder Heinrichs
74 Mannville Road
BD22 6AT
Keighley
England

Baptism Pictures Keighley, april 19th, 2011

2011-04-19T12:39:00.003+02:00

Elder Bant

and I with

Richard and

Joan James.

Richard and I.

Elder Bant

and Joan.

Pictures Keighley, april 19th, 2011

2011-04-19T12:28:00.003+02:00

We got a ride home

in bishop's Maserati

after the wedding.

Elder Bant

eating his

free full chicken

at Nando's on

monday's

district lunch.

Birthday and

Easter package

from my

favorite

family!

Doubtful

poster on

the side

of a church

in Keighley.

Keighley, april 19th, 2011

2011-04-19T12:26:00.001+02:00

Hellooo Everyone!

Yes, here's the news finally then! This week is transfer week and both Elder Bant and I are staying in Keighley, what a blessing!! I've been called as a District Leader here and Skipton and Dudley Hill area will be in the district still. I'm so excited for that because one of my favorite missionaries Elder Laine is coming to the district aswell!!

I was kind of worried, so last night I didn't sleep much because it's all pretty exciting and new.

This week we were blessed to witness many miracles, including the wedding and baptism of Richard and Joan James. It was a wonderful evening and the Keighley ward really rallied together to organize something special. The baptism was amazing and I felt the spirit there. I felt overwhelmed with love and grattitude as I was standing next to Richard in the Baptismal font. I know that as they continue in faith they will receive many many more blessings.

On Sunday evening we had tea over at Richard and Joans house, and yes Joan did a tremendous Shepperds Pie! We then decided to leave a spiritual thought, as their elder daughter came in aswell, she sat in on the lesson. As Elder Bant testified of the atonement and of Gods love for all of us, I gave her a poke and told her that God even loved her still. After that we had a long and emotional discussion with her and we invited her to progress towards God. I pray and hope that as I'm blessed with another 6 weeks in this area that I may be able to see her enter in the waters of baptism and that she'll be able to get the blessings that our Heavenly Father has in store for her!

I truly felt that I'm still here because there are people here that I need to find and to teach.

I'm excited for Elder Bant and I to work together another transfer.

This week I was suprised by a wonderful package from the Kenworthy family! I love them! Thanks to all their support and love and to everyone that supports me and keeps in touch.

I'm sorry that today is short but it took a while to read all my e-mails and send pictures, i wish i could type more because there's much more to be said.

I love my mission, I love the Lord and I love the people I serve!

I look forward to hearing from you all!

Take care for now!!

Love,

Elder Heinrichs

Trunky letter, april 11th, 2011

2011-04-11T13:59:00.002+02:00

Trunky letter!

Keighley, april 11th, going home!?! pictures.

2011-04-11T13:51:00.004+02:00

Yup....

I'm going home!

In flight...

not quite....

it's in:

Red Hot restaurant.

Gotcha!

food @

redhot buffet.

Desserts.

The

icecream

bar.

Pictures Keighley, april 11th, 2011

2011-04-11T13:18:00.003+02:00

'Despicable me'

lightbulb.

Me and

Elder Dudgeon.

(my tall friend)

Me and

Elder Smith.

Me with

Mike and

Robert from

Selby!

A sign

outside

an american

church.

Keighley, 11th of April, 2011

2011-04-11T12:50:00.003+02:00

Hey everyone! :)

Time for another mail from your favorite missionary! :) This week was a great week, it wasn't necessarily the most effective of all but we had a lot of good events happen and we were blessed with many oppertunities to teach people on the streets.

We had a few very interesting lessons, especially with a lady from Iran. We were able to testifiy of the truthfullness of the atonement of Jesus Christ which was a marvellous experience for me because I felt the spirit so strongly. I wish people would hold on more to their simple testimonies of the atonement, whenever the whirlwinds will come and I promise life will bring them, people can at least hold on to their firm foundations in Christ, as Helaman tells his sons Nephi and Lehi:

12And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the ^arock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your ^bfoundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty ^cstorm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall.

Richard is doing epic! He is absolutely battling his smoking and he's a star. I've never seen a man before on my mission desire his baptism so badly. I know the Lord will bless him as he continues to exersize his faith. He probably doesnt even know how much of a testimony builder he is to me and how much of an example he is to me. I love that man so much, he and his family have influenced me so much for the better!!

This sunday was good, we had 4 investigators in church and Bishop Hancock gave a great talk. Bishop Hancock to me is an example of how a man strives to follow Christ's footsteps in all actions of life and how a man should truly strive to keep the covenants he has made. I definitely know he is called by revelation to inspire and lead by example here in the Keighley ward.

On Sunday night we had the mission presidents fireside at his home, that's the second time i've been able to be there and I really enjoyed it. Paul, Richard and Joan were able to go thanks to the devotion of Johnny Birch and John Stewart giving us lifts! I'm so grateful for people that recognize that giving lifts is part of serving others and that it helps missionaries a lot.

To me Sunday night gave a lot of meaning because I was able to fellowship with other missionaries but more importently Mike Moore from Selby was there, I had not seen him for over a year and now I saw him as a baptized member of the church holding the priesthood!! Aswell what was a bigger suprise to me was that after Mike, Robert walked in the door, an investigator me and Elder Wilson had found and had taught for a while but then he dropped us because he wasnt yet prepared. Last week he saw the missionaries ride their bikes through Selby and he flagged them down and they are teaching him again now and he has a baptismal goal to work towards. I'm grateful to know that besides reaping the fruits in the field, the seeds that i've sown are working out aswell!

That to me filled my heart with joy!

I know the gospel is true, I know God has a plan for all of us and that when we are worthy of the Spirit we can know our role in Gods plan for ourselves and the lives of those around us!

I pray to all of you that have entered through the gate into the strait and narrow path that you will remain dilligent and faithful and endure to the end and all of you that are seeking truth or have fallen into detours and got lost in the mist that you will find the truth by asking God Allmighty in the name of Christ if The Book of Mormon is not true. Read of it, ponder it, it will strenghten your faith in Christ and you will find blessings that you cant even imagin yet!

May the Lord bless you all, is my hope and prayer for you!

Love,

- Elder Matthias Heinrichs

Pictures Keighley, april 4th, 2011

2011-04-04T12:13:00.005+02:00

Steamtrain

here in

Keighley.

This is what

we run into

over here...

Puppy!

:-)

Keighley, april 4th, 2011

2011-04-04T12:11:00.002+02:00

Helloooo everyone!!

This week was great. General Conference ( gc.lds.org ) was absolutely epic!! I loved President Monson and President Uchtdorf! It was a real blessing and a joy to me to be able to listen to the council of the prophet and apostles. I've picked up on multiple things that the church leaders encourage us to do and I've received personal revelation in abundance! I know and testify that there is a prophet of God alive today and that as you listen to his council and apply it in your life, you will find greater happiness!

We were able to bring investigators to all 4 sessions available to us which is exciting, I never had that before on my mission!

This week we were able to schedule Paul for a baptism. It was exciting for us because we haven´t been able to invite anybody lately. We were blessed in the work in general and we definitely had a miracle happen. We were knocking for a while one day in an area I had seen a few times from the opposite side of the valley and I felt we should go there. As we went knocking there we didn´t see succes for about an hour or so as we knocked doors, I felt like giving up because that was basically the story of our life the last few weeks, no succes in finding. I then saw a few more houses that belonged to the side of the street we were on. We decided to continue knocking, and we asked eachother what we were doing wrong... Elder Bant replied: 'I don't know, I'm doing all I know I can do' and I felt the same. Not 2 doors after that we knocked on a door and a lady talked to us, she let us in.

She explained that she had come from Iran and had become disillusioned by her religion there and that in England she became confused through Christianity and didn´t know where to find the truth. She shed some tears as she expressed her sadness. Her husband came home 5 minutes later and we invited them to learn of our message. We shared with them a brief lesson on the restoration of the gospel and the vision of the prophet Joseph Smith. I am grateful to have a testimony of this and to be able to share with others how they can find truth. We left the family with a book of Mormon and promised them to bring a Farsie book of Mormon this week.

To me and Elder Bant it was a tender mercy from our Heavenly Father to show us that we were doing what he expects of us but that we have to trust Him in His timing for the work to move forward.

I encourage all people that read this to listen to all the talks given by the prophet and his apostles on www.lds.org !

Next week Friday Richard and Joan are going to be married, I'm so excited to see them make that promise to eachother and afterwards be baptized and promise to the Lord!

Being on a mission is the best thing to do at this point in my life. All those that are able to do so, GO ON A MISSION! It's the best thing, for your life, eternity and for that of those around you!!

I love you all, I hope to hear from you all soon! :)

God bless.

- Sincirely,

Elder Matthias Heinrichs

Keighley, March 28th, 2011

2011-03-28T12:21:00.004+02:00

On our wall.

On exchange...

Elder Burnham.

Singing at

Zone meeting.

Hellloooo Everyone!

Thank you all for your kind e-mails and letters! I enjoy staying in touch with you! This week I feel slightly more inspired to write an e-mail but I now am pressing for time which is annoying! I hate time-limits, P-days are always too short!

This week was good, yes the work is still consistant! Richard and Joan are doing great! I do feel that I should share a little joke we pulled on Richard the other day. He's working really hard to stop his smoking and he's doing so well. We felt like we should offer him a blessing though to entitle him to all the blessings and strength from heaven for him.

As we explained how a blessing worked we read the scripture from Mark 8:23 which says:

23 And he took the blind man by the hand, and led him out of the town; and when he had spit on his eyes, and put his ^ahands upon him, he asked him if he saw ^bought.

As we then explained to him that we were giving him a blessing for his problem and his problem was smoking and we followed the example of Christ exactly in this church with him that we had to spit in his mouth, the both of us, HAHA you should've seen his face!!

We then told him of course that we were joking and we gave him a blessing, but man that was so funny!

Earlier on that same day we had the oppertunity to explain how a blessing for the healing of the sick goes and we went through the new testament scriptures with that lady and it was a strength to my testimony to see that we do follow Christ's example and that this is HIS church with HIS ordinances and HIS gospel. What a blessing!

We were able to walk a new investigator to church this week which was good. We had a rather interesting experience with him at church though as he didnt want to go to the gospel principles class but insisted on going to the normal sunday school, which he did participate well in and the later on in the priesthood meeting he told my companion the following as we were splitting to the different quorums, he said: 'I think i'll take the position of high priest if you dont mind?'.... can you imagin my companions reaction? :P LOL he managed it very well by just telling him, ' No, today we're just sitting in with the Elders', haha :P Oh gosh, yes we do have some interesting challenges on our missions!!

Today we're having our p-day in leeds again, chilling out and playing some sports. It's fun but i'm absolutely nackered!! I'm tired, i wish i got some more energy cells somewhere! :P

Well If you're praying for me, pray for Keighley and pray that we may find some more new investigators! The mission is doing so well, our area is doing great but we can move into the realm of the miraculous if we call down the miracles from heaven! Thanks for all you do!

I love you!!

- Elder Matthias Heinrichs

Keighley, March 21st 2011

2011-03-21T20:42:00.005+01:00

Emma:

deformed face

function on my

camera.

HAHA!

In Bradford.

Elder Farstad

and I.

Elder Porter

and I.

Helloooo everyone :)

Time for another e-mail! Things are going well. I dont have too much exciting things to tell. We have been blessed this week, we we're able to find a few new investigators which we really need to have. We're doing our best to find more!

We're going to be doing a bunch of finding again this week!

Richard and Joan are ace and are doing well, I'm so excited for their wedding! Christina has been a little bit naughty this past week so we have to be stern with her! Haha, she'll be fine, she's excited about young womens and it's nice to see her happy about such things.

I got sick on wednesday night and so we stayed in most of the day on thursday because I was being sick. Luckely we were able to go out in the afternoon and still find a new investigator in the few hours that we were out. Tender Mercies!! :)

On Sunday we had a Mini-Conference with 2 stakes Combined, The Leeds and Huddersfield stakes and it was a huge meeting we went to in the afternoon. Elder Donadson was there again to speak and I enjoyed that. He's such a wonderful man and his nickname 'Sunny' serves him right because he truly does shine a bright light around to everyone he encounters, he always makes me smile! :)

Today's p-day we're going to leeds Crossgates chapel to meet up with the other Elders. It's going to be fun, chilling out and playing sports!

Me and Elder Bant have started running regularly during the week nog to get into shape!

Well that's about all I Have to tell today. Sorry it's a bit short but I'm lacking inspiration! I hope to hear from you all this week, post is always more than welcome!

Love you all!

-Elder Heinrichs

More pictures, Keighley, March 15th, 2011

2011-03-15T19:19:00.003+01:00

Elder Burnham

and I on the

train to Leeds.

At the

police

station.

Christina's

baptism.

Pictures Keighley, March 15th, 2011

2011-03-15T19:14:00.002+01:00

Elder Bant

and I

using a color

gadget on

my camera.

A picture

of Elder

McKay,

using

another

funny

gadget

on my

camera.

District

meeting.

Keighley, March 15th, 2011

2011-03-15T19:09:00.002+01:00

Hello everyone,

Today I need to keep the e-mails short because the Library here in Keighley is pretty horrible in Computer availability and we still want to do some fun stuff with the district today.

I'm happy and sad because of transfers. I'm happy because me and Elder Bant are both staying but some of my dear friends are moving out of the Zone and that means I will probably not see them anymore whilst on my mission. Hopefully I can stop by and see them when I come and visit in August :)

I'm looking forward to the wedding and baptism of Richard and Joan, they are such wonderful people and it is just an exciting journey to see them grow in their faith. I know that when they continue with their righteous desires and apply all the gospel principles in their lives they will come to know of the sweet peace and joy that it brings. It will bring them closer together as a family, I know that simply because I'm blessed to have that bond with my family. My parents are 2 wonderful people who I look up to, (my mom in a spiritual sense and my dad in the literal way aswell!) they have taught me and reared me in gospel truths and taught me to be a hard worker and I see the blessings of that now!

Due to lack of time on the computer I'll tell you about the 2 main events this week! The first of which is of course, Christina's baptism! Oh my goodiness! I was sooo excited :) I did my best to hide it but man I was jumping up and down inside myself :) Christina was baptized this past saturday and she was confirmed on Sunday, after her confirmation she even bore her testimony in Sacrament meeting, I was so impressed by her and I'm impressed more and more as she participates in the lessons and comes up with great answsers to our questions! She is now a great example to the rest of her family, especially her elder sisters! I look forward to the day when I can see her be sealed to her parents in the temple! :)

Then the other exciting even this week was rather interesting. On thursday me and Elder Burnham (our DL) had to travel to Leeds to pick up some baptismal clothing, it really took forever and we didn't get back from Leeds until around 18:50, at that time I noticed a young man running across the street coming out of the trainstation as we were waiting for a lift. He darted into the ASDA across the road. Less than 2 minutes later we saw him running out of the store with a black purse, a lady ran after him shouting 'stop him, someone please stop him'. I looked at Elder Burnham and then decided to run after the guy, I didn't run for 20 yards and I slipped on a cobblestone road and ripped my trousers, injured my knees, elbow and feet, still we got up and chased after the guy, he dropped the purse as soon as he saw us chasing him and we kept after him, he then thought he lost us as we were trying to cross a street and he tried to take his top off to change his apparal but we kept after him and he noticed us again and dropped his top and started running, we then lost him in some shops / pubs but picked up his top as evidence and brought that to the police that night. They were very pleased and surprised with the detailed information we were able to provide.

I was glad we were able to help this stranger, we didn't see her afterwards but figured she got her purse again.

When we talked to the Mission President, he expressed his concern about us getting into danger and encouraged us not to get involved in such an activity again. I still feel that I did what the Savior would have done and that's what matters :)

The mission is great, a few weeks back Patrick, an investigator from Middlesbrough got baptized aswell, even though I wasn't there to witness it, my heart is filled with gratitude for the blessings and miracles that happen and I pray that he may remain active in the faith!

Today we're going to have district lunch. Its going to be fun at Nando's. I love this district, we have too much fun at district meetings as you can see in the picture, we're losing Elder Pinnegar this transfer which is sad but a good missionary is coming in which always makes it exciting!

I love all of you that keep in touch, sorry if I havent been able to write you back I know there is a postage backlogg in the office and Keighley post is very slow so I haven't gotten much lately but I'll do my best to reply when I receive it! :)

I'm excited to hear about the YSA center in Deventer back home and am excited to meet al the wonderful new people there and become friends with everyone there again! :)

Take care and may God bless you and watch over you all!

Love,

Elder Matthias Heinrichs

March 7th, 2011

2011-03-07T20:11:00.001+01:00

Hey everyone,

Here's a little treat from the missionaries in the North zones of the England Leeds Mission.

Check it out!!

http://www.youtube.com/user/scottyw123#p/u/0/h2Sv3fiwhd0

Love,

Elder Heinrichs

Last pictures, Keighley, March 7th, 2011

2011-03-07T20:08:00.002+01:00

More pictures Keighley, 7 March 2011.

2011-03-07T20:05:00.003+01:00

More of the

hike to

Malam Cove

today.

Pictures Keighley, March 7th, 2011

2011-03-07T19:50:00.004+01:00

Our hike to

Malam Cove

today.

Elder Bant

and I.

Trifle at the

Zsirman family,

they are great!

(and so is

the trifle!)

Keighley, March 7th, 2011

2011-03-07T19:45:00.003+01:00

Hellooooo Loyal Blog Readers!! :)

Thanks so much for all your comments and for the time you take to read my blog, I hope I'll keep up to your expectations! ;) This week was a quite good week, we had some ups and some downs. The big disappointment was that Becky possibly dropped us and we're absolutely devistated about it! We hope to get in touch with her soon and find out what's going on but we think life is just not easy for her at the moment, so we hope and pray that we can help and support her and help her get back on track! Aswell we're struggling with finding new investigators, we've mostly seen succes due to member referrals and it's hard for us to make a lot of finding hours without succes. we're trying to keep our spirits up but its sometimes a challenge!

The exciting thing is of course our star Family, they are so golden, 24 carat! :) We were able to teach them many times this week with the support of the Zsirman family who are just star member-missionaries! :) We then had the biggest lesson ever last night, for which I was rather nervous because we were going to teach the family about the law of chastity, when we showed up however, their 2 older daughters were there and 1 of their boyfriends aswell and they all sat in on the lesson, pfff nerv-wrecking! :P

It went well and we committed them to live the law of chastity, we scheduled a day for the wedding of Richard and Joan and their baptism in April. We're so excited and I can't wait for it to happen, it's like 20 months of prayers are finally answered! :) (Patience is a virtue? ;) ) Now the most amazing thing was that Christina didn't want to wait till April to be baptized so she said that she wanted to be baptized this coming week!!!

The tea appointments are epic here in Keighley and this week we're being fed the entired week, every day, it's so great! The ward is just the best, I love the people and I feel really close with some of the families already, I hope friendships will be build here that will last much longer than just the periode of time I'm serving here! :)

Today we had a great p-day, we went to Malam cove, and it was beautiful, it was fun, we had a bunch of missionaries there and the hike was pretty challenging, at some points a bit of rock-climbing was definetely required.. we went over a big waterfall where the rocks were covered in ice which was pretty slippery, some people such as Elder Stettler and Sister White got their legs wet, haha :)

I love our zone, its a wonderful spirit when we're together and I find it sad that a lot of them are American so it won't be so easy to see them afterwards! Oh well, not to worry about that now I suppose!

Tonight we're teaching our star family and Christina about tithing and we're going to get Christina interviewd so she can get baptized this weekend! I'm so flippin excited and I can't wait!

It's scary how fast time goes, in 4 months I'll be home and it's a scary thought, I'm not trunky yet, I have my moments though which suck :P Just try to focus on the work I suppose, all will be well ;)

Love you all, hope to hear from you all soon, if you want to write me please look up my actual adress on the blog, I love post! :D ;)

Love,

Elder Heinrichs

Keighley, february 28th, 2011

2011-02-28T23:41:00.002+01:00

Hey Everyone! :)

Today I'm a bit later in doing my e-mails because we went over to Leeds Crossgates chapel to have zone-studies in the morning and have our Zone P-day there. When we came back from it the Skipton Elders had a parking ticket on their car which sucks, oh well.. We had fun, we played sports such as football, hockey, gadorball, we watched movies, played chairfootball, oh we had a blast. Elder Kapetanov in the end did a 'stand up comedian' show for about 15 minutes which was ace! :)

Today was a good p-day but I just feel absolutely wrecked!

This past week was such a blessing, it was wonderful. It was hard work and a lot of finding that eventually hit home, I haven't been feeling well at all the last few days and am extremely tired. I had to go to the docter on Friday because I possibly have an infection or another illness.

We were able to find a few new investigators and have some great lessons with our star family and with Becky. I'm grateful for the blessings that we've received so far because I know it's only due to the Faith of the ward and our Father in Heaven that is willing to bless us! This morning Pres Lindley called us to congratulate us on our week, even though we didn't get standards of excellence, I didn't think we deserved a call because we're truly not the cause of the succes in Keighley.

The members are awesome, I feel at home and I feel blessed with their support in such a wonderful way. I miss more than ever at the moment the opportunity to sleep in, cuz I'm so tired!! :P

I love how lately all the online websites of the church have been updated. www.mormon.org and also www.lds.org are a great place now to find study materials but aswell to familiarize friends with the gospel! :)

I love missionary work, people are asking me what I feel like going home almost, I don't know, I feel right now as I don't want to because I feel that there's no life really waiting for me and it's going to be a big change so I just try and focus on the time I have left right now! :)

I love the gospel, I know its true, I know that the teachings bring us happiness, even when life isn't easy sometimes!

I look forward to hearing from you all! I love you!

- Elder M Heinrichs

More pictures, Keighley, 28th february 2011

2011-02-28T23:35:00.002+01:00

In our

apartment.

Watch

your

head!

Watching

movies...

today....

I am

number 17

on the right.

Pictures Keighley, february 28th, 2011

2011-02-28T23:30:00.003+01:00

Elder Kapetanov's

stand-up.

Elder Otte,

Sister White,

Me and

Elder Pearse.

Sister Lamb.

Pictures Keighley, february 21st, 2011

2011-02-28T23:23:00.003+01:00

Snow!

again...

Elder Farstad

and I.

Zone conference:

our zone.

Pictures Keighley, february 20th, 2011

2011-02-28T23:18:00.003+01:00

Becki, our

investigator.

Christina,

another investigator.

Emma will

love this!

:-)

Our bishop

on the left.

Keighley, February 21st, 2011

2011-02-21T17:26:00.003+01:00

Hellooooo Everyone,

This week was rather eventful so I'm grabbing my planner so I won't forget to write anything! We were blessed in miraculous ways and I've witnessed the Lord's hand in his work once again. I'm grateful to know of his allmighty power and to be able to witness of it regularly to strengthen my faith in Him. I know this work is true and it will continue to move forward till it has filled all the ends of the earth!

Our week started well, we had a great p-day with the Skipton missionaries who are here e-mailing with us today aswell. We just hung out, did some shopping, I bought a new cuff-link shirt. Afterwards we went up to our chapel and decided to hang out there and watch some movies. Thanks to my wonderful dad we watched Planet 51 and Toy Story 3 which was a bunch of fun, we all laughed together! :)

Tuesday we had Zone Conference in Leeds which was great! It was amazing to see so many missionaries. The Leeds zone had decided to all wear the same tie which was pretty awesome! :) The instructions were great and it was just so much fun to hang out with many of my missionary friends. Elder Smith, Elder Pinnegar, Elder Farstad (from Norway) and of course my dear Elder Leclerc!!

The food was amazing and the sisters there did such a wonderful job, we ate chicken, rice and salade, it was just yummy! :)

After Zone Conference I went on exchange with Elder Pearse in Skipton, that was good fun and I stayed there till wednesday. Elder Pearse is so funny and we had a great time even though I had to endure quite some abuse in Skipton, there's a lot of older people there. It is pretty much a 'virgin' area though because it was newly opened this week and missionaries hardly ever went there! So thats pretty cool!

Wednesday night we had ward council and the bishop here is amazing aswell, he is so focused on his goal of doubling his sacrament meeting attendance, he is reaching out to so many wonderful people, I admire the man for his dilligence and integrity!

Then the days after were just a lot of finding, especially Friday we had to 'endure to the end' because it was freezing cold! Then on Saturday morning we looked out the window and there was something horrible.....SNOW!! :( That didnt excite me a single bit!

We went out in the morning and the streetcontacting wasnt effective at all. After 1,5 hours we thought we should try our back-up plan which was to try by this potential family. Their daughter had been referred to us on the tuesday by a member but she wanted to wait for a week so she could talk to the parents. The following morning without knowing Elder Bant talked to the girls parents while streetcontacting and set an appointment for Friday, they weren't able to make that and left a note for us which was lovely!

On saturday morning we decided to go by this family, we were welcomed in and taught these wonderful humble people principles of eternal families and making covenants to find greater happiness. They happily accepted a baptismal challenge and are scheduled to be baptised in a few weeks from now. Richard the father of the family recognised the spirit and without us teaching him about it, he described experiencing a warm glowing feeling in his chest. We of course immediately pointed out that it was the spirit.

It was one of the most spiritual lessons I've been able to have in a long time and a miracle because the following day Joan and Christina came to church.

We were blessed to find some new investigators this week and see many more other miracles. We were able to contact a part-member family who was shocked to see us since they had not seen Elders visit their home for over a year! It was amazing! I love the gospel and I love the work, I see now that my difficult times on my mission have made me so much more appreciative of these times and I hope and pray these wonderful blessings may continue!

On saturday Elder Bant had his year mark and we decided to have a feast so we ate chinese food together, as we ordered it we talked to the lady that was serving us and she showed us a leaflet she was reading of born-again things. Because she was in a rush we couldn't talk much but we were at least able to leave a plan of salvation pamflet with our phonenumber as we rushed for our bus!

At the moment I love recieving post! I'm so grateful for all the many loyal friends that stay in touch. Thank you and I hope to get back to you as soon as possible!

Love,

Elder Matthias Heinrichs

Poor companion.

2011-02-21T17:23:00.004+01:00

Elder Bant,

outside the

hospital,

on the phone

with the

Mission President.

Elder Bant

on his way

to have

surgery.

And then

I was alone!!!

Pictures, Keighley, February 14th, 2011

2011-02-21T17:18:00.004+01:00

Me and

Elder Bant.

Zone

Meeting.

Gathering at

the trainstation.

Keighley, February 14th, 2011

2011-02-14T12:25:00.002+01:00

Hellooo :)

It's good to be able to hear from my family again! :) I love e-mails. Though the Keighley library seems to be fully packed with people wanting to use the internet, it seems like a battle for the computers as soon as you walk in here! Which is rather annoying, but hey I made it on to one :)

This week was a rather interesting week, with blessings and trials. We were able to teach Becki the 15 year old girl that came to church last week and we were able to schedule her for a baptism a few weeks away from now, which is exciting!

Sadly enough on Tuesday my wonderful companion Elder Bant and I were running for the bus in the morning and apparently something went wrong because within an hour Elder Bant started to feel uncomfortable and not well. A few hours later we were sat in the hospital and we were told that my companion had to have emergency surgery!

It was so weird because I had to be alone all the time while he was in Surgery, there was nobody there, I felt bad for Elder Bant and was rather worried about him. Luckely everything went well, but the few hours of waiting werent pleasant for me. After he came out President and Sister Lindley came by, that was nice because that meant I wasnt alone anymore. Elder Bant seemed all happy and cheerful after his surgery, the anesthetic was still wearing off, when he came out of the hospital the following dayit was rather painful. Thanks to Ben Hancock, bishops son, I was able to go out on Tuesday night after he picked me up out of the hospital to have the appointment with Becki and invite her to be baptised.

Throughout the rest of the week the members have been really supportive and on a few occasions I was able to go out and teach some people. Other members brought food to our flat and provided lifts which was wonderful.

Because Elder Bant had to stay in the Hospital for one night I was taken by a member to the Skipton flat on tuesday and had to spend the night on the floor on some pillows, probably the worst night of my mission, haha :P But it was fun though, they are great missionaries.

Then this sunday was an interesting day, we recieved a call at 8:15 in the morning to ask if we could bear our testimonies, we mentioned that we did that last week, for some stupid reason I volunteered to give a talk, haha I dont know why but oh well, there I went without much preperation to give a talk, thrown in the deep end on my 2nd week here, Elder Bant was later on asked to do one next week, haha! :P

Anyways, the person to give a talk after me started talking about a wound he got and e talked quite in detail. One of the sisters fainted in the meeting because of his story!! Oh man I was sitting on the stand and trying really hard not to laugh... the person giving the talk cut his talk short and sat down with the biggest guilty-expression on a mans face I've ever seen. Haha, it was the topic of the day afterwards.

Later on in the day we were invited at bishops house and had a great meeting there, he is a wonderful man and has a lovely family.

The ward and the youth are great, I still miss a bunch of my friends from my previous area's but I'm excited for my time here now.

Thanks everyone for the post so far, it's been great! :)

Hope all is well with you and hope to hear from you all soon! :)

Love,

Elder Matthias Heinrichs

New Address!!!

2011-02-07T13:21:00.003+01:00

Hey Everyone,

My new address in Keighley is:

Elder M. Heinrichs

74 Mannville Road

BD22 6AT

Keighley

England

I am looking forward to hear from you!

New Address!!!

2011-02-07T13:21:00.002+01:00

Hey Everyone,

My new address in Keighley is:

Elder M. Heinrichs

74 Mannville Road

BD22 6AT

Keighley

England

I am looking forward to hear from you!

Pictures, Keighley, February 7th 2011

2011-02-07T12:28:00.004+01:00

My bed and

my desk.

Driving near

Skipton on

those scary

small English

backroads.

With Elder LeClerc

(former companion)

and his new trainee

and Elder Peavler.

Transfer from

Billingham zone.

With the

McQueens

that took me

to Whitby.

At Whitby

by the sea.

Keighley, February 7th, 2011

2011-02-07T12:25:00.003+01:00

Hellooooo everyone! :)

Here we are agaaaaain! :) This time from the new wet and rainy Keighley! Well actually it's dry right now but the last 4 days it's been raining non-stop! Oh man I dislike rain! :P Haha, nonetheless, we've been outside tracting and working hard to build up the area again.

I've totally fallen in love with the area, this is the kind of area I've imagined it to be like to be on a mission in England, Hills, Small typical English villages, generally very friendly people, etc.

I absolutely love the ward! They are amazing, the singing is wonderful and it makes me so happy, we all sing along in full volume and it almost sounds like a full cathedral of people singing! :) We have a great bishop and our ward mission leader Tom Mcnee is a star, he's actually the brother of the bishop I had in Selby!

There's so much potential in this ward and area, on sunday we were welcomed in a wonderful way and the people had been fasting for missionary oppertunities. After sacrament we were approached by one of the ward missionaries who informed us that his niece who he had brought to church that day wanted to get baptised and we were able to meet her and set up an appointment to teach her on tuesday! It's just a miracle!

We've been finding a lot of potentials and on saturday we were allowed in the home of a lovely elderly couple and we left them with a Book of Mormon aswell. I've been talking to a lot of people that never heard of the Book of Mormon before which was quite suprising to me! Aswell people thought that our church was a community hall, and they were very intrigued when we informed them that it was a Mormon Church.

We live with members who are the best! We live in the attic / loft conversion and it's a nice large place, we have our own fridge, kettle, microwave etc. Everything exepct for running water and a cooker upstairs. We have lovely beds and I've had the best night sleep in the last 6 months here! They even put electric blankets on our beds so it's nice to sleep with those at night! :D

We travel on busses and it took us a while to get a bus pass sorted for the both of us but we finally got it done on Friday.

On wednesday we had a car and on thursday aswell because the Skipton Elders still needed to take a driving lesson. Keighley ward split into Keighley and Skipton so Skipton is a brand new area this transfer. On thursday we took the oppertunity to look around in our area and that way we know now what area's we want to go finding in! :)

Today we're watching the superbowl especially for my companion and then I get to choose the rest of the transfer what we want to do, haha :P

I'm sure it will be fun!

I love you all, I know the church is true and the work is so important! I cant wait to hear from you!

Love,

Elder Matthias Heinrichs

Pictures Middlesbrough, February 1st, 2011

2011-02-01T23:11:00.003+01:00

Our wonderful

ward mission leader,

Ian Robinson,

who took us to

Walkabout

(restaurant).

Here you

can eat a

kangaroo

burger! :-)

Wonderful

African

food.

Eating

Indian food

the traditional

way...with

your hands...

It's called

Brianni or

something

like that.

Cooked by

our friend

Aibel.

Me and

Elder Hubbard

at Walkabout

(where

br. Robinson

took us to).

With

Joclyn,

Evlyn

and

Patrick.

Last time Middlesbrough, february 1st, 2011

2011-02-01T12:54:00.001+01:00

Hey Everyone!

Transfer week!! And yes! I'm getting transfered! I'm really excited! :) I'm being moved to Keighley in de Leeds Zone, I'm whitewashing there and my new companion is going to be Elder Bant, as far as I know, he's a short, skinny lad from Pleasant Grove, Utah. I'm looking forward to serving with him and working hard in Keighley!

As far as I know it's a small town and there's a lot of work to be done!

I'll be sad to leave my good friends here in Middlesbrough, I've met some wonderful people here in the 6 months that I've resided here and I feel blessed to have had many experiences with people from different backgrounds and different cultures. I've learned to love the Indian Culture and food especially and I'll be missing my Indian friends a lot!

This week my good friend Aibel George made me some Brianni, apparently something which is very popular to eat in India at the moment. It was absolutely wonderful! I was so full at the end, I hope I can gather some of the recipies here! :)

Our wonderful and dilligent ward mission leader, Brother Ian Robinson took us out for a meal this week and he took us to Walkabout where we were able to enjoy a lovely Kangaroo Burger! It was a good night out and we were able to have some good discussions about the work here aswell. I know that with the support of Brother Robinson, the missionaries will see a lot of succes as they coordinate and work with him closely!

Today we are going to Whitby for P-day, the McQueens are taking us and we are really excited. The work is going well at the moment and we are being blessed. Patrick is wonderful and there are many other people that are great, such as Filoso, Wu Hau, Zhang Hao Ming etc.

I love you all a lot, I look forward to recieving your post and we will hear from eachother all soon I hope.

God bless you!

Love,

Elder Heinrichs.

PS: As a personal request, My father is working hard at my Uni application in Germany but things aren't running as smoothly as hoped for, could you all please specifically pray for that for me? Thank you!

Middlesbrough, january 24th, 2011

2011-01-24T19:52:00.003+01:00

IMPORTANT : MAIL

From now on the Mission Home doesn't forward the mail anymore. So you need to send it directly to Elder Heinrichs, or it may take weeks to reach him!

His current address is:

Elder M.D. Heinrichs

12 Windsor Road

Linthorpe

TS 5 6 DR

Middlesbrough

England

He is looking forward to hear from you!

If you write him at the end of the month, then please send it to the mission home. Transfers are coming up next week!

Hey everyone :)

Here's another quick e-mail from Middlesbrough :) Life's allright up here, this transfer is flying by and we're now in week 5. I cant really believe it but oh well, thats life. I'm glad that at the moment the weather is quite nice, its not too cold but its not really rainy either so thats good because walking and tracting in the rain is definately not a hobby of mine.

This week we had a few good experiences. We were blessed with 2 exchanges this week that went really well. We had a great lesson with Armin the other night with Mikhel our Elders Quorum President, Mikhel was able to bear his sincere testimony and the spirit was so powerful, I was so grateful for that! Armin came to church for 1 of the hours this past sunday and I know that was only because the spirit was so strong that night!

Earlier on in the week our ward mission leader was with us, we were able to teach a few people but not all of our plans succeeded. Then at night, at 8 pm, which is a diffucult time for us to do anything, I felt that we should try by a potential. We were let in and we were able to teach this wonderful young man from Congo about the Restoration of the gospel.He became a new investigator aswell, that was great.

Every time I teach with members I am able to feel the spirit so much stronger than usual, it's something special, it drives me, it pushes me to want to be better, to work harder to be more obedient. They are sacred moments to me and i'm so grateful for the loyal and faithful members that come out with us to teach the Lord's children, their brothers and sisters.

We were able to invite 4 people to be baptised this week and they are all scheduled for the last few weeks of febuary. One man called Patrick is such a wonderful brother, he's from Uganda and we found him 2 weeks ago. He's come to church both 2 weeks since then and yesterday we invited him for his baptism in front of the baptismal font, that was so exciting! I know the Lord is blessing us so much right now and that we should be so grateful!

Today we're not doing anything special, I think it was supposed to be a zone-p-day but maybe that'll happen next week. Today i think we're just going to make some food, write some letters and chill out.

This week we got a bit of the post from the office so that was good, thank you all for your letters! :) I'll do my best to reply to them! :)

We also had interviews, I was glad to be able to talk to the Mission President, he does give inspired advise and hopefully that will help me on my way in the coming few weeks!

I love the gospel, I know its true and it does improve our lives, even though the world has its difficulties and brings challenges for us, the gospel is that steady guidline that will help us get through, work hard and exersize your faith, that's something i'll try to continue to apply because i know it works and it brings peace.

Love,

Elder Heinrichs

Middlesbrough, january 17th, 2011

2011-01-17T16:00:00.003+01:00

Hello!

Another e-mail from the (in)famous Middlesbrough! This transfer is flying by, I can't believe we're already in the 4th week of the transfer, time flies! So this week we had a few amazing things happen to us, we were blessed with a lot of great people, we had a good motivation and we we're able to work hard and see the fruits of our labor.

We were able to achieve Standards of Excellence this week :) We had invited a lot of members to pray with us for missionary work and some to fast with us on this thursday. Due to their efforts we were blessed with miracles.

On tuesday we recieved 2 referrals from the office and 1 seemed to be a golden investigator. We tried to contact them but couldnt get in touch with them. We tried by every day.

Then on thursday we decided to try by a potential we had, when the door was opened, he wasnt there but the guy that opened up invited us straight in. It was the first door we knocked on that day!!

We were invited to come in and we started teaching him, we found out that he was from Uganda and that missionaries in Londen had contacted him but never came by. He invited his other housemate to come and join the lesson aswell, that was really cool!

We were able to teach a powerful first lesson and we were invited to come back on saturday, we did that and on saturday me and a member went by and had a great lesson and he came to church on Sunday and was absolutely great! :)

Now then on Friday came the real miracle. We had our Friday weekly planning and we did it at our chapel, we then tried by that referral again and we still couldnt get a hold of her, so I felt that we should try the neighbours and ask when she's usually in. So we inquired and got told that she was in at evening times. Now this referral had a fiance that was a member, so we were desperate to get a hold of her. As we continued to find that whole day we were unsuccesful, we got a bunch of potentials but no teaching appointments.

Then in the afternoon I felt prompted to call my ward mission leader and ask him if he could drive down from Darlington so we could try by that referral that evening... he did so and in the evening we were let in, and her fiance was there on coincidence, he was going home the following day and we were able to teach her, her 2 young daughters and her fiance, it was amazing! We didnt get home till 10 o'clock but it was a good excuse! :)

We were so blessd!! :D Our ward mission leader enjoyed the lesson and said he was impressed with our teaching, that always makes me feel happy! :)

Last monday we were watching movies and went bowling on our p-day, that was good fun. I played 111 and 155 so that was pretty good, it was very enjoyable even though it was just the 2 of us!

Today we have a district p-day and we're just making some food, watching movies and playing sports in Billingham, this week we have interviews on wensday so i'll have to see how that goes ;)

I love to serve and I'm glad things are going well now. I dont know if ill baptize before I leave Middlesbrough but at least I have a clear conscience and know that I build it up again with the Lords help! :)

Love you all, hope to hear from you all! :) Still love post and mail! :) For info ask my mom! :)

Talk to you soon!

Love,

Elder Heinrichs

Oh here's some other small details. This week we ate a Kangaroo burger at the Walkabout restaurant, it was sooooo good! Best 7,25 i've spent in my life on a burger! :D It tastes like steak but has a great flavor!

Middlesbrough, january 10th, 2011

2011-01-10T13:17:00.001+01:00

Hello everyone! :)

Yes it's me! :) The weeks are flying by, it's crazy. I suppose they always say, '' time flies when you're having fun''! This week was another interesting week, we've been working hard and putting in quite a few finding hours. We had some good tea-appointments which were very enjoyable. The weather is cold and wet, but so far we havent really been outside in the rain knocking or finding, we've been very lucky and blessed in that way because neither me or my companion enjoy the rain!

We had an exchange on Friday to Saturday and that was very enjoyable, Elder Ashby our District Lord (as he likes to be called) came to Middlesbrough with me and Elder Hubbard went to Billingham for the night. We were able to find 4 new investigators on the exchange and it was amazing. We recontacted a family that I had found with Elder Dudgeon on the transfer day and we had taught just the husband. This time we found the wife and 2 kids there and we were able to teach, that was great and exiting! And later that evening we recontacted 2 former investigators that used to come to church, sadly enough they have a long way to go and we're not sure if we can help them in this moment of time but we invited them to church and one came! :)

We were blessed to see 3 investigators at church this week and we were happy with that, we were blessed with 10 referrals this week aswell, we'd been asking everyone every single day, investigators, street contacts etc. etc.

On Friday we had a funny experience with our tea-appointment, we went to tea with the Toyne family and Eddie had found a dead mouse, and Elinore hates mice so he told me to show her, so I grabbed it and walked into the kitchen with it, oh boy, she totally flipped! She started screaming, it was hilarious, everyone was laughing, on Sunday she was still holding a grudge, haha :P I wish I could send you the movie of it but people will have to wait for a while ;)

Well another development within the Mission concerning post, I'm very sorry if it takes a while for me to reply on letters but from the beginning of the year our mission office cannot forward any more letters to the missionaries so we are dependant on meetings, zone leaders and interviews for our post which takes a lot longer! If you still want to write me directly, you'll have to regularly look at my actual up-to-date adress which is always available on the blog!

The other day we had to help a non-member with some of his reporting-skills because he's from Indonesia, it was fun to do because I had not worked on a report for uni over a year and I realised that I actually enjoyed doing it, haha I never though i'd say that homework was fun! Miracles deffinatly havent left this world ;)

Today we're just going to chill out, do some shopping and try to get a suit for me because all these English stores are built for small people and deffinatly not for people with long arms! :(

Thank you so much for all the friendly e-mails and letters that I recieve. I'm grateful for the gospel and the oppertunity to serve the Lord. The gospel is the best thing that a person could have in it's life and to all those who read this who do not have a testimony of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ I exhort you to read of the Book of Mormon and study it, ponder it and sincirely pray and ask the Almighty God if it is true, the awnser which you will recieve can change your life forever as you choose to follow it!

May the Lords blessing be with all of you!

Love,

Elder M Heinrichs

Pictures, Middlesbrough, january 4th, 2011.

2011-01-04T13:14:00.001+01:00

Middlesbrough, January 4th, 2011

2011-01-04T13:13:00.000+01:00

Helloooo :) HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Yes once again an e-mail on another day than monday, England and it's weird Bank Holliday's, I suppose it's nice for most people, especially people working but I'm not such a great fan because it's always on a Monday!!!

Anyways, i'm glad to get e-mail because due to the bank holliday mess the post has been thrown about aswell so it's nice to hear from my friends and family :)

This past week was an interesting one where everyone has been suffering with the flue and other sickness, there's a nasty 24-hour bug going around which is influencing members, non-member friends etc. Nonetheless we've been trying really hard to teach wherever we could, we were kept in a few times due to illness but never a full day which im glad about because I remember last years winter, especially january was really rough and I was sick a lot.

We've been out finding a lot and we found some new investigators which is exciting, we're finding more in family area's which means we're having to travel a bit more and put a bit more effort into our planning but I see that the quality of the investigators and the sincirety in the hearts is better. I think in general the winter makes it more difficult for the mission but we're all pulling together to find the elect, there's people out there waiting for us, I know there are and we just have to find them.

This week we were appointed a new ward mission leader in the ward and I'm excited for him, he's very much focused on action and has started implementing some of his new idea's for the area and how to help us by getting members more involved in ways they can! He took us for some chips after our coordination meeting last week and he started doing missionary work in te fish & chip shop across from the church and gave out 2 pass-along cards, that was really cool! :)

Newyears was a bit boring, me and my comp were in bed by 10 o clock because we were both wrecked, I woke up due to a bit of fireworks but it didnt sound too impressive :P

Ok, so a cool experience we had this week was when we were travelling to an appointment with a potential on the bus this week. As we were on the bus I was looking outside and I saw this lady and thoughts came into my mind, press the stop button, get off and talk to her, but the next bus stop was like 200 - 400 yards away and it would get us late for our appointment, well I still pressed the button, something i usually wouldnt have done.. we started running, I saw another guy down the road and told Elder Hubbard to stop him, I kept running, the lady was already half way down a park and we started walking towards her, I eventually talked to her and talked for 5 minutes, no result, she was born again and deffinatly not bothered. So disappointed we started to walk back, there at the entrance of the park I started talking to a man who was walking his dog, and he was very interested, knew where our church was and would love to talk to us some other time because he had never gone deep in religion, he said his wife would probably be interested aswell because she see's JW's regularly. He thanked us a lot after we said goodbye and we're going to try and see him again today! :)

Well I hope everyone is doing well and that people will keep their new years resolutions and strive this year to do more for others in their life than they do for themselves, that's what will make life worthwile! :)

All the best wishes, love and health for 2011,

Love,

Elder Matthias Heinrichs

Middlesbrough, december 29th, 2010

2010-12-29T13:23:00.002+01:00

Hellooo everyone :)

Time has come again to mail home :) This past week has gone pretty fast, probably due to the transfers, Harrogate P-day, Christmas and Boxing day so whenever you have lots of fun, time goes extra fast =).

We found another family on transfer-day as I was on an exchange with Elder Dudgeon, hopefully we'll be able to see them again this week. We met the Husband and he said his wife would be interested aswell!

I was sad to see Elder Smith go, I'll miss him, I really got quite attached to him and enjoyed working and teaching with him, we'd gone through up's and down's in the work together and I really felt united which is the best feeling to have in a companionship.

I'm now working with Elder Hubbard from Arkansas and he too has only been out for 4,5 months, I'm interested to see how thats going to work :)

Harrogate P-day was great, we went there and we were bowling again in the morning, me and Elder Smith, Hubbard and Degraw were on a lane together and we did some weird stuff, haha good fun though! :) Afterwards me and Elder Degraw and Alsop went to the Commissary on base to get some food because Elder Degraw had a military ID, that was good fun because now I was able to get all American goodies, lucky charms, minute made fruit punch, Mac & Cheese, Root Beer and Mountain Dew!! :) Afterwards we played football and other sports and after that we had a little nativity and we also watched Scrooge which was fun! :) Then we were given presents and a meal which was enjoyable and after that we drove home again, a great day! :) Thanks to the President and his wife and the office missionaries! :)

Christmas eve was good, we had a nice meal at the Beevers house with all their family there and we had roast beef etc, it was enjoyable, both me and my comp definitely ate too much.

Then Christmas day was great aswell, we had a dinner at the Rudds, breakfast at the Beevers and we taught a new investigator called James aswell, he had read the book of mormon from front till Alma within a week, that was so exciting for us! :) We hope to see him again today or later this week :)

Life is going allright, we've been a little sick the last few days because of the wonderful flu that has been going around. We're trying to get through it and keep healthy by working hard and hopefully to find many more new investigators, pray hard for us that we can be succesful in doing so.

I love my mission and I hope to be able to serve many more of my brothers and sisters here in Middlesbrough. Pray for me and my comp with all your heart that we may be succesful. (Alma 6:6).

I miss you all, my family and friends and I hope to hear from you all, my adress should be somewhere on the blog! :)

Lots of love,

Elder Matthias Heinrichs

Middlesbrough, december 20th, 2010, more pictures!

2010-12-20T16:25:00.001+01:00

After my fall...

Gifts!

Christmas party

at the bishop.

Middlesbrough, december 20th, 2010

2010-12-20T16:18:00.002+01:00

Early

Christmas dinner

last saturday.

Smashed up car.

My leg

after falling...

bandaged....

Middlesbrough, december 20th, 2010

2010-12-20T16:17:00.001+01:00

Hey everyone :)

I'm going to keep it short today, we don't have a p-day today due to transfers being tomorrow instead of a normal wednesday! I'm NOT getting moved, i'm staying another 6 weeks here, it's interesting, i'm not going to enjoy sleeping on the floor for another 6 weeks but I'm excited to build up the work in this area and I know succes will be seen in the coming month! :)

This past week had it's up's and downs and we were able to work hard. Sadly enough Edwin Sparkes ended up in the Hospital this past weekend, we we're shocked because we were seeing him twice a week for a few weeks now, so we immediately went over to see him, he seems to be doing allright but please all pray for him and pray that he will make the decision to be baptised soon! :)

Funny enough on saturday when we saw Edwin, I ended up in the Hospital the same night, during the day me and my comp were bookin it down the street to catch a bus but the street picked a fight with me and I sorely lost :( See the pictures for the result :P

I had to go to the hospital to get my wrist x-rayed but its all good, i was sad because i was sooooo hoping for a cast! :P I've never had one :P

Ehm, this Sunday church got cancelled due to the bad weather again, it's absolutely disrupting the missionary effort which is just a big challenge to work with right now but we'll work through it! :)

Tomorrow i'll be getting Elder Hubbard from Arkansas, i'm excited for it, i talked to him the other night and he seems a real good and fun guy :)

Ehm.. this thursday is our p-day we're going to Harrogate to the base, playing some sports again and playig bowling, im gonna see how it goes with my legg being busted up but ill probably be stubborn and try to play some football, just chew on some painkillers, hehe (A)

Oh, today's district meeting was so great, i felt the spirit, i learned so many things and was just excited to do things, i was asked to lead it off because the Zone-leaders were late and de DL had already moved so I had to take charge for a bit and that was fun to do :) Oh well, who knows it might happen again in the future :)

I love you all, keep working hard and enjoy the wonderful Holliday season! :)

May we all focus on the true meaning of Christmas

Love,

Elder Matthias Heinrichs

Pictures, Middlesbrough, december 13th, 2010.

2010-12-13T11:55:00.001+01:00

Me!

Mail that is

going out.

Reminds me

of Holland...

This morning

in the library.

Middlesbrough, december 13th, 2010

2010-12-13T11:53:00.001+01:00

Hey everyone!

Waaaah!! Christmas is closing in and it's closing in faaaaaaast! I can't believe it! :) I'm enjoying the work at the moment even though it's mostly outside tracting! We had a lot of finding-hours this week but eventually it got rewarded on thursday. We were finding in an area where mostly British people lived, and we had knocked a street and were trying to find the other road we had prayed about and as we were wandering around we were talking to people, and i talked to this lady and she said that there were a few older people on her side, and then i felt prompted to ask her about the other side of the street if there were any younger families living there, she said there were so we decided to start knocking those houses.

At the end of that block we found a family from India, they are from Kerla, the same place as Noble. They let us in and we had an amazing lesson on the Restoration, but the most amazing was their 10 year old daughter, she explained the scriptures in Amos and Moroni 10 perfectly, I was absolutely dumbstruck. As I heard her speak and interpret the scriputres I realised why Christ said 'suffer the Children, for as such is the Kingdom of Heaven'

I love the gospel and I'm so happy to share it! :)

We're really focusing on improving ourselves and improving the people we're working with, we've dropped and said goodbye to the biggest part of our investigator group, i've worked with a lot of people since i've been here in Middlesbrough, but that's how we eventually get to the elect. I enjoy serving with Elder Smith, he's a good guy with a good heart and we can be unified in the things we want to accomplish and the way we want to get there so that is very enjoyable for me :)

Aswell, the bishop is back in town so i'm very happy with that, i've really missed him!

Today is zone P-day, we're just going to chill out at the billingham chapel and do some fun christmas games and perhaps watch a few movies! :) I just need some chilling out, walking and sliding over the ice the last few days have really made me tired, my knees hurt so its gonna be nice just to sit and linger around with good people :)

Ehm... I dunno what else to mention, post has sucked soooo bad these last 2 weeks because the Royal Mail is still absolutely backlogged, but we have a member here that works for Royal Mail and she said that she'll keep her eyes out especially for parcels for us so that we'll get them before Christmas, sweet huh?! :D

Lol my clothes are absolutely worn out, my suit is just absolutely MINGING as they would say here in England, salt and mud everywhere, haha! :) Oh well, shows that at least im still out working! :) Suprisingly i've been blessed with a lot of health so far this winter, normally i would've been badly ill a few times by now but i havent really been ill since last july, which i see as a big blessing, yay! :)

Well i gotta go, i miss all of you :) I love you guys, hope to hear from you all soon :) And if you post letters / packages just mail to the office for now, till after transfers! :)

Love,

Elder Matthias Heinrichs

Pictures, Middlesbrough, december 6th, 2010

2010-12-06T15:36:00.001+01:00

Just some pictures of us clearing snow at the church and working outside in the cold.

Middlesbrough, december 6th, 2010

2010-12-06T15:31:00.002+01:00

Hey everyone :)
Yessss, it's e-mail time! :) Man I was really looking forward to my e-mails because due to the snow all the post has really come to a grinding halt. When the Royal mail is actually going out, they're running half-rounds so it takes forever for us to get post, it took from monday till saturday to get a letter from leeds to our flat, lol! :P Ah well, to be honest I cant blame Royal Mail, this country is just seriously ill equipped to deal with the snow, they dont have manpower but moreso the material to deal with it. You would've thought they would've learned a lesson from last year ' the worst winter in 30 years'... ah well :P It doenst matter, come winter, weather or sun, missionaries are out! :D There's no message more important than the Lord's message of the Restoration and it will be delivered on time! :) We now just have to find those people that are waiting for it. Due to the weather we do have to change our tactics and approaches, people are less likely to stand outside and have a discussion so we have to follow up very closely on all the potentials that we recieve and we're going to be doing a lot more door-knocking in the coming weeks.
This week we've been doing a lot of service in the snow, this past saturday we were clearing the paths and parking lot at church from the vast amounts of snow that had gathered there over the last 2 weeks. Aswell we've been pushing out cars that got stuck in the snow, we've averagely helped out about 2-3 cars every day, it's good fun and people are very appreciative... It's funny how some people don't understand that you're smarter to put it into 2nd gear when you're stuck in the snow :P ;)
Well at the moment we're having to build up our teaching pool, so we're praying to find prepared people and we're really trying to work hard and beeing exactly obedient. I truly love Elder Smith, we can be open and honest with eachother and help eachother to improve and get the work going again. The Mission President is implementing some great new directions in the mission, he's applying some of the business tools that I was taught at Uni and I think it's brilliant, it's just a point to get the local leaders to understand how they work etc. But that will come soon enough :)
A disappointing thing this week was that Daniels baptism didnt go through, he's broken contact for a while, we know that it's not really anything to do with us but some other things are going on in his life right now, so we hope and pray that soon we'll be able to see him again and help him out with his situation. Baptism will bring him on the path that leads to lasting happiness and the gift of the Holy Ghost is what will guide him!
Today we're just going to chill out, see if we can get some christmas stuff sorted :) Do a little shopping and just rest and enjoy. There's not much to do up here in Middlesbrough and we're not really informed about the surrounding city's. We'll see if we can get something cool organised! :)
I love you all, thanks all those that keep in touch and read here regularly! :) Looking forward to all your replies! :) -
Elder Matthias Heinrichs

Last pictures, Middlesbrough, november 29th, 2010

2010-11-29T16:22:00.002+01:00

Cupcakes...
mine is on the
left bottom...

Thanksgiving

at the

stakepresident...

More pictures, Middlesbrough, november 29th, 2010

2010-11-29T16:15:00.002+01:00

Thanksgiving
dinner at the
stakepresident.
Cutting the
turkey....

Sunset in

Billingham.

Billingham

Chapel.

Pictures, Middlesbrough, november 29th, 2010

2010-11-29T16:09:00.002+01:00

Middlesbrough, november 29th, 2010

2010-11-29T16:04:00.001+01:00

Hey Everyone! :)
How are you doing again? :) Man, this week was a bit of a bummer, we were blessed with a lot of succes but then the weather got bad over the weekend and we ended up with 8 inches of snow, with sunday morning beeing -9 degrees celcius, Church got cancelled, and therefore Daniels baptism had to be moved till next week, which of course was very disappointing. Sunday afternoon we got stuck in a way off part of town because busses stopped driving, which is ridiculous. The council here is pretty sad in keeping the roads open, only a few of the main roads are really open but they don't seem to have a lot of material on the road... Oh well, it just makes the work a bit more interesting and we have to be creative in circumstances we can't really foresee and plan on :P
Well last saturday we had Thanksgiving dinner at our stake presidents house, that was pretty awesome! :) We had good food, and I was left to cut the turkey which was fun. We had mashed potato's, veggie's and bread and whatever, it was good :) And then as dessert we had pumpkin pie which was great with icecream! :) I enjoyed it a bit too much, so did every other missionary I think! :)
The zone is doing really well at the moment, we have a lot of people scheduled for baptism and things are going well. We're trying to find more new investigators because we have to build up our teaching pool a lot more here in Middlesbrough because we recently had to stop visiting a few people :).
Okay, for the miracle of the week, we visited Daniel this saturday and in his prayer at the end he prayed that his parents would come to the baptism, he had not spoken to them for over a year! About 20 minutes later his parents were on the phone with him and called him, they said they weren't coming but wanted to see how he was doing, to me this was an amazing miracle to see how the Lord works and answers humble prayers. I love my Father in heaven and I'm grateful for the gospel, its great and it's true. Christmas is coming soon I'm looking forward to it! Love you all and miss u loads,
- Elder Matthias Heinrichs

Middlesbrough, november 22nd 2010

2010-11-27T22:08:00.002+01:00

Hellow, :-)

Another week has gone by, it's like I'm running down a mountain and I keep picking up speed, it's ridiculous! :P Oh well, this week went well, we had some disappointments, especially because we werent able to work well enough with the members this week because plans fell through, people were ill, etc. That was a challenge, aswell some of our solide potentials fell through so we weren't able to find as many new investigators as we hoped for. We are trying to focus on asking more referrals though because I'm positive that the Lord has it's prepared people here in Middlesbrough aswell as throughout the entire world! :) Besides the few little disappointments we've seen many miracles happen aswell! Daniel has passed his baptismal interview and will get baptised this coming sunday, so all please keep him in your prayers! :) He's a great guy with a great spirit and I not only see him as a great investigator who is progressing but aswell as a good friend :) I'm so pleased to see that he's moving forward in committing himself to the Lord through Baptism by Immersion. This coming few weeks our Bishop is going to be out of town and I feel very sad about that, me and the bishop get along well and I love the man to bits. He's helpful, kind and truly tries to follow the footsteps of his Savior in all that he does! He's an inspiration to me. But yeah, he's going to be in America for a few weeks, sad for us :( But I'll see him again before transfers! :) The other day we had a miracle happen to us, we were finding and we had knocked a street that we had planned but after we had done one side we didnt feel right in being there. We then started wandering 'by the spirit' to find an area to go to. As we walked for about 5 minutes I felt a prompting to turn down a dead-end street. There were 3 rows of houses and I felt to go to the last one, we knocked a few doors and none opened, until we came to one of the last doors. A young man opened there and at first he said he didnt believe in God, I tried a different approach and was able to get a return appointment for the following day, before he closed the door he said sorry for lying and saying he didnt believe in God. After that Elder Smith said he felt that we should leave the area, funny enough at that very moment I had the same idea. The following morning we met him and he kept the appointment, we were able to invite the young man for baptism and we're seeing him again later this week. As I walked out the door my heart was filled with gratitude that we were able to feel the spirit and be lead to do the Lord's work! I know that when we follow the spirit instead of trusting in the 'arm of the flesh' then we will see the Lord's influence more in our lives. This coming week is going to be a great week and there's going to be a few fun things for us. The Baptism on Sunday and on Saturday we have a Thanksgiving meal at the stake presidents house with all the missionaries in the Zone between 4-6, YAY! :)

Well that's about it for now, I love you guys, thanks for all you do in your individual lives. Thanks for keeping in touch with me, i appreciate it a lot :) Especially Brother Aartsen, he's such a faithful writer, thank you so much!! :)

Love,

Elder Matthias Heinrichs

Middlesbrough, november 15th, 2010

2010-11-15T18:08:00.002+01:00

Helloooo :)

It's me again :) This week we had another good week, we were blessed to be able to shedule someone for baptism again, this time for December. We're seeing blessings and challenges in the work at the same time, but that's all part of the work. I suppose salvation never was easy so why should it be easy for me to share it with people around me. As President Young said (i think) 'everytime the work of the gospel moves forward, everytime a temple is dedicated the jaws of hell open and I can hear the bells of hell ringing, well if that is so, let me hear the bells of hell ring!!' Same here, the work might be disappointing from time to time, hard, cold, but there is no sweeter and warmer joy that comes from seeing people turn their lives to their savior.

I know the gospel is true and I know that my Savior Jesus Christ lives. I know that the Book of Mormon is another testimony together with the Bible to testify of His divinity and His glory and I encourage anyone who has not read the Book of Mormon or who has doubts, concerns or opposition towards it to read it yourselves and follow the invitation of the prophet Moroni, as an apostle of God has said, this book has stood for more than 180 years and it's been torn apart but still it stands. I know that God will guide us to truth, for those who sincerily seek it!

I love my mission even though I sometimes feel a bit blue, I love my companion who serves with me and supports me and who helps me enjoy life as a servant of God. This week we were able to have marvelous lessons with Daniel. He is a star, he's my friend and he has changed so much over the last few weeks. He is working hard towards being baptised on the 28th of November so all pray for him. I know that God can strengthen him as he uses his agency correctly.

This past Friday we had a great church activity and things were well organised. Our bishop is great and has great ideas. I love serving around him and with him. We're planning to move forward in the work though at the moment some of the key members that we're working with are sometimes very busy and are ill so I hope this coming week we'll be able to move forward a lot more :)

We met a man on the street the other day, he's from Ghana and it was interesting to find out that his father is actually a stake president over the entire west part of Ghana, his mother was a Jehova's Witness so their marriage broke up. This man, his son hasnt actually ever read of the book of Mormon before, so he invited us over to come and share our message with him after his return from Ghana in 2 weeks. I thought that was a miracle to walk into someone like that on the street. I'm amazed how his father chose to follow the truth and follow God in spite of his relationship with his wife (because that is now split up and he's probably remarried)

It's people like that, that inspire me to go the extra mile and do what is expected of me. Obedience is my goal and desire and it will cease to be an irritant as it becomes my objective. I strive to be more Christlike though I have a long way to go, I hope people will forgive my imperfections and will look at my good sides.

I love the people here in Middlesbrough and hope to share the gospel with many more of them! :)

This coming saturday, we're invited at the stake presidents house to eat a thanksgiving meal, President Anderson is American and he lives in a mansion so thats going to be fun! :) Ehmm... oh yeah, they got special permission from President Lindley for that, how cool is that? :) I love president Lindley, he's changing quite a few things but he's leading the mission in the right direction, I know it and feel it! :)

I love all of you and look forward to hearing from you again, thank you for all those that put in so much effort in support of me through letters etc. But not just me, for everything you do for all the missionaries everywhere, we can't do it alone! :)

Love,

Elder Matthias Heinrichs :)

November 9th, 2010 Middlesbrough

2010-11-09T18:10:00.000+01:00

Having

some

fun...

Middlesbrough, november 9th, 2010 Pictures.

2010-11-09T18:08:00.001+01:00

Middlesbrough, november 9th, 2010

2010-11-09T17:58:00.004+01:00

Hello Everyone,

Here's another e-mail :) This time i'll just write it in English straight away so it will save my mom from taking time to translate! Well yes, this week is transfers, my family is loosing

track of the

week-rythm.Well I'm not leaving Middlesbrough and I'm staying

with Elder Smith another transfer, I have mixed feelings about this because on the one hand i wouldnt mind staying because Elder Smith and I have some good things going on right now but on the other hand I'm dreading to move again right before Christmas this year, because this years transfers are on te 21st of December and if that would happen to me for a second time on my mission I'd be somewhat disappointed and upset... but the chance is pretty big now..

Things are going well, we had a great week last week, we were blessed to be able to teach many people, over 35 lessons we taught which was very pleasing. We had a great exchange the other day and we were able to find a bunch of new investigators including a former investigator who we sheduled for baptism that moment.

At one point we were street contacting and Elder Thorup contacted this one girl, she wasnt bothered but than as we walked down the street a few minutes later we got called back from out of a house, it was the same girl!

She invited us in and wanted us to teach her, which was exciting! :)

Aswell Daniel came to church for the 3rd time in a row and he's doing really well, we taught him about the word of wisdom and he gave up smoking and everything else the following day, he even gave away his tea & coffee to his friends, hehe :P

Well today is p-day, we might just play some basketball with other missionaries and just chill out seeing that the weather is absolutely horrible and that we're both broke and have nothing else to do. So we'll just see how it all goes :)

I'm looking forward to seeing many more miracles, if we expect them and do all we can do see them, we will recieve them! :)

I'm looking forward to hearing from you,

Sincirely,

Elder Matthias Heinrichs

CHRISTMAS MAIL!!!!!

2010-11-09T17:57:00.000+01:00

Hey everyoneeee! :D

I just wanted to write you all quickly and let you know that I think you're all great! ^_^

Also, I recieved an announcement in the post this week from the mission office for sending me post.

This Christmas they want everyone to send Christmas packages directly to my house due to the delays post would have if forwarded from the mission office.

They said that all post should reach our flats by the 18th of December so make sure you send everything at least 2 weeks or more in advance.

This because the next transfer is 4 days before Christmas :( on the 21st of December and we dont want any post to get to my flat after I leave!

So my flat adres is the following:

Elder Matthias D Heinrichs

12 Windsor Road

Linthorpe, TS5 6DR

Middlesbrough, England

and the office adress for after Christmas is:

Elder Matthias D Heinrichs

England Leeds Mission

Lister House, Lister Hill

Horsforth, LS18 5AZ

Leeds, England

I'm looking forward to hearing from you, thanks for all you do! :) I miss you!

Love,

Elder M Heinrichs ^^ =)

Middlesbrough, november 1st, 2010

2010-11-09T17:40:00.005+01:00

Investigators
dog that likes
to play and
bite my feet!

Flood

downtown.

Halloween

decorations

Me carving

a pumpkin.

Hey everyone :)

Here I am again, another week has passed and it's november already. Unbelievable huh? The last week was a bit warmer than the weeks before, today the weather is nice and the sun is shining! :-) I am grateful for good weather and I can enjoy the warmth, because I think I tend to have a bit of a winterdepression or something like that and can't handle bad weather very well. So I'm grateful for nice weather today and I'm grateful for a lot of other things too. I'm so grateful for my family and especially my sweet parents :-) I love them so much and am grateful for everything they taught me in my youth and for the wonderful example they are to me. Ofcourse they aren't perfect, but nobody is and they help me very well on my way to perfection! :-)

I am grateful for General Conference and for all the things that I have been able to learn there. I saw the last session in church yesterday and it was soooo good, especially elder Russell M. Ballard was wonderful! Just the way it is, I love it! :-) I am grateful for general authorities and everybody serving the Lord. I learn from them and they can be a great example and they are so loving! Yesterday I saw the movie: ' On the Lord's errand', I can really recommend it!

I am grateful for the sacrament and the possibility I have to partake of it every week. It is a place where I can spiritually renew myself and be uplifted and I need it and can't and won't do without!

I wish more people could feel it that way and could really experience it, like all others who have been baptized and that can renew their covenants. It is so special that we can do that every sunday!

I am grateful for the challenges that I get daily / weekly. Sometimes they are big, but I know that when I stay calm and trust in the Lord, it will all work out. :-)

I am grateful when the Holy Ghost puts me in place and my conscience talks to me so I know what I need to improve! :-)

I am grateful for my health. While I am typing this email there is someone sitting behind me with tourettes syndrom and I am grateful that I have a good health. :-)

Those are a lot, but there are more and I think that when we all follow the advice from our prophet, we will all be a lot happier!

This week was pretty good, it sure was one with challenges! We tried so hard every day to find people and in our appointments to schedule investigators for a baptism, but it didn't work. Day in day out it was disappointing until on sunday morning we gave 2 investigators a tour of the chapel and at the baptismal font we invited them to be baptized! That was great and hopefully we will see them again tonight. They both are called Daniel and their lives haven't been easy, but I know the gospel can help them if they accept it and apply it in their lives!

We had a fun Young Single Adult Halloween dinner, it was fun. Patrick and Leonard were there too. After we got home on sunday night we decorated the house and that was fun. We help Sr. Beevers more often with these kind of things.

We will have to work hard this week to get more people towards a baptismal date. We have Abel, Fernando, Kishore who are progressing, but need a goal. So please pray for them and for me. :-)

I miss you all and hope you are doing well, I am looking forward to be hearing from you! :-)

Love,

Elder Matthias Heinrichs

Middlesbrough, october 25th, 2010

2010-10-26T21:04:00.005+02:00

Halloween...

Bishop!

Mummy....

We donated a

Book of Mormon

to the library.

Armwrestling.

With a

policeman.

Me dressed

up as

a 'chav'.

Teaching a

primary song.

Hey everyone!!!

Wow the weeks are flying by way to fast. But you know what they say...time flies when you're having fun! This last week was really good, we were very successfull and were really blessed!

On thursday Elder Wadsworth and I went on exchange in Billingham. We had such a great day! We were very successfull streetcontacting in the morning and by the afternoon we had found 9 new investigators. 7 for Billingham and 2 for Middlesbrough!

The next day we decided to fast for an investigator in Billingham and for succes for the rest of the district and that was so cool! We had an unbelievable good day on saturday, we had 14 lessons in total! Whoa, that's crazy! 5 new investigators! Fasting really works! Super, I wish we could do it more often, but I think my body wouldn't be so happy with me if I did. lol :-P
On wednesday we had a cool day. We were invited at Bishops house in the evening to come to dinner and were asked to bring Noble and some of his friends. So in the afternoon we went by Nobles friends and went to the University where we would be picked up. While there we met another of Nobles friends and also took him, right off the street! Really funny! So we were at Bishops house and had a typical english dinner there. Well, one of the friends didn't know how to use the cutlery, since they eat a lot with their hands in India. So I asked Bishops wife if I could eat with my hands with my Indian friends and so we did. Eat an english dinner with our hands. Haha - crossing some culturebarriers! ;-)
After dinner we watched The Restoration dvd and talked about that. It was really good, especially since I gave Noble the chance to bear his testimony and that was soooo powerful! On sunday Bishops wife came up to me and said how much she had enjoyed it and how she liked Nobles friends! So we are going to do this again!

Thanks to all those blessings we easily made the Standards of Excellence this week and we hope to be able to give some of them a baptism date and help them prepare for baptism! :-)

Today was zone p-day and it was so much fun! :-) We had a scavenger-hunt in Middelsbrough. We had all kinds of different assignments. We had to mummify someone, we had to have our picture taken with a policeman, we had to teach some kids a primarysong, I had to armwrestle a stranger, etc. etc. It was FUN! Then the whole zone went to Pizza Hut and that was a big hit. Later we will chill out with some investigators so it is a fun day! :-)

I want to share one more thing with you... Remember how I asked mom to make a book for Mike? A notebook? I sent it to him just before General Conference. The week after I received a letter from him with the next story: Mike had lost his job and his dad wasn't to happy about that. Mike has always been active in church, but his dad doesn't want him to get baptized. Because he learned in church how important family is, he also wanted to respect them. So he started looking for another job. The only jobs available would include working on sundays. He decided to pray about it if he needed to accept a job like that or not. After his prayer in the morning he didn't really feel an answer and he didn't know what to do. But he felt he needed to make a decision and decided to accept the job the coming days or so. The next morning my package arrived with the notebook and with my letter and testimony. He told me that if I hadn't sent him that, he would have accepted the job. He also asked me why I wrote him, because after I left Selby I told everyone I would only write if they would write me. In August I felt that I needed to write him and then asked mom to make that book for me and when I received that I sent it to him. It is unbelievable how detailed our Heavenly Father takes part in the lives of His children. I am grateful for the miracles in my life and the small miraculous things that happen, it is great!!!! :-)

Hmm, mail has gotten a lot less since my year-mark. Well, I guess that is part of missionary life?

I miss you and my friends!

I love you and am REALLY looking forward to hear from you!!

Love,

Matthias

Middlesbrough, october 18th, 2010

2010-10-26T20:38:00.003+02:00

Hey Everyone, :-)

Here I am again, after after a stressfull but good week. The week started out good. We had our p-day at the beach in Redcar and it was a lot of fun, although it was pretty cold, but oh well, it is october already...But it was fun. Half the zone came to the beach and we messed around in the water and played with some crabs. We had a kite and played some soccer and afterwards had icecream. Yes, I know, icecream when it's only about 10 C (50F)....Oh ha-ha!

The rest of the week we had quite a bit of a challenge to have members come with us to teach but we were able to teach a lot of people and that was good, we were able to find a lot of new investigators. We went to do some ' posh knocking' in Ingelby Barwick and we had some success there. We are slowly trying to open up that area. So hopefully we will be able to find some people there to teach.

I was a bit stressed this week in organizing a lot of stuff with the ward and in communicating with different auxiliaries and people. Sunday I got angry and I felt that the Spirit left me and I felt horrible and really bad. After talking to someone I could feel it coming back and then I was happy and calm again. But wow, it is awful without the Holy Ghost! I have learned to have more faith and trust in the Lord and that when I do everything I need to do, it will all work out.

Lately I have been learning so much from the scriptures, even from small details that have great meaning and value. I have marked so many things in my Book of Mormon and I have noticed that I am receiving personal revelations and that is an amazing feeling! :-)

I really love the scriptures and the gospel and wish that more people would accept it and knew that they would be holding something really special if the held the Book of Mormon.

Last sunday Noble was confirmed and that was very special. It all went well. He was confirmed by a member who did that for the first time, so it was very special to both of them. They have a good friendship, so I hope it will be a lasting relationship. A bond forever like I have with Desiree Weyi.

Missionaries really should stay in touch with their investigators and converts. It will help them to have a lasting relationship and keep them strong in the Gospel. :-)

I love you all , I hope you will enjoy the pictures, take care of yourselves and I hope to be hearing from you soon!

Love,

Matthias

Here are some pictures from us on the beach and from our investigator Michael with his daughter Sky.

Last pictures Middlesbrough, october 11th, 2010.

2010-10-12T01:04:00.001+02:00

More pictures Middlesbrough, october 11th, 2010

2010-10-12T00:58:00.003+02:00

Holy trousers...

My new camera!

What a

wonderful day.

Noble's baptism!

Middlesbrough, october 11th, 2010

2010-10-12T00:05:00.003+02:00

Hey everyone :)

Here I am again!! This was an absolutely amazing week! We were really sick on tuesday. I had to sit it out and that didn't make me happy. I overcame the virus that day, but got stuck with a nasty cold and mom knows, stuff like this that goes to the lungs, don't go to well with me (as with her)...

This week was a really good week. I am having fun with my companion. I love him. I hope that I can be a tool to support him and strenghten him.

We had a cool experience on thursday. We had worked hard in the morning and went into town to get our lunch. There we ran into Noble and he had his hands literally full of cleaning supplies to take to his home, so we asked him what was going on. It seemed that he had had a leak somewhere in the new place where he lives and the kitchen was flooded, so we offered to help him. We changed all our plans but it was worth it. So we went wiping and mopping and cleaning in our suits. It was a fun job and good to share as friends.

As a result from that we were invited to dinner at his place, so at the end we ended staying at his place most of the day. He invited a lot of his friends and we were introduced to even more people whom we could tell about ourselves.

We could also introduce the Book of Mormon. We had had some dinner but then we had to leave to our apartment for a meeting. After that we decided to go back to Nobles house and there we made dessert for about 10 people and I started talking to one of his housemates about religion and I could give him a Book of Mormon. So at the the end it was a day of service, making new friends and sharing the Gospel, but just done in another way than usual.

I think this was a big step and an important part of why on sunday 2 of Nobles friends came to church and sat through all 3 meetings and after that stayed for the baptism and joined us to a members home for dinner! :-)

On friday it was Patrick's birthday. We organized a small party for him. It was fun.

In the evening Elder Smith had a lesser fun experience. WE took Patrick to McDonalds since he had gotten some bad news and we wanted to cheer him up. In town we were jumped on by someone. I mostly was able to avoid it, but my companion clearly didn't like it, so we tried to work ourselves out of that situation as soon as possible. At the end I was able to laugh about it, but my companion was very quiet all evening.

So on sunday there was a baptism! I had to do a 1000 things, my brains were MUSHED, Steven knows what mushy-peas are, well that was about what was left inside my head. I had a talk and later the baptism but it all went well. I heard my talk in sacrament meeting went well to, so that felt good.

In the afternoon we took Noble and his 2 friends, Kisho and Fernando, to eat at a member's house and that was successfull too!

In the evening we had an important training-fireside. I had organized it with the bishop and a lot of the priesthood was there. About 15 or more and that was good for this ward, because that is almost everybody, haha :-P . We wanted to help the members understand what their part is in teaching with us and that they teach friends themselves, how to do that. Also about how things are organized and the importance of asking questions and bearing testimony. We used 2 films, 1 of Preach My Gospel and the other is called: A man without eloquence. From the D&C dvd's. There was even a member of the stakepresidency present to see if it was any good and if it was, he wanted to apply it in the rest of the stake, so they seemed to like my idea. Afterwards he spoke to me and we had a talk about what he liked and how other things could be slightly shorter. But he really wants to use the idea. We also spoke about missionarywork in the stake and we spoke about quality versus quantity. In the end he gave me a big hug and said: even if you had accomplished nothing else on your mission and you serve 8 months in Middlesbrough, if you help those people understand how to do missionarywork with the missionaries, than you're a success!

That was very motivating for me and I'm glad that I don't bend under the pressure of ' number's but that I follow the Spirit and that I am accountable to the Lord.

I love you all. I ask you to pray for me, my loved ones and the missionarywork and investigators.

Take good care of yourselves and I hope to be hearing from you!

I hope you like the pictures, there is a picture in there where wore out one of my pairs of trousers again...haha, it is going fast now....Oh, and I have my new camera now which I love and I am digital again! :-)

I love you all, hope to hear from you soon!!

Love,

your one and only,

Elder Matthias Heinrichs

Middlesbrough, october 4th, 2010

2010-10-11T23:41:00.002+02:00

Tadaa, I'm back :)

Ugh, I am tired! The last 3 days I have been rather sick. I am nauseous constantly, but it hasn't gotten so bad that I had to stay home, so that is good :-) I just hope it will stop. I rather feel well or be sick but not this feeling that is staying :-P Over all I am doing well. There have been transfers and elder Smith is slowly getting settled in Middelsbrough :-)

The work is going well, we have found a lot of potentials and are trying to figure out how we can contact them all. We are trying to make a plan because they live all over our area so we are trying to plan them in the most convenient way.

We have had a couple investigators coming to General Conference, so that was really good. Patrick even came for 2 meetings, saturday evening here and Priesthood session. It was a good and spiritual experience, I have learned a lot.

I loved the talk about gratitude and I thought Elder Holland was very surprising this time.

I thought Pres. Uchtdorf was really funny with his tree-story and then he says: 'now you're all wondering what this has to do with airplanes' :-P Haha, I really had to laugh. The poor man didn't have a voice left a little bit later. :-P But I have learned a lot, for now and for the future and my notebook is a couple of pages fuller.

Elder Smith is cool, he is from Utah and sofar we have had a lot of fun together. Today on our p-day we are going to chill because we haven't been feeling well for a couple of days and don't exactly know what it is...:-) It will be o.k. :-)

O.k. so now about the miracle of this week! Yes, no week can pass without any miracles in my life.So many cool things have happened, but the most wonderful thing was last night. O.k. Yesterday morning Noble was going to take 3 of his friends to conference. Well, nobody showed up. Abel was one of them. I had talked to him that morning and he was glad I called because we hadn't spoken for a while and he was having a hard time and wanted to talk to me. So on saturdaymorning he asked Noble for my number but didn't get it for some reason. So when I called him that was a miracle to him, because he was sick and tired and that is why he didn't come to conference. At night after the 5-7 meeting we went outside to try and work. We tried to see some old investigators but nothing worked out, so on our walk home I suddenly saw a man from India from behind who looked a lot like Abel, so I told elder Smith: let's walk a little faster and catch up. We did and it was Abel. He talked to us and said he was in a lot of pain. It sounded like a stomach ulcer or something similar and he said he was on his way to church to pray. He asked if we could do something for him. I shortly explained him how we can bless the sick and offered him a blessing that week, but he didn't want to wait. So I decided to give him one that evening. Because my other companion had taken the oilflask of the keychain we had to go home to get mine. We were at Abels house within 20 min. Abel actually turned around, didn't go to church, but went home. When we were at his place (in a student home) we took him to a separate room and explained about the blessing from Matthew 9 and Mark 6:13. How it was done in the old times and that we also had that authority. We gave him a blessing and the Spirit was strong. WE left his home after 5 minutes and he said he already felt better and that he was ready to learn more from us and that he wanted to meet us and Noble this week!

My prayers were answered because we had met him 3 weeks ago and given him a Book of Mormon but didn't get another chance to teach him. So my prayer before our appointment yesterday was that the blessing would work and that we would get another chance to teach him and baptize him. We will see him again tonight! :-)

Miracles do happen, the gospel is true, the power of the priesthood is real, as long as we ware worthy and practice our faith it will all work out. Our Heavenly Father watches out for us. As long as we hold on to what is right and don't leave the path, it goed for all things, the promised blessings are there!

I love you all and are looking forward to be hearing from you!

Love,

Your one and only Matthias :)

And more pictures, Middlesbrough, september 20th, 2010

2010-10-11T23:34:00.002+02:00

Roseberry Topping.

More pictures Middlesbrough, september 20th, 2010

2010-10-11T23:32:00.002+02:00