Connor's Last Missionary Letter!!

I really can not believe that I made it. At times it seemed like I was going to be on my mission for the rest of my life. I really can not believe that this is my last week. We were able to have a baptism this past weekend also. His name is Adam and he is 19. He plans on serving a mission and is just a steller guy.

I have been trying to go around and say goodbye to a lot of people. It really sucks as I hate saying goodbye. I have made a lot of friends out here and just sucks having to say goodbye to everyone. Luckily though I will be able to keep track of them through social media.

I have learned a lot on my mission. Like a freak ton so much I can't even begin to describe the lessons I have gone through. I am tired though, like really tired. Maybe because it is the end but I am just feeling like I'm worn out. Give it the last push this week and then I'll be coming home.

I do want to work quickly dad. What is the starting pay at C.C. Creations. I'll work there if it is better. Going to have to figure out what I am going to do up at Logan though.

WHAT IS THIS BEING RELEASED THE DAY AFTER I GET HOME? Tell the Stake President that I can call him that night and get released then I will come and debrief with him the next day. I don't want to have to spend all day at home living the mission rules, sorry but that would suck having Mary Jane (my computer) sitting right there and not being able to touch her. I know cruel and unusual punishment and this is definitely it. She is the only girl that has been faithful two me for the whole two years;)

Thank you guys so much for everything that you do. Thanks for paying for me to serve a mission. It has been a great two years. I love you guys so much.

Connor

September 30, 2013

Elder Connor Hinckley,

I've called you Connor Boy in all my letters, but I feel it is fitting to write this last letter to Elder Hinckley because that is what you are and what you have become. This is it. You did it. I have a solid feeling of peace I hope that you do as well. I feel like you have done something of great worth, something significant that you might not even completely understand yet. I'm so thankful that you served your mission. I'm so grateful that you stayed on your mission despite all the awful times that it would have been easier not to.

Uppermost on my mind has been the growth and expansion of your testimony of the divinity of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. From your letters I have felt that your testimony entered much deeper territories and that has and continues to thrill me. I think I need to serve a mission:)

I just want you to remember that we love you!! And are so proud of you!! Since the day you were born, that has been and ever will be true. I don't really understand a parent's unending, unconditional love. But I feel it. It is a gift that comes from our Heavenly Father.

We have prayed for you. That has been a constant in our lives. Every morning. Every night. And a lot of in-betweens:) I have thought about the changes that will come with you returning home. I don't want that to change and I feel like I need to be more consistent about your sisters. Why does that have to stop. But, you might find we accidentally still pray for your safety on your mission when you have family prayers with us:)

We have missed you for so long. Two years is a long time:) Our world has not been the same without you close by. I miss your spontaneous laughter and our private jokes. Jaylen and you will have to duke it out for the funniest Hinckley in the family;) I long to wrap my arms around you again - to comfort your heart, to feel your strength, and to know that you are safe. But I haven't wanted to say that because underneath it all I HAVEN'T WANTED YOU TO COME HOME.......YET!!! Because I KNOW that you have been doing what you need to be doing. This has been such an important aspect of your life's journey that I haven't wanted you to miss any part of it. I wanted you to experience that more than I wanted you to be with us. The growth that you have experienced these last 2 years has been a mother's dream come true. I'm not sure sometimes if I want this phase of your life to end. And I'm not just thinking about you. For while you have been growing in faith, we have been growing because of your mission. You have blessed us far more than you even know. I testify of that. Just you being where you were supposed to be has helped us more that you can know. Through your mission and the things that happened while you were there I have learned that a loving, compassionate, all-wise God really is in charge:) not me:):) No one learns to trust in God the way a missionary and his mom do;)

All I can hope now is that after two years both of us have learned the lesson of missionary service well enough that when you return to "the real world" our first response to trials and life will continue to be turning to the Lord.

The value of a returned missionary who is truly converted, is priceless.
I saw this talk on lds.org this morning and thought I would send it to you. It is from Gordon B. I thought that was fitting to get a little advice from a relative:)

Quite a few years ago I was in an airport and happened to meet some returning missionaries. Their families were there. They were picking up their baggage, and I said to one of them, “What’s all this you have?” He said, “These are gifts I am bringing home.” And that has given me the title of what I would like to share: “Gifts to Bring Home from the Mission Field.”

1. A knowledge of and love for God our Eternal Father and His Beloved Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.

“This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent” (John 17:3). There is no greater gift that comes to anyone in this world than a certain, reassuring conviction that God, our Eternal Father, lives and that Jesus is the Christ. I believe that. I think it is so very, very important.

2. A knowledge of and love for the scriptures, the word of the Lord.

As a missionary, I read each evening before going to bed a few chapters of the Book of Mormon, and there came into my heart a conviction which has never left: that this is the word of God, restored to the earth by the power of the Almighty, translated by the gift and power of God to the convincing of the Jew and the Gentile that Jesus is the Christ. I thank the Lord for the testimony which I have of the truth of the word of God as found in these sacred revealed books. And I would hope that every missionary would leave his or her field of labor with a conviction in his or her heart that these things are true.

3. An increased love for parents.

I have attended hundreds of missionary meetings over the years. I love to hear missionaries speak of their love for the Lord, but I also love to hear them speak with great appreciation and love concerning their parents. Boys who had been careless and indifferent stand on their feet and with tears in their eyes thank the Lord for their fathers and their mothers. In these days, what a salutary and wonderful thing it is to hear a strong young man stand up and speak with great feeling concerning his father and his mother, saying things he would never have said before in all of his life. Every boy and girl ought to come home with an increased love for parents.

4. A love for the people among whom they labor.

I love the English people. No one can sell the English short in my mind because I labored with them, I lived with them, I was in their homes at their firesides, I learned to know their hearts, and I learned to love them.
I have learned to love the people of Asia. I spent 11 years among them, and I love them. To me, I love them as much as I love anybody because of the experience I have had as a missionary, as it were, among them.
There’s something wrong if a missionary doesn’t come back with a great love for the people among whom he labored.

5. An appreciation for hard work.

Every missionary ought to come to realize that work, work, work is the key to getting things done, the key to success in life. There is no substitute for work, for getting up in the morning and getting at it and staying with it to get the job done. I don’t know of a greater asset for whatever lies ahead in life than the capacity to discipline oneself to work.

6. The assurance that the inspiration of the Holy Spirit is available to each of us when we live for it.

The availability of inspiration—each of us, if we live for it, if we cultivate it, can have it. I love these great words of revelation, these words of promise: “God shall give unto you knowledge by his Holy Spirit, yea, by the unspeakable gift of the Holy Ghost” (D&C 121:26). What a precious gift to bring home—the assurance, the certainty that if we live for it, we have available to us that which comes by the power of the Holy Spirit.

7. An understanding of the importance of teamwork.

No one can do this work alone. We work in pairs. “In the mouth of two or more witnesses shall [all things] be established” (2 Corinthians 13:1). We work together. There is no place for prima donnas in the mission field. Our efforts are largely team efforts, and what a marvelous thing it is to learn to work with other people.

8. The value of personal virtue.

I think there is no greater thing concerning future integrity that a missionary can learn than the value of personal virtue. I think there are fewer words greater than the promise given under the inspiration of the Lord as set forth by the Prophet Joseph Smith: “Let virtue garnish thy thoughts unceasingly.” That’s the commandment. And then the promise: “Thy confidence [shall] wax strong in the presence of God” (D&C 121:45). That’s the promise to those who walk in virtue.

9. The faith to act.

“I will go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded, for I know that the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way … that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth” (1 Nephi 3:7).
We ask tremendous things of missionaries. It is so hard for shy and diffident young people to do the things we sometimes ask them to do. But what a marvelous thing that they try. They have the faith to do, the faith to act, the faith to go forward and make the effort. And what a marvelous gift that is to bring home.

10. The humility to pray.

Recognize that there is a power greater than ours, that no matter how good a man is, he is not good enough, that no matter how wise he is, he is not wise enough, that no matter how strong he is, he is not strong enough for all of the things which he will face in life, and that there is a source of power to which he can go with the assurance that he will be listened to and that there will be a response.
These are 10 gifts that I would hope every missionary would bring home with him or her—not a lot of tinsel, not a lot of dolls, not a lot of rugs or furs or dresses or plates, but these great, enduring, wonderful things. God bless you to keep the faith, and while doing so, enjoy with great happiness that which you are called to do.

So no Disneyland souvenirs, though I think the amount of games you sent home was a quite a lot:):)
I count down the days til we get to see you again and I can wrap my arms around you and hear your voice and your wonderful laugh.
Love always and forever as your humble mom!!!

September 23, 2013

So things are going good. I'm so sorry to hear about Jaylen. I'll definitely be praying for her. 

 

Dad please you expect Utah and BYU to play and me not to figure out the score? 20-13 UTAH!!! Held them out of the endzone till the fourth quarter also! UCLA should be interesting though. They seem pretty good this year I hear. I'm excited to be able to watch Utah football again. 

 

Things are going well here though. We are dealing with some sisters in our zone that are walking out of Gospel Principles because they feel that the teacher goes into too deep of doctrine. So they just get up and leave with Investigators still in the class. They are trying to make a statement or something I guess. I'm just tired of dealing with mission drama. These sisters really don't like me either. So not fun to deal with lol. I really don't like being a zone leader. It is just really tough and you are always driving and calling and texting people non-stop. But it is keeping me super super busy. These weeks are flying by. I thought my last transfer was going to be so long but this has gone by so fast. I can hardly believe I am almost done. 

 

We had a baptism this saturday of Emily. It was super neat and lots of people came. We have one next week as well and we are super excited for that one. We are teaching a ton of people also after the baptism we will have 6 investigators still which is more than pretty much my entire mission. If I could describe my mission right now it would be busy busy busy. 

 

I'm excited to come home. We'll all have a lot to catch up on. Hope I'm not too different when I come home :) Maybe you'll hardly recognize me ha ha.

 

Happy Birthday dad in two days! I'll be sending you your present tomorrow. I know you'll like it. I'll send some more stuff home with it also. Thanks for everything guys and I love you!

 

P.S. My comp is a BYU fan so I get to gloat for the next two weeks. :)

September 16, 2013

So looks like I really need to beat up this Baylor kid. What a retard. Tell Jaylen that dating is dumb and to never do it. Tell her not to worry about the dance. I didn't go my senior prom and look how I turned out..........okay maybe you should have her go to the dance. That is so neat about you fellowshipping that other mom though! I am so excited and happy to hear that. Keep on inviting her to things and ask to go to the lessons with the missionaries. It means twenty times more coming from you than it does the missionaries. I am so excited for this.

I did get my Spidey T shirt yes thank you! Ha ha ha it has become my favorite p-day shirt. I love it so much. Thank you.

No worries about anyone coming down they don't have to. I think in the past it was easier because they didn't really have families yet so I was like the only grandchild for everybody. Now that everybody is older they have there own stuff to do. It is totally fine.

My companion was trained by Elder Jackson (my best friend on the mission) in a neighboring ward when I trained Elder Healey. So I basically feel like we have already been companions. It is really neat and we get along super well.

We have two baptisms set up for these next two weekends. One is Emily who is what we call an enternal which means she has been taking lessons from the missionaries forever. The other is Adam who was a golden, meaning he believes everything and has no concerns. We are pumped for them.

I can't wait to be home but at the same time I am scared for coming home. I gotta worry about the real world now and responsibility ha ha. In terms of job though I could work at Best Buy or another retail place up in Logan if Hastings goes under or something. Also does my cousin still have that comic shop? There is lots of options. Just don't want to work fast food. I like retail so I'll sell anything to anybody if it isn't burritos and hamburgers.

I'm doing good and finishing strong. I have to go on exchanges with all the District Leaders this week which sucks. I like staying in my area with my own apartment. I am not a fan of change. Plus some of them are weird. Ha ha should be fun though. Thank you guys for everything that you do. I love you!

September 9, 2013

That kinda bugs me about my packages falling apart. Everything better have been in there if anything is missing I'll have to buy a new game to replace the parts which would suck. Anyways glad that that got there at least.

 

That is awesome to hear about Nana and Papa though. I'm excited for them. As soon as I get home they'll leave ha ha. They will have fun wherever they go. What would really be funny is if they get called here.

 

Tell Kate to stay away from boys. I already am going to have to kill Jaylen's boyfriend I don't want more murders on my head.

 

That is crazy also of Brock. Good for him going though.

 

Being a zone leader is kinda lame. The sisters in the zone don't like me at all. One of them told Hoch my comp. "I don't think Elder Hinckley likes me, whenever he is around me I am always mad at him." Not really sure where she is connecting the dots on that one but only a woman could think like that.....sorry mom. So I go to the mission office a lot now picking up everybody's mail to give back to them. We just had 5 investigators at church yesterday which was crazy!!!!! I have never really taught more than 2-3 people at one time on my mission before and now we are teaching 6! Plus with all the zone leader stuff we have to do; get mail, inspect apartments, go on exchanges, give rides, and help people move, we have like no down time.

 

So with the new missionaries all that has really changed is that there is just more now. Before we had missionaries who wanted to be here ones that didn't ones that were prepared and ones that weren't. Well now we just have more of all of that now. Every single ward in our mission is split. It is insaine and there are so many sisters. When I came out there was 14. Now there is 70+. Like crazy crazy crazy.

 

Speaking of Disneyland though I got our zone permission to go to downtown disney today. We won't go into the parks but we'll be able to take pics and walk it which should be nice. I'll try not to spend too much money at the ESPN arcade jk jk ha ha. Also dad! Why didnt' you tell me BYU and UTAH were playing this year! I thought they had a by. It is on the 21st also!!!! holy cow! BYU beat Texas also that is crazy. I'm hoping Texas is just looking crummy this year and BYU isn't looking good.

 

Love you guys lots and thanks for everything that you do!

September 4, 2013

So things are better. Our phone is constantly going off. It is like missionaries cannot survive without us Zone Leaders telling us what to do every five seconds. I'm kinda just a do it myself guy so having to tell people what they can and can do all the time is kinda lame. 

 

Being in a YSA ward is weird though. Everybody there just wants to get married and it is really weird being a missionary in that environment. We do have a lot of potential coming up though in the ward. We have two investigators with a date for this month and a third investigator who is close to setting a date. Also we are getting three new investigators today from a referral from other missionaries. This is definitely the busiest time of my mission. I am not doing any more missionary work at all but handling the logistics of the zone along with missionary work is crazy. We give so many people rides everywhere and have to go to the office a ton to pick stuff up and get mail and whatnot. I am happy though and definitely will finish out my mission going 150%. I do miss the Euclid ward right now though. The ward I am serving in is the Placentia 4th Young Single Adult Ward.

I still keep in touch with Tyler also. He was my baptism in Yorba Linda 5th ward. He just started his senior year and is planning on a mission after highschool. I am taking lots of pictures mom don't worry. Us as missionaries aren't allowed to go on facebook yet in this mission. It will probably be allowed a month or two after I leave. I think I am going to be really behind on the whole social media thing when I get home. In the YSA ward we have to text people to get a hold of them because they wont answer a phone call ever which is super weird.

I will be better with money also. I am not going to be buying anything really this month because I am going home. I am in survival mode now. I needed the address because I was sending packages home and I got to the UPS store and I couldn't remember it. It has been like two years so give me a break.

So you guys are going to be getting two packages in the mail today tomorrow or Friday. They are kinda big and have a lot of junk in it. I just want you to know that a lot of that junk was given to me by members or I found by the dumpster or garage sales. A lot of it I did buy though but it was over a year ago that I bought it all. You know that thing when I get depressed I start to buy stuff, well when the period of time when I was depressed I bought lots of board games. I really regret it and I have learned to master that weakness on my mission. But I have a lot of junk because of it. So you guys are welcome to play any of those that you want. A ton of them are really fun and I can't wait to play them with you when I get home. As you can probably guess I was really popular on P-day.......we played a lot of board games. But I worked hard on my mission. Don't think I just did that all day also. Thanks for understanding, and I'm sorry.

I can not believe that the girls are so old now though. Jaylen is a Junior? That is just weird. I was suppose to be the only one in High School. How do you think the girls will be when they go to the same school? Will the be friends or enemies? Ha ha.

I hope you guys are ready for when I get home because our house is going to turn into the missionary hub. Every single lesson the Elders teach will be in our home and we will fellowship them all. I'm going to be inviting everybody I know also. Nothing bugs me more than members who feel that it is the missionaries job to find people to teach. That is no more the case. The members have the responsibility to find people for the missionaries to teach now.

I love you guys so much and thank you for everything that you do. Thank you for letting me go and stay out on a mission. The scarifies you have made financially and emotionally are more than I could ever ask for. I feel like I have learned and grown so much since I cam out. I have a real sense, like real actual, and tangible sense of Heavenly Father and his relationship with me. I have learned so much about the gospel and the church and I feel my faith has grown so much. I still have so much to learn as well about everything. I love you guys so much.

Connor

August 27, 2013

Sorry guys for taking so long to write back. We went to the temple last week so our p-day was moved and then I didn't have enough time to e-mail. The new temple video is really really neat though. Really emotional. 

 

My birthday was really neat though. Thank you so much for the package you sent. Tell nana and papa thank you also because my account wont let me e-mail them for some weird reason. The Sorenson's, the family that is really neat took me and Sister Hawker (the sister that shares the ward with me) out to eat at Olive Garden and we all got the endless pasta bowl. 

 

Then what I have been spending all my money on is that I took everybody to an all you can eat sushi bar for mine and Hawker's Birthday another day then I threw a surprise birthday party for sister Hawker. Her birthday is on the 24th and it was really fun. She was super surprised and we decorated her apartment and got a bunch of other missionaries there. We were able to play some card games and stuff. I cooked chocolate chip pancakes for everybody also. Super fun, well as fun as it can be while your on a mission ha ha.

 

But something terrible happened and I was transferred. I am not a Zone Leader. I don't know why president put me as one for my last six weeks but I am not happy about it. I am now in the Placentia Young Single Adult Ward. I am with Elder Hoch (pronounced Hoke) which is really cool. When I trained Elder Healey in Yorba Linda Jackson trained Hoch so we are super good friends. I don't know how I am going to do in a singles ward I am use to talking to people older than me. I am more comfortable with that.

 

Whatever is easiest on the family and everbodys schedule is fine for when I come home and talk. I can speak whenever they or you need me to and people can come visit if and when they want to. I'll let you know more about the area after I have been in it longer that 24 hours. Thank you again guys for the birthday stuff. It was really neat. You guys are the best ever. See you soon.