Elder Zachary Payne

Elder Zachary Payne

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

I was live at the CES Broadcast!

Well it sure sounds like things back home are sounding pretty hectic more or less haha. I suppose life really does have its ups and downs. Hey well sorry I didn't write last week! Labor day...everywhere is closed...can't use member's computers...no email. So sorry mom haha. Yesterday we were writing our emails when the Internet went down all over town, so we're taking some mormon.org time today to send these things off haha. It's super rainy today! Flash flood warnings...streets are a little flooded...need to build a raft to get to the car haha. ITS AWESOME! Anyway, these past two weeks have been crazy...we even had to chase a little lost chihuahua dog in the rain with a laundry basket before an appointment! I don't even know where to begin for this email. I've got some notes haha so I'll just throw everything in here!

First of all, they have Waffle Crisp over here! That's my favorite cereal ever! I had to go to Bolivia in order to find some...and they sell it here! So that's good. We got those little Preach My Gospel's which is sweet! We love them! I also picked up a few new ties at Ross, so that's why my balance went down. Elder Gomez found a sweet hacky sack in his last area, so we do that every now and then when we have time. My foot skills are returning and I love it! We also have this little rubber soccer ball that I'll juggle a lot for stress relief haha it's fun. I love having a companion who appreciates futbol as much as I do. We are extremely pumped for world cup 2014! We put our names at a couple hospitals last week for potential priesthood blessings, but we haven't been contacted yet, so we'll see. The Saturday before last was Robert's baptism! It went well. If you haven't ever been to a convert's baptism, then go! They are amazing! Things are going well for him...he's a firecracker! He loves the gospel, and so do I. The picture is kinda fuzzy, but he is the one right next to me.

We found three new investigators all within a block of each other. All three are single pregnant young women. Their lives are almost completely out of their own control...fiances leaving them, full time school, full time work, getting fired and needing to pay bills, some even have other children that need attending almost all the time. Then all of a sudden all their problems are put onto us, and that's terrifying because we have no idea what to do besides teach! haha Thankfully they are supposed to attend a family ward if they have children, so we turned them over to the Sister missionaries. They are all awesome though! One of them, Lei (Lay), is Hawaiian. Her life is a complete mess, but really wants to go to church and get some sort of hold on her broken life. Well we taught her a little bit. She started having contractions toward the end. She was supposed to come to church, but she went into labor haha. A few days ago we got to go give her and her brand new son, Maiki (Mikey), a priesthood blessing. It's a good thing that his name is five miles long. His middle name translates to something like "Blessed miracle child of God" only in pure, hard to pronounce Hawaiian. It took me like 30 seconds to say his full name, but I did it! That was probably the most powerful experience on my mission so far...anointing and blessing a sick child with a helpless mother who was completely depending on us. He should be good to go now. All of us (except Maiki) were fighting back tears while Elder Gomez gave her a blessing. It was so powerful. I felt as though all of my spiritual strength left me and entered into her. I was exhausted. The spirit really wipes you out! Things seem to be going well with Lei. She is elect and seems the most hopeful of the three.

The food keeps getting better! That Black Bear Diner place is amazing, and we've also been to Olive Garden with Gil (one of our recent converts) before he left to Salt Lake. He is amazing and super fresh. I hope you guys get to meet him some day! I've also eaten Katsu Chicken at this Hawaiian place called Honolulu Grill! It's exactly like Kainoa's only with even more variety. It's wonderful. The $120 per month actually isn't too bad because half the time whenever you buy something someone else buys it for you. Sometimes people fight over who will pay for us. Utah......

We found this awesome Cambodian young man, Vatahna! He goes by just "V" though. He is also extremely elect. He's the type of person that people assume is LDS but are shocked to find out that he's not. He goes to church and is super nice and awesome. He's on date for September 29th, so wish us luck. Things with Yoshi are going well too. I swear we have all the freshest investigators. They're awesome! We tried to find a guy named Ryan at a sweet bikeshop in Washington. Turns out Ryan's not interested, but they have some amazing bikes at that place! Pro road bikes, the ones with those thin tires? They are incredible. Mom needs to come here some day. I'm thinking about saving up for one instead of another car and just ride everywhere haha. The average price is like $4500. They are nice and distracting! Gotta get out of there haha.

Well so yesterday was Stake Conference over here for the Young Single Adults. One of the best stake conferences I've ever been to! It was one of those meetings where the Spirit just dumps light and knowledge onto your lap. We had the CES broadcast last night with Elder Holland! I honestly thought we wouldn't get to go to that, then we got a random call from President saying that he got seats reserved for us and our investigators and their fellowshippers! Score! We forgot that we had dinner appointment already set up, so we rushed out of dinner with the Adams (that's the third time we've eaten over there haha) and we found our seats. We were on the floor of Burns Arena, this giant basketball stadium on Dixie campus. Elder Holland walked in and everyone went dead silent and stood up. Hopefully at least Quentin got to watch it! The stake president that conducted was President Myers. We ate at his house my first Sunday out. He's awesome. We talked to him and his family afterward. He was super nervous conducting! The young woman that said the opening prayer was a fellowshipper in one of our lessons a while ago. She's a ward relief society president. She's super awesome too! Anyway, the fireside was incredible and intense! Elder Holland talked about the importance of judging righteously and loving others. We felt our eyebrows get singed a little bit. The part where he almost screamed "You NEVER check you religion at the door!" was so intense! I looked over at some other investigators (Elders Hawkins and Legizimon, the assistants, as well as Elders Bennion from the blog and Eggen who was my MTC zone leader--they all had some investigators there). These investigators looked quite shocked and were practically gasping haha. Elder Holland is right on the edge of boldness but not overbearance. It was wonderful! His testimony at the end was so powerful!

Anyway, I'm about out of time. Oh by the way, we got transfer calls last night. I'm still in the 12 week program, so we're staying put for at least another 6 weeks. But Elder Gomez es nuestro neuvo "capitan del distrito"!! We're both super pumped for him. We'll be busier than ever, and I'm still sleeping on a couch for another six weeks haha. Elder Dyer who was living with us is leaving back home to Canada. We're all jealous because he gets to go home and play Zelda haha we'll miss him! He had everyone sign a Canadian flag, and everyone wrote nice little paragraphs and what not. I just wrote "Get married" and signed it. He laughed at that. Well, more info to come next week. Hope you all have a wonderful and productive week back home! You are all awesome! I love everyone! Especially my family!

No comments:

Post a Comment