Happy Halloween!

Well it's a little late, but yeah! Hope you guys ate lots of candy and got real fat. Our Halloween was interesting. Since there's people who dress up as missionaries, we had to lock ourselves at home at 6 pm Wednesday night. I read the King Follet discourse or whatever it's called...super good. Anyway, it's been a long week trying to find people to teach! We had potential of like 5 baptisms this month, and so far we're struggling to get even one. Our investigators just aren't willing to progress and make the gospel a priority in their lives. No room for oh well as president would tell us. We need to step it up! Man I wish I would have taken notes about this past week, cuz now I forgot everything we did haha. The members here are terrific. We get fed every night, which is awesome. Don't worry mom, I'm cleaning up my plate each night. haha I've gained a whopping 5 pounds on the mission so far! Anyway on Saturday afternoon we knocked on the door of Mr. Del Parson himself! His wife answered, so we talked to her and her son and his son's kids. Unfortunately Del was in the studio painting at the time, so we didn't get to meet him! ah man! haha but in their house hangs the original painting of Christ holding the lamb. Pretty cool! We've been hearing some ugly news about the giant hurricane and new york being evacuated, and then of course election Tuesday this week and all that jazz. Christ really is knocking at the door haha.

We had a cool lesson with a new investigator Hanna this past week. We met her at a ward mission leader's home and started getting to know her. She started getting all worked up about her past problems with smoking and divorce and not being able to see her own child as much as she would like. We spent the whole lesson trying to calm her down and encourage her. The Spirit basically took over the whole lesson. I was throwing out scriptures like Proverbs 3:5-6 and Isaiah 49:15-16 out of nowhere. Great scriptures by the way! But yeah afterwards she said she felt a whole lot better and the spirit testified to her heart that God loves her very much. That's what we wanted! We'll be meeting with her again later this week.

Well anyway sorry this is a shorter email! I love you guys a ton! I need your support! I'm grateful for this gospel and the peace it brings to our own troubled hearts. When we find time to feel and listen to the spirit, we find a renewal of energy which comes through the atonement of Christ. It's awesome!

Elder Payne!