The Trio

Hey family! So this week Elder Price came to town! We parked at a gas station just outside town and waited for the transfer van to stop by. As they pulled up, I saw Elder Church with a big cheesy smile on his face. I haven't seen him since Aug 1st, so it was awesome to talk to him real quick. Elder Holmstead came running up too. They're both training, which is crazy. It seems like we just barely got out of the MTC! Anyway, we picked up Elder Price and rushed over to a lesson with Karen. We just kinda threw him into everything haha but he's doing well. He's fresh out of the MTC and has been there for like 11 weeks learning Spanish. He's waiting for his visa to Xalapa, Mexico, which is a brand new mission on the east coast down by Veracruz. He's pretty awesome and it's really weird trying to adjust to having a new elder added to our companionship. We're getting used to it though! We're not officially training him, but technically we are because this is his first exposure to the real deal. We're basically co-fathers of Elder Price haha. But yeah he was a zone leader at the MTC and was actually in the same branch as me, with Pres. Stone, and he stayed in the same classroom that I did back in the summer! I thought that was pretty cool. It's kinda cool re-living MTC memories talking with him haha. He's a pretty solid Elder. The other day we had a priest come out with us after dinner. We were early for an appointment with Angie, so we split up...E Ramirez took the priest and I took E Price. We knocked on the door of Angie's neighbor. A 20 year old kid named Alex answered and talked with us for a while. This guy has had a crazy past...he's died twice, shot in '98 and stabbed in the heart in '06. Somehow God has kept him here, and I think he recognized that as we talked. E Price took initiative and taught him about prayer and asked if I had a pamphlet. I was pretty surprised in a good way! He definitely hit the ground running. Alex read the pamphlet and he's agnostic but is willing to learn more. We'll see if he progresses, but he admitted that this just might be what he needs in his life right now. Cool!

So Elder Ramirez got pretty sick this past week. On Friday he was out with the flu, so I did weekly planning with just Elder Price. It went pretty well. Somehow we were more productive in that planning session than we have been the past 7 weeks. Anyway we ended up having to drop E Ramirez off at a member's home, and E Price and I did six hours of work together. It was awesome. We tried making contact with a bunch of potential investigators and investigators, and we ended up catching Kristie Redd (who's on date for the 22nd). She hasn't come to church for like 3 weeks, so we invited her pretty firmly. Well, we saw her and her family there yesterday! Sweet! Elder Ramirez is getting better, but E Price and I have been feeling a little tickle in our throats lately. Hope we don't catch it!

We got up to bear our testimonies in Cedar 4th ward on fast Sunday, so during the week bishop called and asked the three of us to speak in his ward haha I knew testimonies were a bad idea! Anyway, E Price basically just shared his testimony, I talked about the importance of being Christlike during the holidays, and E Ramirez talked about Christ and missionary work. It was awesome! Just remember to make people your presents this year.

So yeah, things are going pretty good. We lost contact with Angie for like 3 days, and we received the prompting to go by her house last night after an appointment fell through. She was finally home! We found out that she's been having a hard time being away from her kids and all that mess. Elder Price gave her a blessing of comfort. I swear we give blessings like every other day. Never know when an opportunity for that will come! We went to the hospital to give a blessing to a new born baby girl of a potential investigator. We left after giving a total of three blessings to other people haha. It was awesome! But anyway we have three baptisms supposed to happen on the 22nd of December, so we're pumped. Karen, Kristie, and Hayden. Hayden is 9 years old, and his mom has got all the baptismal info set up for us. She's on top of everything haha. Karen has been put on date many times and has been coming to church for like two years, but this time she says she's really excited and seems pretty committed. Her parents are Catholic, so that's what's been stopping her. We'll see! She's 15 I think haha. Kristie is awesome. I don't know how to explain her to you so I'll just have to let you meet her some day. She's probably 35 or 40 ish and is quitting smoking and coffee and wants to get sealed to her husband some day. She's pretty committed but needs more diligence with reading and going to church. She has four kids and all are 8 or older. Lots of potential there, but the kids haven't shown too much interest yet. Angie is on date for the 29th of this month. We've been working real hard with her. She's been slapped up side the head with trials since we first met her. She's so strong though and I have faith that she'll be in the font on that day. Either way, she's awesome and is accepting the gospel more and more each day. Our other investigator, Hanna, has been skipping appointments and missing church. She was on date for the 15th, but that won't happen. She has to get married to her less active boyfriend first, and they don't want to do it for another year. We'll keep working with them.

So we've been going to lots of ward parties lately (not all 18 of them though). The other night I sat next to a young married couple. The wife asked me if I knew her sister named Shay Sanders. Apparently she's live in Howard's trailer park since August, so if you ever see her, tell her that her sister says hi haha. Her uncle is Jon Sanders, the bishop of 4th ward. Pretty cool! Anyway I got the big Christmas package mom! I already dug in haha but I saved some of it for Christmas. Lots of candy holy cow! Thanks mother! I'm glad I've got a new camera so that I can start taking real pictures again haha. Anyway, about the Skype stuff, I don't know how to use it. We asked Sis. Hugh and a few other people about it, and they said eh maybe haha they have their own plans and stuff going on, so we don't want to bother them too much. If we find someone I'll let you know, but for now it'll be a phone call.

Well we use CD's for music by the way, so I'll have to burn a CD somehow of that music. I don't have enough time today so maybe next week. We've got lots of music though including a Josh Groban cd haha. Anyway, thanks for watching out for me and supporting me! You guys rock. Thanks for everything and I love you all!

Elder Payne