What a week!

Man so much happened this week I wish I could write everything down! Well first of all I loved all the emails! QP's getting ready for the end of the world haha and Keith graduated! Alright!! That reminds me of when I was at FBLA nationals in Florida. I woke up at 7:00 am and my test time was at 7:15 haha so I got all dressed up nicely and skipped my contacts so I couldn't even see and rushed through this giant hotel we were in to my testing place. The line was huge and we ended up waiting for like 10 minutes, but I made it! haha anyway that's awesome congrats! Sounds like mom had a good trip haha and dad was able to see Keith haha that's awesome!

Well so unfortunately you'll have to take a close look at this week's communicator mom. There was a misunderstanding and we don't actually get to skype home...only international missionaries. So sorry about that....sounds like you were getting very excited about it! We'll be calling, not sure what time but I'll have to let you know next week because they're sending us Christmas guidelines tonight.

So yeah we've had some pretty good dinners this week. Our ward mission leader told the families to take pics of us and send them to you guys, so hopefully mom and dad have been getting those. Christmas is just around the corner once again! People are really starting to reach out to us and say hi and Merry Christmas and stuff haha. Just today a lady bought all our groceries. Dang it! Anyway this week we've been working hard to achieve our goals, and it's paid off for us. This was the most productive week we've had here in Cedar since I've been here. No baptisms, but we've been getting three ready for this next Saturday. Hayden, Karen, and Kristi. I'll be taking pictures with them this week and send them next week for a Christmas present haha. We've been working hard with them, and also Angie who's on date for the 29th. We found out today that Kristi broke her arm doing whats called a Roller Derby, so we're not sure on the status of her baptism right now. We're still planning on it though! We just gave her a blessing. We tried getting in contact with Hanna again....she's been dodging us because she doesn't want to get married yet and she knows that's what needs to happen for her to get baptized. Turns out her and her boyfriend John got in an argument, so he dropped her off and let her take a walk for a little while (which apparently is normal for them to do that when they get mad at each other). Well lo and behold the sheriff picked her up and ended up charging John with aggravated assault because it was really cold outside. Ridiculous...anyway she's in a safe house somewhere and apparently John is locked up. That's about all I know. Kinda unfortunate!

So this past week Elder Price went with another missionary for the weekend. Elder McFarland had a death in his family, so he went home for a couple days. In the mean time, his companion needed someone to go with him, so Elder Price went on a 72 hour exchange basically. The other missionary is Hispanic and barely knows English, let alone the new area. So they basically knocked doors all weekend in the freezing snowing cold wind. They had one appointment in three days and it cancelled. haha too bad for them! That would be awful. In the mean time, Elder Ramirez and I did some good work in our area. We got a text this morning from the ZL's declaring that we are the area of the week! Sweet! Elder Price has been a huge blessing for us and this area. He makes us want to be better and work harder. He's leaving tonight to get his visa from Vegas, and he'll come back here in a couple days and spend a couple more weeks with us until his flight leaves. We'll miss him! haha

So yeah we picked up three new investigators this week, one of which is named Laura. She's probably 60 or so and knows the church is true and goes every Sunday, but hasn't ever been baptized. Not sure what happened there and we're still trying to get a straight answer is whether or not she was ever excommunicated, but for now she's on date for Jan 26. She's awesome and seriously has the best smoker laugh ever. Also, yesterday we went by an older lady that we gave a blessing to a few weeks ago. She has Alzheimer's and a brain tumor and her head isn't on quite straight, but she's the sweetest old lady you've ever met. She loves missionaries! We stopped by and she and her husband were watching the football game. Last time they were watching UFC and she spend 10 minutes explaining the glory of UFC to us. Anyway we talked for a while and she randomly turned to me and said "you're going to be a bishop. no, I'm serious! you are!" haha as we were leaving she added "she has red hair....Elder! she has red hair, your wife, and she's short!" haha I didn't really know what to say to that except "awesome!" So if all that comes true, I'm not sure what it will do to my testimony haha but we'll see! We met the "Parowan Prophet" last week in Wal-mart. He drove up to us on his little scooter and stopped and looked at us for a bit, then started asking us questions and stuff. he focuses how in the bible it says "women shall prophesy in the last days" or something like that. Well apparently I believe him now haha. Anyway, I'll have to watch out for red heads from now on.

So anyway I wish I could write more, but we got stuff to do. Thanks everyone for the emails and support! Keep doing good work and stay positive! Love you all!

Elder Payne!