The Downward Slope...

Well my friends this Thursday is my year mark! That's crazy! We're planning on celebrating by having a few teaching appointments and finding activities. Woohoo! The work moves on! We'll be getting a new mission president in about a month, so things will probably be changing a little bit. His name is president Center, from Dayton Ohio, and he's a veterinarian. Man I spelled that wrong. Oh well! Yeah so this last week we had a leadership training meeting in which we talked about the importance of creating a smooth transition from one mission president to the next. President Leonard will meet with President Center for about 2 hours to show him around the mission home and the mission office and maybe eat some lunch, and that's it. So it's up to us as the leadership to keep what President Leonard has been preaching for the past 3 years in our hearts and accept President Center's new input will be and keep the work at a consistent if not better altitude. President Leonard is afraid the baptisms are going to drop. We can't have that happen! We have high expectations in this mission.

 

Hmm well this week was very slow because of high school graduation and summer and memorial day weekend. Everyone was either gone or had family over and didn't want to talk with us haha. All of our investigators cancelled appointments so they could go out of town for the weekend haha. Other than Christmas this is probably the worst holiday for missionary work! But we battled through and tried our best to stay busy. Come what may and love it! We've been doing a ton of biking back and forth in our area. Poor Elder Linville...it's his first biking area and he's driving like a $5 walmart mongoose bike. His front brakes sound like an 18 wheeler engine braking, and everytime he slams on them my ears cringe and he just laughs the whole time haha.  He's seriously the funniest companion I've had so far. I think Heavenly Father saw fit for me to have a comical relief transfer haha. It's the best! We get along great and despite him not being in shape and walking up some the the big hills in our area in the warm spring air, he loves this area! We're doing well.

 

Well I got the mother's/father's day package sent out today! It's on its way! I was reading in Alma 29:4 the other day and I learned about asking the Lord for things. To me that verse basically says that the Lord really does grant according to our desires because our desires affect our thoughts, which affect our actions, which will affect our consequences, at which point the Lord comes in. So if our desire is to back out of a trial because it's too hard and you dwell on that, then the Lord will give a big sigh and disappointedly say, "Alright..." and it will happen. On the other hand if we desire to have the strength to overcome our trials, then Heavenly Father will bless us with that strength and push us onward. So the moral of the story is watch where your desires are leading you! Anyway you guys have a great week!

 

Love,

Elder Payne!

 

"In the mouth of two or three witnesses.​.."

Woah! What a week! It's been crazy and fun and stressful and awesome and everything! First of all, thanks for the emails! Sorry mom that package will be delayed a week or so because I'm deciding to throw dad's father's day package in it as well haha so I'm still scrambling to put that together with the extremely limited free time that I have these days. It'll be coming! I have no idea what I want for my bday! I have no time to think about myself and my needs haha and to be honest I don't really want to...so you can surprise me! I'll think of something...when are you sending it?

 

Hmm, well I've had four different companions this week! Transfers are ridiculous these days haha. On monday Elder Bradford and I said bye to everyone, and we shipped him off Tuesday morning, so I went with Elder Welch for the rest of the day in his area until 5pm, which is when we picked up good old Elder Linville! I'm serving with Levi Hughes! haha but for real Elder Linville is a clown and he's awkwardly awesome! I love that guy! He reminds me of Elder Von Kampen a little bit, so it's been great. He's been out for 13 months and was in Delta for 6 months. This is his first walking/biking area and he's gained like 40 pounds on his mission, so we're getting him in shape real fast! haha he's from San Marcus, California. The night we got him, we got a call from the Assistants saying that we're also getting a surprise visa waiter in our area! Haha woohoo! so we went to the trainer's meeting the next day and picked him up. Elder Shipp from Georgia! He's going to Sao paulo brazil on his mission and he's a temp in our mission!

 

We had a blast for five days and then got a call from the assistant's this morning saying that Elder Shipp is going to the Pineview stake instead! Darn! So he's leaving us already! haha oh well we got some pics and signed his journal and all that jazz and packed him up and shipped (haha) him off all within one hour! whew!

 

Nikki's baptism was wonderful! We got it all put together and it was a success! She was super nervous! but she's seriously the most golden investigator I've ever had! Elder Bradford graced us with his presence as well! It was a good day. She was confirmed yesterday! Yaaaay! She's awesome! We had another recent convert who is our ward mission leader, Bro Reed, conduct the baptism. He's black and barely knows what he's doing half of the time because he's so new to the church, so it was super funny and it almost felt like a baptist service or something haha. But it was awesome and the spirit was definitely there!

 

Hmm well I'm already out of time so I gotta cut off right here! Thanks for all the support and good luck to everyone in there endeavors this week! As they say in Brazil, "tuda bem!" chao

 

Elder Payne

 

Adios Elder Bradford!

Hey guys so I don't have a whole lot of time so I'll keep this brief! First of all, the call was awesome! Thanks for the quick little chat! Haha transfer calls came in and here's the scoop:

 

Elder Payne is staying in Buena Vista 2 as District Leader, and his new companion is Elder Linville!

Elder Bradford is transferring to Gunnison as senior companion with Elder Brawn in a biking area!

 

Elder Bradford will be leaving tomorrow (Tuesday) morning at 9 am. I'll be with Elder Welch (from Gilbert!) in his area until 5 pm, and then I will pick up Elder Linville once the transfer van comes back from up north. Then it's back to work!

 

I'll try to be sending out that mother's day package soon. Should be fun for ya, mom! This week we did a bunch of service projects, moving rocks and getting our hands dirty. We put Stefani on date, which I already told you. She's so excited! She's been waiting for someone to ask her to be baptized for a long time! We finally got a less-active couple that we've been working with for the past 12 weeks out to church yesterday!! Chris hasn't been in like 10 years! That was exciting. Other than all that, Nikki will be getting baptized this Saturday!! Woohoo! Thanks again for everything! I love you guys!

 

Elder Payne!

The Honest in Heart!

Wow yeah sounds like mom had quite the adventure this past week! Hey that's really cool though about that little opportunity to share the gospel! Keep at it and you'll see miracles, whether they be big or tiny. We have experiences like that almost every day! (except we're not nurses at a hospital). It's easier for you because you don't have a name tag like missionaries, so you can build trust easily with anyone, because you're "normal!" One of our ward mission leaders, Bro Minus (we call him Bro Plus) has said that if you see a person three times with positive interaction, you automatically have a friendship with them. Once you've established that relationship, you can then slip the gospel into a conversation and work your way to being as bold and loving as you need to be to help them make that next step. So keep at it! That's super exciting!! Thank goodness Van's okay! Well Dad you've had a lot thrown at you these past few months, but at the same time it seems like things are improving. That's motivation on my part and hearing the progress of my family is keeping me out here working hard every week! So thanks!!

 

Well we met all of our goals for this week! Heavenly Father decided to bless us and help us achieve them. We had an awesome ZTM this past week. At MLC President Leonard started off by telling the zone leaders in the mission that "we've lost our purpose" and "our goals for next month are shameful" haha so the training in ZTM was all about our purpose as missionaries. Our purpose is to invite others to come unto Christ by helping them receive the restored gospel through faith in Jesus Christ and His atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end. I just want you guys to know, I can still share that in Spanish! haha anyway, it was personally one of the best and most sacred meetings on my mission. Our leaders are bold and loving, and I swear Christ was speaking to us the whole time. I felt revitalized and ready to baptize!

 

Well Elder Bradford and I tried to incorporate many of the things we learned from ZTM into our area to cap off the week. We've found two new investigators since then. One of them, Richard, has a girlfriend and a daughter and they all want to be baptized at some point. We've only met Richard, so we'll probably be picking up the other two as investigators this week. We also set an appointment with Stefanie who is like 12 and goes to church with her friends. She lives clear across town but wants to take the lessons in our area because her parents tell her to go to church with her friends. (They must be non members or less active or something) So we'll start teaching her tonight, and she wants to be baptized and go to a youth temple trip this summer! We'll work with her and see what we can do!

 

Well, we're definitely being led to the honest in heart, so Keith your prayers are being answered! So are ours! haha finding has been a big struggle in this area, so this has been a tremendous blessing. We should have at least one baptism in the area this month...Nikki! We'll just have to see what happens at transfers next week! This is our last week of training! Chances are one of us will be transferred out! It'll be sad to see either one of us go, but that's the mission for ya!

 

Yeah so let's plan on 3 pm my time on Sunday! We'll be getting out of church and we'll head back home for the calls. I'll call on the mission cell phone that we carry around with us all day. Should be fun! No calling cards!! Woohoo seems like last week we did the whole skyping thing! Haha alright well talk to you then!

 

Love,

Elder Payne!