I was transferre​d to Pima!

Well the transfer was a success! We got all my stuff in the transfer van and I said all my goodbyes and what not. We transferred up with like 12 other missionaries. It was weird because I was like the third oldest in mission-age in the van. The other two were Elder Ramirez and Gomez, my first two companions haha. E Ramirez is going to Delta and E Gomez is my zone leader with E Wade in Mount Pleasant! and our District Leader is none other than E Betham! haha Pretty awesome! Anyway it was like a 4 hour drive in a nice air conditioned van, so compared to peru or bolivia, I'm sure it wasn't bad at all. 

Honestly this place reminds me of Pima more than anywhere! Well I guess like a combination of Pima and Thatcher. Ephraim is a great place to be! We cover the whole stake, which is 8 wards and we cover the Spanish branch as well. It's been weird trying to adjust back to that many wards haha I've gotten so used to the four wards in Buena Vista. They have a ton of youth here too...in one of the wards yesterday the young women got up to sing a song and there was at least 30 of them up there! Crazy! So yeah it's been a transition week for sure, trying to get my mind switched to the new area, which is always normal. We've met some great people so far and we're gonna have a miracle baptism this month on the 24th! Oh and we've done a ton of service this week: painting a room, mowing a lawn, helping two different families move in, helping someone move out, pulling an older lady's weeds in her backyard because she just had shoulder surgery, and so forth. It's been a great week and we've gotten a lot done, but we still have yet to get our feet on solid ground. But yeah things are looking good so far!

We're white washing the english stake, which means all three of us are new to the stake. It's pretty nice because we all get to learn the stake together. My companions are Elder Stephens from Oklahoma and Elder Wengert from Pinetop, AZ. They've both been covering the spanish area before this, and now we're all combined because the Spanish work is slowing down like crazy up here. So they gave us the english stake too. It's pretty fun actually to start up a new area from scratch. This is the third time on my mission that I've experienced that. The only thing is that I don't know the area at all, but I have two great companions who know where everything and everyone is. I just gotta get used to the streets and what not and I'll be good to go! +1 for companion gps!

So yeah Elder Wengert just got his visa! He's going to Trujillo, Peru. We've been talking about Peru quite a bit. He's super excited and his spanish is really good despite only being out for less than 3 months. He's pretty out going and played football in high school. We go and work out in the mornings at snow college's gym. Pretty fun! Anyway he's heading out today actually, so we'll miss him a lot. He's a future AP, I've already thrown out the prophecy for that. He'll do a great job down there! He's 18 by the way. Elder Stephens just turned 19, and he's been out for about 5 months now. He's stayed in the same area the whole time (minus the 6 weeks at the Mtc). He's a pretty funny guy. He kinda reminds me of a mixture of Ethan Mcbride, Keith, and my mtc teacher hermano stornetta. We'll get some work done this transfer together, that's for sure!

So I'm the designated driver over here. We're rollin in a 2012 white chevy malibu. Pretty nice car but the turning radius is terrible haha. Plus since I don't know the area too well yet, we have to make a ton of u-turns haha so e stephens is almost outside the car backing me up more than inside the car. It's a lot of fun though! What's nice about covering the ephraim english stake is that we spend a lot of time in a small concentrated area. In other words, we still ride bikes here! Not nearly as much as Buena Vista but we'll park the car every now and then and cruise around on the bikes. Plus we have a bike rack on our car so we can take them wherever. Pretty nice! 

But yeah that's about all for this week. Hopefully I've hit on everything you guys want/need to know about. If I left anything out, let me know! I like when you guys ask me questions because otherwise I just get on here and blab for a few minutes. Hey keep up the great work and mom your email was awesome!! Keep it up! haha and it sounds like keith is back in the states? sounds good! have a great week everyone!!

Love,

Elder Payne