Another Successful Thanksgivi​ng!

Well guys it's good to hear from everyone, whether or not they sent an email! Looks like you guys had a great Thanksgiving. Ours was pretty good itself! We only ate two thanksgiving dinners this year! Last year we packed three haha. Anyway we ate at the Prigmore's and the Hancock's. Bro Prigmore is the high counselor for missionary work, so we work with him quite a bit, and Bro Hancock is the ward mission leader for the 7th ward. The Prigmore's had the whole set up...big dinner, lots of family, and we ate in the garage! haha which after they had decked it all out turned out really awesome! The Hancock's are empty nesters and have a son on a mission in Mexico who also comes home in May. They both served missions and in fact they met on their mission...they served in the same zone and hated each other! Interesting story. Anyway I'm scared now because I hope I don't marry any of the sisters in this mission! But yeah after the food and all that we had a "half-zone/San Pete" activity at the Ephraim YSA stake center. We played pool and ping pong and basketball and knockout and sprout ball...super fun! There wasn't a single missionary that didn't have a fun time. That's what I love about this zone is that all of us get along really well. Even the missionaries that are polar opposites and have nothing in common get along and have fun. It's such a blessing! We had a great thanksgiving.

Well I opened the envelop that night and read it haha. Man it looks like the thoughts I wrote down were written by a 1st grader! and mom's thoughts were like a top-selling inspirational novel! Anyway, I guess we'll have to stay tuned for 2018! Maybe the Savior will have come by then, who knows!

The work has been pretty slow this week, whether it be the fact that it was Thanksgiving or the fact that Kelly is all moved to Nevada or the fact our other investigators are cooling off...either way, it was pretty slow. However, the work should pick up a lot this week. We have some more potentials coming up through the cracks and President will be doing an interview this week for one of our investigators, Caroline, who is Jason's wife and Bobby's mom. Anyway she used to be fundamentalist and didn't really practice and has been "mormon" for years now, she just hasn't been baptized yet. Couple interviews should fix that!

Yesterday we got a call from a member named Bro Carter. He has a spanish family that he's been trying to reach out to. Last year he gave them some Christmas treats. This year he's going to give them a Book of Mormon with his testimony. The problem is that he doesn't speak spanish! So he called us up and sought for help and approval. We're going to go over this week and help him out as he delivers it. We never told him that we've tried and failed to connect with this family a couple times, but we don't want to spoil his efforts. I'm personally impressed at Bro Carter's desire and effort to do some legitimate missionary work. He's a very timid person and isn't exactly sure what to do, he's just doing it. What a good example! He's one of the first to have stepped up and give us a call to help with his friends since I've been in the area. Other than him and a couple others, our work comes solely through bishops and leadership and ourselves. So don't let that happen in little old Thatcher and Safford! Stay involved and reach out. Remember Bro Carter haha. 

Hmm, other than that, we helped one of our excommunicated investigators move clear across two parking lots and a street. She's a nice and interesting lady...Isabell is her name. Anyway, she and her daughter and her daughter's boyfriend and us were moving things. They realized they didn't have a strap for their SUV and they were going to buy one real quick so we could move the mattress. Well I suggested that E Ramirez and I just carry the thing over to Isabell's new apartment. Haha so soon enough we were both strolling down main street in Ephraim past a stoplight carrying a mattress! Haha gotta love being in small towns.

This week we're having a zone conference in Richfield with Elder Arnold of the Seventy. Apparently (use that loosely...rumors in this mission are worse than rumors in Thatcher) Elder Arnold is the one that's been going to different missions and announcing iPads and Facebook. While I was on exchanges this week with Elder Berven in Mt. Pleasant, we got a ride from an RM who served in North Carolina. He said just before he left they approved Facebook in the mission, and they had to spend a mandatory 1 hour each day on Facebook, and they had to use their own from back home and "missionary-proof" it within a week. He also mentioned that it's like Facebook stalking but worse because it's kind of real haha. He said in their planners they would just write "Facecreep Time" for laughs haha. Anyway, we'll see what the truth is this week, if Elder Arnold announces anything big.

well, until next time!

Love,

Elder Payne!