Rough Start, Great Finish!

This week has been interesting! It started out soooo slow with the holidays still rampaging. We were so bored! haha we did however get to watch the movie called "Ephraim's Rescue" on new year's day. Oh and by the way, we watched it in theaters! haha yep! Our ZL's landlords own one of the local theaters, and so they got the hook up and President approved! So there we were, like 10 missionaries walking into the movie theaters. I gotta admit though...it was really weird sitting and watching a movie on the big screen. I felt apostate or something haha. But the movie itself was suuuuper good! If you haven't seen it, do so now! Very powerful. Anyway, other than that, the beginning of our week was pretty dead. We went to Elder Stewart's bday party in Gunnison. His bday is on Dec 31, so the football coaches invited him and Elder Becerra and they invited us. New year's eve with like three loud football families and a ton of food...it was a good time!

The work started picking up some momentum starting on Thursday. Three out of four appointments cancelled on us, but we still had the one and that was pretty good for us! haha we're helping a couple less actives now who are trying to quit smoking and want to go back to church. The YSA kids all started coming back later in the week too, so things are starting to pick up a little there. Today is the first day of classes! So that's pretty sweet. 

And we got a text from Fenishia this week. She's 21 with two kids, one of them being severely handicapped. Up until like 6 months ago she was completely inactive and was into parties and what not. Well she was recently reactivated back in the summer and we've been teaching her off and on. Then she got married to an RM! She wasn't quite ready for the temple yet. then she got divorced a few weeks later. Well she's been having a ton of trials and opposition and things aren't really getting any easier for her. But she's keeping her head high and and she's determined to keep going to church and stay strong. What an example! Anyway her text said "Hey! How are you two doing today? I was actually thinking that it will be ok to stop having the weekly meets. I have learned a lot this past year and I'm sure I can take it from here :)" Woah!! After wanting to meet with us and strengthen her testimony so much, that's honestly like the best text I've gotten on my mission! haha when Elder Bednar came and spoke with us in September, he mentioned that the best thing a recent convert or less active can say to you as a missionary is that they don't need you to come any more. I guess we're kinda like training wheels as missionaries. Our job is just to teach them the basics...just enough so that they can stay upright by themselves. Then they should be able to do the rest on their own! So that was a blessing haha

Also, on Friday we started teaching a Spanish family! A whole family! and they have been coming to church off and on in the past. The mom says she really likes the spanish branch and she mentioned that there's a different spirit...a better spirit, a more comforting spirit there than at the catholic church. Gold! They have a super awesome fellowshipper too...her name is Ana. She's the one you saw on Skype with Patricia and dad tried to say something to them hahaha. Yeah! anyway Ana helps us out a lot because of that language barrier I still have, so with her testimony we still have powerful lessons! Plus the three kids who are 16, 12, and 8 all speak english, so thats good! haha they all came to church yesterday, even the dad who we haven't started teaching yet. Definitely some good potential there. 

And other than that, I got to experience my favorite part of being a district leader! I had the wonderful opportunity to do three baptismal interviews this past week. There was a 10 year old for the Manti elders whose name is Maddi. She did super good! I also interviewed Bronsen for the Gunnison elders. He was 8 while I interviewed him but he turned 9 on his baptism day haha so it was all good. And I interviewed Nati for Gunnison as well. He's a 9 year old Ethiopian boy who just got adopted like 2 months ago and doesn't know hardly any english. But he's learning quick and with the help of his parents, he passed too! We went to Maddi's and Nati's baptisms. What a boost after a long and slow start to our week!

Well that's about all for this week!

Love,

Elder Payne!

p.s. Thanks for the package Keith, Shauna, and Bryson!