Wow what a week we've had! It's been great, lots of adventures. First of all though tell Bryson HAPPY BIRTHDAY tomorrow for me!! Gosh he's old. I was reading my journal this morning of the day he was born....crazy how time flies! I wouldn't be too surprised if he walks up to me as soon as I get home and asks how I'm doing. Total Tommy Pickles status. We'll see! So we're just over here at the Family History library in St. George and the whole mission is on edge because today is the day that the new AP gets the call. We've been gathering some hints here and there. They have to replace 8 of 14 zone leaders and 2 AP's and like 4 STL's within the next two transfers. Of the 6 ZL's not leaving, 2 of them were just barely put in. So that means there's really only four options for the next AP: Elder Lewis (my comp), E Jensen, E Richhart, and E Berven. We'll see what happens!
Oh shoot! We just got a text....It's Elder Berven!! haha crazy timing. He's a good missionary, he was trained by the AP that brought me into the mission, Elder Hawkins. He's a strong example of quiet dignity, so he'll be a pretty good replacement for E Nye who is the same. We thought E Lewis was going to be put in this whole transfer, but I guess it makes sense. The other AP is an and extroverted clown, Elder Captain from Mesa. haha and so is Elder Lewis. E Berven will create a good spiritual and companionship balance. Sweet!
Anyway, this week we got a text saying that we're now Facebook approved!! Crazy! So we're starting it up this week. It's kinda up in the air and all we really know is that we need to add President Center as a friend. I guess he's going to email us some guidelines and expectations. Crazy huh?!
Just kidding, april fools. No facebook. We don't need it yet (obviously or else they'd say otherwise.) This week we had MLC on Wednesday followed by zone meeting on Friday. We had a great time! At MLC, Elder Lewis and I had to role play with Elder Captain in front of everyone, and guess what we had to teach? Yep, the Law of Chastity. Using the pamphlet. Have you seen the LoC pamphlet?? It's great but the pictures are super awk haha. It's a good thing they told us before hand so that we could be prepared haha. It went well, and the very next day we had to teach a less-active family the LoC to the whole family, ranging from a little 8 year old girl to a newly engaged couple and their single dad, and everything in between. Pretty good variety! Somehow, with the help of that role play and especially our Heavenly Father we were able to teach that lesson with a perfect balance of "little kid-ness" and an appropriate and clear amount of "adult understanding." Whew! The Lord provides a way haha.
But yeah, zone meeting was pretty good! We did a few trainings....the first one was on Revelation through Church Attendance and the other one was an exclusive "Priesthood session" training with just the elders. (The STL's were asked by sis Center to gather all the sisters in the zone together to talk about whatever they felt inspired to talk about...typical. Rest assured we will never argue with that.) It was super nice to just train the elders haha we had a good time. We were thinking about just shooting some hoops in the gym but we decided not to. Instead, we broke down our numbers and briefly trained them on Teaching more Lessons. Our zone's been struggling with that lately. We committed all of them to teach 5 more lessons a week than they have been, pushing our companionship average from 13 a week to 18 a week and our zone average from 169 a week to 200+ a week. We'll see how it goes! Gotta love being able to be as bold as you want without worrying about getting any hurt feelings from the sisters haha. Whew!
Speaking of the sisters though, a couple companionships in our zone got 5 baptisms combined this week! They're getting work done, and there's always room for improvement.
Conference was really good. No temples and only one talk on missionary work...a change of pace! I like it....especially the throw downs on allllll the controversial matters in the world right now. (Neil L. Andersesn's talk referencing gay marriage, Dallin H. Oaks in the Priesthood session about women and the Priesthood.) Elder Oaks talk was one of my favorites. The men are NOT the Priesthood. Both men and women are entitled and can be endowed with God's Priesthood power and authority. Boom. Indisputable. We were practically cheering after that talk haha. There were some other great ones...I loved the one on communication. (Don't ever let your wife jump out of a moving truck haha) and Elder Bednar's about the Savior and the importance of carrying loads to obtain spiritual traction. I'm still tripping out that I got to shake his hand in September. All of those speakers are men and women of God! What a blessing it is to have their influence and guidance in our lives. We watched each session at different members homes, including the Priesthood session, which was kinda weird but awesome!
Oh and this week we were asked to speak briefly at a pack meeting and share how cub scouts helped us become the men we are. It was fun! We got to relive all our cub scout experiences....pinewood derby, building little boats, shooting model rockets....fun times! It made me want to go back to cub scouts haha. Thanks to sis Wright for helping me along in my cub scout journey! Anyway, I better run!
Love,
Elder Payne!
Elder Valentine is my brother!!!
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