week 8!

Well how is everyone doing?? It's good to hear from shauna and see all the cool pictures! thanks shauna and you're not horrible! haha and I haven't read you letter yet mom, but I saw the pics of qp's new house! that was neat I'm happy everything seems to be working out! and it's good to hear that it rained back home! I love rain! We didn't get any rain until week 6, and this past weekend was completely rained out. It was awesome! We went on our temple walk yesterday, and it was sprinkling the whole time! woohoo! oh and thanks for all the birthday wishes! I got the Facebook posts that mom sent, and I just got the Dr. Suess card before I wrote this email! Thanks McKenzi and friends! yall rock! haha oh and I've seen my Thatcher buddies quite a bit lately. They are all doing fine! Elder Nolan says he's waiting for QP to send him a package haha. They other day in gym I was upstairs on the track and I saw an elder on the court downstairs wearing a Peru soccer jersery. It looked just like mine! turns out it was just Elder Nolan again haha he was wearing the one I gave him. then we played four sqaure. Well shoot, apparently we have some amazing spanish books that debuted in 2011 that the church has invested millions of dollars in. QP and KP never had them, and they are miles ahead of any other language learning method in the world. In two years or so, we can use them to finally teach mom how to speak spanish! haha I've been really enjoying my conversations with elder Killian (who's in our district). We talk about Banjo Kazooie a lot haha and we reminisce on all the levels and we even sang the theme song for Freeze eezy peak! it was a blast! Last night we had an amazing devotional. If you can, look up Jenny Oaks Baker. She's a professional violinist who gave up a spot on a world famous symphony to raise her children full time. her husband is Dallin H. Oaks grandson. She is amazing! and her kids are ridiculously good too...they are only 5, 7, 9, and 10 and they played a powerful rendition of I am a Child of God. They played the acoustic guitar, cello, piano, and violin, respectively. It was insane! It actually inspired me to go learn the piano or something haha. This past week, poor Elder Von Kampen fell asleep twice. In personal study our district noticed he was asleeep. we banged on the door and shouted his name and even poked him, and he didn't even budge! what a maniac! I thought he was dead haha then I rubbed his shoulders for a solid 10 seconds, and he finally darted awake! we all thought he was pulling our leg, but he was honestly asleep! in sacrament meeting yesterday it happened again, and when I finally woke him up he darted awake and had the most confused and terrified expression I have ever seen. he apparently thought he had to give a talk or something. It's not every day you get a companion who has coma's instead of sleeping. haha well on a more serious note, we had a bit of a shake up earlier this week. one of our roommates showed us some flight plans the other day. he said he needed to go and work some things out. the hardest part was his companions reaction. He was crushed, and Elder Von Kampen and I and some others from the zone just talked with him for a while. He was tearing up pretty good. He's doing a whole lot better now though! I just hope that the other elder returns! he actually has an exactly identical twin here at the MTC. Whenever I see him it really throws me off haha. and so now we have two new roommates, Elder Reed and Elder Eliason. They are pretty cool! Alright well, I'm doing good! I love being here at the MTC, and I love this gospel! I love you all! thank you for everything!

Con amor,
Elder Payne :)

p.s. If you want to look up Elder Von Kampen on Facebook, he said it's okay. Just in case you're wondering what he's like haha oh and I sent mom a hand written letter today. You can share it with the family if you want, and you can even put it on the blog too. I'm out of time, so you'll find out more once you get it! Peace out everyone!

The Climax of the MTC!

Well how in the world is everyone?! What a crazy week it has been over here in Provo! Well I got to see Andrew Nolan and Dallin Green this week! that was awesome! Elder Nolan's class is like 10 feet away from mine, so we've seen each other a lot so far haha. We got a new district in our zone, and four of them are going to Cuzco Peru. I thought for sure Andrew would be in our zone once I heard that. Oh well! He's doing well and is as happy as ever. Elder Green is such a handsome man. The spirit just oozes off of him, and I love his enthusiasm! By the way, we got two new roommates this week as well! Elder Balderston and Elder Hall! they are both going to somewhere in Mexico...I think Pueblo? Not sure. Elder Hall is actually from Payson, and he says he knows Kaytlyn Curtis. Small world. Elder V.K. and I are still enjoying life here at the MTC. We still have about 12 lessons a week but we're up to 8 investigators this week. It's fun! Oh and thanks for reminding me of my bday everyone! haha I almost forgot. it's been a wonderful day so far! thanks for the Trash Bags keith and shauna! haha got the package today! the reeses were completely smashed and melted but delicious! oh and mom's package was awesome! my favorite part of it was the socks haha how sad! but it's what i needed the most, so thanks mom! the temple is closed still, so we won't be going there for a while. there's like 3 other mtc employees that have a birthday today too haha. I loved hearing the reports on the fourth of july! keith's letters in general are just awesome. I'm not sure why. I just feel like I'm there with you guys when I read his letters. it's cool! still no homesickness by the way! anyway, yeah I feel bad for you all. our fourth of july celebration was awesome! we were expecting to be serious and spiritual, but it ended up being fun and spiritual instead! we all showed up 30 min early, so Pres. Brown (mtc president) had us sing happy birthday to a few people and the country, then we sang "we wish you a happy birthday" to someone else. then he called up elders who had been dear-john'd haha. we all sang "love one another" to them, and Pres. Brown even pulled out a tissue and dryed their tears! they were all just laughing though, so it was good fun. in fact, I think half of them just went up for fun. one elder pulled out his camera in the middle of the song and started taking pictures of everyone. then he asked another elder to take his picture with us in the background. then there were some musical numbers (including real bagpipes!) and an awesome and powerful program. afterwards we got to watch FIREWORKS! no way, my favorite part of the 4th of july! it was so awesome! then we all went to bed at like 11:30 haha. it was much better than I was expecting! thanks to Sis. Wright for the update on FBLA Nationals! it's so crazy that it's been a whole year since I went.... I hope Nathan is doing work up there! Thank you Dad for the report and advice! wish I could have been there, but I would trade this experience for that. Oh and thanks mom for the addresses so far! but I need some more haha can you send me addresses for Sis. Wiltbank, Howards, Echols, Bro Evans, and Bishop Howard?

Alright well I'll quickly explain what happened this morning. I got a note saying to go see President Hacking, who is our district president (the man above our Branch President, Pres. Stone) anyway, he told me that he got a call from my mission president, Pres. Leonard, earlier. He was told that he currently has an excess of Spanish speakers and has inquired of me if I would be willing to work with the English speakers. He needs an English speaker! wow! but that doesn't mean I'm done with spanish. I will still be assigned as a Spanish speaker and will still be able to use my spanish whenever I can. But for right now, the Lord needs an extra English speaker. I've been prepared for this opportunity to open up. Heavenly Father knows exactly what I need, even when it's not clear for others. President Hacking described me as a "hot commodity" and says that everyone in Salt Lake is up in arms with me haha. This is a blessing, not a curse. I will have an opportunity to speak spanish to someone, but my mission president needs another English speaker! I'm bilingual haha shoot well if you have any questions for me, let me know. I'm well out of time now, but I really needed to add this into this email. Love you all! I can feel your prayers. This work is true, and Christ is my best friend. Miracles do come. Continue the legacy!

Con amor,
Elder Payne :)

p.s. How is Chance doing?

Apostles in the house! + happy 4th of July! + second half of MTC!

Hows it going everyone! I'm writing early this week because our distric gets to clean the temple this afternoon! I'm stoked for that! sounds like dad's been having a lot to deal with lately...keep it up though and stay positive! haha that's no good to hear the mountains on fire. there's actually a wildfire over here too. it's on Eagle Peak (I think) and all of provo is blanketed with smoke. it's really eerie...in the afternoon when the sun shines thru the smoke and dark clouds, it makes everything look like a red-orange color, and at the same time there are little bits of white ash snowing down on us. its kind of cool! in other news, I fixed that loose button on my suit last monday. it turned out pretty good! I just completely re sewed it back on. oh and I realized that my copy of my patriarchal blessing is the one that has the wrong birthday on it. haha oh well! on wednesday for our service activity, Elder Von Kampen and I put up all the different flags of the countries of missionaries that come to the MTC (on the flag poles by 19m and 1m, hopefully KP and QP know what I'm talking about). It was pretty cool! For the tuesday night devotional, there were 10 apostles seated up on the stand with there wives, and Elder L. Tom Perry spoke to us. unfortunately our district had class right before, so we had to go to overflow in another building. we didn't get to see all the apostles, and some people were angry and upset. but I was just happy they were here to support us and all the new mission presidents. afterwards we saw elder anderson and elder bednar while we were waiting in the dinner line. we waved to them as if we had our "we love apostles!" t shirts on. it was cool! yesterday we watched a couple mormon messages, and I got to show the district Same Jersey and For Madison. it was cool to say "yeah dude I know all these people!" and start naming them off haha everyone was all impressed that we have three mormon messages for our little area. I even got to actually show them my high school and ea's football field and the thatcher stake center haha. I'll show them the temple cultural celebration one some other time. we're famous! Anyway, I hope everyone has an awesome independence day! I'll miss being there for that, but I'm used to missing it with all those efy's I went too haha. you know what would be cool is if I could get some printed pictures of the family or something. everyone else around here has them haha. Oh and is there any report on how FBLA nationals 2012 went this year? and I also need Michael Ziccarelli's address so I can write him! shoot well I guess it would be cool to let y'all know what I'm actually doing here, so I'll just hit the highlights of life at the MTC:

- Elder V.K. and I will have 5 investigators this week, but we only have time for about 12 lessons a week (all in 100% spanish of course!)
- We average about 6 hours of class per day (two 3 hour chunks) where we teach, learn spanish, learn the Fundamentals and PMG, and read the BofM in spanish
- We have a service activity once a week
- 1 hour of personal study per day
- 1 hour of language study per day
- 1 hour of TALL lab (Technology Assisted Language Learning on computers)
- 1 hour of gym time except mondays and sundays...for gym you can either go to the inside gym (19m) or out on the field across the street. inside you can run, play basketball, 4 square, lift weights, and even yoga/pelates. outside you can run, play SOCCER, more 4 square, baseball, frisbee golf, and even beach volleyball! (volleyball in sand pits) it's a blast!
- the bookstore in 2m has everything you'll ever need
- other fun things include: meals, devotionals, workshops, temple, laundry, sunday meetings, temple walks, and the Teaching Resource Center where we get to know real members and give them a spiritual thought (in spanish of course!)
- Daily planning (30 mins each day) and Weekly planning (about 2 hours each saturday)
And if there's anything else you want to know, just ask!

Well my time is out, but I just want to let you all know that I know this church is true! I cannot deny it! Joseph Smith is the prophet of the restoration, and Jesus Christ is our Savior and Redeemer. He knows you, even when no one else does. I promise he can heal your life, but the thing is, you need to unlock your own heart from the inside and let Him in (revelation 3:20). Be strong this week! I love you all! thank you :)

con amor,
Elder Payne :)

District Leader no more

Alright well a lot has gone on within the last week, and I have 10 minutes to write this before my time logs me off. first of all, thanks for the emails mom and dad! sounds like things are going pretty crazy over there. congrats on all those rental offers, mom! who's staying in my room? the house looks nice haha so thanks for the pics. Sorry i only had a little time to just skim through your email, and I can't print it off. Anyway, I'm not sure if I ever mentioned this but I was put into a district/zone with all the other St.  George spanish speakers, and I believe there are six of us. two of them have already left, and I'm envious haha. one of them in my district, Elder Church, is from Phoenix. I've met a ton of people from arizona and others who are going to the Tuscon mission. you might have them over for dinner someday, who knows! we got some new elders/sisters in our zone this week! they are some solid missionaries. it's crazy to think my MTC half way point is this week. the days are all mushed together now! oh my the way mom, I'll send my emails roughly the same time each monday, so you don't need to worry too much. you want something in spanish huh? el pescado es pesado con pecados. think about that for a minute. it doesn't make too much sense, but it sounds cool. I'm so happy for Andrew! that's amazing! I still haven't heard from him, so make sure he writes me. so Dallin leaves soon huh? when exactly? and Andrew Nolan? I'll be looking for them when they come. I saw Brandon Bryce the other day, which was cool. so yeah I am no longer the District Leader! after three weeks they switch us out. now it's elder Killian! he's cool, his parents own a popcorn business...Killian Korn. it's delicious, they sent us some! this week all the new mission presidents are here, which doesn't affect me. but it also means the quorum of the 12 and 1st presidency are here too! haven't seen any of them yet though. they're not really here for us though, so I'll be surprised if they speak to us...but that would be awesome! oh and I got a haircut this week! same as always...I look handsome! my companion, elder von kampen, is awesome. he struggles at spanish but loves teaching. he also hates birds...whenever we see one he says how he wants to shoot them or throw a rock at them. not sure why. well I'm at negative two minutes on the timer, so I'm in trouble! (not really) i'll have to send out some hand written letters later. thanks for all you guys do! I love this gospel and I love the people I will serve! Christ lives and we need to invite everyone to come unto him after we come unto him ourselves. love you all!

con amor,
Elder Payne :)

New Companion!

What's up yall! This past week has been pretty crazy! Elders Holmstead, Smith, and Sanderson all moved up to intermediate spanish this week, and now i'm companions with elder Von Kampen. He's a little different than elder holmstead, but it's a cool experience to have a different companion. he talks about how much he loves green tabasco sauce and when his family sent him some, he about cryed with happiness. he has some pretty crazy dreams too, but i'll tell you about that in a couple years. But i'll miss elder holmstead! I wish i could send pics, but alas...not at the mtc. Elder holmstead said you guys should turn those two dead palm trees into a giant slingshot. try it! I loved to hear about elder stat going to oregon! Elder payne!? we always joked about how we would be companions, and now we are! sort of..... well the food isn't too bad over here..we had kalua pork followed by orange chicken this week, which reminded me of home! that was awesome. its crazy how at 930 pm the sky is still light outside. it throws me off. oh and we saw Elder Reis (one of the elders from The District) this week! that was cool, he's famous. apparently those elders train the missionaries who are about to leave into the field. HAPPY FATHERS DAY! to dad! I still haven't heard from him since I've been here, and I'm concerned he's not getting my emails/letters. someone please follow up for me! you're my only hope! Well, this should be my last week as District Leader. It's been fun. The older district is leaving this week. I'm gonna miss them...theyre like older brothers for us, and now we have to be the example for the new elders coming in this week. well shoot, time is already short, so I'll have to end here. I'll be sending out some hand written letters soon, but I need some addresses! Mom can you send them to me in a Dear Elder so I can send them off sooner? (thanks for Danny's) thanks! love you all!

please send addresses for:
Grandma Payne
Grandpa Hoopes
Elder Devin Hatch
Andrew Spencer
Elder Nathan Wright
Elder Ethan McBride

con amor,
Elder Payne :)

p.s. Thanks for the general updates about the new EAC rental stuff! that's awesome mom! good luck! the fans look sweet too. Good luck with all those talks Keith haha that's awesome! thanks for the dear elders qp! the support you guys give me is tremendous!

Week 2! Grass stains on my new Sneakers

Hey y'all, I just thought I'd try writing one email instead of like 3 or 4 different ones. Make sure everyone gets this, especially dad. I'm not sure if that's his email, but I think it is. If so, hi dad! I wrote him a letter and sent it in the mail, so I really hope he got that too. Alright, well the MTC is pretty awesome! My district is pretty awesome too, I wish I could send you guys some pics, but alas.... Being district leader is pretty fun, I get to conduct district meeting and attend a ton of other meetings throughout the week. There aren't any major concern within the district that I need to worry about, so I have it really good for now. Plus I'm the one who gets the mail for everyone. They can't open letters until right before bed, so it's fun to watch their dying anticipation while I hold onto their letters. HAHA! hmm, well I got to play soccer on either wed or tue. Don't remember. You lose track of time here. Anyway, I got some nice grass stains on my new sneakers, which is awesome! Today (and last monday) we went to the temple, which is always super nice and peaceful! My companion is kind of bummed about not being able to run very much...he's a long distance runner and usually runs like 50 miles a week or something. Now he's limited to the track in the gym, which is kind of lame. He's probably moving up to advanced spanish sometime soon, and I'll definitely miss him, he's awesome! Oh thanks for those Ricola cough drops mom, I've been fighting a little cold this past week, and they came in handy! yum. Sounds like you had a crazy girls camp experience mom! That story about the girl having to go home was sad. I forgot you were doing that, so thanks for the update and pictures! I met a guy in the lunch room that's going to santa cruz bolivia, and I told him about how qp went there, and how I (and mom) went there too. I havne't met anyone going to Peru yet, so we'll see. But yeah, things are just going as normal here. I really love sundays at the mtc, especially the firesides and films afterward. Last night after the fireside, me and elder holmstead went to watch a recording of David A. Bednar's "The Character of Christ" talk. He gave it on Christmas Day 2011 at the MTC, and it is seriously the best talk I have ever heard. It was intensely spiritual and life changing. But yeah, this next week should be interesting. We're getting two new "investigators" that we'll be teaching, but I don't know who my companion will be if elder holmstead leaves. We'll figure it out though! Let me know about anything, even if it's completely random. It makes my day better! I hope you guys are doing great over there. I haven't really been homesick at all, no offense. I'm already getting tired of the MTC haha I just want to get out there! hmm, well I need to go do laundry soon. There's just too much to talk about! Just know that I love you guys and appreciate your prayers! I pray for you every night, so I hope heavenly father is helping you guys out more than me. Yo se que el evangelio de Jesucristo es verdadero! yo prometo, 100%

Con amor,
Elder Payne :)

p.s. Someone will make sure that dad got my letter. thank you! Also, the Dear Elder thing works pretty good. OH WAIT I need Danny Ogas's address, if someone can get it to me. I need to either email him or write him. Thanks again! Until next week!

The FIRST letter

Hola madre! Well it's a super busy place here at el CCM en Provo. I am doing pretty well here! My companion is elder Holmstead from Maryland, and he is really cool...he is easy to talk to and reminds me a lot of myself, so that's good! My district is really awesome...most of us are going to St. George, so I'll be seeing them a lot these next two years! Also, I am the District Leader! They said that I was the one that needed to be chosen, that I have something I need to give to the other 5 companionships in the district. It's busy and mentally frustrating at times, pero it is fun and I know this is where I need to be! I'm sleeping and eating well, and the only real problem I have right now is my spanish. I feel so behind, even though I won't compare myself to others. I can barely say a few easy sentences, simple prayers, and simple testimonies. I need some advice! I believe the gift of toungues is real, and perhaps it's too soon in my mission to verify that. Esta bien! Suggestions are nice! I'm not to worried about home, but I would like to be updated on things going on. Is andrew still there? Are you renting out the house yet? I could write a million more things, but I only have 30 minutes for email. So if you need anything, just ask! Also, I cannot send pictures here at the MTC, so I will have to upload a bunch in August I guess. Since I'm district leader, I'm the one who checks the mail each day for the district. I have only gotten one letter...from you! So thanks, but I would like to hear from others. It brightens my day and keeps me happy, because Satan tries as hard as he can to discourage me every single minute here, but I'm fighting him off! Yo que se la iglesia es verdadero! Thanks mom, I love you!

Con amor, Elder Payne :)

P.S. Dear Elder works pretty well, and it gives me a hard copy of letters that I can read at my convenience. I cannot print emails here, so if you want, you can use Dear Elder. Either way, I just want to keep in touch!