Special letter from the Messer family

Dear Sister Payne & Family,

We had the opportunity to have Elder Payne in out home for dinner tonight. We loved his excitement for life and his love of the Gospel. Thank you for preparing a fine Missionary to come and work in this part of the vineyard at such an important time in the restoration of the gospel.

We will be sure to take good care of him while he is in Cedar City.

Thanks for sharing him with us while he is away from home.

The Messer Family

The Trio

Hey family! So this week Elder Price came to town! We parked at a gas station just outside town and waited for the transfer van to stop by. As they pulled up, I saw Elder Church with a big cheesy smile on his face. I haven't seen him since Aug 1st, so it was awesome to talk to him real quick. Elder Holmstead came running up too. They're both training, which is crazy. It seems like we just barely got out of the MTC! Anyway, we picked up Elder Price and rushed over to a lesson with Karen. We just kinda threw him into everything haha but he's doing well. He's fresh out of the MTC and has been there for like 11 weeks learning Spanish. He's waiting for his visa to Xalapa, Mexico, which is a brand new mission on the east coast down by Veracruz. He's pretty awesome and it's really weird trying to adjust to having a new elder added to our companionship. We're getting used to it though! We're not officially training him, but technically we are because this is his first exposure to the real deal. We're basically co-fathers of Elder Price haha. But yeah he was a zone leader at the MTC and was actually in the same branch as me, with Pres. Stone, and he stayed in the same classroom that I did back in the summer! I thought that was pretty cool. It's kinda cool re-living MTC memories talking with him haha. He's a pretty solid Elder. The other day we had a priest come out with us after dinner. We were early for an appointment with Angie, so we split up...E Ramirez took the priest and I took E Price. We knocked on the door of Angie's neighbor. A 20 year old kid named Alex answered and talked with us for a while. This guy has had a crazy past...he's died twice, shot in '98 and stabbed in the heart in '06. Somehow God has kept him here, and I think he recognized that as we talked. E Price took initiative and taught him about prayer and asked if I had a pamphlet. I was pretty surprised in a good way! He definitely hit the ground running. Alex read the pamphlet and he's agnostic but is willing to learn more. We'll see if he progresses, but he admitted that this just might be what he needs in his life right now. Cool!

So Elder Ramirez got pretty sick this past week. On Friday he was out with the flu, so I did weekly planning with just Elder Price. It went pretty well. Somehow we were more productive in that planning session than we have been the past 7 weeks. Anyway we ended up having to drop E Ramirez off at a member's home, and E Price and I did six hours of work together. It was awesome. We tried making contact with a bunch of potential investigators and investigators, and we ended up catching Kristie Redd (who's on date for the 22nd). She hasn't come to church for like 3 weeks, so we invited her pretty firmly. Well, we saw her and her family there yesterday! Sweet! Elder Ramirez is getting better, but E Price and I have been feeling a little tickle in our throats lately. Hope we don't catch it!

We got up to bear our testimonies in Cedar 4th ward on fast Sunday, so during the week bishop called and asked the three of us to speak in his ward haha I knew testimonies were a bad idea! Anyway, E Price basically just shared his testimony, I talked about the importance of being Christlike during the holidays, and E Ramirez talked about Christ and missionary work. It was awesome! Just remember to make people your presents this year.

So yeah, things are going pretty good. We lost contact with Angie for like 3 days, and we received the prompting to go by her house last night after an appointment fell through. She was finally home! We found out that she's been having a hard time being away from her kids and all that mess. Elder Price gave her a blessing of comfort. I swear we give blessings like every other day. Never know when an opportunity for that will come! We went to the hospital to give a blessing to a new born baby girl of a potential investigator. We left after giving a total of three blessings to other people haha. It was awesome! But anyway we have three baptisms supposed to happen on the 22nd of December, so we're pumped. Karen, Kristie, and Hayden. Hayden is 9 years old, and his mom has got all the baptismal info set up for us. She's on top of everything haha. Karen has been put on date many times and has been coming to church for like two years, but this time she says she's really excited and seems pretty committed. Her parents are Catholic, so that's what's been stopping her. We'll see! She's 15 I think haha. Kristie is awesome. I don't know how to explain her to you so I'll just have to let you meet her some day. She's probably 35 or 40 ish and is quitting smoking and coffee and wants to get sealed to her husband some day. She's pretty committed but needs more diligence with reading and going to church. She has four kids and all are 8 or older. Lots of potential there, but the kids haven't shown too much interest yet. Angie is on date for the 29th of this month. We've been working real hard with her. She's been slapped up side the head with trials since we first met her. She's so strong though and I have faith that she'll be in the font on that day. Either way, she's awesome and is accepting the gospel more and more each day. Our other investigator, Hanna, has been skipping appointments and missing church. She was on date for the 15th, but that won't happen. She has to get married to her less active boyfriend first, and they don't want to do it for another year. We'll keep working with them.

So we've been going to lots of ward parties lately (not all 18 of them though). The other night I sat next to a young married couple. The wife asked me if I knew her sister named Shay Sanders. Apparently she's live in Howard's trailer park since August, so if you ever see her, tell her that her sister says hi haha. Her uncle is Jon Sanders, the bishop of 4th ward. Pretty cool! Anyway I got the big Christmas package mom! I already dug in haha but I saved some of it for Christmas. Lots of candy holy cow! Thanks mother! I'm glad I've got a new camera so that I can start taking real pictures again haha. Anyway, about the Skype stuff, I don't know how to use it. We asked Sis. Hugh and a few other people about it, and they said eh maybe haha they have their own plans and stuff going on, so we don't want to bother them too much. If we find someone I'll let you know, but for now it'll be a phone call.

Well we use CD's for music by the way, so I'll have to burn a CD somehow of that music. I don't have enough time today so maybe next week. We've got lots of music though including a Josh Groban cd haha. Anyway, thanks for watching out for me and supporting me! You guys rock. Thanks for everything and I love you all!

Elder Payne

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Hi! So as I'm sure everyone knows by now (if not, you will in a second), transfer calls came yesterday! These past six weeks have zoomed by. Time for another transfer! Well guess what! I'm staying put here in Cedar City with Elder Ramirez! We kinda expected that. You see, we cover two stakes (18 wards). In a couple more transfers we'll be getting more missionaries. I think they're planning on keeping us here and splitting the area next transfer...I'll get a new companion and E Ramirez will get one. That's the speculation, and it makes sense BUT we won't know until January 13th! For now we're staying. Elder Ramirez and I had some rough spots to say the least, but now we're pretty good buddies.

There is, however, a catch. We'll also be getting a visa waiter on Wednesday! haha we'll be a trio companionship! It's gonna be weird, but we'll see how that goes. We're both excited but I'm worried about laundry haha it already takes all day for just the two of us. Oh well. We also need to find another bed somehow. I might sleep on the couch again haha I did it for twelve weeks before. Anyway we'll find out who the new elder is on Wednesday. He'll be with us for "as long as we say so" says the assistants. Works for us!

Anyway, it's good to hear from Mom and Keith! Sounds like KP and Shauna are as busy as ever. I'm so pumped to find out about the new son/daughter/niece/nephew/grandson/granddaughter!! I'm excited! As for the Christmas phone call itself, details are in the communicator that I forwarded to Mom and Dad. Let me know how that's gonna work out.

We had some pretty awesome dinners this past week with the members. One night we ate at a house and this guy asked me where I was from. "Arizona" "Oh yeah what part?" "Thatcher" "Are you serious do you know Katie Lankford?" "Yeah haha" "She's coming in like 5 minutes!" haha so yeah she showed up and wanted to give me a hug but couldn't so we shook hands. She was all excited and texted Quentin about the random news. Wasn't expecting that! I didn't even know she lived here in Cedar. Well cool that's the first person I've met on my mission that I knew before my mission. For another dinner I shared a spiritual thought with a young family about Nephi. I asked them if they knew the song "Nephi's Courage" and all the kids yelled yeah! So we started singing it haha it was great. Elder Ramirez is a convert and didn't learn that song so he didn't know it haha. But I excitedly sang and I felt like I was in Valiant 12 again! For another dinner we ate at an older couples home. They're from England and have sweet accents. They're so awesome and funny haha. The old man kept telling stories of his mission with his wife to Australia. He walked up to a house once and two little kids ran away because they thought he was Heavenly Father haha. British people are the best!

Well I wish I had time to write about our investigators but I don't. We have five people on date for baptism this month, all from the Cedar North stake. The other Cross Hollows stake is pretty cold right now. We should have four baptisms before Christmas, but we'll see how faithful our investigators will be! I love you guys and I hope you remember to put up the Christmas lights soon because they're all over the place here! We get to drive around and see them every single night haha it reminds me of my childhood! anyway have a great week

Elder Payne

 

Happy Thanksgiving!

Well shoot happy thanksgiving everyone! Hope it was a good one. This week for thanksgiving we had 3 different thanksgiving dinners and lots of food. It was great! We ate at two different member homes and one of our investigator's home as well. One of the members, Russ Olsen, knows Mel Palmer really well. He was Bro Palmer's seminary student. I think I've mentioned this before. Anyway he would like his address. It's probably in the missionary newsletter, but I need it either way. Mom will probably send it to me. This past week we drove down to St. George and we ended up leaving the phone there haha. We got back to Cedar City without knowing about it. It was a big mess, and we spent a while looking for it. Eventually we called it and found it and the assistants drove up with it the next day. Oops! haha so we spent the whole day without a phone and we showed up to two cancelled appointments. Such is life! The same day this college girl ran into the back of some guy right in front of our apartment as we were walking outside. Her airbags deployed and all the smokey stuff that comes with it made it look like the car was blowing up haha. She got out of the car and I rushed over. The whole scene was in slow motion haha. She was fine, but shaken up. Her face and neck were all red from the airbag, and her windshield was smashed when they deployed. The other guy came over and was calm as a summers day, asking us where we're from haha. The cops showed up and everything turned out okay, but it was kinda spooky!

The other day we were contacting some people and decided to knock on some apartments. We parked and saw this man ride past us on a bike. We waved (we were still in the car) and he waved back. Well a few doors later we knocked and this man answered the door! I said "hey! wasn't that you we just saw on the bike?" He laughed and said yeah and let us in haha. His name is Jerry. He's really open to learning about the gospel and is trying to find some truth. I asked him why he let us in, and he said that the night before his girlfriend and him were talking about religion and what they were thankful for and what not. They're both non members. His girlfriend wasn't there, but tonight we have an appointment with them. We'll see where it goes from here!

Also, we lost contact with Angie for a couple of days and decided to just drop by her house. Turns out her four little boys all got taken away by the task force. They found a meth tube in her house a while ago and decided it was an unsafe environment for them. Angie had no idea and said someone she let in must have left it there or something. It's a big mess and a big trial for her. We told her now is the time to start showing our faith, and guess what happened yesterday? She went to church for the first time! That's what we like to see. She has a court hearing today and is trying to get her kids back. We're meeting with her tonight as well.

Well, time for me to skedaddle. Hope everyone has a great week! I love you all!

Elder Payne!

My first Zone Conference!

Well shoot this transfer is melting away! We're starting week 5 of 6! I'm almost six months old now! Crazy how that works sometimes....I can't believe qp has been home for over two years now. Ridiculous! Hey I met another person from Ft. Thomas this week! Her husband was putting up Christmas lights and we just started talking to him. They're of course members, but it's crazy how many Gila Valley connections there are (regardless of the fact that I'm only in Utah.) Still, it was almost as weird as meeting those people that were from Safford in the Cochabamba temple.

Anyway you can meet some interesting people on a mission. We stumbled across a young man named Kanav from India the other week. He wasn't too interested, but we gave him our number anyway. He talks with a super thick Indian accent haha it's a blast. "I don't want to stop smoking it's relaxing!" haha anyway, the other night we were walking through the apartment complex he lives in. We crossed paths with him again and he told us he was about to call us up. Turns out he's been going through a super rough time...he feels so lonely here in Cedar City and has no job and little money and is extremely afraid of dogs, and there's lots of them here. Anyway he expressed his concerns and started choking up. Unfortunately he's Hindu and plans to return to India some day, so if we teach him they'll kill him when he goes back home. But he asked if he could come to church because he felt like it would bring peace back into his heart. We called president about the situation and got the okay to bring him to church. Unfortunately he couldn't come yesterday, so hopefully he'll come next week. Anyway it was a different experience for me because usually when people express their life problems like that I can use doctrine to help them, but not with Kanav. I almost felt hopeless, but then I realized that this man has such a good heart that once the spirit world comes along, he'll be able to make the necessary steps. For now, we can only encourage him and invite him to church. He's moving to San Diego at the end of the semester (he goes to SUU). We'll see what we can do to help him!

So this past Tuesday we did exchanges, and I got to go with our District Leader Elder Adams to his area for the day. He works in the YSA wards, so I got to teach some college kids all day long! It was a flash back to my old area! It was a blast. Elder Adams went to the MTC on May 30th too, but in English. Anyway it was a good day to take a break from our area and learn from Elder Adams. We taught the plan of salvation to a black guy named Drake. Another missionary Elder Lessie (who is in our zone) made this Calvin and Hobbes version of the plan of salvation. It's so cool! Elder Adams gave Drake a copy he had of it. For the Spirit world it shows the kid taking a test (prison) and the kid and tiger riding down a hill in a wagon (paradise). Anyway in the closing prayer Drake basically said "Father I want you to help me so I can be riding down a hill in my wagon someday" haha it was the best. Usually exchanges are a pain because I have to stay in my area for the day. Going to someone else's is fun haha.

So yeah this week we had my first Zone Conference! They had one just before I left the MTC haha. It was in St. George! Well, Washington, which is right next to it. It was cool to be back there again after a 3 1/2 week absence haha. It was great...Elder Vincent Haleck of the seventy spoke to us, and of course Pres. and sis. Leonard and a couple other speakers. We had lunch afterwards, and I caught up to Elder Hawkins who is training a new missionary in Dixie two. He said that Yoshi ended up getting baptized and Max as well! Max by the way looks a lot like Michael Phelps...I learned that at subway the other day. Anyway, a couple other people Elder Gomez and I were working with are solid too. I was giggling with joy haha. That's so awesome! I need to write them! As for my current area, we've set four people on date for baptism in December: Angie, Karen, Hanna, and Kristie. We're crossing our fingers that everything will work out! We should be setting a nine year old on date soon too. His name is Hayden. He's awesome and loves to meet with us. He's super sharp too for a kid his age. He has asked us questions like "How can I tell if a prophet is real or fake?" and "Where did the Holy Ghost come from?" and "If Oliver Cowdery lost 116 pages, does the Book of Mormon still have everything we need?" Seriously. He's on top of things and has an excellent memory. He's awesome! His parents are border line inactive. They go sometimes. They're very supportive of Hayden, which is extremely important.

Well that's about it for this week. Oh I learned a couple more things. First, we'll have a total of 180 missionaries come February or so (we have 118 right now). Next year we'll have an estimated 80,000 missionaries, which will die down to 70,000 in a couple of years. Right now there's like 53,000. Awesome! Also, apparently 1/8 of the world's missionaries come from my mission! Southern Utah! Crazy! Well anyway I love you guys and the church really is true! Just ask God! He knows.... Also, life is life-changing, and moments accumulate. Keep working on your Christlike attributes and beatitudes!

Elder Payne!

I looked out the window and what did I see...

Hey family! It's been a pretty good week over here in Cedar City. Thank goodness the stake center is open...it's a holiday today so the library is closed! Anyway, we just got back from the car wash. It turned off half way through, so there was soap all over our car still. The water was still trickling, so it took us like 15 minutes to rinse the rest of it off haha. In the mean time we talked to this guy who lives here who went to San Diego on his mission and was the zone leader for Elder Christensen and Bott and everyone else from "The District 2" small world. Anyway, I got your package on Monday night mom! Thanks for the candy and note! haha we heard all about election Tuesday. We had an appointment with Tracy and she was watching it. Romney was in the lead. Then during planning we got a text saying that Obama won. Then the next day everyone was saying that America is going to kill itself and everything, and I thought "well with that attitude it will." anyway, I liked the 1st presidency's statement on the election. It's on the church's news website.

We had zone training this week, and president Leonard was there. He focused on two things....1) talk WITH everyone, not TO everyone, and 2) there are currently 180 calls to St. George. That's crazy guys! There are 119 missionaries right now, and we have an extra 180 coming!! Yikes! Now I'm still not sure if its 180 extra or 180 total, but either way, we have to start baptizing 1 in every 2 investigators. We have to double our work because once they come in, the work can't slow down! We'll be opening up two or three more zones, and that means there's lots of openings for district leaders and zone leaders. Crazy stuff! They'll be coming in February or so, so watch out haha.

So yeah we got snow this week! Everyone was saying it was gonna snow on Friday, and we were skeptical because it's been so warm lately. Well, it rained all day Friday and Saturday we woke up to snow! I like how people here automatically whip out there snow shovels and salt and snow plows with frustrated faces, whereas in thatcher everyone runs outside and screams and rolls around in it and cancels school. Anyway, it was a good day! That same day we went by Del Parson's place again. We spent the afternoon going by members asking for referrals since the work has been going so slow. Well, Bro Parson was actually there this time, and we got to meet him! He's a cool and funny and energetic guy, just fun to be around. We talked for a while about his painting career and what not, then he let us pick out a couple prints and he signed them! Sweet! He even brought in the blueprints of his latest painting, which is Christ suffering in Gethsemane and an angel comforting him. It was just a photograph of two actors, and since I told him I liked photography, he let me look at it and asked for my opinion. We reviewed it and decided that the angel looked just a little to stern and serious, so I told him he ought to look a little more gentle and loving and comforting...and he agreed. So anyway, if you ever see that painting in the next few months/years, just remember that I contributed to it! haha sort of! anyway he's a great guy, and I'm glad we finally met him just to get it out of the way haha.

Yesterday was the primary program for both of our stakes. We went to three wards, and they were all awesome! There's always that one kid that stands out. In one of the wards, the sunbeams got up to sing "Jesus wants me for a Sunbeam" and every time they sang the word sunBEAM there was this same kid flying into the air jumping over all the other kids. When the song ended, he didn't. He yelled out SUNBEAM for like 10 seconds and everyone laughed haha. I love primary programs! Kids in general are crazy. In our "lesson" with Angie yesterday, her four little boys were all over the place screaming with maniacal laughter and blowing things up...the usual 7 year old thing to do. E Ramirez and I were pretty much yelling the whole time THIS GOSPEL REALLY IS MEANT TO BLESS YOUR FAMILY ANGIE!!! haha it was crazy. She was laughing so hard and apologizing to us haha. We agreed to set another appointment for this week and get her a baby sitter. E Ramirez yelled a closing prayer and we left. Missions are always going to be awkward, so we just have to use it to our advantage sometimes haha.

Anyway, I hope everyone is doing well! I love you guys! Keep progressing in your lives and moving closer and closer to Christ. Don't get stuck in a rut! It's so easy to do that sometimes! Oh and how's thatcher soccer doing these days? Anyway, bye!

 Elder Payne!

Happy Halloween!

Well it's a little late, but yeah! Hope you guys ate lots of candy and got real fat. Our Halloween was interesting. Since there's people who dress up as missionaries, we had to lock ourselves at home at 6 pm Wednesday night. I read the King Follet discourse or whatever it's called...super good. Anyway, it's been a long week trying to find people to teach! We had potential of like 5 baptisms this month, and so far we're struggling to get even one. Our investigators just aren't willing to progress and make the gospel a priority in their lives. No room for oh well as president would tell us. We need to step it up! Man I wish I would have taken notes about this past week, cuz now I forgot everything we did haha. The members here are terrific. We get fed every night, which is awesome. Don't worry mom, I'm cleaning up my plate each night. haha I've gained a whopping 5 pounds on the mission so far! Anyway on Saturday afternoon we knocked on the door of Mr. Del Parson himself! His wife answered, so we talked to her and her son and his son's kids. Unfortunately Del was in the studio painting at the time, so we didn't get to meet him! ah man! haha but in their house hangs the original painting of Christ holding the lamb. Pretty cool! We've been hearing some ugly news about the giant hurricane and new york being evacuated, and then of course election Tuesday this week and all that jazz. Christ really is knocking at the door haha.

We had a cool lesson with a new investigator Hanna this past week. We met her at a ward mission leader's home and started getting to know her. She started getting all worked up about her past problems with smoking and divorce and not being able to see her own child as much as she would like. We spent the whole lesson trying to calm her down and encourage her. The Spirit basically took over the whole lesson. I was throwing out scriptures like Proverbs 3:5-6 and Isaiah 49:15-16 out of nowhere. Great scriptures by the way! But yeah afterwards she said she felt a whole lot better and the spirit testified to her heart that God loves her very much. That's what we wanted! We'll be meeting with her again later this week.

Well anyway sorry this is a shorter email! I love you guys a ton! I need your support! I'm grateful for this gospel and the peace it brings to our own troubled hearts. When we find time to feel and listen to the spirit, we find a renewal of energy which comes through the atonement of Christ. It's awesome!

Elder Payne!