Go About Doing Good!

Well thanks for all the updates! Gosh Bryson has better motor skills than I do. What do you think...200 meter dash state champ senior year? I can see it. This week has been pretty good! We had a big zone conference this week at our stake center. We have zone conferences every 3 months or so. This time it was only the St. G East and West zones, about 70 missionaries. We spent an hour setting up the night before, which paid off because it was a success! We had trainings by President Center, Sister Center, the Assistants, and more. We had another standard vehicle safety training. I can see QP being a mission vehicle coordinator. The Lord is raising you up! haha anyway we even had an etiquette training by some ladies in the Quail Valley ward! It was good. The main trainings were based off of our MLC meeting the other week, so now all of the missionaries in the mission have been trained up on how to use the pamphlets especially in lesson 1. This was my last zone conference! Crazy to think about that...it was nice though. I talked with an Elder Lunt during our lunch break. He's Sherri and Clel's nephew. I guess president called him and let him know Sherri passed away. He was pretty shocked when I told him that Clel was my first home teaching companion. Haha interesting connections...

So I think I've mentioned here and there about the Demarco's. They are nonmembers and are probably in their 60's and moved in from California just before Christmas. The members here have just been super kind and loving and have given them cookies and food and everything. They've had a super warm welcome to the neighborhood! Well long story short, they've been remodeling their whole house and now they just need to finish up a few landscaping chores. This week we saw them outside just before we were going to take off for lunch. (Normally for lunch we go with other missionaries somewhere, but for some reason everyone was booked so we were just going to go by ourselves.) They were out shoveling rock to put on the ground around all their little shrubs. Debbie has bad back problems and so Tom has to do all the work. We told them we'll be back in 10 mins. So we rushed home and switched clothes and grabbed a couple shovels. We spent the next hour and a half shoveling rocks into 5 gal buckets and spreading them around all the shrubs! Gosh they were suuuper grateful! Debbie kept saying things like "Oh I don't want you to get dirty!" and "start thinking about what you want for lunch!" and "can I give you money...a donation?" haha Elder Lewis straight up said "You know you worry too much!" and she just laughed haha. Their hearts are being softened big time though. We invited them to a ward cookout and they couldn't make it but really wanted to go. They asked if next time they have a cook out they can provide burgers and hot dogs and drinks and everything haha they want to be involved! We got a text from them the other day: "We would truly appreciate the opportunity to thank the Bishop for ALL you guys have done to help us. As well as let him know how great we think you both are." The scriptures don't lie....Ammon was right. Service is the way to go! It worked in Ephraim with Chelsea Stafford (who was baptized) and it's softening the hearts of the Demarco's too! One step at a time.

Slim is doing super good. We took him through the visitors center this week and we're pretty much done with the lessons prior to his baptism. He's on schedule for this Saturday!!! It's about time we had a baptism! haha thanks to Heavenly Father. He has 0 concerns and keeps his commitments. He's submissive and soaks it all in. We're super excited for his baptism. It's gonna be great!! We're playing pickle ball with him this afternoon. Even heard of that? Me neither, until I started my mission. It's right in between tennis and ping pong. We've heard it's super fun!

We've given about 5 or 6 blessings this week. Most of them were for sister missionaries in our zone, but this week our two high councilmen for missionary work took us to the hospital for lunch! (of all places). It was actually super good food! Fresh salads, pasta dishes made to order, just a healthy environment! I got the grilled salmon with lemon and a side of mac and cheese and broccoli with a side salad and water. Super good! and pretty cheap too...four big plates of food for like $15. How's the hospital food over there these days?? ANYWAY was with pretty much any trip to the hospital as a missionary, you usually don't end up leaving without giving a couple blessings. We're not supposed to solicit them obviously, but we had two people ask for blessings. Such a humbling experience. I love the ability to exercise my priesthood authority and see the power that comes as those we bless have complete faith and trust in us. One sister was furious because she had a heart attack and they flew her in from Page and all they did was put her on oxygen. Thousands of dollars for nothing was the way she described it. She wanted a blessing to calm her heart down (dual meaning there) and rid her of the contention she felt wrapped up inside her. After the blessing she couldn't withhold tears and she thanked us and you could just see her countenance being lit up by the spirit. It was such a tender moment. Good looking out for your children, Heavenly Father! It definitely was not a coincidence that we went to the hospital that day. 

Well we've had a lot of other adventures this week and our ultimate hope is to just continue to be an instrument for the Lord. I hope each of you will do the same. Do something good for someone this week. Serve them, and you'll forget about your own worries and struggles. Serve someone out of charity and not only will you uplift them, but you will uplift yourself. Just do it!

Love,

Elder Payne!

 

A Roller Coaster

So the work has proven to be a roller coaster, especially in this area! We were all pumped about hitting standards last week and then this week we coasted back off haha. Consistency is always a struggle! We still have only met with Lindsey twice in the last four or five weeks. She's super busy with cheer and everything. Then the Alo family we picked up last week hasn't been able to meet with us due to illness and other things getting in the way. Darn! But despite all the set backs, it's just such a privilege to truly testify of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Sometimes it's easy to say a rote testimony, but when you share a heartfelt powerful one, that's what brings the spirit. That's what we did in our lesson with Carlyn last night. He had a concern about knowing which prophet is the true and living prophet of God. (He has a polygamist background, so he grew up with Warren Jeffs as the "prophet"). We shared Moroni 7:5,16 and bore pure testimony of the simplicity of knowing if this is true (Thomas S. Monson, the book of mormon, the church, etc). After the lesson we asked if he had any questions. He pondered for a few seconds and looked up at us and said, "No.....I guess it's just up to me now." I love it. The Spirit taught him and answered his question! He knows exactly what he needs to do, and it's up to him to do it. It's just so awesome in moments like that when you realize you're truly fulfilling your purpose. We did our part!

Slim is still solid for the 22nd of this month. We taught him the Law of Chastity on Saturday haha. No problems, thank goodness. He's a good kid. Shane is on the lowest level of the e-cigarette, and he's been off the real stuff for several days now. We're still planning on the 29th to make sure he's clean. We're hoping we can still baptize Lindsey on the 29th as well. We should be able to crack down on the lessons after she gets back from cheer nationals on the 15th. Wish us luck!

In other news, I finally killed Elder Ramirez! Yep, you better believe it. He came down and stayed with us for his last night in the mission. He's been up in Ephraim this whole time, since the first bit of October. So yeah, he stayed with us for the night and we chatted it up and relived all of our adventures we had together. It was quite the honor to spend some time with the companion I served over 25% of my mission with. 7 and 1/2 months! Crazy. The next day we just ran him around town and to the mission home and mission office and all over. Then we dropped him off at the temple, and that was it! He's back home now.....just crazy to think of that! Unbelievable. 

Well, time to go!

Love,

Elder Payne!

We Finally Hit Standards!

Wow!!! Gosh how exciting! All the pics are awesome and it looks like everything turned out well! I wish I could have been there! If worst comes to worst you can just reenact the whole thing for me when I get home haha. Dang qp that suit is fresh! haha everything looks beautiful. I'm glad everyone made it including the rain how nice of it. It looks like I made it to everything too so that's cool! hahaha yeah since I meet new people constantly every day, I'm always telling them about my family, which means lately I've been telling everyone about the wedding! So yeah there's people that you don't even know that are happy for you guys and wish you the best. They always ask me if I know Julie haha and I just tell them I met her on skype. Pretty crazy and it's weird to think both of my brothers are married now. Life just keeps moving along! I just hope it's all not a big joke and you guys are tricking me haha. Congrats and I'm soo happy for you guys.

We had a really good week this week. We finally hit standards of excellence. They lowered them a few months ago so that they were more achievable. The standard is 20 lessons taught and 3 on date for baptism and 4 NM/LA at sacrament meeting and 2 new investigators. This is on a weekly basis. Well we managed to hit it on the head! The Lord helped us to teach 20 lessons and find 5 new investigators to teach this week. We had a total of 10 NM/LA at church and last night right before we sent in our numbers at about 9:20pm our investigator Shane finally called us back. He's still struggling with smoking but he's willing to shoot for March 29th for baptism! And we got a text earlier in the evening from one of our RS presidents who is the fellowshipper for Lindsey. She said that Lindsey and her friend were waiting for us at her house for a lesson! So we rushed over and shared a quick scripture and recommitted her for the 29th of March as well. We hate pushing dates back but we don't have a choice at this point. It's just been crazy because we've only met with Lindsey twice in the past 4 weeks! AAHH! haha but other than that, we still have Slim on date for the 22nd and he's solid. So yeah, we hit standards! E Lewis was super pumped last night! haha he hasn't seen a baptism since he's been here, and he got into this area back in October. This area's been pretty dry for about 6 months or so. We kind of have the reverse problem that most missionaries face....our area has soooo many active members in it! "Can you just not come to church for a while?" haha but yeah things are improving!

Something that we're trying to improve on specifically is our style of teaching altogether. We had another MLC this week (Mission Leadership Counsel). Brother Hemmingway and Randal from the missionary department were there and spent a majority of the time teaching us how to teach. He said in our mission we've focused too much on splitting up our lessons. In other words, normally it takes us three or four visits to complete a lesson in PMG. But they showed us a way to teach all of the lesson in one short and powerful visit, which is what I've always wanted to do on my mission! The secret is using the pamphlets we hand out to people. When the angel appeared to Nephi and taught him, he used a basic template for his teaching. It was "Look!" "What Beholdest thou?" "Knowest thou....?" and then he taught him the doctrine. The pamphlets are set up to do the same thing. So we're almost going retro style, almost back to flip charts haha. We use the pictures in the pamphlet and use the same template. It's simple, basic, and powerful. That's how the missionary department wants us to teach, and president said that's what he wants us to do now. It's hard! haha we have this style of teaching we're sooo used to, and this is very different. It's like learning how to fix a chevy truck engine for 21 months and then learning how to fix a dodge engine for your last 3. (or vice versa, whichever you like better haha). They both are meant to do the same thing!

Anyway, we've taken this new style of teaching and we're routing it into our brains asap. We picked up all 5 new investigators using this style...a family of four named the Alo's (Polynesians from Hawaii!) and a former FLDS young man named Carlyn. We invited all of them to be baptized, and most of them accepted! The Alo's mentioned that in their 12 years of living here, no missionary has ever taken them that far in the lessons. The lesson was only 20 min long and we had already invited them to be baptized and to pray to know if our message is true. It was killer! The mom says she has some questions and believes she's already been baptized, so we're going to answer her q's tonight! Perfect opportunity to come back! But yeah, the pamphlet thing is really working well for us, and we're practicing on everyone so we can get good at it haha, including active members and bishops and you name it. We're teaching everyone! It's great. 

But yeah, that's about where we're at right now. We got transfer calls last night and we're both staying here in Little Valley. There will be a few changes going on in our zone, some that are definitely needed and some that are unexpected. Either way, this next transfer is going to be a good one. As a zone, we had 9 confirmations this past weekend!! Our goal for the month is 18! so we're already half way there and it's only the 3rd! Things are looking good for the St. George east zone!

We had 2 eight year old baptisms that we participated in on Saturday....and they were both at the same time haha typical. I was asked to speak on baptism at Carter's, who was the one mom got a pic of in the text from Sis Matthews. When I was in Little Valley last year, E Betham and I baptized Carter's older brother Kason. Now it's Carter's turn! haha good kids, I'll definitely have whoever comes and gets me meet them after my mission. Anyway, his baptism went well and I kinda got caught bouncing between Carter's and the other one, Kaylee's. Turns out I was supposed to be a witness for Kaylee's and stand in the confirmation for Carter, but they were literally at the exact same time, so I had to choose one or the other. So I rushed down the hall to try and make it to Carters conf but seriously was like 5 seconds too late. By the end of it I rushed back to Kaylee's and her ordinance was already done haha. Oops! But at least I got to stand in on her conf. It all turned out really well. 

Well that's about it for this week! Lots of adventures yet to come! Soo many things to keep track of but the Lord is being super good to me and E Lewis. We'll keep on keepin on! Git r done! Work hard and have fun! Love you guys keep being happy and stand strong! Take care family!!

Love,

Elder Payne!

Happy 0th Anniversar​y!!! Wooo Q and J!!! Wish I could be there!

Well we've put in some good effort this week and didn't teach as much as we would have liked to. Things with Slim are going pretty well. He's so chill, and if he didn't keep his commitments so faithfully I would think that he's just passively taking the lessons for who knows why. After our first lesson when we were leaving all he said was "stay sweet" so that's what we tell him now every time we see him. He's scheduled to be baptized on March 22, in about a month. He's solid. We're currently teaching him about the Plan of Salvation, and everything's going well. Shane and Lindsey are both being turkey's right now. Shane hasn't responded to our texts or calls for a few days now, and he's supposed to be baptized and done with smoking this weekend. Ugh. We'll see. haha good guy though. He got his job back which is a blessing because it's work and money but a curse because it's a roofing business and lots of his co workers smoke. Hopefully he hasn't been giving in! We finally scheduled another appointment with Lindsey for tonight. That means in 3 1/2 weeks we'll have met with her twice. That's awful! haha but it's okay, we'll just have to move her baptism back a couple weeks now.

We have some potential investigators starting to commit to lessons, so that's good. A poly family of four from Hawaii, a nice Catholic lady from Wisconsin, a newly retired couple from California, and a few others. Hopefully we can start teaching them this week!

We went on exchanges this week with the assistants. I went with Elder Nye and stayed here in Little valley. It was awesome! Elder Nye is the type of missionary that's the definition of quiet dignity, and he's kind and patient and composed. He's super athletic too...played ultimate frisbee in high school and is a baller too. He's a solid missionary. It was just cool to serve with him because we have similar personalities and being as used to missionary work as we are, we were able to learn a lot from each other in just 24 hours. After explaining to him what facetiousness is and what an ambivert is, we decided we both need to work on those two things, as well as some other characteristics. It's nice to serve with the best of the best in the mission!

Well I'm super excited for Quentin and Julie! Holy smokes you guys are getting married! It still hasn't hit me yet. It probably won't until I'm home. Either way, just know that I love you guys and I support and sustain you all the way! What a tremendous blessing it is to partake of the ordinances of eternal salvation, especially the most exalted of all of them. We had a less active couple get married by one of our bishops not too long ago. We were going to go, but we didn't have time. It's amazing to know that through the priesthood, the blessings of eternal companionship and families can and will be realized. Do everything in your power to continue to thwart Satan's attacks. Start now to establish your relationship and future family on the rock of your redeemer, who is Christ. If you do so, the gates of hell shall not prevail against you! That's a promise from the Lord (DC 33). Oh and remember, happy wife, happy life. You guys got this! Q+J 4 eva! I'm a fan for life!

When you see that big cheesy smile from my card board buddy this weekend, just remember that in reality, I probably have that exact same cheesy but genuine smile on, trying to help someone else come to know what I know, and what you know, which is that this gospel is true! And that families can be together forever, if we put in our effort.

Well, I love you guys!

Elder Payne!

Time Flies When You're Having Fun!

Oh my gosh this week fllleeewww by so fast! Every day just keeps zipping by! We've been super busy this week, and last week I think I mentioned the difference between just being busy and being effective and productive. Well, we're super good at the former, and the latter is picking up momentum as well.

So first of all, we did exchanges with two companionships this week. On Tuesday morning after studies we drove out to Hurricane and ate lunch with E Hendershott and Blauer. Then I took E Blauer back to Little Valley for the day! He's a pretty awesome missionary. We only had two appointments that day, but they both went pretty well. The rest of the time we were contacting potential families and key contacts for those potentials. Elder Blauer is really good at opening his mouth...he's not afraid to share his thoughts and his purpose with everyone! He reminds me a lot of Elder Linville (shout out) so it was awesome to serve with him for the day. He has a natural talent too...he can sight read music and play it on the piano. Jealous! 

Then the next day we exchanged back (exchanges are for 24 hours) and I told Elder Lewis everything that happened and showed him our plans for the day, then we exchanged with the other DL companionship in Hurricane, E Holmstead and Anduro, about an hour later. E Lewis took E Anduro to Little Valley, and I stayed in Hurricane with Elder Holmstead! My very first companion! We kept telling everyone how awesome it was to be each others' very first comp the minute we arrived at the MTC. Good times. Needless to say, we had a great day in Hurricane. In fact, we found a potential investigator at home and stopped by. Well he let us in and we taught him the message of the Restoration and put him on date for baptism next month! It was awesome haha and it was just cool to see how natural it was for us two to teach together. We've both come a long way since those first few very timid lessons in the MTC!

Then of course there's our own area. Elder Lewis and I got a little behind on our goals this week because of exchanges and some other things. So on Saturday we decided to put three of our investigators on date for baptism, no questions asked. Gosh I wish I would have done that for the past 20 months of my mission. We just geared the lesson plans based on the baptismal invitation and wherever the respective investigator was at in the lessons. 

We're teaching a 16 year old named Slim. cool name huh? He's awesome. He doesn't even live in our area haha but we were asked by the sister missionaries who cover him to go ahead and teach him. Okay! So on Sat was our third lesson with him and we watched the Joseph Smith dvd with him. He's pretty reserved and doesn't say too much, but he's opening up a lot more now. He's a stud! haha he's super athletic and kinda reminds me of Eric/Brennin Angel. He wants to be baptized! I invited him to be baptized on March 15!! We saw him yesterday at Zion's and he said he'll have to move it back a week for his family to all be there. But he's committed! 

Later on we started up the Plan of Salvation with a 15 year old girl named Lindsey. She's like the same as Slim...very quiet but proactive. She's probably the quietest cheerleader I've ever met. But same thing...she's opening up a lot more and she committed to be baptized on the 8th of March!! Her mom is atheist and her dad is super inactive, but Lindsey's fellowshipper Jerri Jorgensen (who is awesome by the way!) asked Lindsey's mom a while back if she wanted her to be baptized. You know what Lindsey's mom said? "I've always pictured Lindsey marrying a mormon boy!" boom, we're in...and we're capitalizing let me tell you! 

And we didn't stop there. On Saturday night we met with Shane. Have I told you guys about him? 26 years old and he's been taught everything and wants to be baptized for the right reasons. He's just trying to quite smoking. We've been helping him and encouraging him and setting plans with him. He's gone from 12-14 cigarettes a day to.....drum rolll......none!!! Well kind of! haha yesterday he switched from 2 puffs of a normal cigarette to about 5 with an electronic one. Hmm, well, we'll take that as improvement. We committed him to March 1st. He has to quit smoking for at least a week solid to be baptized. He's so close!

On Sunday night a couple wards put on a youth fireside at one of our chapels. The entire middle rows were packed with kids and there leaders/parents. The bishop asked Pres/Sis Center to speak to them, and the night before President called us up about it and asked us to speak 10 mins on bofm and the other 10 mins on pmg. We literally flipped a coin haha. I took PMG. The fireside itself went really well! All four of us spoke respectively and trained all these future missionaries on what to expect and how to prepare successfully. Some of the kids were taking some serious notes! It was awesome. It was just one of those moments where you can say as a missionary without hypocrisy that you're doing what you need to be doing and you're truly being a light on a hill that cannot be hid. It was humbling and reassuring for sure. Plus one kid came up to us right before the meeting started just to tell us how good our brownies were haha. We made some earlier this week and gave them to some bishops. He must have been right on cue, because Pres/Sis Center were right next to us and they're the ones that told us to do that in the first place haha. Brownie points! 

So we came across a part member family and the dad is from Safford, AZ! Woah! Brother porter is his name, and there's a few porters in st. george that I've met that are from safford. Anyway, his dad is Dorren van porter if that rings a bell (probably to dad or grandma). His uncle is Rick Haller and his first cousin is Eric Haller, who was like the best 8th grade Social Studies teacher and track coach ever! haha weird connections.... Also we ate dinner with an older couple this week. The wife is from La Paz Bolivia, so we got to talk about the country and culture a little bit. I always get super excited when I meet someone who has been to Peru or Bolivia, especially if they're natives from there! "Ohh! my brother served there!" haha

So yeah yesterday we went to Zion's National Park. President's day is a free day there! We got permission from President to go early and do a couple hikes there. Suuuper awesome! One of the coolest guys in our area Bro Stout took us. Just the three of us! It was incredible. That man is full of wisdom, but he's super crazy haha. I learned a lot with him yesterday, and I wrote it all down in my journal. Anyway, there was a ton of people there for the holiday. On our way down from one of the hikes, we passed a big group of missionaries going up haha. It was the place to be! I think we heard "Elders?! great p-day activity isn't it!" like at least 500 times haha. The recognition of us missionaries in Utah is ridiculous haha. We had a great day.

So Julie is going through the temple for her endowments? Well if I had more time I would throw in some great advice. But in short, just enjoy the ride. Your first experience can either be a fire hose to your face, or it can be a nice little sip at the drinking fountain. My first experience I tried to take a sip of the fire hose and well that doesn't work too well. haha so fast and pray before hand, read through the temple prep pamphlet and ponder over your patriarchal blessing, then just take it easy the first time. Keith always taught me to take short choppy steps when trying to push a big vehicle, so go often and get a little bit here and there.

Oh and I got a little valentines package from the Goodmans! Can you let them know for me? Tell them thanks!

Time to go work!

Love,

Elder Payne!

 

Ministerin​g vs. Administer​ing

Well let's start off with a scripture this week. I read it this morning and liked it! D&C 97:8 is the one. Sometimes, at least for me, I get wrapped up in all the expectations and responsibilities I have. I don't necessarily get stressed out or anything but sometimes we just need to take a deep breath and relax and realize we're trying to do what's right. And if we're honest and moldable and willing and obedient, then the Lord will look at us and regardless of whether we're struggling or doing okay, he'll be pleased with us.

Well it's been a pretty crazy week! We had MLC which is our mission leadership counsel meeting for zone leaders, sister training leaders, assistants, and Pres/Sis Center. Super good meeting! It's just nice to know you're among some of the best missionaries in that meeting, coming together and talking about the same thing, which is our purpose and how we can carry out the focus of President Center to the rest of the mission. We learned a lot of things in the 5 hour meeting, but most of it was exclusive to our own leadership assignments. The idea behind the meeting is to take notes and use what we learn to form an outline for our zone meeting a couple days later. So we prepared a training on the importance of goals, planning and preparation, and we assigned the STL's in our zone to give a training on revelation through the Book of Mormon. 

The only problem was that we got caught up in our own area the night before our zone meeting. We were teaching our closest investigator to baptism, Shane, about the Plan of Salvation and things went into overtime, plus we gave him a blessing to help him quit smoking. So by the time we got home it was like 9:45pm haha and then we had to plan the next day as well as prepare for our training the next morning. We went to bed at like 11 and woke up and got ready and started up our zone meeting at 9 am. It turned out pretty good! We were kind of all over the place, but the spirit was there guiding us and that's the main thing. It was nice to just finally meet all the missionaries in the zone...our zone goes out to Kanab and Kaibab! Anyway, President and Sister Center were there as well just for fun or something beats me. But it just goes to show if you have an extra 10 minutes to burn, just ask President an inspired question about how we can be better missionaries and he'll fill up the time! haha but the sisters gave a great training as well and the whole meeting itself was a success in our opinion. It's just been tricky to find the balance between ministering and administering between our own area and all the missionaries we cover. We're getting a hang of it though!

I got to go on exchanges with Elder Pukahi from Hawaii after zone meeting. Such a big teddy bear! One of my favorite elders! He's working in the Pineview Spanish area, so I got to speak some spanish! que bueno. We had 0 appointments though and like only 4 people answered there doors all day, so not a whole lot happened. But we did get to go into Buena Vista 2 for a little bit! Gosh I miss that area! We contacted a couple spanish families that I had run into while I was there last year. I'm honestly more trunky to go back there than I am to go back home. But oh well! Elder Pukahi has been out for 6 months and half of his mission has been in English, so his spanish is about as good as mine haha. We made it a fun day though.

Yesterday we decided to go to the Crimson Cliffs ward to get more involved and maybe meet a potential part-member family. Well, turns out the ward was doing part of their "Mission Impossible" program going on, which is the ward's little exclusive missionary effort for the youth. Part of it was that the youth needed to prepare talks in advance because as a missionary you never know when you're going to get called on to speak or teach a lesson. So the bishopric called up like 7 random youth to speak, and they had a musical number by the young women, and even after all that, there was still 20 minutes left of sacrament haha. So the bishopric pulled one on Elder Lewis. Haha the counselor re-emphasized the fact that as a missionary, you never know when they'll ask you to speak... "...so we'd like to ask Elder Lewis...if he could give us a few remarks..." hahah I was laughing at him! I was thinking the whole time that we'd probably get asked to go up, and so I was thinking of scriptures and experiences. But they only asked him to go up! haha shoot. He did a good job and shared a couple great thoughts. Lesson learned though, and the bishopric definitely got the point across!

Other than that, we've eaten a lot of Mexican food this week. I think the families we've eaten with have all conspired because we've gotten tacos, tacos, fajitas, and tacos respectively this week. Go figure!

Well, gotta run!

Love,

Elder Payne!

 

We're Busy But Not at the Same Time!

Well so first of all I just realized that last week I got an email from someone named Julie, so I figured it was like Julie julie, as in quentin's beloved new bride (almost). But it wasn't haha. It was someone from my last area in Ephraim. Woops! Well, either way, hi julie! haha I was excited to see the cardboard cut out...gosh I look handsome! My new new year's resolution is to get as fit as george bush. Looking good! Hope everything with the rest of the family is going good!

I'm trying to remember what happened this past week haha...Elder Lewis got sick yesterday and died and so I'm getting a new comp today sometime. just kidding but for real, he got a pretty nasty bug right after we finished teaching the young women. The class went pretty well! We introduced the plan of salvation to them and got some group participation and watched a couple mormon messages. They were "Men's Hearts shall fail them" and "Mountains to climb." Super good! Anyway, after that Elder Lewis got nailed with something. The assistant's and I gave him a blessing last night and he's doing much better today though so that's good. Got plenty of rest! 

Well we're busy pretty much all the time, doing one thing or another. Running errands, proselyting, teaching. The only problem though is we are pretty short on people to teach right now! We're teaching Shane, who is on date for Feb 15 and all he needs to do is quit smoking. Then there's Krista who is 14 years old and has a little baby boy named James. yeah! She's a good girl, but she's sooo young to be in her situation and she seems very oblivious and distracted all the time. She's willing to meet but her desire isn't really there. And we're teaching a couple others, including Lindsey who is 15 and is a cheer leader but she's super quiet which doesn't make sense to me but I'll roll with that. She accepted to be baptized but we haven't set a specific date yet.

Other than that we met a potential new move in. We knocked on the door to say hi and the husband answered. Very friendly and courteous, but on a conference call. So we left and then the wife Debbie came running out after us. She said she wanted to thank us for our generosity and willingness to help. They need our help to move a couple AC units this week. Both non members from California. Debbie invited us in for some hot chocolate. She says that she loves the neighborhood here and the people are super nice and welcoming vs. California. Turns out Debbie used to be a big sports contract signer and is on a first name basis with people such as Kobe Bryant, Britney Spears, Shaq, and John Elway. What!! Yeah she used to go to like every super bowl and every world series and was tight with a ton of big time athletes (except britney spears, not sure where that came from haha). Pretty crazy!! But Debbie is super humble and has a ton of Christlike attributes. She was in some sort of terrible accident a while back and had to get her back reconstructed and this and that. She's moved here to utah with her husband, and they don't really have a reason for doing so. We didn't even talk religion before we had to bounce to another appointment. We'll be going back for sure.

We had an interview with President and Sis Center this week, for an hour and a half haha. They showed up to our apartment and just talked about our area and our zone and so forth. We swapped ideas and suggestions and feedback the whole time. It was awesome!! It's so nice to be able to work with the two of them in person like that instead of sending a vague message every week. They are super great people and super great leaders! President Center is really starting to get a hold of this mission now. Sis Center is just as amazing as always. She's a fireball! They both lovingly commanded us to make some cookies to give to our bishops haha so we attempted that the next day. Turns out our "sugar cookie" mix was actually shortbread mix. Woops! Maybe next time!

Well I love you guys!

Elder Payne!