Monday, April 29, 2013

Email: Baptism Dates Set!


Dear Family,
           Wow, let me tell you this past week has absolutely flown by. I have barely had time to breath. ha ha We definitely kept ourselves busy the entire week, which of course is a blessing. So let me tell you a little about what happened with the Allan family. SO they are the less active family that we have been working a lot with lately. Last we they agreed to have their children start taking the lessons. This of course was absolutely amazing news and something I have been waiting for, for a long time. So we went over Tuesday and had the Restoration lesson with them. It went absolutely amazing! They both were just taking it all in and seemed to be understanding very well what we were teaching them. We committed them both to be baptized and they both accepted! They are scheduled to be baptized on May 18th. On of the most amazing parts and the most spirit filled parts of the lesson was at the end. We started talking about prayer and the importance of it. I invited them all to kneel down and have a prayer, right then I asked Bro. Allan to give us the closing prayer because he is the head of the household. I just bowed me head and didn't even give a chance not to accept. Anyways he gave a wonderful prayer and after he finished he said," I want to let you Elders know that, that is the first time that I have prayed out loud in front of anyone in 20-30 years!" Holy smokes, at that moment the spirit was so strong it was almost tangible. There has been such a huge change in that family that it is amazing. I am just so grateful that I am able to be apart of it. We had another lesson with them on Thursday and that went extremely well too. We covered the Plan of Salvation and it went very smoothly. They were also in church on Sunday. They are coming a long very well.
                  So the finalizing of Mikaylas adoption went very well. They told us it honestly only took about 5 to 10 minutes once they got in there. We had a joint Restoration/Plan of Salvation lesson with her just to go through and overview everything. She is a very smart girl so she has everything down. She is on track to get baptized on May 11th.
                    Also I know that you asked about Cece and what is going on with her, well unfortunately we have not been able to get a hold of her at all this past week. We have called and called and gone over there. We are a little nervous that something may have happened so we are going to keep working on her. Hopefully everything is fine, but you never know.
                   Lastly for the big updates of our investigators there is Marian. She is the older lady that lives in our apartment complex. She actually came to church yesterday. She is actually doing very well. We are hoping that we can set a baptismal date with her soon, but she does still have a little ways to go. She is making great progress though. So as you can see things are picking up nicely. we have a few other potential investigators that we are working with so I will keep you updated with them.
                   Also just a quick note I found out recently that the Lopez family from Lincoln is going to be getting sealed together in the temple soon! I really hope President will let me go.
                   It looks like everyone is keeping quite busy back home. That is great! I really loved all of the pictures that you send me so keep that up. Little Savannah is growing up so fast it is crazy. Wow and she is such a beautiful little baby. Hopefully things will slow down eventually. I am sure they wont too son because it is getting close to the end of the school year so that always means there is plenty of stuff to do.
               As far as skyping goes, I will most likely be doing it after my church which will be about 5 your time. That is what will work out best for me. Just letting you know so you can get everything worked out. Well everyone I love you all very much and I have definitely been feeling your prayers this past week thank you for all that you do. I love you all so much.

Love Elder Payne

Monday, April 22, 2013

Email: Do miracles cease? No!!!!


Dear Family,
                 Wow what an amazing week I have just been through. So starting out the week on Tuesday, I was on exchanges. I was with one of the zone leaders in my ward and Elder hyde went with the other zone leader to the other ward. Well we had a wonderful day that day. We had a lesson with Cece and that lesson was absolutely amazing. We started out talking mainly that we lived with our Heavenly Father before and then went through the lesson. There were parts of the lesson that she was almost in tears, especially when we started talking about how she would one day be able to live with her husband again. It was so amazing being able to convey the importance of the Plan of Salvation to her. She is still doing really well and progressing very well towards her baptismal date of May 18th. The next big step with her is just getting her to come to church. We are going to be working with her a lot this week on coming to church.
                 OK so that was miracle number one, you may not say that it was necessarily a miracle but hey it was a miracle to me. So miracle number two, lately we have been working very closely with a less active family. The husband in the family wasn't able to come to church for a long time because he is a truck driver so he is gone a lot. Well recently he had a medical emergency which made it so he has to be off work for about 3 or 4 months. Well that gives them plenty of time to come to church now doesn't it. ha ha SO we have been going over there a lot and keeping pretty close contact with them. On Friday we went over and started sharing a message with them about realizing the blessings in our life. I was planning on asking the parents if they would like to have there kids. who are both 14 and not baptized, to have the lessons. Well before i could even start talking she cut me off and said We would really like to have our two kids take the lessons and get baptized! Oh my goodness that was so amazing to hear and know that they are so ready and willing to open themselves to the Gospel. We are going to be meeting with them twice a week and we are shooting for a baptism for them on May 18th or 25th.
                Alright so there are two great miracles for you, how about one more. So the McGhies have a little girl that is 11 years old. They have been trying for about the last year and a half to fully adopt her. Well I am pleased to announce that there waiting is over. She will be fully adopted on Tuesday the 23rd of April. We are also going to overview and finish the lessons with her and try for a baptism on May 11th. This has been a long wait for the McGhies so as you can imagine this is a huge miracle. I am very grateful that i am going to be able to be a part of her learning and growing in the gospel. She is such a sweet little girl and she is so blessed to be adopted into a wonderful family that will help her to learn and grow not only in life but in the gospel as well.
               Well this has been a crazy week and very full as well. We have been working hard and trying to get things done. A few other updates, our ward mission leader in our ward just got released, also the former Elder Halle now just Matthew halle came out and visited us. He came by yesterday and so i got to talk with him for a while. It was great to see an old familiar face from the beginning days of my mission.
              So about my B-day, I had a feeling you were going to ask about that. I am pretty sure I got a new bike for that so I think I am OK. ha ha maybe some new garments or socks would be great ha ha. Those thicker gold toe socks that you sent me are really nice so I wouldn't mind some more of those. but hey if you are really asking I guess I kind of like this watch. http://www.gshock.com/watches/Classic/GA100A-7A I know I already got a watch for Christmas but that is pretty much the only thing I can use out here. Anyways like I said I feel like I already got my B-day present so if you don't get it that is just fine.
               About skyping, I am not entirely sure of the time yet. I will have to let you know, we have church at 12:30 so it may be before or after church i am not sure right now I will get you more info next week. Are Lindsay and Rob coming home for that because if not I know that there is a way to skype multiple people at one time =. Anyways just let me know. I love you all so very much and hope all continues to go well.

Love Elder Payne

Monday, April 15, 2013

Email: Hard Times last week, Miracles this week


Hello everyone,
                    How is the family doing? It sounds like things have been going pretty well back home. I really loved all of the pictures of mom and drake and Linds and Rob. It looks like you all had quite a bit of fun out there. oh by the way mom thank you very much for everything you said it definitely helped a lot. Dad i hope things haven't been to stressful for you. I know that this time of year is definitely your busiest but hopefully the taxes didn't overwhelm you to bad this year. I hope the rest of the family is doing well too.

So this week we definitely saw a few miracles happen. The first of which was that we were able to set a baptismal date with a new investigator! So we met this lady named Cece the first week that Elder Hyde got here. She has one young son who is only 6 years old. He is a cute little kid and isn't afraid of anything. In fact the week we met them he had just broken his arm and the next time we went by he was out riding his bike and scooter. He is a funny little kid. Anyways Cece's husband died about 3 years ago in a car wreck and that really hit them really hard. We even asked them do you believe you will see your husband again? She responded well I hope I will, I'm not entirely sure though. That really struck me and made me want to help this lady even more. So this past Thursday we went by and found her home again. She invited us in and we were able to have a really amazing Restoration lesson with her. She was absolutely loving the lesson and the things that we were teaching her. it was really neat to see someone who is as prepared as her accepting the things that we were teaching her. So at the end we talked a lot about the Book of Mormon and how it is here to help us in our lives and she was so happy to hear about that. Anyways we invited her to be baptized on May 18th and she accepted saying if I come to know that it is true by then yes I will be baptized. Oh wow that was such a neat lesson, she is a wonderful lady who I know can really benefit from having the Gospel in her life.

We were also able to have another lesson with Marian. This one went a lot better than the first one we had with her when she was drunk. ha ha We taught her the message of the Restoration and she took it very well. She has family that are members of the church and so she already had somewhat of a base on our beliefs. We also committed her to be baptized and she said that she would pray about it. So things are picking up a little bit. i have really been working on being more and more bold. I am trying to get to the point where I can just walk up and talk to anyone about anything. I think i am making some improvement but I know I need to keep going.

I don't remember if I told you last week but our investigator Paulette Faulkner passed away, she was only 65 years old. It was really sad mainly because she was the last of her family that was still alive. Some of her family died about 10 years ago in a car wreck and then her parents died about 2 years ago of some complications. It really shocked a lot of people how quickly it happened to her. Anyways we had a little memorial service for her at the care center. One of her family friends asked us just to speak for about 5 minutes on the Plan of Salvation. I spoke mainly on the things that we had taught her and how she was going to be able to live with her family again. I shared with them Alma 40:11-12. I really love that one it talks mainly on the spirit world.

Well that was pretty much our week. Things have been improving and I have been trying to be more positive and recognize the good I am doing.  I love you all and hope everything continues to go well.

Love Elder Payne

P.s. Hey dad thank you very much for what you said in your email it really made me think a lot.Thanks for being such a great father! HAve fun out golfing you deserve it

Monday, April 8, 2013

Email: Conference Weekend


Well hello there family,
                       
       How was every ones conference weekend? Well mine out here was absolutely phenomenal. Who woulda thought that I would love to sit there for 10 hours of meetings in two days? Quite honestly I probably wouldn't think I could do it but man did I love it. One of the things that really struck me was how direct the talks all were. there was very little beating around the bush. They were all just absolutely laying down the law. One of my favorite talks was definitely L.Tom Perry's, he was really speaking about how badly the views of the world have become skewed. Also no matter  how bad the world gets and how far off their perception of things are the Church will remain constant. That is where we should look for stability. Wow those were some powerful words. I honestly cannot just pick out one favorite talk they were all just so great. The priesthood session was particularly amazing, and yes mom I did get to watch it, I am only in California not in like Nigeria or something. haha Anyways when the first presidency all spoke they were speaking with such clarity and vision that it would be hard to not know what it is they want us to do. Can you imagine not being able to have that guidance from our Prophet? It is hard to think about. I am just so grateful that we have a living Prophet on earth today, one with the Priesthood authority of God to govern and guide his people. Also how blessed are we as a people to be able to simply flip on a TV or jump on the computer and receive his word.
        Things here in Rocklin are going very well. The work is slowing picking up and for that I am grateful. We are really working on finding new investigators. Last week we were able to pick one up. A single mother with a young son. We stopped by there house because other missionaries had tracted there and she had seemed somewhat interested. So we stopped by and she was very kind to us we talked with her for about 10 to 15 minutes on her door step about the Plan of Salvation, because we found out her husband passed away. She was happy to hear a little about the Plan of Salvation and was interested in hearing more. We set up a return appointment and now we are going back this week. Other than that extremely bright spot the rest of the week was pretty dull. Mostly it was filled with getting Elder Hyde more familiar with the area and helping him figure things out.

                   Ah I forgot to talk about picking him up and how that went. So I went on Wednesday morning and met with all of the other trainers and trainees. It was crazy in this group there were 8 new sisters coming in and only 6 new Elders. In 3 more months we are going to double the number of sisters that are in this mission. Absolutely insane! Anyways we all met together and had a brief meeting and a little breakfast. After that we separated from trainers and trainees. We then had individual training for the two groups. After that we all came back together and were finally assigned our companions. I was assigned Elder Hyde. He is from Saratoga Springs,UT. He likes playing the drums and reading. He is a nice kid and coolest of all he is 18. haha Anyways after about 4 hours of meetings we finally got out and went back to Rocklin. So that is how that all went. I am excited to be training again, it brings an added level of difficulty to the work because I am still district leader on top of that. I am excited for it though and I am hoping I am up to the test.

         Oh one cool thing,Linds this is mostly for you, but one of the new Elders came up to me and was like hey I know you. I was like really where from. Then he proceeded to tell me how him and his mom had been checking out my blog to figure out what the area was like and what to expect. So keep up the good work because others are benefiting from what you are doing. Well everyone I love you all so much and I hope you all are continuing to do well. I love you once again.

Love Elder Payne

With Elder Peek and other missionaries-
With new companion and trainee, Elder Hyde, & President and Sister Weston

Wednesday, April 3, 2013

Email: Easter & Video: Missionary Work & The Atonement


Well oh my goodness it has been a crazy week! I forgot to tell you in my last weeks email that this week is transfer week. So I will start out by telling you what the results of the transfer call is. So I found out that I am training again! How crazy is that, I just barely got done training and I am doing it again. I cant believe how soon they are having me train again. I am pretty excited to train again the only problem is that this area doesn't have to much work going on. So that only leaves room for improvement. I am very excited to find out who I am training and really help out the beginning of someones mission.
       
So this past week we got to go to the temple! I was so grateful that I was able to go and partake of the blessings of the temple. It is truly such an amazing place where the veil is so this. I was able to go with quite a few of my really close friends around here. We went Thursday and did the 12o'clock session. Did you guys know how amazing the temple is? It is so great there. I just absolutely love that place.

So the rest of the week went pretty well. It was crazy hitting my 10 month mark. I am in double digits now, how crazy is that? It doesn't seem like I have been out nearly that long. Wasn't it just yesterday that I hit 6 months now I am closing in on a year.

So we were able to have a few pretty good lessons this week. Our ward council has been having us visit and teach a lot of Less active members. It has been pretty neat just getting to teach again. We had one strange lesson again this week. We were teaching this guy the Restoration and it was going really well and he was taking it in, then we started talking about Joseph Smith and Prophets and he just freaked out and ran inside, because we were having the lesson outside. It was kind of weird just the way he took off and wouldn't talk to us anymore. Well that is about the most of the week. Like I said we have been visiting a lot of Less Active members.

Easter was OK we have church until 3:30 so we didn't really have much time to do much. Dinner was OK but it was pretty much like any other day. The talks in Sacrament meeting were pretty amazing. One lady talked about taking the sting out of death, it was absolutely amazing. We also got to paint eggs with the McGhies which was a lot of fun.
       
Thank you for all of the pictures, everyone seems to be doing great. Great job Kate on making cheer again, that is so exciting. Keep up the good work. It kind of sounds like I need to come back there and liven up the Holidays a little bit. ha ha I am glad everything is going so well. I miss you all very much, but I am grateful that I am able to be out here serving the lord.

Well someone showed me this amazing quote and video and I really think you will enjoy. There is a quote by Jeffrey R. Holland that I think you guys will really like. It says,"Missionary work is not easy because salvation is not a cheap experience. Salvation was never easy. We are the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, this is the truth! He is our Great eternal head. Why would we think, why would we ever believe that is would be easy for us when it was never easy for Him!"

The video is absolutely riveting. Please check it out, please share. It really helps me to feel the true meaning of the Easter holiday. It is only through Jesus Christ that we can receive our everlasting Salvation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6FKiNVbw3Y

If you can watch that video without feeling the spirit resonating from it you are deceived and not truly prepared to feel the spirit in your life. I don't mean to be overbearing only bold! We must tell people and help them to find the way, to know the truth, to feel the light of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I love you all and I am so very grateful for the great blessing I have of having you in my life. Good luck in this coming week and may God bless you continually.

With Love Elder Payne