Email: Meetings and Lineage

Hello to all of my wonderful family,
                                I sure hope that my email finds you all doing well and that everything is going great! Boy it sounds like you guys had quite the week this past week. I swear every time I get an email from you guys that you all have been of on some new crazy adventure. haha I'll bet having everybody back at the house kept you all very busy. It is weird that, that was the norm not to long ago, now it is a huge event whenever everybody shows up. I loved the pics of the baby blessing, little Sara looked extremely cute in it.I cant believe how much she has been growing. It is the same with each one of the little kids. Drake is getting so big I cant even believe it. Savannah! Holy smokes she is changing so much as well. I cant believe how quickly she is growing. Make sure and keep sending me all of those great pics of them, thanks.
                               So we had an extremely busy week this past week. Most of the time I felt like I was a chicken running around with my head cut off. What happened was on Monday we found out that we had a big meeting on Sunday that we had to have a bunch of info for. We thought it was supposed to be like 2 weeks later but that didn't end up happening. So we had to get a paper out to all of the companionship's and then get it back, then we had to type it all up, compile all of the numbers and such, print it all out and get it all together. And so you see the glory of being a zone leader. You get all the perks of a regular missionary plus a whole ton of reports. On top of that we went down to Chico for a leadership meeting on Friday. It was actually a really great meeting! We met with all of the trainers, District leaders, and zone leaders in the Northern part of the mission. We met with President Weston and his Assistants. We talked about quite a few things with them. We talked a lot about how we can increase the amount of investigators that we have coming to church. We also talked a lot about utilizing the members more and using them as a great resource for help. Then lastly we talked about the doctrine of Repentance and how key that is. It was a great meeting where I learned a lot about those subjects. It was really strange though because at that meeting I did not recognize like half of the Elder or Sisters there. Usually I know quite a few of the people but there are so many new missionaries in the mission that it is hard to keep up.
                             So just a little update on our investigators. Both of the families that we are involved with right now are doing pretty well. First the Lockwood's, they are doing great. Unfortunately they had to cancel both of our appointments this past week. They did, however, come to church which was awesome. We are going to be meeting with them on Thursday at a dinner with some of our members. We are going to be setting a baptismal date with them for the 19th of October, so please be praying for them. Next Dean and Tracey's family are doing well. We were able to meet with them a few times to check up on things. We are going to be doing a big push with Dean to quit smoking. We are going to be fasting with him soon so we will see how that goes. So there is your little update haha. Things are great here I am still loving it. I was on exchanges last week with the APs and also saw President Weston. They both said they are very happy with what is going on up here. It has been a while since the Redding zone has been this good. I am grateful that the fruits of my labors are paying off and being noticed. We have been working very hard to make this the best zone in the mission and a place where everyone wants to serve. Hopefully it is getting there.
                            Well I love you all so much. I am sending a picture of me and a few people. It is what is called my posterity picture. It has the Elder I trained (Holbrook), Then both of his "Sons" and then one of their "sons". So all of them came from my lineage. The only one missing is Elder Hyde so hopefully I can get one with him sometime. I love you all and hope you have a wonderful week.

Love Elder Payne

Great pic of Elder Payne

Email: Update on Investigators

How is the ol' Payne clan doing this week? Well I sure hope everything is going well. It sounds like there has been a lot of craziness that has been taking place recently. I cant believe that the cabinet up above the desk finally got cleaned. That thing has been cluttered since before I can remember. I just wonder how long it will stay that way. Next thing you know the far left closet in the living room will be clean too. ha ha That is great though I am very proud of you all that you got that done. I cant wait to see pictures. I cant believe that you got rid of the couches downstairs. Did you get rid of the big blue one down there as well? I sure hope not because I love that couch. Anyways that is also really good news that Lindsay got the ipad back. She should probably just like duct tape that to her or something like that.
                 So I have had a a very long week our here. I don't really know why it seemed so long but it definitely took a while.  Like I said in last weeks email, we had transfers this past week. We only lost two of the people in our zone but it was sad to see them go. We got two new greenies though so we are very happy about that. They are both great Elders who are going to be a great addition to our zone. Over this past week we had to do a lot of running around because of those new missionaries. We were able to get a lot of good work done though. We mainly met with a lot of our regulars. We saw the Windom family a few times this week. It was great because they are just fired up and really trying hard to make it to baptism. The only problem is the Father is still having a problem with smoking, hopefully he can get past it soon and be able to enter into the waters of baptism. The other great highlight of the week is the Lockwood family. I think I talked a little about them last week but I'm not quite sure. Anyways they are a family we have been trying to work with a lot lately. What we have been doing mainly is just being their friends. At first they weren't really ready to take the lessons because there was a ton of stuff going on in their lives. I am so very grateful that we have stuck with it though. On Sunday we had a great Restoration lesson with them. The spirit was so strong in there. You can just really tell when people are truly open to what you are saying and they are definitely open. They have plenty of friends in the church who have told them a lot of stuff but now being able to hear it first hand from the missionaries I think will really help move them a long. We soft committed them both to baptism and they both accepted. We are so excited for them because I can just see how much it can bless their lives. What was also great was right after the lesson they were just like hey would you guys like to stay for dinner. So of course we weren't going to say no. While they were finishing dinner we got to go out and play football and some games with their boys. I absolutely love that family. So ya that was a few little bits of our week. Overall it was pretty great. This week we have a lot going on we have a bunch of meeting we have to prepare for and that is always great, let me tell you I just love paper work.
                 Anyways I love you all and I hope you have a wonderful week. Keep staying strong and trusting in the lord. Proverbs 3:5-6 I love you all

Love Elder Payne

Email: Gratitude for the Book of Mormon & a Baptism

 Wow so this past week has absolutely just flown by. There has been a ton of stuff going on. We had a few big meetings and we also had a baptism! It was a really good week but also very busy.
                                 This past week we had a really great meeting with our whole zone. It was a great meeting where we got to cover a lot of material. We talked a lot about the Book of Mormon. Mainly a lot about what the BoM is, why we should use it , and how we should use it. We watched Elder Hollands talk where he talks about the BoM. It was such an amazing talk to watch. Every time I watch it I get chills. Just the way he testifies of the truthfulness of the BoM and how we  can gain a testimony of it. I personally am so grateful for the Book of Mormon. It has definitely made a huge difference for me out here. As I am sure many of you remember I had not read the Book of Mormon all the way through by myself before I came out. I struggled to read it and definitely struggled to get anything out of it, but now i am happy to say that has  changed. I have now read through it almost 5 times and wow what a difference it has made. I am able to see the way that the Book of Mormon can affect people. I can see the relevance of reading and studying from its pages. We also talked a lot about the power and authority of our calling. I love studying how it is the lord has called us to this work and has prepared us to be able to go out and teach to those around us. We read from John Ch.15 V.1-16 which is a lot about how the lord has allowed us to assist in this work. i love it!
                        So as I said we had a baptism this past Saturday. It was of a girl named Julia. For a long time it has really just been very off and on with her. At times it has been very difficult to meet with her and others not so much. Finally she just fully committed and put forth just a little more effort and then was able to get baptized. It was a wonderful meeting and the spirit was so strong there. I was very grateful that I was able to be apart of that ordinance by being a witness. I was so happy for her.
                           So the last thing i wanted to address was transfers. We had transfer calls again yesterday. This one was pretty nerve racking because we weren't quite sure what was going to happen. For all we knew either one of us could have been transferred, but neither of us did. Elder McMurray is staying here. He was very happy about that because if he had been transferred he would have only been there for 6 weeks. It is crazy though because he has been up here for 9 months already and by the end he will have been here for 10 and a half months. I am very happy that he is staying because he is a good comp and we get a long very well.
                          Well that is about it. It was a great week and all is well here. I love you all and I am very grateful for all of the wonderful support that you give me. I miss and love you all. Love Elder Payne

Email: Member Present Lessons

Hello my dear family,
                              How is everything going back at home? It sounds like things are going great back there with everything, except for of course grandma breaking her wrist. That was really unfortunate that, that happened Make sure and give her my best and let her know that I am praying for her.
                              So wow let me tell you a little about my week. Things have been amazing out here. This is definitely one of the happiest times of my life. I am just absolutely so blessed to be where I am right now with all that is going on around me. So to start off the whole Facebook thing is crazy! It is really nice in some ways but sort of weird in others. We are currently working through all of the kinks and things but it seems to be working out ok. i an awesome experience with it on Tuesday. I was on and i saw that one of our investigators was online. she is one that it has been very hard to get a hold of for a very long time. So what I did was start chatting with her and asked how her day was going. She was struggling really bad because of some things with her mother. i was able to share a little bit with her. Then i noticed that our Elders quorum president from out at the branch was on. i connected with them both and boom there you go, an online member present lesson. It was absolutely amazing being able to help her just by sitting at a computer. That girl is actually getting baptized this coming Saturday, we are super excited because it has been a long time coming. That experience right there showed me just how effective this tool can be.
                               Well lets see what else took place this past week. On Friday we headed about an hour and a half away from Redding to a place called Gridley. We had our monthly zone leader meeting. it was a really great meeting with everyone. We discussed a lot about the way things are going in our zones. Like some of my past emails have said Redding is just exploding right now. This past month in August we averaged 36.2 member present lessons, this is huge because back in like May and June we only averaged about 19, so that is a huge jump. This past week we had 41, it is just so awesome to see the work moving forward the way that it is and to see the way that the members are rallying around us missionaries to help is such a blessing. We also talked about our upcoming training meetings, which will take place this Thursday. It was a great meeting where i really feel like i learned a lot.
                               So the reason that i am emailing so late is because we decided to utilize our surroundings and go do something fun outside. We went and did this hike called the Castle Crags hike. It is about 3 miles to the top, it was a ton of fun and great to switch things up and do things a little differently. It was a little tiring and reminded me of how out of shape i am but it was definitely worth it. Also on our way back we saw this huge fire going on. It is a couple miles outside of Redding and moving fast! But luckily not in our direction. it is headed towards two small towns call Igo and Ono which are both in our ward boundaries so hopefully they can knock it down before it gets there.
                           Well that is about it for the week. Dont worry i am still doing great and loving it here. I love you all and hope all is going well. i love you all and hope you have a great week

Love Elder Payne

Email: The Future is Now!

Hello to my wonderful Family,
                                  Well I have some very big news to share with all of you. You may have noticed some activity on my account on a certain social networking site over the past few days. No, you don't need to worry I have not just gone super disobedient and started breaking all of the rules. My mission is now one of 12 missions in the World that are piloting, you guessed it, Facebook! We found out on Friday that we are going to be using Facebook as a proselyting tool. It is crazy, I never in a million years would have thought that I would be adding people on Facebook and sharing videos and stuff on there while on my mission. The past few days have been very strange trying to figure out how we are going to be doing this. We found out that it is just going to be starting with the Zone Leaders and some select Sisters and then eventually filter out to the rest of the mission. One of the things we have to do is make our Facebook pages much more professional. That involves going through and hiding all of the pictures that are not in line with our calling, as you can imagine that means there are quite a few that I have to go through and hide. We also have to clean up all of the posts that we have been tagged in or have posted ourselves. So if you have seen that I have untagged myself there is a reason for that.
                      I am very sure that this new tool that has just opened up to us will definitely help to further the work. This is most assuredly the generation that can use these resources for what they were meant to be used for. Like I said on Friday I learned a little of how we can use Facebook to teach lessons and do things like that. This is going to be a huge learning experience for me and I am excited to see where it will lead the work.
                  So other than the announcement about Facebook the rest of the week has been pretty dull. haha  So on Wednesday I was on exchanges up in a little place called Weaverville. It is this little tiny city of only about 3,000. I got to meet some really neat people and have a lot of really great lessons. One of which was with this Less Active family. They are older and just kind of one day stopped coming to church. We talked a lot about the Book of Mormon and how we need to continually be reading it. There are so many teachings in there and so many things that can help us that we really can be blessed by it. The woman at one point said," I have already read it why do I need to read it again?" At the point I was able to bear my testimony of the divinity of the Book of Mormon and how it has blessed my life by continually reading it. I sure hope something that I said will help them. Anyways then on Friday we had our Zone conference. That is where I found out about Facebook. Then Elder McMurray and I got to give a training on the Doctrine of Love. It was a really neat experience teaching about love and how important it is to have it in our zones, districts, and companionship's. We read from Matthew 22:36-40 that talked about the first great commandment. Then we read a little from Jeffrey R. Hollands talk "The First Great Commandment". It went really well, we got to talk for about 25-30 minutes.
                                  In our zone we had 4 baptisms this past week. It was amazing to see the miracles that are taking place out here. Well I believe that is all I have for the week. Like I said it was a crazy one but it was great. I love you all and I am so grateful for the amazing family that I have. I hope you all have a wonderful week.

Love Elder Payne