Email: Joe Hart

Dear Family,
Well here is another installment into the life of Elder Payne. It is crazy to think I will only be writing three more of these after this. WEIRD! Anywho things out here in good ole' California are great. We had a fantastic week this past week and were able to see a lot of miracles.

I will try and answer some of the questions that you had. So things with Elder Stein are great. He is a great comp and definitely knows his stuff very well. We have been wondering why it is that they
downsized the ward and I think it is because we only had about 5 Elders come into the mission and a pretty good size group go home. So they just didn't have the personnel to fill back in. We are pretty sure that they will push it back out again sometime soon. With the organizing thing if you want to you can go through some of my stuff. You don't have to do the whole thing though I can do that when I get back. A question I have for you is do you want me to try and bring the mattress pad back, it is getting pretty old, same thing with the pillow. I have talked with Lindsay and she is going to pick up some of my stuff at the mission office sometime in the coming weeks. Also Linds if you can get my bike and one other little box plus a grey tote that would be great, thank you!

I guess I will start out with the good news because I usually save that for later on in the email but I guess I can do that now. So I dont know what you guys were praying for back there or how you were praying or if you were really doing anything differently because Joe Hart is getting baptized this coming Sunday. Let me tell you about the chain of events that took place for that to happen. Alrighty, so Tuesday evening the Harts invited us out to have dinner with them. They live clear out about 15 to 20 minutes outside of town in a little place called Bangor. So we went out there and we had an awesome dinner. It wasn't anything crazy or special, it was just burgers cooked over a wood fire. All the while we are just chilling outside on a beautiful day. It was my kind of night. We actually stayed out there for quite some time just talking and getting to know them on more of a
personal level. Eventually it came time for us to leave and so we shared a spiritual thought on having faith in Christ. We asked Joe if he had been thinking about a baptismal date and he said that he had. I then told him, Joe we have been thinking a lot about you and when it might be good to have your baptism. I then asked him if he would like to get baptized on the 10th of May. He said he didnt see any problem with that other than he might be out of town. So we said ok lets move
it to the 11th, and he said he would think about it. On Thursday we went over again for our lesson that we have with them. What we have been doing for about the past 2 weeks is we go out have a
lesson and then do some service because they have about 16 acres of land and so it takes quite a bit of work to maintain it all. So during the lesson we started off talking about the baptism. He said that he wanted to get baptized then and he felt he was ready! I don't know what it is but for some reason our Heavenly Father has seen fit to bless me with the opportunity to teach people who are very prepared. I do not feel worthy of being able to meet and teach them but I am so grateful for the opportunities that have been presented to me. Anyways we talked about studying the scriptures as well as Modern Prophets and then finished it off with tithing and fast offerings. Then we were
able to do a bunch of stuff for them. I got to mow the lawn while Elder Stein helped with taking somethings apart for them. What a great day!

So the story doesn't end there. On Saturday we headed out there again and like I have told you in past emails we have been helping the, build the Harts daughters house, which is just down the road from them. We spent the morning and a bit into the evening putting their roof on. It was a lot of fun, i really miss being able to get out and work hard and put in a good days work. Anyways we enjoyed being out there with them. They are all just such nice and humble people, grateful for what they have and firm in what they believe. Later that same evening we had a pie and ice cream social. It was a lot of fun especially because I got to be one of the judges, in fact Joe Hart and I were the judges for the event. There were a lot of really good pies there, so it is a good thing that I have learned to like pies out here. That evening a member that is good friends with Joe talked with him and they all decided that because it was Mother's Day was on the 11th they decided to move the baptism to the 4th. We were completely fine with that so we started putting things into place for the whole baptism and stuff.

Sunday was a great day we had a decent amount of inv. come to church. We had Joe Harts baptismal interview which went very well. The Elder that did the interview said that Joe is definitely very ready to get baptized. I sat there with just Joe and his wife for a moment later and asked him what it is that has made the difference, because he has been coming to church for about a year now and his wife has been a member for quite a few years as well. He told me that it is the way that the Gospel has helped his family and his daughter. He also mentioned that us missionaries had made a big difference in helping him feel comfortable. That really helped me feel like he is probably someone that I needed to come here to find and to teach. Anyways the baptism will be this coming Sunday so we are all excited about that. A few other things I wanted to mention were a few other lessons that took place. We met with Robert again and it went really well. He accepted an invitation to be baptized, if he came to know that church is true. We covered the Restoration and he had a few questions about the priesthood and prophets but we were able to explain it all for him. He also came to church with us yesterday, he is a really outgoing guy so it wasn't too hard for him to start finding common ground with people around him. It was really neat because he was making comments and asking questions in Elders quorum and usually new inv. that come to church just sit there. At one point the teacher started getting emotional because he was talking about the Plan of Salvation and hisdad who had passed away. I looked over at Robert and he was getting emotional as well, so i could tell he was really feeling the spirit. Hopefully we will be able to set a baptismal date with him soon and be able to start getting progressing towards baptism.

Well there is a little snippet from my week. As I said things here are going really well. We are seeing success and are constantly busy. I am really grateful that I am able to have the experiences that I am having here at this time. So I got my travel plans. I am sure that you have gotten them as well, or at least you will be getting them soon. From what they say it sounds like I am going to be getting into SLC about 1 or so. Well I love you all and hope everything is going well for you all.

Have a great week! Love Elder Payne

Email: Will Lockwood's Funeral & A Baptism

Happy Monday everyone,
Well I sure hope that this weekend hasn't left you all too tired.  It sounds like it was an extremely crazy and busy week for you all. All of the pics from the trip made it look like you had a lot of fun
and the weather looked like it was great. I cant believe how big the little kids are getting. It seems like every single picture drake is taller, and the two little ones are bigger and cuter.

Anyways so things out here have been going pretty well. This past week was extremely stressful. There was a lot going on and it seemed to all hit within a day or two. So we started out the week pretty normally. As I told you last P-Day President Weston said I would not be allowed to go to the funeral. Well I had a really good talk with him about the whole situation and told him why I really felt like I needed to be there. He told me that with funerals generally the answer is no, which i didn't really understand. He said that with the things that I had told him that he was beginning to feel a little differently about it though. I told him that to be honest I wanted to go for me and that I really could use the closure. That family is by far one of the biggest miracles that I have seen on my mission, I couldn't imagine not being there in their time of need. We probably talked for 20 or 30 minutes about it and about how I have been a little stressed out lately, with school and
just the prospect of coming home. It is such an odd feeling. It is so hard to imagine being home and not being a missionary. i have been doing this for so long that I don't know anything else. I thought it was weird how Elder McMurray was stressing a bit when he was getting ready to go home but now I know what it is like. It is so strange. Anyways so like I said I had a good talk with him about a bunch of stuff that has been weighing on my mind.

So Wednesday was a pretty average day. We spent most of it either in lessons or out trying to
find more people. Thursday was a good day, we had the baptismal interview for the young man that got baptized. He is a rambunctious little kid so he was a little distracted during the interview but he did just fine. We had a couple of lessons cancel that day but we stayed busy despite that.

Friday was the day we headed to Redding. I say we because Elder Andersen is actually serving here in Oroville so he was able to go up with me. There was a viewing at 10 o'clock so we made sure to make it for that part. When we first walked in it was just Tara and her 3 boys. As soon as she saw us she just broke down crying and told us how grateful she was that we were there. The boys,as you can imagine, were having a really hard time. Will had lost a ton of weight in his
closing weeks. It is such a bittersweet thing, sort of like with Grandma Payne. You hate to see them go because you will miss them so much, but they get to leave their mortal, diseased, and afflicted body and return to our father in heaven. Tara asked us if we could sit the boys down and talk with them about everything. So we took the oldest boy, Alex, and sat him down and taught him all about the Plan of Salvation and where his Dad was. We explained to him that soon he will
be able to hold the priesthood and be the priesthood holder in the home. He will have to be the big example for his two younger brothers. We told him to take everything that his father had taught him, all of the good, and share it with others. It was a really good talk and I hope that it helped him a little bit. The funeral itself went really well. It was a great tribute to a great man. A couple of the members of the ward spoke and a couple of his non-member friends spoke as well. There was a great spirit in the room when everyone was done. I am so grateful for the knowledge that I have of the Plan of Salvation. I am so happy that I was able to share just a little bit of it with that wonderful family.

Saturday was a very eventful day as well. We went to the morning session of conference. I absolutely loved Elder Hollands talk from that session. He definitely came out swinging. After the session was over we got picked up by a couple of members from another ward and helped them by going clear up into the hills and moving a little love seat thing. After that we watched the Afternoon session. While watching it we started filling the font because it takes almost 2 hours to fill to the point that you need it. We had the baptism at 3:30, so almost right after the second session. We had a pretty small turnout but that is ok because it is the ordinance that matters in the end. It was quite funny right before the baptism started a lady that was supposed to be giving a talk came up to me. She pointed at the program and was like you have me down giving the talk on baptism but I prepared the one on the Holy Ghost. So there we were with two ladies that had prepared talks on the Holy Ghost and none on baptism. I didn't want to make her pull a talk on baptism out of nowhere so I was like its ok I can do it. So i just sort of pulled a talk out of nowhere. I read a few scriptures (2 Nephi 31:5-10; Mosiah 18:8-10) and then bore my testimony. It ended up not being to bad. Anyways the baptism went great and the family was all really happy. The priesthood session of conference was fantastic as well. Elder Oaks talk was fantastic, I definitely recommend reading it. it explains a lot the role of the priesthood in our lives. Sundays sessions of conference went really well too. I loved the general theme of being courageous and standing up for what we believe in. We cant just sit back and let the world pound us into the concrete we have to stand up and show that we represent something. That is something i really want to be better at, no more sitting on the
sidelines. It is time for all of us to get into the game.

We had a great lesson with Joe Hart after the second session of conference. We talked with him about his feelings on baptism and he told us he is still waiting for a few things to be confirmed. We then moved to pray, this was probably the third time the lesson was led that way. Not necessarily on purpose but that is where the spirit led it. He has a hard time praying for himself because of some things that happened in the past. We assured him that God does answer prayers and we don't always understand what God is trying to do. I love the Scripture Isaiah 55: 8-9, it just talks about that our Heavenly Father knows so much better than us and so we should trust in his judgement.

The rest of Sunday was pretty normal. So there was my week. All of that plus finding out that I got
reaccepted into SUU was a huge blessing. I have been praying so hard lately for The Lord to lead me where I need to go. I just hope and pray that I am going and doing what he wants me to do.

Well I love you all so very much. I am grateful for the wonderful example that you all are to me. Stay strong and keep on keepin on. I love you all!

Love, Elder Hunter Payne

Email: Prayers answered for Rain

Dear family,

Well I sure hope you all had as good of a week as me. Things out here are still going great. We have been seeing miracles and great things out here. Anyways so let me get into the week a little bit for you.

So last Sunday all of California was authorized by the first presidency to fast for rain. Everyone was very strongly encouraged to do that because we are witnessing one of the worst droughts in California's history. It went almost 60 days without any rain! All of this in the middle of what is supposed to be the wet season. A lot of the smaller communities were getting really scared because many of them were going to be out of water in approximately 60 days or so. So as you can see things were getting pretty bad. Then we fasted and prayed for what we needed. The weather forecast for the week on Sunday showed nothing just sun and a few clouds, then Monday what was the forecast...rain! And rain it did. It drizzled just a little the first part of the week then about Thursday it really opened up. It was amazing to see the miracle that was taking place. It pretty much rained from Thursday to Sunday evening. Everyone was just so ecstatic with what was taking place. Sunday was really fun because of all of the prayers and gratitude that everyone was giving to our Heavenly Father for the moisture that we were receiving. This past weeks fast and the rain we got will forever be a great testimony builder to me. It is amazing to see how much our Heavenly Father cares for all of his children. A lot of the parents out here were saying how much this meant for their kids and how that now their kids can see that prayer really does work.

Anyways so as far as working with people recently we are still really working on getting more people to teach and finding more new investigators. We were able to pick up one new investigator last night. We have been working with this lady named Sandina Rice. We usually just talk with her outside her house but then she started telling us how she wants us to come in and teach her son, Darius. He is 13 years old and a real good kid. She was telling us how that a lot of her kids have kind of chosen the wrong paths in life and that she
wants him to go down a better path. So we are going to do our best to help him.

We are still working with a lot of returning members. One of them is a guy named Cody. He is really cool, he likes guns and sports and stuff so Elder Harman and I have a lot of stuff to talk with him about. He has come to church for the last 2 weeks in a row. I will make sure and keep you updated.

Well I love you all so very much. It looks like everyone back home changing so much it is crazy. I don't know what to think about it all. Well you are all in my prayers.

Love Elder Payne

Email: I'm Famous!

Hello  family,
                      Well it sounds like you all are just wrapping up a crazy, hectic week back home. Pretty much that just sounds like a normal holiday week back at the Payne household. I am sure that this coming week is going to be just as crazy and insane as ever, but then again it wouldn't be the holidays without it right?! So before I go on with what happened this past week I will answer a few of the questions that were asked. So first off with the packages, I have only received the one so far, that one being the package with the sweaters and some goodies. I am still waiting for the other two to come. Hopefully nobody has stolen them because I don't exactly live in the safest part of town. I will keep my eye out for them though. Second question was about Christmas and what will be going on there. So currently we have 2 places lined up to go, the one is in the morning to skype and have breakfast. That will be at a family called the Dunns. We will most likely skype starting at sometime between 8:30 and 9 our time, so like 9:30-10:00 your time. That is the plan at least or right now. I will be sure to fill you in more for next week. I most likely wont have much of a time constraint, just however much time we need to talk with everyone.  After that we will be going to a really fun family in the ward named the Crosbys for dinner and games and stuff. So it should be a really fun Christmas day.
                           Alright so about my week. Let me tell you how that all went. This has been such a crazy week for me as well but very great at the same time. So starting out on Monday evening after I had already emailed you something amazing happened. So  we met with a young man that we have been working with for a while, his mother and sister were the ones that I got to baptize the weekend before.  Anyways we met with him just briefly because the sister missionaries mentioned that we needed to go over there and see him. We just sat down and started talking with him and his friend Dylan,( Dylan got baptized a few weeks ago), and he said "Dom dotn you have something to tell the Elders?" Then Dom proceeded to tell us that he wanted to get baptized. This was such amazing news because week or two previously Dom had told us that he didn't want to get baptized because of issues with his father. However over the past few weeks he has had a change of heart. What an amazing thing that has happened in that house. So far there have been 4 people get baptized that are living in that house. Talk about a house full of miracles! So we then started preparations for him to get baptized Saturday. Let me tell you i have gotten really good at throwing together a baptismal service. You give us a week and we will give you a great service that is filled with the spirit! Anyways lets continue through the week.
Then Tuesday we had our transfer day. That was a crazy day for us. It was just filled with running people around and getting people where they needed to be, one of the perks of being a zone leader is you are pretty much a free taxi service for missionaries.
Thursday was a great day for us we had our zone meeting which was a lot of fun. That is the meeting that my comp. and I get to teach once a month. After that we had a few lessons as well as Dom's baptismal interview. We also talked with the Lockwood family, the ones that are going to be baptized by their dad, and they told us that they are going to have to push their date back to January 3rd. There is just a lot of stuff going on at there house. They are almost as busy as our family is.
Saturday came as a very busy day for us. We had the baptism for Dom, which went amazing. It was a pretty small service but went very great! I love having baptisms, the spirit is always so strong at services like that. So that evening we had a great opportunity. This will explain the subject line a little better. The Redding Zone had the opportunity to sing on Redding channel 9 news. They had a special Christmas presentation and we got to sing a bunch of Christmas songs. I absolutely loved it. The whole thing was pretty mediocre but I enjoyed singing and stuff. Anyways as you see we had a great week. The weather has been so nice here. All of the snow is gone and it is in like the 60's everyday. I am still loving this place. Well I love you all so very much and hope you all have a great week.

 Love Elder Payne

Email: Miracles!

Hello to my wonderful family,
                Well things here are going absolutely fantastic right now, but before I tell you about that I have to talk to  you about a few other things. So to answer a few of your questions that were posed. So my comp. and I are still getting a long very well. He is a little like me in the sense that he gets a long with pretty much everybody. It is nice because it is a lot easier to work with someone if you get a long with them. Ah yes and Sister Huskey did come tell me hi for you mom so thank you very much. I shrugged it off because that is just like you to find somebody in my area through facebook and then some how get to know them better than I do. Anyways it was good to hear from you through her though. Sis. Huskey and Sis. Schaub are both awesome. We are in a lot of contact with Sis. Huskey because she is the building schedular and so we talk to her quite a bit because of that. Then Sis. Schaub is also fantastic they feed us all the time. We probably eat there once a week at least. They are a great family too. So um I think that was most of the questions.
                 Alright let me tell you a bit of the week we had. I really wish that I could tell you all about it, especially the last few days because they were just awesome. So earlier in the week we had our zone meeting on Wednesday. We taught a lot about higher expectations because Pres. Weston  met with Elder M. Russel Ballard and Elder Ballard said that he wants us to double the number of convert baptisms that we have in 6 months! That is not because we aren't doing well either. We have been doing really well. So we discussed a lot of what needs to happen in order for that to take place. That meeting went really well so I was very happy with that. On Thursday we had exchanges with the APs. I got to go down to Rocklin which was a lot of great. It was great to see a bit of my old area again. I also got to see the family that I love down there, the McGhies. I stopped in and said hello and had to pick up something from them. I wasn't with the best Elder in the world but things went just fine. On Friday we had the baptism for Dylan. For those of you who saw the pic on facebook than you already know of this event. It was a great baptism and the spirit was definitely there very strong. I was very happy about how well things went. We had a few of his family members in the program and it went very well. Then came Sunday, this had to be one of the most miraculous days of my life. first off we started with the confirmation of Dylan. His Uncle was able to come from out of town to do that. Then we met with that family the Lockwoods that I have told you about. The ones that we have been working with for a very long time. We asked the parents how they felt about baptism and they both just looked at us and told us that there is nothing that is holding them back anymore. They are ready to do it. What an amazing feeling it was to hear that. We talked about them getting baptized on December 7th than the member brought up the possibility of the father baptizing his sons. His face just lit up when he heard that. He asked " Wait I could do that?" We explained yes you can receive the priesthood and then baptized your boys. So then out of the blue they were just like OK we want to do it this Thursday. I thought that they just wanted to meet but then they were like no we want to get baptized! WOW! that was so cool to hear. So the wheels are turning and we are going to have a baptism this Thursday. It will be such a wonderful experience because this family is seriously such an amazing family and they are going to be benefited so much from the Gospel. Well that was our week and the miracles contained therein. I love you guys and hope all is going well. Oh by the way you might want to know the reason that I am emailing so late today is because we went golfing this morning. We just went to this cool driving range where you drive balls into the water. It was a great time. Well once again I love you all and hope your weeks go great! Love Elder Payne

Email: 2 Baptisms! And a McDonalds Stand-Off

Hello Family,
                  Holy Smokes where do I begin? This has been such an amazing week. We have seen a ton of miracles a ton of craziness and a ton of change. So I guess we will just start at the beginning. So Tuesday we began our day by doing a lot of running around, because we are the zone leaders we had to go and babysit a lot of missionaries because a lot were leaving. So we had to go out about 10 minutes North of where we live to pick up an Elder. Well come to find out that didn't happen he just ended up doing some other thing to get his new comp. Anyways back to the story, so we are heading back home to do some things and I was like man i would really like some McDonald's breakfast right now, and Elder McMurray was like ya me too. So we head to McDonald's. Well we pull into the parking lot and what do we find? Oh nothing much just a parking lot full of cop cars with their guns drawn and pointed at this car that was between us and them. So basically we were looking down the barrels of about 3 glocks, and of course the first words out of my mouth were, " oh man now we cant use the drive through!" ha ha ya no joke i am brilliant. So we wheel around and get out of there as quick as we can. We decided to park a ways away from the action and observe. Of course I snapped a few photos and I wont explain to much because i am pretty sure they speak for themselves. So after they get the guy in cuffs and start searching the car we go into the other side of McDonald's. It was awesome because while we were in there i got talking to a guy. He was super excited to learn that we were church people, so of course we picked him up as a new investigator.
                       So enough with that action, on Thursday we had our zone meeting. That is the one that Elder McMurray and I teach. We had a great time teaching it. We talked mainly about strengthening the faith of the missionaries and strengthening the faith of the members. It was great because we had out Ward Mission leader come in and talk about what missonary work is like from the members point of view. i thought it went very well and we all learned a lot. At the end we challenged everybody to go through and read Ether 12, because that is the whole theme of that chapter is faith. So of course that is my challenge to all of you. Go read Ether 12 and tell me what you think. Better yet tell Lindsay and she can put your responses on the blog.
                     Now we continue, Later that day we had the baptismal interview for Tracey and her son Demitris. They both did awesome and are so ready to be baptized. Continuing on through the week, we had a great lesson with Shane Toro. We went over the Restoration with him. It was so amazing when we were going over the lesson. We were talking about some things and I was explaining the Apostasy when i stopped and wanted to ask a few more questions to make sure he understood but he was just sitting on the edge of his seat and when i stopped he just blurted out, " Well then what happened?" It was so cool because I have never had an investigator that was that excited to hear the message of the Restoration. When we recited Joseph Smiths vision he was just about in tears. He told us that he got chills when it was being recited. What an amazing person. We explained that those feeling were form the Holy Ghost and they were confirmation that the message is true. We invited him to be baptized on the 31st of this month and he said he would pray about it!
                        Alright shall we continue with the miracles? i believe we shall! So Saturday we had one of the most amazing baptisms of my mission. Tracey and her son Demitris got baptized and what was even more amazing was that i got to baptize Demitris! What was also pretty neat was that because Tracey had brain surgery and isn't very strong I got to be in the water with them Tracey while Elder McMurray baptized her. It was such a neat experience. Then Sunday I got to confirm Demitris as well. It was amazing seeing someone as prepared as them both completing all of those ordinances. Later that night we visited them and I personally witnessed scripture being fulfilled.
2 Nephi 32:2-3  "Do ye not remember that I said unto you that after ye had received the Holy Ghost ye could speak with the tongue of angels? And now, how could ye speak with the tongue of angels save it were by the Holy Ghost?
 3 Angels speak by the power of the Holy Ghost; wherefore, they speak the words of Christ. Wherefore, I said unto you, feast upon the words of Christ; for behold, the words of Christ will tell you all things what ye should do."
                    So she usually has trouble speaking but she said a prayer that was absolutely amazing. I will stop there because this is a long post. Well I love you all and hope all is going well. Good luck to Lindsay this week because she definitely needs it. I love you all.

 Love Elder Payne

Email: Paperwork and a Miracle

Dear Family,
                  Hello to you all. I want to apologize first off because this email will most likely be somewhat short. The reason being it was a crazy last week with mainly just reports and a lot of paper work stuff. So starting out with you all. I am so happy that everything is OK with Drake. I was so stinking nervous and I have been praying a lot for him. I am so glad that he is doing better. Also I am so happy about Hannah and her play. I am really glad that it all went so well, she looked beautiful in all of the pictures.
               Well let me tell you a little about the week. Like I said earlier the week was insane. It was mostly just doing reports and being in meetings. We had a big stake meeting that we had about a 40 page packet that we had to compile. Wow tell me about boring and stressful. What we had to put together was all of the numbers from the past month for the whole zone. We also had a thing which is called the Ward Mission leader process report. It is basically where you say whether or not your Ward mission leader is doing a good job. It was whole lot of fun let me tell you. Anyways we also had a big Mission leadership council. It was actually a lot of fun getting together with a bunch of really great missionaries that I have met and gotten to know. I also really like to sit and counsel with our mission president.
                  So as far as the baptisms go, well they didn't unfortunately. They all fell through for various reasons but we just pushed back two of them to this next week. We are excited for them because one of them, Tracey, has been waiting a very long time to get baptized. We weren't able to get to much other stuff done except for one amazing miracle that happened. So a member of our ward called us on Thursday and told us that they had someone that they would like us to meet and teach. Come to find out that it is the son of one of the members of our ward. He was going up to Oregon on Saturday to get baptized into some random community church up there. Well we met on Friday evening with him and had an amazing lesson. He told us how he didn't want to get baptized by some random person. So basically he was explaining the priesthood. We soft committed him to be baptized and he accepted. We are going to continue to work with him closely. He was definitely a miracle and a major boost to our work.
                      Ok well here is the news with transfers. Elder McMurray is actually staying! Crazy right ? He has been here for 7 and a half months and will be here for about 9. Exciting stuff!
         Well I love you all so much and I am so grateful for all that you do for me and on my behalf. I love you all.

Love Elder Payne

Email: Following the counsel of the Prophet

Hello to you all,
                     How are you all doing? I sure hope that you have all made it back home safely or if you are currently driving I hope you are driving safely. It sounds like your trip out here to California went really well. Of course you have the normal craziness that is included in a Payne trip anywhere. I cant believe everything that you all were able to fit into a week trip that is amazing. So I have to ask what was your favorite part of the whole thing? The elephant ride looked and sounded like it was a pretty fun part. I cant believe that Lind's Ipad got stolen that is crazy! Did they have that insured? I hope so, if not that is really, really sucky. I cant believe all of the dishonest people that there are out there. Just makes you realize you're not in Tremonton anymore, now are you Dorothy! haha
                 So this past week has been pretty crazy. We are seeing so many miracles up here in Redding that it is absolutely amazing. I think a huge part of the reason that we are seeing so many great miracles is because we are taking and following the counsel of the Prophet. We are really applying what we have learned about working through the members, and I can tell you that it is amazing the difference that it is making. The miracles are just crazy too, like this week we received about 5 referrals and most of them were for other Elders. We were able to pick up quite a few new investigators as well. Our days are being filled and the Lord is maximizing our time. For example this past Wednesday was not very full. We planned the night before and we were just planning on doing some finding and contacting Less Actives. Well next thing we know some one wanted to meet, then another, then another, then next thing you know we were completely booked throughout the whole day. One man called us up out of the blue and was like hey I have someone that wants to meet you right now. So we headed over and found out the he had given her a Book of Mormon and she had already read through the 12th chapter of 1st Nephi. She was extremely interested and excited to learn more. In our first meeting with her we committed her to be baptized and she accepted. That is definitely a miracle if you ask me. Also the ward is really starting to get behind us. The Bishop is fired up, the Ward Mission Leader is fired up, and so is the entire Ward council. It is such a blessing to have a great ward behind us. I want to tell you about a great lesson we had this past Saturday, We met with this Recent Convert from the singles branch that was having some trouble. She was feeling very alone and unloved. The initial feeling of excitement and fire from being baptize was starting to wear off. She was just having a real rough time. I shared with her D&C 121: 7-9. It was such an amazing feeling as she read that. In fact she could not make it all the way through before she burst into tears. She told us the next day that, that is exactly what she needed to hear. I was so grateful for the spirit at that moment and moving me to share that with her. I was then able to testify to her how the lord is here for us and how he cares very much for us but sometimes we have to go through trials to learn and grow.
                    Things with Elder McMurray are going great he is such a great companion and I am learning so much from him. He has been out about 20 months now. Things are all going well and all of your prayers are definitely being felt.
                  Well I love you all, I don't think you noticed that my address was in last weeks email so here it is again 2148 Placer st. Redding, CA 96001. I love you all and hope that all is going well. Keep up those prayers. I love you all.

 Love Elder Payne

Elder Payne and his new companion Elder McMurray

 Hot! Hot! HOT!

Email: So Much Great News!

Hello to you all,
                     Well from moms email it sure sounds like you are all having a pretty busy summer. That sounds pretty normal for the Payne household. Katey congrats on making All-American that is awesome. I am so proud of you. Hannah I am so happy for you as well. It sounds like you are staying extremely busy as well. How is the play practices going? Are you working hard? I sure hope so because the harder that you work the more it will be worth it.
                      So I am not going to tell you about transfers yet because I want to keep you on the edge of your seat. Let me tell you a bit about this past week. This week we were on exchanges quite a bit. That is one of my responsibilities as District Leader is to go on exchanges with everyone in my district. Well just with scheduling two of those exchanges happened on the same week. It made it feel like I basically wasn't in my area at all this week. ha ha Elder Hyde did a great job of taking over the area. He is really filling in very well. On Wednesday we had Kris Conrad's baptismal interview. That went very well. He was a little surprised when he showed up to the church and there were 6 Elders there. Everything was going well, or so we thought, until the Elder who was interviewing him asked me to come in for a moment. He told us that he felt that we should postpone the baptism for a little bit because he didn't get a clear answer on whether or not President Monson was a Prophet. Kris was like hang on a second I didn't say that I said that all the Prophets are Prophets and that the Priesthood authority was handed down. It was really neat seeing him really stand up for his beliefs like that. Anyways the interviewer was like alright sounds great we will proceed then. So then came the baptism on Saturday. Kris came and picked us up on Saturday at about 11:20 because the baptism was scheduled for 12:00. When we showed up it was great because we had to hand him off to other elders they had to take care of setting everything up. Kris was so amazed at the support that he got . There were quite a few people that showed up for the baptism, people from both our ward and from there ward. The baptism went very smoothly. I was so grateful that i was able to step down into the water with someone as prepared and amazing as him. When he came up out of the water he was just absolutely glowing he just couldn't contain himself. The sister of the other ward were very nice and prepared a great lunch after the baptism. On Sunday Elder Hyde confirmed Kris and he did a great job. He gave him a great blessing as well. I know for sure that Kris is going to go very far. I am so grateful that I have had this opportunity to teach him. I know that there are going to be a lot of other people I teach, but I know that Kris is definitely one that I was sent here to teach.
                        I did get to watch the Broadcast at our church building. I didn't realize that Derek was on it I am going to have to try and find it again so that I can try and see him. So as far as facebook and stuff like that, we have not received and info on that yet. I am sure that we are going to be hearing more about that soon. I will keep you updated.
                              Alright so here is the big news. I am being transferred, I am actually going to be a zone leader now. I am also going to the very furthest North zone in the mission, Redding. I get to go be companions with Elder McMurray, who is one of my very good friends out here. I am so pumped for a variety of reasons, great area, great, comp, and many others. So that is all for now I love you all and you are all in my prayers. Thank you for all of the prayers on my behalf as well. I love you all.

Love Elder Payne

Email: Investigator Feels the Spirit

Hello there family,
                         How is the always busy and crazy Payne clan doing? It sounds like there is finally actually a chance for things to slow down, at least maybe a little bit. I am glad that last week went smoothly for all of you. I know that the last week is a lot of times the most stressful time of the year. I cant believe that dads car got broken into. That is crazy. You guys might be a little to trusting of our neighborhood. It is sad to see the evil of the world even creeping into our little area of the world.
                        Well let me tell you a little bit about my week. This past week has been a pretty decent week. We had Zone conference on Wednesday here in Rocklin. We got together with one other zone. I didn't have too many buddies in that zone but I was able to see a few guys. A lot of the zone conference was based on not shrinking. He based that part off of a talk given by Elder Bednar. I will send that talk to you.Anyways then we went over a lot about Repentance and how best to teach it. It was a very powerful meeting where I learned a lot.
                         On Friday I went on exchanges with an Elder in my district. His name is elder Edwards. He is a great guy. It has been heating up a lot here so Friday and Saturday were both just blazing hot. So during basically that whole exchange we were doing our best to stay cool. I forgot to tell you that on Thursday night I did burn a shirt. I sent you guys my memory card in the mail so you will get to see that. It was pretty awesome. Anyways the exchange went really well. We talked to some less active guy in there ward and he is a California highway patrolman so we got to talk about guns a lot which was  great.
                          So Friday E. Hyde and the other elder he was with taught Kris the Plan of Salvation lesson. He apparently was just ecstatic about it and was loving that Plan that we have. He wanted to meet again with us which was great. We met again the next day so on Saturday. We went over the Gospel of Jesus Christ and covered a lot about Repentance and how we can be cleansed from sin through Christ. He was about in tears at some parts of the lesson. Then after the lesson I asked him if he felt like he knew that this church was true and if he needed to get baptized. He responded that yes he did and that he really felt it when we asked him to be baptized. When he said that it felt like an electric shock when from the top of my head all the way through my body and out the tips of my toes. It was such a neat experience and to feel the spirit that strong at that moment was such a confirmation to me that he truly is prepared. He came to church again on Sunday and he brought fast offerings and he was even parInvticipating in class. He is such an amazing individual and he truly has a testimony of all of this.
                      I just wanted to tell you all thank you so much for the package you sent me. It is so crazy that I already hit my year. I really feel like I have grown so much and that I still have a lot of growth to come. I am still trying to work hard and fulfill my duty out here. I love you all so much and I am so grateful for you all. May God continue to watch over you and protect you.

Love Elder Payne

Link to Elder Bednar's talk that Elder Payne refers to- http://www.lds.org/broadcasts/article/ces-devotionals/2013/01/that-we-might-not-shrink-d-c-19-18?lang=eng

Email: Baptism of Keriann and Tyler

Hello to my great family,
                                  How have you all been doing this past week. It sounds like things there are crazy as ever. I hope you all are at least finding sometime to sleep in all of your busy schedules. I know there are a ton of the families out here that are going crazy this time of year and I just kind of chuckle to myself and think ya I remember what that was like back home.
                                    So just a little update on how I am doing. I am officially feeling a ton better. I thought I had kicked on Wednesday because I was feeling much better and we were able to go out and work some more and get some things done. Then on Thursday we went on exchanges and something hit me again Thursday. I woke up and I was really sick again. Mainly just my stomach. The worst part was having to go and teach District meeting. I was able to work through it and we ended up having a pretty good meeting. Later on that day I was feeling much better and we were still able to go out.  I think I am completely recovered from my little spell of whatever it was that hit me now. Hopefully I scared it off because i definitely do not want that coming back again. It was not fun at all.
                                      As you all know we had a baptism on Saturday, that went absolutely amazing. There was so much support from the ward and I am sure that Keriann and Tyler both felt so welcome there. We were able to get a lot of the young women from the ward to come and help with the program. I think that is great because they will both really be able to feel just how much they are cared for. Elder Hyde was able to baptize Tyler and i got the opportunity to baptize Keriann. When they both came up out of the water they just seemed ecstatic. After I was talking to Tyler and he just kept telling me that was so great, and that was so fun, and i loved that. ha ha He is such a great kid. Then on Sunday I got to confirm Tyler and Elder Hyde confirmed Keriann. So we just switched. That went great as well and the spirit was very strong there. They are going to do so well and I know that their family will be very blessed for all that they did.
                                    Now a little bit about Kris. Mom you asked why we don't meet at his house. So that is because the lady that he is renting from is extremely anti-Mormon. He is scared that she might get kicked out if she knew that he was interested in the church. He is still doing great as well. We met again last Friday and he committed to be baptized on the 22nd of June. We covered, in our lesson, the rest of the Restoration lesson that we did not cover last time. He once again loved the concept of the Priesthood and that we have Apostles and Prophets on the Earth today. He came to church with us on Sunday and there were some great messages that were given. There was a lot on missionary work and finding answers for ourselves There were also some that were about conversion. It was such a great time for him to be there. He is also wanting to meet with us more!
                                       i just wanted to write quickly on my year mark. Wow isn't it crazy that i have been out a whole year! For me it has just flown by. I just finished the Book of Mormon from the challenge that we did. It just struck me when I finished oh man this is the goal I have been working for, for so long. It was so amazing to look back and see just how far I have come in what seems at times like an extremely short amount of time. I only pray and hope that I will continue to grow and learn as much I have in these past 12 months. Thank you for supporting me so well and I ask that you will continue to help me over these next 12.
                                    Well that is about our week. There wasn't too much that has been going on, mainly because I was sick. I love you all and I am so grateful for all of the support and love that you have sent my way. I hope you all had a great memorial day weekend and good luck with the rest of you week.

Love Elder Payne
                   

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

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

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

Email: Baptismal Date Set

Hi everyone,
                 Well let me tell you about a very interesting week I had. Things were quite slow here, perhaps one of the slowest weeks that I have had thus far. I was able to witness my fair share of miracles thought that is for sure. So as far as lessons that we were able to teach, they were few and far between. Both Elder Holbrook and myself came into this week extremely excited because we had set up the week very well. We had multiple lessons set up and lots of people to visit. Well starting Monday evening a trend started to emerge. Cancellation after cancellation started happening. It seemed like our appointments were just dropping like flies. Even those investigators who are super solid and never drop there appointments had to cancel. It was just an extremely weird week. Definitely the greatest miracle we saw this week was we were able to set a baptismal date with one of our new investigators. His name is Chris, it was really neat because we went over to a friend of his that is a member and he ended up bringing his friend as well who is not a member and guess what?  We ended up setting a baptismal date with him as well. That was so amazing seeing two people who were so prepared to hear the gospel really accepting the invitation to follow Christ. The date is set for the 9th of March. Transfers are coming up this next week, and I have a good chance of being transferred this time. It will be very interesting to see what happens though because there are so many new missionaries that are coming out it could really put a kink in how things are usually run out here.  Also this past Friday both Elder Holbrook and I got really sick. I am pretty sure it is because we both ate something bad and it made us both very nauseous and sick. We recovered by the next day though. Something that we got to do on Saturday was a lot of fun. We offered service to a less active lady and her family about a week previous and they said they are building an add on to their house and could use a little help with the construction. So I got to try my hand at a little construction work. I was helping do the flooring like laying boards and putting in stuff like that. It was pretty fun and I think I did alright, if not the family will know in a couple of weeks when they step on a weak spot in the floor and fall right through. haha  Even though this hasn't been the best week in the world I was able to keep my hopes up the whole week. I am very grateful for my Heavenly Father giving my strength when I was in need.
                                              SO it sounds like things are going well back home, busy but good. Staci I am praying for you especially in these next few weeks. Good luck with everything. To answer your question mom I have been putting that address just so if they want to send it there they can. Yes I did get dads letter and I sent one to mom just today so be looking for that.You probably shouldn't send anything to me until I find out what is going on with transfers so just letting you know. Thank you for all that you all do for me. I hope things continue to go well for all of you. I love you all.

Love Elder Payne

Email: Feeling the Savior Guiding Me

Dear everyone,
                         How is everyone doing back in freezing Utah? Are the computers even still working with how cold and snowy it is? haha  It sounds like there has been a lot going on back home, just like every week I guess. That was a really sweet story about Hannah. I really appreciate you sharing that with me it helps me to know and feel how blessed and loved I am. Hannah I hope you know that I love you as well. Also that is a huge bummer that the bears lost. It sounds like it was a real heart breaker. I'm sure they will bounce back though and turn out just fine. I am really glad that dad liked my card i definitely put a lot of thought into that one and gave it my own personal touch if you couldn't tell. When I saw it in the store I was just like man that is definitely right up dads alley. Oh yeah make sure you aren't wrecking that truck, haha I still really like that thing and I would like to return with it still in one piece, however that sounds just like dad though gotta push  it to the limit. So as far as Staci goes wow I cant believe there are only like 4 weeks left. That is insane! Don't fret too much Staci, you are going to be an excellent mother.
                              So a little bit about what has been going on out here in good ole' California. As I'm sure you know it has been a chilly 65 degrees out here. Some days it is so chilly I even have to think about putting on a jacket. Whew Life is tough! haha So this past week has been a great improvement from the week previous. It started out kind of slow, with not finding many people home and a few cancelled appointments but towards the end it definitely took off. So this past Wednesday was an amazing day. We had a lesson with Juanita and Mario where we went over the Plan of Salvation and their Book of Mormon reading and they were taking it in so well. Everyone about the Plan of Salvation just rang so well in their ears. She was a little worried that she wasn't really going to be able to know who her mother was in heaven so we shared Alma 34: 32-34 with her and she was absolutely amazed. Just simply that we are the same people on the other side of the veil as we are here, and if we do our best and live correctly we can live with our families forever. She was so happy to hear all of that, and wow the Spirit was so strong in that meeting. We also talked about both of their Book of Mormon reading so far and in a week and a half she had read 70 pages. I was absolutely shocked when she told us that, the reason being is that we have had such a hard time getting her to read. We set a goal with both of them to finish 2nd Nephi and then come to church. Well they both agreed and so hopefully they will be coming very soon.  So later that night we had a little scheduling conflict, we had to decide between dinner and a lesson with our recent converts or dinner and a lesson with one of our investigators, so we did what any missionary would do and went to both. So we had a lesson at 5:30 and dinner at 6:30 at our recent converts, where we taught them the Plan of Salvation. Then at 7:30 we walked about 4 houses down and had dinner about 10 minutes later. As you can all imagine I was quite stuffed because of course I don't want to be rude and not take very much at one house. So I ended up stuffing myself to the point I thought I was going to pop, no joke my belly had to have been as big as Staci's! Only the problem is, mine was only a food baby, not a real baby. We had a really good Restoration with our investigator. Everything went well and he is progressing slowly. The rest of the week was pretty slow, nothing to special ever. As soon as Saturday hit, however, things just exploded! We went on exchanges, elder Holbrook in the other area and me in mine, and we absolutely tore up the town. We were able to find 3 new investigators before noon. One through potentials, one through a referral, and one through just plain tracting. It was such an amazing morning and I could definitely see the lords hand in it. Two of the three that morning were people that we had tried multiple times as well but could never get an answer. Oh but wait there is more later on in the day I just really felt like we should go try this couple, who we had tried multiple times, but had never been home. Well guess what? We found them home, and they were extremely open to learning more. That day was such a blessing to be able to to really feel the Savior next to me guiding me and helping me a long. So that was pretty much our week. There were many miracles and many blessing pour out upon us here in which I am so very grateful.
                               I was able to read this scripture this past week and I just really want to share it with you all. It is Romans 5:19 "For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous."  I just loved how well this stated things. It constantly amazes me how powerful an example is. Just like this scripture states examples are so important. No matter who we are or where we come from people are always watching us, so be the example that our Heavenly Father would be proud of. Thank you all for all you do and all of the support you give me. I hope you all have a wonderful week. Love Elder Payne

Email: "Ask the Missionaries! They can Help You!"

Hi Family,
              Well I sure hope you all are having a great week. From the email that mom sent me it sounds like everyone is doing very well and that you all are keeping busy. So I will fill you in on everything that has been going on in just a sec but I have to answer questions before I go on so I don't forget. So being Senior companion is great. I really like being able to lead and be that kind of missionary rather than one that follows. i am just one that likes to lead rather than have to be lead around not knowing where i am going, so I feel a lot more comfortable as Senior companion. Elder Holbrook is great. We have been getting along very well. He is starting to feel a lot more comfortable around me and other missionaries, so he is opening up quite a bit more. He isn't afraid to call me out on stuff now and I am not afraid to do the same. We argue a bit but it is all in fun and it makes it so we don't hold anything in. So yes things are going well.
                                 Yes we did find some new investigators, unfortunately they cant really meet until the first of the year. That's OK though it gives us something to look forward to. We also were able to get a referral for a family that we picked up just last night, and let me tell you they look very promising. The mother is actually a less active member. She hasn't come to church for a very long time, close to 12 years. She just randomly started coming to church last week and saw an immediate increase in blessings. They were having severe financial difficulties and about to go under when they came to church. The week after she was able to get a job and get a bunch of legal stuff worked out. It was amazing to hear her story and how our Heavenly Father had blessed her so abundantly. Her daughter who is 12 and son who is 17 are very interested in being baptized. The daughter literally asked one of the members of the ward,"How do I get prepared to get baptized?" My immediate thought went to Russel M. Nelsons talk, "Ask the missionaries they can help you!" So we are meeting with them this week and hopefully we can get the two kids baptized by the end of the year!
                             So about skyping. We will be at our Ward mission leaders house to skype around 9 o'clock, hopefully. Which would be about 10 where you guys are.I will probably have about as much time as I want. That will be really cool to have it up on the big screen. That way everyone can see. Whats going on. So I am sorry I don't have any more information about it, that's all I know.
                           So yes i did get your package and thank you so much for it. It was much needed. I was having an absolutely horrible week. The man who was supposed to be baptized called Thursday morning and told us that he wasn't ready to become a Mormon. Man that hit hard. It was very disheartening because we have been working with him for quite a while. We went over Friday to talk with him and we found out that a bunch of anti-Mormon people that came and basically talked him out of it. That pretty much sucked, but we will keep working with him and hopefully get him another date soon. So like I said that package was much needed and yes I have been following the rules. It is much more fun that way, because now i get to open one everyday and spread the fun throughout the days. Anyways that has pretty much been my week.
                            It sounds like there is a lot of great stuff going on back home. That's exciting that Rob, linds and drake all get to be there for Christmas. I sent Drake a package for his birthday I hope it got there before they left. If not it will be there when you return. haha

Well I love you all and I hope that you all have a very Merry Christmas!

Love Elder Payne

Email: Miracle Week!

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Hello Family, friends and all you other people ha ha

 

Como se hace todo el mundo? Espero que todos ustedes estan haciendo muy bien! Bueno, si usted traduce esto usted ser?/span> capaz de ver que me han cambiado a un misionero de habla espanola. Loco eh! Puede usted creer que yo voy a estar hablando espaanoles y ahora que tengo que volver al MTC por un periodo adicional de 6 semanas de entrenamiento. Ok todo eso era en realidad completamente falsa. Me disculpo yo estaba teniendo un poco de diversion.

 

Anyways this past week was a pretty good week. We saw quite a few miracles. The first one came when we were teaching Kaylee. So we were teaching the Plan of Salvation to her.( you may want to try and get a Preach My Gospel so that when I say a lesson you go see what is in that lesson.) Anyways it went very well and it was a lot of fun to teach. We got to use a lot of object lessons. Like to represent the different kingdoms of glory we used different amounts of light. Like we used a flashlight to represent the lowest kingdom then dim lights for the next and finally all of the lights in the room on to represent the celestial kingdom. That was a lot of fun then we also got to use the glove analogy to represent our spirits through out our lives. Then at the end of the lesson we..........wait for it..........committed her to baptism on October 27th! It was really awesome to get a firm baptismal commitment down. So now we just have to coordinate everything with the other missionaries in the Sac mission. The next miracle I saw this week came on exchanges. I went on exchanges with Elder Ashby. How cool? We got to talk a lot about our families and home towns because we have both been to each others towns a lot. So during that day we were able to each quite a few lessons. The most memorable by far was the lesson we had with a less active family. It was a very spirit lesson in which I shared D&C 121:7-8 She was very stressed and seemed like she was about to lose it at he first of the lesson, but as the spirit worked on her she was able to calm down and really listen to our message. After the lesson I felt prompted to ask her if she would like a blessing. She accepted so then I was able to give her a blessing. It was amazing! So this past Saturday we had the Bro-lympics. It was an Elders Quorum activity that was a lot of fun. We had various activities such as spitting contests, tug-of-wars, paintball shooting contests(I was the target!), pie eating(pmpkin pie with almonds olives and crushed prunes Blah), and jousting. It was a blast and I ended up winning the whole thing with 9 gold medals. For winning I got a big steak. Pretty great! Alright last miracle. So yesterday at church we got introduced to this lady. Her name is Honey. She told that she had met with missionaries about 17 years ago. they lost contact when they moved. Anyways she was watching TV when a Mitt Romney commercial came on. She just thought to herself "I think I will give the Mormons another shot" So she just showed up to church. That was so cool and such a blessing. She has had a lot of trails in her past and I know that this gospel can help her. Well the story goes on. We were shopping and came out of the store after we finished. Well guess who came walking up? Yep it was Honey with her husband right behind her. SO we got to talk to both of them. He told us that Honey had spoken very highly of us and our church. As we were leaving he told us "well you can expect us in church on Sunday! I can guarantee that it wasn't just a coincidence that we ran into each other today" That was such a miracle in my eyes. I know that these people are definitely prepared to hear the Gospel. Well I better wrap things up. I love you all so much. I loved all of the good news from back home(Staci and the baby, Katelyn and the dance and Hannah and school) and out here in Cali, ( Rob, Linds and the house) I love you all and keep the good news coming I hope you all have a fantastic week.

 

Love Elder Payne

Elder Payne and his new companion Elder Halle have quite a lot in common

 

Elder Payne in the pie eating contest 

 

Elder Payne won the "steak" with 9 gold medals in the "bro-lympics" in his ward!!