Email: Filled 2 rows of the chapel with investigators!

Hello there family,
Well I sure hope that you all had a great week. I know out here it has definitely been a great week for us. I will keep my email relatively short but I will make it informative. We started out the week,as you know, by going to mt Shasta for p day. Tuesday we had our zone meeting and also had a couple of really good lessons with some of our investigators. That was fun because that is the meeting that my companion and I get to teach once a week. We had a great meeting with everyone. We talked about the goals in this upcoming year
and also about increasing our faith and vision. We have been trying to do a lot of finding recently because a lot of the people we have been working with have gotten baptized. I don't know what you guys think but I think that is a pretty good problem to have.

On Thursday we had exchanges with the APs , it was great because I got to go down to Rocklin again. I really enjoyed being down around 2 of my past areas again. While down there we attended the Rocklin zone meeting. I really enjoyed that because one of the zone leaders down there is one of my really good friends form up here in Redding.

So the biggest thing I wanted to tell you about was Sunday. At church we probably had one of the best days at church that we have ever had. We literally filled up the first two rows of the chapel with recent converts and investigators, on top of that we had all kinds of recent converts throughout the chapel. It was such a.
Spiritual meeting and really helped me to take in the last few weeks. This coming week is the very last week of the transfer. I have been in this area for a very long time so I figure I have a good chance of leaving. If I do get transferred I will be very sad because I have really come to love the people here and all this area has to offer. So with it being so close to transfers be careful sending mail. I don't want to end up getting transferred and have all my mail end up int he wrong spot so just a heads up.

Well I love you and hope you all have a wonderful week. Be safe wherever you are. And be for I end I want to send a big birthday shout out to Lindsay. Happy birthday! I hope your birthday is as wonderful as you are. Well I love you and hope all goes well in this next week.

Love elder payne.

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: Happy Father's Day!

Hi guys,
            Happy Fathers day!!! Dad i hope you had a wonderful Fathers day because you definitely
deserve it. Did you all do anything fun for Fathers day? I saw the pic of dad in his new shirt. He was looking pretty good. haha
             So a little problem from this past week, So Kris our investigator is doing great. The only problem is that he is no longer our investigator. I will explain. So this whole time we have been meeting with him we did not know exactly where he lived. We had a general idea but didnt know his exact address. Anyways the reason behind that was he had some elders try to come by his house when he had asked them not too. They thought that he had gotten really mad at them so that is why they never followed up with him. So for some reason we got a media referral for him. So that is why we started teaching him. Anyways after all that we found out he actually lives in the other area. We called president trying to figure out what he wanted us to do. He told us that we should have him baptized in the other ward. We had a lesson on Friday with Kris and the other Elders. We had a big lesson on Priesthood keys and the reason that the church is so organized. When we told him that we had to pass him off to the other Elders he started to get really emotional. I felt really bad but i stuck to my guns. After we explained it for a while he seemed to understand it a lot better. He asked if I would baptize him and if Hyde could confirm him. We also went to church in that ward with him. So hopefully everything is still going to go well for him. We are really working hard to make him feel more comfortable. Everything is still on track for his baptism though so that should all work out well.
           We were able to pick up a new investigator this week. She has a ton of friends that are members so it is great because we have a ton of built in fellowship. We are going to be trying to work a lot with Less actives this coming week so that should be great.
            I was thinking there is a good chance I might be getting transferred this next week. So if you were going to send me a letter or anything just make sure you send it before like Wednesday so i will get it before transfers. Thank you all for all the love and support. Yes I did get the package and the G's fit fine. Thank you so much. If you could send me a pic of the fence that is crazy! Love you guys  Love Elder Payne

Email: HOT week!

Hello to my wonderful family,
                       I hope that everyone is doing well after this past week. Can you believe that another week has passed? It seems like I was just barely sitting down to email you all. So how has everyone's week been. I hope things have slowed down a little bit with school getting out and everything. So I have forgotten to ask this the past few weeks when I email but are any of you planning and summer trips or vacations? You can tell me and I wouldn't care I promise I was just curious.
          The past week out here has been a very interesting one. I say that because we had record breaking weather out here. On Friday it hit about 105 degree, but no it did not stop there. On Saturday it got up to 111 degrees. Seeing as you know just how I feel about hot weather I am sure you could guess just how I felt on those two days. I could barely even stand being outside. Thankfully that weather is behind us and we don't have to face any like that for a while longer. It cooled off to about low 90s yesterday and now today it is like 75 or 80. Quite the swing in weather right?
          Our investigator Kris is doing very well right now. He is still meeting with us however now he is meeting with us twice a week. It is great getting so close to his baptismal date. I am so excited for him to get baptized. It is definitely one of the highlights of my mission so far getting to teach him. We talked with him mainly about the commandments this past week. We were also able to talk to him a bit about the temple and how he will be able to go and be baptized for his parents after he is baptized. We also told him that, that should be his ultimate goal, to make it to the temple.He was really happy to talk about being able to do all that. He is definitely ready to take these steps in his life.
           We also had another really neat experience happen to us this past week. We were just biking down the road next to some stores when this lady stopped us. She is probably in her late twenty's maybe early thirties. Anyways she just stopped us and was like hey are you Mormons? We answered yes we are. She then asked do you have one of those books the book of.. book of.. book of something. We asked the Book of Mormon and she answered yes that's it. We told her yes we do and proceeded to talk to her more about it. Come to find out she was from Russia and she had been taught by missionaries back in Russia. Pretty amazing that we were able to find her right there. Anyways we exchanged info and headed out. unfortunately she doesn't live in our area so we will have to hand her off to someone else. Oh well at least she got found.
          So that was a bit about my week. Thankfully things have cooled. Oh I forgot to tell you. Because of the high heat they had to cancel the high school graduation here, about half way through. they had about 15 people pass out. Two of which were in critical condition. Anyways I love you all and hope i get to here form you soon.

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
                   

Beautiful Day!!

Email: Baptism this Saturday!

Dear Family,
                 Hello to you all, well here is a little update on how things have been going. I am currently feeling quite a bit better than I was yesterday and this morning. Up until just a little bit ago I want able to get much fluid or food in me without it going straight through me. As you could tell I was a little dehydrated. Hopefully I can start getting things to stay down now. I should be feeling quite a bit better tomorrow.

                   Well anyways enough about me haha lets talk more about what has been going on out here. Lets start with the Allans, they are still doing great. We had our last lessons with them last week. We covered the Word of Wisdom on Tuesday and then on Wednesday we covered the Law of Tithing. As you can imagine they took all of it just fine and didnt have any problems with any of it. They are looking very solid for this Saturday. We were getting everything set up for the baptismal program and Keriann their daughter wants me to baptize her! I am really excited because this family is one that I have gotten really close to over my time here.

                  Alrighty well let me tell you about one of the investigators we picked up this last week. So this guy was a media referral that we have not been able to contact for about a month and a half. The thing with him was that in the referral info all there was, was a phone number and no address. In the info it said that he did not want us contacting him at his house, which I thought was funny because there was no address anyways. haha Anyways finally we got a hold of him and he said he would meet us at the church. So we met with him and lets just say that he is one of the most prepared people I have ever met. We started out talking about his past associations with the church. He told us that his older sister had met with the missionaries when they were younger. He said that he could really feel a difference when the missionaries would come over. Then he told us how he went to the open house of the nauvoo temple and he just absolutely loved the feeling that he had there. Then he told us how he went to temple square in Salt Lake and had the same feeling. Well I told him that, that was the Holy Ghost and that there is a reason that he feels that way in those places. Well he also came to church with us on Sunday and  definitely the best part was after when he told us how much he loved the High Priest Group. He said that he felt so privileged to be in a room with so many amazing men who have the spirit radiating from them so well. We are going to be meeting with him again on Friday. I am so excited to meet with him again.

                    Hey I just wanted to comment on what has been going on with you guys. That is so awesome about the baby blessing. You all looked great and it looked like it was a great experience. Savannah looked absolutely gorgeous as well. By the way I liked how in one of the pictures dad is holding a cup of Diet Coke. haha I am sorry about the rain, it seems like that is just sort of a theme that goes a long with our family activities. Also something really neat about the scripture that you sent me. So in my personal scripture study I found the exact same scripture and I really, really loved it. It was so cool that you had heard the same exact thing.
                   Well that was pretty much the highlights of our week. It was a good week right up until I got sick things should be better now though.I love you all and hope you have a great week.

 Love Elder Payne

Addendum from Mom:

Hi everyone, 
   Just a little info on the first of his letter.  We got a short email from him on Monday saying that he was really sick and would email us tomorrow.  After you see the picture of him you'll understand just how sick he was.  So thankful that he has great people in his ward to take care of him. The McGhies have been so great to he and his companion and it is their daughter Makaylie that was baptized on his bday, after they adopted her two weeks ago.  Buffy, the mom, called to just check on them since she hadn't heard from them since Sunday and she knew he wasn't feeling well.  She wouldn't take no for an answer and went to the store and got him all the things he needed to get feeling better.  They are an amazing couple and I am so thankful for them.  She called and let me know that she was taking good care of him and that he was slowly getting back to the land of the living.  The Lord is so mindful of his missionaries!! So grateful to have him serving on a mission.  Thanks for all of your love and prayers in his behalf.  Have a great week.
Love,
Sheri

Email: Really Sick! :(

Hi family,
              I am really sorry but this is just a note telling you guys that I am going to be emailing you tomorrow. I am extremely sick today and can barely stand sitting at this computer right now. I was up most of the night last night puking and......well i will save you from the details of the other end. So ya it kind of sucks. In fact i threw up so hard I broke a blood vessel in my eye, and a few in my eye lids!!! crazy right well I love you and i loved all of the pictures. You guys all look so great and little savannah looked just beautiful in her dress. Once again i am sorry but I will fill you in better tomorrow. Love Elder Payne


P.S. here is a pic of me last night after upchucking what felt like two gallons of stuff!!!!

Email: No transfer and Pictures

Hi guys,
            I'm sorry but this email is going to be very short. It is just basically to inform you that I am not being transferred. Elder Hyde and I am staying together for another 6 weeks. There are three of the Elders that are being transferred out. I am excited to get to know some new Elders and get to know new people.
            It was so good to get to talk to you all Yesterday. You don't really know how much you miss someone until you get to talk to them again. I just want to thank you all for all that you have done for me. I truly have the best family in the world. i don't know what I would do without you all. So thanks again for being such a wonderful family. Hey dad I was just wondering if you could send me out my "toolbox" binder out to me. I would really love to have it. Well family you are all great and I promise that next weeks email will be much longer ha ha love you

Love Elder Payne

I hope you enjoy my pictures.

Brother Allan's mountain man stuff-

 For Whitney-

 A member called my Mom for Elder Payne's favorite cake and made her famous chocolate cake for him!

 Birthday packages!

 Mikayla was baptized on Elder Payne's birthday! Hunter was a witness.

 Making goop with Mikayla-

 Birthday celebrations for Hunter!

 Letter from Drake! Drake loves to cut little pieces of paper, scribble on them, and put them in an envelope for his uncle. He also drew him a picture of himself and wrote his name! This all came in one envelope. :)

Skyping on Mother's Day!

Hunter's view-

 Payne Family view-

Email: Update on Investigators

Well Hello to everyone,

Wow what an amazing week that we have had out here. There have been a few low points, but hey that  happens. So lets get the lows out of the way. First off I thank you all very much for all of the prayers that you have said on Cece's behalf. Unfortunately this past week she dropped us and is no longer going to
be taking the lessons. It was really quite a shock how it happened. As you know from the last email that i sent about her the lesson that we had with her went very well. We talked about the Plan of Salvation and how it can bring us strength and peace in times of trial. At times it seemed as if she was about in tears. Well after that we could not get a hold of her at all. We tried relentlessly with no results. Finally we went over one day and she was home. We met her at the doorway and she did not seem that happy to see us. She  mentioned to us that either her Sister or sister-in-law had just passed away. We did our best to show her we cared and asked if there was anything that we could do to help. We asked if we could come back and talk with her more and help her out and she told us that she did not want us to come back. Oh man that kind of sucked mainly because i know how much this message could help her if she would only accept it. I guess at this time she just isnt ready for it. We are going to try back in a few weeks and see if there is any renewed interest on her behalf.

So there is kind of the downer part of the week but let me tell you about what else has been going on here. Mikayla is doing awesome! She is so excited for her baptism this coming Saturday. We have been going over the lessons with her, just to review for her baptismal interview. She is a very smart girl and has remembered basically everything that the other missionaries have taught her. We have been busy setting up the program and so that has kept things interesting. What is awesome is she actually asked me to be one of the witnesses! I am so excited and yes it is going to be a wonderful birthday present. I just want to reiterate what i have already said in past emails. I am so grateful that I have the opportunity to be apart of helping her in her path to baptism. There have been so many missionaries that have taught her and there have been so many prayers said specifically for her to get adopted, and some how i have been lucky and blessed enough to be here and be apart of the actual ordinance. Wow what an amazing experience.

Well Keriann and Tyler are still doing great. We have gone over the Gospel of Jesus Christ and a few of the
commandments. They are taking it all in very well and are learning so much. i love when I get to be able to see the change that the Gospel not only makes in an individual but in an entire family. Each one of them seems to be coming closer together. i know that is because of the importance our Heavenly Father puts on the family. He wants the family unit to be our main focus and is one of the most important things to him. We are going to be putting a big focus on getting young women to their lessons this week. Mainly for fellowship for Keriann. We want her to really feel like she is welcome and want to be their at church and mutual and even at school. Please be praying for her.

So i just wanted to share with you one of the testimonies that was given on this past Sunday. Their was a lady and she was talking about an uncle that she had that found out he had terminal brain cancer. The doctors told him that he only had 3 months to live. So the very first thing he did was go to his bishop. His
bishop asked so why is it you wanted to me with me? The man explained the situation and then asked "Bishop I have a firm testimony of the Plan of Salvation, but I just want to know, Am I good enough?" Wow the second that woman uttered that phrase a wave of emotion past over me. It really made me think and made me ask the same question, Am i good enough? I truly think, that is something that we need to ask ourselves every now and then. Am I living up to the standard that our Heavenly Father has set for us? Or is there more that i can be doing? I want you all to keep that in mind this coming week, because that is what I
am going to be doing.

Well I want to thank you for the package you sent me. That was such a great surprise and thank you so much for the wallet. You know just how much i love Superman and when i saw that i was just giddy with joy. Thank youall for all that you do for me. I really do appreciate the love that i feel coming from back home. I truly have the best family on earth. So a little info about skypng, plan on about 5 oclock your time. If I have to adjust things i will just calls you guys and figure it out. I should have pretty much as much time as i
need because we are eating dinner the same family that we are skyping with so it will work out perfectly.

Thanks again and I love you all.
Love Elder Payne

Pictures from Elder Payne!

My new tracting approach- haha

 This is Brother Allan's mountain man stuff-

 Chili cook-off

Thank you for the package 

I loved this! 

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: Conference Weekend

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

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

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

Love Elder Payne

With Elder Peek and other missionaries-

With new companion and trainee, Elder Hyde, & President and Sister Weston

Email: Easter & Video: Missionary Work & The Atonement

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

With Love Elder Payne

Email: Some Funny, Weird Lessons

Hello my wonderful family,
          How is everyone doing this week? Well I sure hope everyone is doing well. I know that this past week was going to be a really busy one so hopefully things turned out well. So things actually went really well this week. I also got my new bike which is awesome. It is actually a really nice bike, I really like it a lot. Thanks again to everyone who helped me out with that. It was extremely stressful as you can imagine but thanks to all of you everything turned out alright. I will have to send you guys pictures of it as soon as I have one.

So a little bit about this week, it turned out to be a very successful week. I also had a few really strange lessons which i will talk about in a bit. We hit a  whole bunch of less active and potential investigators. It turned up a few pretty good leads. So with the weird lessons, The first of 3 of the weird lessons started on Thursday night. We had a lesson with this lady from our apartment complex. Now we had talked to her about an hour and a half before the lesson, just right before we went to dinner. So we arrive with our fellowshipper and she comes stumbling out of this taxi. I mean she can hardly stand up. Come to find out she was extremely wasted! We tried teaching her but she just kept repeating herself and repeating herself. It was absolutely hilarious. So as you can imagine it was pretty strange. What was really funny though is she called us the next day and apologized for missing the appointment. She didn't even remember that we had come over! So that was the first of the weird lessons.

Next was the very next morning, we met with a new investigator of ours. Come to find out he is Schizophrenic, he was saying some pretty strange stuff. One of those things was all I asked was do you believe that God loves us? He just went off for like fifteen minutes. At one point he mentioned Thor and Asgard and one day being able to be telepathic. That was just a very, very strange lesson.

Then to the third one, this happened the next day, so Saturday. We were checking on a less active member who wasn't there and this guy came out thinking we were robbing his garage. We were like no we aren't stealing we are actually missionaries. So we started talking with him about the gospel, unfortunately he was very high. He even told us that he was smoking medicinal marijuana. He eventually was like I want to have the discovery channel come out and have them follow you around. We were just like we probably cant do that I really don't think our mission president will allow us to do that. but we are going back there in a couple of days, so we will see how that goes. Well as you can see it was a strange but pretty good week. Well I love you all and hope things are going well for you all.

Love Elder Payne

P.S. Hey there I just got your email about the same time I finished this. I am so glad things went so well with Kate at prom. Thanks so much for all of the support you guys are all so amazing. Also thee is a family out here the McGhies that are really amazing. They are wanting some of dads organic flour and sugar and stuff they are really into organic stuff. So give them a call because I am sure they would love to buy some of his stuff. McGhies.

Email: Stolen Bike!

Dear Family,
                 How is every ones week been going? It sounds like it has been quite crazy back there with everything going on. I sure hope you can even find time to get everything done. At least you are all nice and relaxed from your cruise so that should make things a little easier for you. So a little about the bike situation, so we had them under our stairs, unfortunately because i was being stupid and lazy we did not lock them up. Anyways we went to bed that night woke up went down and helped some other Elders with some service and then came back. Some time between when we went to bed and came back they got stolen. We called the police, management and a few others that needed to be informed. What is crazy is that when Elder Peek and my bikes were stolen they were the sixth stolen in the past 7 days throughout the mission! Crazy right? So right now we are borrowing some of the bikes that the mission has. We ordered some from a member who owns a bike shop so they should be pretty good bikes. We are still keeping an eye out for our bikes so hopefully we can spot them soon.
                So as you can imagine with our bikes being stolen it was a little slower of a week. We spent a lot of time dealing with that. We were able to do a little bit though. On Monday evening we got a call from this old lady in our apartment and she needed help with something. So we went over and helped her out. We started talking about how she had come in contact with the missionaries and some of her views on religion and then we talked a bit about the Plan of Salvation. It was really neat just really connecting with someone and helping her to know a bit more about our beliefs. Anyways we are going to start teaching her now and her name is Mariam. So this week we spent a lot of time working with less actives and just trying to get in contact with people. Friday evening we had a ward talent show. I got dragged into performing in it with Elder Peek and another guy in our ward. i will have to send you the video soon. It was a lot of fun and absolutely hilarious. Also on Sunday I got to speak in church. I spoke on the talk given my Elder L. Tom Perry in the April 2009 conference. It is an amazing talking and you guys should definitely look it up and read it. I was a little nervous speaking because it was a homecoming for a guy in the ward but as soon as I got into it I was totally at ease. It ended up going really well and I hope that I was able to spark the members from the talk. In fact there was a less active lady who called us last night, who was in church this Sunday, and she said that she was very grateful for our talks and that they really inspired her to start changing her life and try to become better. I was so happy to hear that i was able to touch someones life like that, what a special experience. Well things are still going well here. I really like this area, it is heating up quite a bit. It has been up in the 70's almost every day. I am so grateful for each one of you. I am so grateful for the inspiration and support that i receive from you all. Please keep me in your prayers. I love you all and I am praying for you all as well.

Love Elder Payne

Email: Meeting Elder Neil L. Anderson

Hello family,
                 Well how is everyone doing this week? It sounds like things have slowed down a little bit but not to much yet. So I was asked to tell you all about the meeting with the apostle in good detail, well I don't know how well I can do that so I will have to do my best. So the meeting was this past Saturday down in Roseville. It was really great because the whole mission came together, and President Weston said that, that was the first time that they had ever done that. I got to see a lot of the guys who I have served around. It was great to see so many familiar faces and guys that I admire. So Elder Anderson came in and he asked us all to line up so that we could all shake his hand. That was such a cool experience and something I will never forget. Even with just the brief interaction that we had I could just fell the love that he had for each one of us. After we all went down and shook his hand we started the meeting. Sister Weston spoke first, then President Weston. He spoke on Alma 13:4 and it was amazing. He talked about how each one of us have a Holy calling to perform and how we must live up to that. After him Craig C. Christensen of the seventy spoke, he spoke on the conversion process. The best thing that he said for me was,"Conversion is not an event it is a process." that was a very inspiring quote and really helped me to understand not only for my investigators but for ourselves as well. After him Sis. Anderson bore her testimony, then Elder Neil L. Anderson spoke. He talked mainly on the atonement and how through the Grace Mercy and merits of Christ we can all be cleansed. It was phenomenal how he laid it out for each one of us. It was so amazing to be so close to an Apostle of the Lord and receive instruction that is focused right to us. I was very grateful for the opportunity I had to hear him speak.
                  So the rest of the week wasn't too eventful. I didn't have to teach District meeting because we had zone meeting instead. We had one great lesson with our investigator. We talked about the Word of Wisdom and how it can be such a blessing in her life. We really recommitted to trying to quit drinking coffee. I received some very great news this past week as well. I found out that Will Greenshield, Honey Greenshields husband, got baptized. That was such amazing news. They are both doing great and they are both really feeling the happiness from being members of this Gospel. As soon as I heard I got her phone number and called her up and got to have a great talk with her. They are both very happy! So that was kinda the highlights from this week. i am doing great and so is Elder Peek. Thank you so much for the package it was much appreciated and yes I baked them all and they tasted great. Well everyone thank you so much for the emails you sent me and all that you have done I love you all so much and cant wait to hear back from you. I love you all very much. Love Elder Payne