Email: Meetings and Lineage

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

Love Elder Payne

Email: Baby Sara and Beautiful Hike

Hello Payne Family,
            Holy Smokes only one week goes by and the whole world back home changes. First off I want to congratulate Linds and Rob with their new little baby Sara. That is so awesome that she is finally here. It seems like just yesterday that Drake was telling me over Skype that she was pregnant and now she is already here. I am really sad that i wasn't able to be there to meet her but i know i am where i should be.

         So mom i did hear about Hailey getting baptized. That was such a miracle to hear that. It has definitely been a very long road for her and i am so sure that her getting baptized is going to help her so much. I did call President to find out if I could go down to it and for some reason he said no. I don't really understand why. Him telling me that was really upsetting. I mean someone that i had worked so much with and poured so much time and energy into and I am not allowed to go and witness it. I didn't really get it. It especially sucks because i talked to her and congratulated her on getting baptized and she told Elder McMurray and I that we had to be there. Now I have to tell her that we aren't going to be able to go really sucks. I am sure everything will work out fine though I just wish it had gone a little different.
               
             So this past week was really quite slow. We were able to see  a few miracles though. Unfortunately the week started out with both Elder McMurray and I getting sick. It really was a bummer because getting sick really sucks but even worse getting sick out here on your mission is even worse. We did our best to push through it though. On Tuesday we had this great service project. We along with the whole young men's quorum went to a less active guys house that we work with a lot. He had a whole lot of yard work that he needed to be taken care of, so everyone brought their weed whackers and went to town on all of the weeds. They had everything cleaned up and ready to go in a matter of about 45 minutes. It was really impressive. Then after we had sort of a impromptu lesson with all of the young men and even better our investigators that came and helped as well. The Bishop said some very powerful things about cleansing ourselves and preparing for missionary service. It was great because both I and Elder McMurray got to bear our testimonies of missionary service. That was a wonderful night. On Thursday we had a lesson with those same investigators and set baptismal dates with them. Oh by the way they are the son and husband of the lady we baptized a few weeks ago. Anyways they accepted the date of Sept 7 for baptism. We are so excited for them both and are working very closely with them to help them get there. So now comes the highlight of the week. So all of the youth in the ward have been planning on going and doing a big hike up a mountain near here called Mt. Lassen. We thought hey this would be a great opportunity to take our investigator to get to know the youth, so we got to go on an awesome hike. We hike from about 8,500 feet to about 10,500 feet elevation. It was a beautiful hike and very spiritual as well. We got to say a prayer on the top of the mountain and wow that was amazing. I am very grateful that i got to go on that hike and see all of that. It was definitely an experience I will never forget.
             Well there is pretty much my week, it was definitely a great week but it was a very interesting one as well. I love you all very much and I hope your week goes great

Love Elder Payne