New Address

Elder Hunter Payne

2995 Lower Wyandotte #8

Oroville, CA 95966

Email: Arrived in Oroville

Good morning,
        Well I sure hope this past week has been a good one for you all. Things here have been pretty crazy as I am sure you can imagine. It was actually a pretty long week for me. It seems like the first week in the new area is always a long one. We spent most of the week just going around and trying to get to know the area. This is a pretty big area so there is a lot to cover.

  Last Monday was a pretty crazy day. We spent most of the day just running around and trying to say goodbye to a few people. I obviously didn't have a whole lot of people to say goodbye to because I wasn't there very long. There was one family that I got pretty close to, the Brown family. They are actually moving out to Utah in April so I told the one guy that we had been working with there, that we would have to go do some stuff together when I got home. His name is Cody and he isa nice guy. Currently a little Less active but he is coming back. Anyways that is pretty much what my P-day consisted of. Oh also a lot of packing. You know you never realize how much stuff you have until you have to pack it.

   Then came Tuesday, and that was an extremely long day. I started by actually going and getting some pants! So yes I did get pants finally. I knew that there wouldn't be very many places in Oroville to buy pants so I went and got some there. It was nice I got two nice pairs for only like 35 bucks. Anyways my ward mission leader down in Antelope. He is a really nice guy and good company on the drive up. Anyways when I got here we hurried and threw all my stuff into the apartment and had to go meet up with some other Elders. It was and extremely long and busy day.  I went back and unpacked and got all settled in later that day. The rest of the week was spent meeting people and getting to know the area. I have really been focusing on staying positive and trying to understand why I am here and what it is I need to do. I really feel there is a lot I have to do here and so hopefully I can get it all accomplished in the time I have left.

   So the area I am serving in is actually really nice. It reminds me some of like Logan but a lot more ghetto and a lot more poor. This time of year it is really green and pretty. All of the people are super nice and humble. So it is sort of like a combination of Logan and Redding and South Ogden. haha Anyways my comp is a pretty good kid. You can tell he is very young and has a lot to learn still. He has only been out for 5 months or so, so he is still unsure of his teaching and things of that nature so I am doing my best to help him out. He is from Bountiful Utah so just another Utah boy. Anyways I am getting used to the fact that I am here and this is hopefully where I
am going to finish here.

     We are teaching a few good people so hopefully we can get them to baptism soon.  I will definitely be letting you know more about all of those people. Well I love you all very much and I am grateful that I have such a great support system back home. It definitely makes things so much easier for me. I am glad that you are all doing well and that Savannah is doing ok as well. Thank you for all of the updates, know that I love you all very much. Have a great day.

Love, Elder Payne

Email: Hello from Antelope

Hello family,

Well I am sure that you have a ton of questions for me because well I am in a whole new place and stuff. Well I might as well get right to it. The ward I am serving in is the Citrus Heights 4th ward and Antelope 3rd ward. There are a ton of really great people here. It has been just an absolute whirlwind trying to meet everyone and learn everyone's names and all of that info. It is pretty much the same in every new ward you move into. The first two or so weeks are always just insane and a little difficult. It is really nice having a
really good companion. He is a great guy and a great missionary too. He has been out almost a year now, in fact he has been out the same amount of time as Elder Andersen was. He is originally from Maryland,
but did go to school at UVU for a little while.

So a little more about the area and he people here. I found out that my area here actually borders my first area, Van Maren ward. Something that is really neat is that I found out that a family that I worked with a lot
in my first ward is actually living here in this ward but they are less active, so I am going to go kick them into gear and get them active again. Anyways I am sure there are going to be plenty of adventures for me to share with you all in the coming weeks and months, I definitely look forward to serving here and getting to know
all the people here so well.

So one amazing thing that happened this past week was I got the opportunity to go to the temple. I got to go with one of the recent converts from up in Redding. His name is Cody Ohlau and he has been a member for just about a year and a half. He is going to be serving a mission in Tampa Florida. So Elder Harman myself and another elder he is close with all went to the temple with him for his first time. It was such an amazing experience being able to go to the temple after having been so long since I have gone. I love that place it is
such an amazing place to be. He was one of the most prepared people I have ever met to go through the temple. He is going to be a great missionary.

Well that is about it from me I will have a lot more next week once I get settled in more and have more for you all. Oh my address here is:

4116 Pima Way, Antelope, CA 95843

Well I love you all and hope you have a great week.

Love Elder Payne

Email: Happy Transfer Monday!

Hello to my wonderful family,
I hope you are having a wonderful day, and that this email finds you all safe and sound. It sounds like you all had a great week and that there were a lot of good things going on with you all. I am glad that you mom and dad made it home ok. Also Katey you looked very pretty in your senior ball gown . You had to have been the most beautiful one there.

Anyways this probably wont be the longest email in the world because it it transfer Monday. So the big news for you all is that i am being transferred. I am being moved to Antelope which is all the way down at the bottom of the mission again. It is actually right next to Citrus Heights which, if you remember is my first area. I am going to be companions with Elder Harman he is actually my first Trainees, trainee. He actually served up here in this zone for a while. He is a great Elder and I am very excited to serve with him. I am super sad to be leaving Redding. This place definitely holds a very special place in my heart. i feel like i have been able to get to know the people here so very well. I am really going to miss everyone and all that they have done for me.I cant wait to bring you all up here and let you meet everyone.

Well just to let you know about my week. Well mainly just Saturday and Sunday. We had Elder David S. Baxter of the 70 come and talk to us. We went to the adult session on Saturday night and it was phenomenal. He had my ward council be sort of the example for everyone else. He was interviewing us and asking us questions. At one point i had to stand up in front of the entire stake and explain our role in the ward council. He was a fantastic speaker though. Everything he said was super bold and he spoke with so much authority. I remembered about half way through that he was the one that Uncle Brent knew so I went up and spoke with him after and he totally remembered him. He told me that Uncle Brent is supposed to be taking him to a rodeo sometime soon so he still remembers.

Well that is pretty much it for now. I will let you know more about everything next week I love you all and about the school and registering and all you dont need to worry I will take care of all of that in a little bit I need to talk with President Weston about it. Thank you and once again I love you all.

Love Elder Payne

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: Hello From Redding!

Well hello to all of the members of my marvelous and wonderful family.
I send my regards from Redding. Well I will tell you more about my area and all of the new stuff in a little bit.
          It sounds like you are all doing really good. I am glad that you all made it out to Cali safely. I am happy that I am finally more than two hours away from a member of my family. haha Hannah looks really really cute in her dress. She is going to do so well in her play. I cant wait to hear more about it. It was pretty funny i have to tell you, this is mostly for Katelyn. So I pulled up the pic of her and all of the cheerleaders that you sent me and next thing I know there are 5 other Elders hovering over my computer checking out that picture. It was pretty funny, I had too exit out pretty fast just to make sure that they are all staying focused. Anyways like I said everything out here is going great.
        Now what you are all waiting info on the new area. So we will start out with the negative stuff then move to the great stuff. So as you have heard yes it is extremely hot here. In fact it is so hot that at some points I fell like my shoes are melting. On Tuesday when I got here it was raining, so that was nice because it to ok the temp. down a bit. Then on Wednesday it started to really heat up. Unfortunately because of the rain it was really humid. Since then it has not come down from the 100's, in fact it has been over 110 most days.  The problem is as well that it does not cool down at nights. Last night at 9:00 it was still 93 degrees. It is a lot like St. George weather around here. Now to continue my little pity party the very best part, we do not have A/C in our apt. That makes for some fun times sleeping. Luckily at least we have a swamp cooler. It doesn't do much but at least it does something.
          OK enough with the negative stuff on to the great things. Elder McMurray is a freaking stud. I absolutely love being companions with him. We have been talking and we are sure this is just a sign that we need to be brother-in-laws now. So Katelyn you better start writing him more consistently so that our plans can work out. Anyways things are going great. Right now we are covering two different wards. The main one is the Redding 5th ward and the second one is the Shasta student branch. it is a lot of fun working with people my age and getting to know them. We actually split those wards with a set of Sister missionaries. it makes the work definitely very different but a lot of fun as well. We have a few really solid inv. right now. One family is the Windums, they are such a great family and one that is very prepared. The only thing holding them back right now is that the father smokes and he is really trying hard to quit. As soon as he quits they can get baptized. The other really good inv. we have is Mitch. He just committed to be baptized yesterday. He is going to be baptized on the 20th of July. i really love it here because of the trees and all of the mountains. It is really beautiful here. From where i am I can see a good portion of Mt. Shasta. You should look up pictures of it because it is a really pretty mountain.
        Well that is about it for now I love you all and hope all is well.

Love Elder Payne

P.S. My address is 2148 Placer Street Redding, CA 96001

Transferred to Redding- New Address

2148 Placer Street

 Redding, CA 96001

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: Getting transferred to Rocklin

Dear Family,

Well from reading all of your emails it sounds like the cat is out of the bag. Yes the news is true I am being transferred. I am going to a place that is only like 20 minutes away from where I am now. That part kind of sucks because I was really hoping I would go further North but oh well where I am going will still be great. I am going to Rocklin which is known as kind of the rich part of the mission. I am also going to be the District Leader there. That part is pretty nerve racking. I'm not really sure what to expect but I am really excited to find out what it is like. I was kind of surprised when I found out that I was going to be the District Leader, like I said I'm not sure what to expect but I am very happy that President Weston has put that much trust in me. I am going to be serving with an Elder named Elder Peek. I don't know too much about him yet but I will be sure to let you know. I do know that he is just getting done being trained. He came out with Elder Holbrook.

Speaking of Elder Holbrook he has been selected as a trainer. Every single person in the Lincoln District is training. That is absolutely amazing! There are so many new missionaries coming out that it is just phenomenal. I am sure we are going to see a huge jump in the amount of work being done. Something really neat coming up, I'm not sure if I have mentioned this or not, but we are actually having an Apostle come here. He is coming out on March 9th and is having a special meeting with our mission. No one knows who or why he is coming but it should be a pretty amazing experience.

So this past week was a strange one again. We started out just fine, we had a bit zone conference on Wednesday where three Zones met. That went just fine, but on the way back one of the Elders we drove there with started not feeling very good. He had a really bad stomach ache and some other bad stuff going on. Anyways when we got back we gave him a blessing and Elder Holbrook and I had to go to a lesson. During the lesson we got a call from them but we had to silence it because we were in a lesson. Anyways after we called them back like 3 or 4 times. When they answered the other Elder told us that the sick one had passed out had like a mini seizure and threw up everywhere, so he called an ambulance and they took him to the Hospital. The doctors thought he had appendicitis but fortunately for him it ended up being a lot more minor than they thought. He just had the flew on top of some intestinal inflammation and he was super dehydrated. So he was able to come back like a day later. We were all very worried but it all turned out fine. Unfortunately I was quite sick this week as well. I got hit by a horrible cold. It put me out of commission for a good two days. I am feeling much better now though and am back on my feet.

We were able to have one or two really good lessons this week. One was with the Plauts which went very well! They are coming along slowly but surely and with them I feel like it is only a matter of time. We also had a member just walk up to us in church yesterday and introduce us to someone who is interested in joining the church. That was such a shock and such a blessing. There is so much great work going on here and I am really going to miss this ward. There have been so many great people that I have met and been able to be around I really hope that my next ward will be able to match up with this one. I know that if i go in with the right attitude no matter what that ward can be a great one for me.

Well it sounds like everyone had a great Valentines day which was great. I had a great one as well. It wasn't anything too different. I got a lot of candy and I feel about 15 pounds heavier because of it haha. I cant believe that there is a possibility by the next time i email you guys that there could be a new addition to our family. That is crazy the time has absolutely flown by. Good luck Staci, I'm sure everything will go just great. Well everyone I love you very much and appreciate all of the support that you are sending me. I Love you all and have a great week.

Love Elder Payne

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: New Area/New Companion/New Address

Elder Payne's New Address:

174 S. O Street #73

Lincoln, CA 95648

Dear Family,
                    Well hello everyone. I hope this email finds everyone doing great. Things have been awesome here in my new area. I am really loving the work that is going on. There is so much more going on here than my last area. It is a refreshing change of pace to actually have people that want to be taught. We currently have about 5 or 6 really solid investigators currently. I explained Hailey in pretty good detail in my letter that you should be getting. We met her everyday last week and it looks like we will be doing the same this week.  We also have a man named Dennis. We actually invited him to be baptized last Friday and he accepted. It was pretty awesome and a great lesson. He has a baptismal date for the 1st of December. We are both really excited for him. I haven't met to many of the other investigators because we haven't had lessons with them since I got here. We should be having lessons with them in the coming week. I really love the area. It actually reminds me a little bit of home. It has a bit of inner city but it is only like 2 minutes to get out into the country. The place is prettier and smells a lot better than Citrus Heights. haha I have really been enjoying my new companion as well. He is a lot different than Elder Halle. It is great because he really likes to work hard so it fits me. With Elder Halle I was doing most of the pushing, because he is so close to going home. So I really enjoy that. He is from Las Vegas and has been out 20 months. So I get another old missionary. It is awesome because this coming week we have a lot of lessons set up. So it should be a great week. It is crazy that Halloween is this week! it has come up pretty fast. We have to be in by 6 that night so unfortunately no Trick-or-treating for us. We will probably end up getting tons of candy from members though so don't worry about that. Well I apologize that this is a really short email but I gotta run. I hope everything goes well for you all in this coming week. Especially with the big move coming up. I love you all. Happy Halloween.
                               
 Love Elder Payne

Email: Transferred to Lincoln!

Hello to you all,

                 So wow things are changing quickly. I am being transferred! As you can imagine this came as a huge shock to both Elder Halle and myself. We both thought that we would be staying for sure. When we got the transfer call Sunday night we both could not believe what we heard. I definitely was not very happy that I was being moved. It seemed like just when the work in this area was finally picking up that is when I get booted out of here. I am mostly just upset because things were going so well here. Elder Halle and myself were getting along really well. Like I said we were finally starting to get some good work going, and overall I just love this area so much. The ward members, the area itself, and my companion especially. I guess that is why they needed to move though because the mission is supposed to be a learning experience and if things are too comfortable then it is a lot harder to learn really important lessons.

                   The place I am being transferred to is called Lincoln. It is only like 15 minutes away from where I currently am. I kind of hoping that I would be moved further up north where there is less city, but I have heard really good things about Lincoln.  That is actually where Elder Halle was last at. He really enjoyed it there. My new companions name is Elder Newcomb. He has been out for about 19 to 20 months. I have been told that he is a really nice guy. I sure hope that we get along as well as Elder Halle and I did.

                    This past week has been a pretty good week. We had a few lessons with some people. One lesson with Kaylea that went well. She is going to be baptized in November. Something really cool happened yesterday. My district leader called me up last night. He told me that he ran into Honey greenshields husband, will. He started talking with them about Elder Halle and I. Will told them that he was so grateful for the things that we had done for them. For all of the time and effort that we had taken in helping them come to the Gospel. He went on saying that his life is so different now and he just feels happier as well as Honey his wife. So what Elder Ellsworth was trying to tell me by giving me that call was that I really have made a difference in somebodies life here. I may not really feel like it because I haven't had any baptisms yet but there is just one example of the people that I was able to help. I was really grateful for that call that he gave me. It made me feel so much better about the time that I have spent here. It helped me realize that I really did make a difference. It was so great to hear that and made me feel good to know that I really did help.

                    I was really sad to have to say goodbye to so many people that I have come to know and love. I never thought I could become as attached to this area as I have. I really have come to respect and love all of the members of this ward. I truly believe that these people that I have served around are people that I will have a bond of friendship with for the rest of my life. They really did take me in and help me feel so welcome here and for that I am eternally grateful. Well my next email will be from my new area so wish me luck. I will be telling you all about my new area and comp. I love you all and hope you all have a great week.

Love Elder Payne

Email: New Companion

Hello everyone,

 

Well let me start out by telling you that this past week has been great. I got my new companion last Tuesday and luckily he is a pretty awesome guy. His name is Elder Halle and he is from Missouri. He has been out for a while like I predicted. He has been out a little over 20 months, So this is most likely his last area. In the few days that we have had together we have gotten a long great. We dont exactly have the same interests but we still get along well. He came into this area with a ton of enthusiasm to work in this ward. That was fantastic to. Elder Woolley had been here for quite a while so he wasnt to excited to be here anymore. One of the best things is he does not look down on me at all. It is really nice to feel like an equal.

 

So for the past week I have basically been taking over the area. I have to do this because Elder Halle is new coming in and he has to learn the area and because I have been here the longest I know the area and people better. Things have been going great and we have suddenly been seeing a bit of success. We all of sudden went from just a few investigators to around 5 or 6 promising investigators.

 

We were able to take Alyssa and her friend to a baptism on Saturday. We were able to have a very spiritual lesson before as well. It was amazing because we went into the lesson not really knowing what to teach her and we jsut went with the spirit. We taught her a lot about the blessing that we receive through baptism and mainly receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost. It was so great and so amazing to see her beginning to progress. After that we went to the baptism of a little boy in the ward. We eat dinner there quite a bit so herr asked me to speak at his baptism. I got to speak on the Holy Ghost. It was jsut a simple 5 minute talk but I was grateful for the oppurtunity I had to speak. So after the baptism we invited Alyssa and her friend to come to church the following day and amazingky they agreed. So we were able to bring them to church.

 

We also had a member bring one of her friends and we picked her up as a new investigator. Her name is Riley and she is about 14 she is quite interested in learning more. So I told her that we were the people that could help her. We set up a lesson for this coming Sunday. So that is a bit of what has been going on. It is amazing how quickly we have fallen into work. Iam very grateful for it and cant wait to see how some of it unfold.

 

So it sounds like this past week has been a little hectic. I hope everyone is doing well though. Hannah I hope you got my card that I sent you. It was sent with much thought ans consideration. That was so kind of you all to throw a big party for Celestial. I cant even imagine how much that probably meant to her. I am so excited for the temple dedication coming up. I am not sure if it is going to be broadcast out here but I will check and try to find out. I hope you all have a good time at the dedication service. Dad that was awesome that both uncle wayne and Aunt Becky got animals and that elk was insane! I couldnt believe my eyes when I saw that thing. Dont worry it only makes me a little homesick. You should send me some sagebrush so I can smell it and feel like I am up hunting. haha I hope everything is going well for you at work. That is really exciting that Katleyn got asked to homecoming I remember my homecoming and it was one of the funnest dances that I went to.

 

I would really like to do the book of mormon testimony thing yes. So just type and brief testimony and send it to me. Make sure it will fit in the front cover though. It will definitely help. Testimonies are very powerful and can change people lives. One last thing can you send the last memory card I sent home back to me please. I want to be able to send this one back to you and I need that one to do so. WEll I love you all very much. I have been definitely been feeling your prayers. Keep them coming. I love you all very much and thanks for the support.

                                                                             

Love Elder Payne

 

Letter: Bearing Testimony

This is a really great letter we wanted to share!

7/25/12

Hello Family,
Well here is your letter that you have been so anxiously awaiting. Sounds like things are going good there still. Things are pretty much the same here. we have actually found 2 new investigators so far this week! We are really excited to finally be seeing some success. I know that all of that hard work is finally paying off. I have to thank you for all of your prayers, they are really being felt on my end.

How is everyone doing with everything that is going on with Linds and Rob? How crazy is it to think when you come and visit them you will only be 2 hours away from me? Pretty crazy if you ask me. They really are going to love it out here. Some of the laws are a little ridiculous, but they will adapt just fine in no time.

Wow! Isn't it crazy that my first transfer is already basically done with? Now I only have about 16 more. haha! There is a missionary going home from our district and he kept telling me how fast it goes and how he remembers like it was yesterday when he was in my position. I'm sure it is going to be the exact same way and soon I will be in his shoes.

So I took over the area for the second time yesterday. This time I was with our Zone leader. He is a Tongan/Samoan guy from Florida. He is awesome and we had a great day. He told me that he was really impressed with how well I ran the area. He didn't really even have to do that much. That was really great to hear that I did well. I was really nervous to do it with ZL here but sounds like I did alright.

As you will hear on the video I am sending you, I had my first real experience with a really bashy guy. I stood my ground though and didn't bash back. I just bore him my testimony and walked away. It was probably the maddest I have been out here so far. Just because he was bashing on things that I hold so close to my heart.

Well, I love you all so much. Thank you all for all of the support. Hannah, thank you for the letter. That was very sweet of you. I hope that moose didn't scare you too bad (a moose walked into their testimony meeting at YW's camp). I love you all.

Love, Elder Payne