Email: Senior Companion

Well hello to all,
                         Well this has been an absolutely insane week filled with a lot of change. Just to start things off, Tuesday Elder Newcomb packed up everything and headed down south a little ways to what is called Antelope. He was sad to leave this area but I was definitely ready to see him go. It is kind of strange that now I am going to be senior companion all of the time. Especially with only having been in this area for 6 weeks, but I am up for the challenge. So Tuesday afternoon me and another Elder that is training headed down to Antelope to a meeting with President Weston. All of the trainers got together and President Weston gave us some instruction on everything that will be going on as far as training goes and what he expects of us. He told us that the elders that are 6 weeks out right now and the ones that are just getting here are the two most important groups to come out, because they are going to be the ones to train the brand new influx of missionaries this coming spring. So that was really neat to hear. So Wednesday morning was the day that we actually got paired up with our companions. My new companions name is Elder Holbrook. He is from Meridian, ID so I give him a hard time about being from Idaho all the time. haha He is 19 years old and graduated in 2012. He is really smart and knows his stuff really well. He has great greeney fire so he likes to work really hard. I really believe that we are going to be able to get some really great things done in this area.

                        So as far as the people in this area that we are currently teaching. Hailey is still doing really well. She has been going through a bit of a rough patch as far as transitioning from old ways and old friends and old habits to doing positive and good things. She is a strong girl though and I know she is going to do just fine. The couple with the twins, well that is kind of a sad spot right now. They have split up. It doesn't look like there is much hope for them to get back together either. It is so sad to see a family torn apart like that, but that just shows you how easy it is to walk away when you are not married. We are still teaching him and hopefully things will improve in his life. The man being baptized his name is Rodney. He is in his 50's. We are really excited for it because he has been taught for quite a while. There has been a huge change in his life and in his countenance over the past month and a half. So very exciting news Elder Holbrook and I found 3 new investigators this past week. One is a guy named Manny, the other two are a mother and daughter who are about 77 and 40 something. They seem really interested and I know that the things we teach them will bless their lives. They have both gone through many hard times with loss of family and many trials so I know that they will be comforted by what we have to say. This past Friday we had this really awesome program go on. It was called the Holy Night. It was a big program that was all just singing and musical parts praising Christ's birth. It was such an amazing experience to go and feel the spirit there. Just like you were saying mom, there is a special spirit in the air with music. Anyways what it was, was a big stake choir that sang for about 45 minutes. We were able to get about 4 investigators there, which was great. It was so neat to hear the choir and see the love that they were proclaiming through song. This coming week should be a busy one. We have a lot of people to visit and a lot to do.

                            For all of you that don't know my family sent me and awesome Christmas package, filled with all kinds of goodies and decorations of every sort. I love the Christmas season so it was fun to decorate the apartment up a bit. My pride and joy is the tree that they sent me. I personally think it looks fantastic and definitely gets me in the Christmas spirit. I also got to help a family in my ward decorate their tree it was a lot of fun and made me feel like I was back home decorating the tree their. Unfortunately the tree was a little tall for one of the guys to put the star on top so I helped him out by letting him sit on my shoulders and then climbing the ladder. haha oh what fun!

                             So that is about all I have for this week. Things are going great and I am loving it out here. I love you all and I hope you all have a Merry Christmas!

 Love Elder Payne

Email: I'm going to be training!

Hello family,
                   So I may have forgotten to mention but this week is transfer week. It is crazy this past transfer has absolutely flown by. Who woulda thunk that 6 weeks can go by so stinkin fast. Well I guess I will get down to business and let you know what is going on for transfers.......Drumroll please......blubb blubb blubbb, rrrrrrrrrr rrrrrrrrrr JOY TO THE WORLD! I am going to be training!!!!!! I'm really excited. I was kinda hoping I was going to be able to be training soon so I am really glad that I am getting to now. So I don't know who I am getting yet I will find out in the next couple of days, so I will let you know next week who I get and how they are. Elder Newcomb is heading down south a little bit and is going to be the District leader there.
                 So this past week was kind of slow because there was a ton of rain. I mean we got absolutely dumped on. There was a little bit of flooding in places so it was kind of scary. Luckily nobody in the ward got flooded too bad. Other than that it was a pretty regular week. I am really excited for the Christmas holiday coming up. I absolutely love Christmas. Like I told you last week I have been playing Christmas music since Thanksgiving. haha So I hope everything is going well back home. I'm sure the girls are excited for the Christmas break coming up. Well anyways I don't have much to comment on from back home because I guess you haven't sent your email yet. That's ok though I still Love you haha Oh one last thing the Book of Mormon challenge is awesome Thank you Lindsay for making that template it is hanging on my wall. I hope you all have been able to start and are enjoying it. Well I love you all

Love Elder Payne

Well it totally slipped my mind that I hit 6 months last friday haha Yes I got the package thank you so much for that. It was absolutely awesome. Yes i was able to burn a tie. Isn't it crazy that I am at 6 months already I don't know about all of you but it has absolutely flown by for me. Thank you for all of the love and support you always send my way . I love you all

6 month Book of Mormon Challenge

Hunter has asked our family to participate in a 6-month Book of Mormon challenge to countdown his 1 year mark of being on his mission on May 30th. We will start reading the book of Mormon this Friday (November 30th) and we are so excited to support him in this and of course, to read the Book of Mormon together as a family.

 

We'd like to invite any and all to join us!

 

I put together this chart to follow to stay on track to finish in time. If you are interested, please comment below with your email and I will send you an email with this chart in a Word document (The picture quality on this is quite blurry).

 

HAPPY READING!

Email: Thanksgiving and Temple!

 Dear everyone,

                      Well I hope you were all able to have a very Happy Thanksgiving. I heard that there were quite a few places that you were all going so I am sure it was very busy but very great.
So for Thanksgiving we woke up and then went and played flag football for a couple of hours. It was an absolute blast! It was really muddy but I didn't mind it just added to the fun. It was really cool come to find out we had been playing with Mrs. Udy's brother or brother-in-law I can't remember. It was funny so later on in the week we went and visited her. She said she was going to be sending those pictures to you so hopefully she did. After we played football we went and had a zone breakfast. We also played a bunch of basketball. After all of that was done we went to dinner around 4. They had a lot of really great food. The best by far was they got a banana cream pie for me. After dinner we just went back to the church and played some more basketball and some card games. That was basically our Thanksgiving day.

Then definitely the best part of the week was when we got to go to the temple. Oh man that was so amazing! We went early Saturday morning and took pictures before our session. It was absolutely packed in there. It was by far the most spiritual experiences I have had at the temple so far. I just absolutely love the temple, the spirit is always so strong there.

Oh I also got your package that you sent me. Thank you so much for that. It really meant a lot to get that. I especially loved the cookies. Make sure and keep those coming my way. Isn't it crazy that this is the last week of the transfer already! By the next time I email I will know what is going on that way. Elder Newcomb thinks that he is being transferred so we will see what happens. Well I love you all and I miss you a bunch.

Love Elder Payne

Hey sorry I hope you don't take this the wrong way and I want to say this in as nice a way as possible but when you guys are coming our to visit Linds and Rob could you like just not mention it to me because it makes me kinda really homesick knowing you guys are passing like 15 minutes away from me. Thanks a ton I hope your trip to San Fran went well. Love you all.

Visiting Mrs Udy and family (his Middle School Math teacher)

Thanksgiving dinner! 

 Sacramento Temple-





Picture from a Member

Email: Happy Thanksgiving!

Hello to everyone back home......and out here in California,

I hope that everyone is doing well this week. Hopefully things have slowed down a little bit since the past few weeks. It sounds like the move went well and everything has gotten unpacked and put away just fine. Also, Mom, I am SOOOO sorry I wasn't able to help you put up your Christmas decorations. I'm sure you know just how much I missed doing that. haha

So just a little bit about what has been going on out here. We have been really busy lately teaching people. It is really nice to actually have people wanting to learn about the Gospel. I'm sure you are wondering how the couple with the twins is doing. Well they are doing just great. We have taught them the whole restoration lesson and now we are moving on to the Plan of Salvation. He is definitely a big searcher of truth, which is fantastic because that makes our job a lot easier. They haven't been able to come to church yet because he is just starting out at a new job and is afraid to ask for Sundays off already, so I will continue to let you know how things are going there. Also we are hoping to be able to get them married pretty soon. We are working with the bishop to get that done. They are going to be a such a great asset to the ward and I know that the Gospel is going to bless their lives so much.

Hailey is still doing well. Pretty much same old, same old. We just continue to work with her and strengthen her faith. She is a very smart girl and has a lot of questions. I am so grateful for the opportunity that I have to teach someone like her. We were actually finally able to find her mom home. We just went over and talked to her a little bit and resolved any concerns she has. Unfortunately she is still very hard in her heart and is still not open at all to what her daughter is learning. It is so tough because we want to help them both but the mother just wont let us. So we are just going to keep trying and hope that things will work out.

This past week we had our Zone conference. We had the mission president and the AP's come and speak to us. We were there from 9 in the morning until 4 in the afternoon, so yes it was a very long meeting. It was absolutely amazing though and I learned so much. President Weston talked to us a lot about the importance of the Book of Mormon. He then challenged us to read the Book of Mormon in 90 days or less. So from Thursday to the 15th to February we will be reading the Book of Mormon. Which is awesome because we will be reading it as well, starting the 30th of this month.

So, you asked for a bit more info. So I just think, just to go at your own pace.If you go by pages it is about 3 pages a day. So that isn't to bad at all. I think it would be really cool if you all got like new paper back copies (they are only like $3) and marked anything referring to family and any Christlike attributes. I found this site that has a reading progress chart on it. Tell me if you like it or if you can think of any other way to track our progress. http://lds.about.com/od/ldsscriptures/a/scripturecharts.htm

So let me know if you like that one. If you can find one that you like better let me know we will use that.

Anyways so things have been going really well here. I'm excited for Thanksgiving coming up this week. I can't believe that it is already here. IT has come up really fast. We are going to a members house for it. It is also a full P-day so that means we can do pretty much anything. There is a pretty big tradition our here. All of the missionaries get together and have a big flag football game. It is called the Turkey bowl, because it is on thanksgiving. So as you can imagine I am really excited for that. Well I love you all and I hope you all have a great week.

Love, Elder Payne

Email: Honey's Baptism

Dear Family,

Well this past week has absolutely flown by. I swear I was just barely sending you an email. This past week has been really great actually. There has been a lot going on. It has been great we have been meeting with Hailey every day. We feel that with her current situation she really needs the daily contact. We have actually found out a lot more about her situation at home. It is a lot of stuff that for legal reasons we, as missionaries, cannot get involved. I'm sorry but I cant really tell you because it is private and sensitive stuff. Just know that she is doing great! She is learning and growing every time we meet with her. It amazes me she is already wanting to teach stuff to other people.It is really neat to see someone want to learn so much. it is interesting because she does want to learn so much so quickly. We kind of have to tell her to slow down a little. She has to get the basics down before she can dig into some of the deeper stuff. In our reading with her we came across 2nd Nephi 28:30 "For behold, thus saith the Lord God: I will give unto the children of men line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little; and blessed are those who hearken unto my precepts, and lend an ear unto my counsel, for they shall learn wisdom; for unto him that receiveth I will give more; and from them that shall say, We have enough, from them shall be taken away even that which they have."

It applied really well to her situation and I really think it will help her. Keep praying for her. She is really one that needs the support. It was really cool, Elder Newcomb had an extra set of really nice leather bound scriptures, so we had Sister Nielson take them and have her name put on them and we gave them to her. She was so excited to get them. She loves them so much she doesn't even want to use them in fear she will mess them up. She is such a sweet person and has such a sweet spirit, i really hope things work out for her.

So the other big main point of this week was Honey Greenshield's baptism. It was so awesome getting to go and see someone that I had taught be baptized. So Saturday afternoon we headed down to Citrus Heights to meet up with the other Elders. We had someone from our ward in Lincoln drop us off in C-Heights. It was really great because I got to see Elder Halle again as well. So we all met up and headed to her Baptism. It was an amazing experience. She was so happy and was just absolutely glowing. Her husband Will was just as excited if not more. Side note he has some medical issues he has to work out before he gets baptized. Anyways it was really great because Honey asked both Elder Halle and myself to participate in the baptismal service. She asked us both to be witnesses. I was so happy to see her making such important steps in her personal progression. That was definitely one of the most spiritual experiences of my life. i don't think I have ever seen somebody that happy and that sure in what they were doing, it was just fantastic. (Oh yeah in her picture, she had a tumor removed from her brain and it caused partial paralysis in a side of her face.) I was just so grateful that I was able to be a part of her life, even though it might have been in a small way, I am still grateful.

 

It sounds like there has been a lot going on back home. It is definitely that time of year and things will continue to be crazy. I am really glad that the move went well with Linds and Rob. The pictures you sent me of that were great. I really hope they like where they are. It looks like a beautifl area, and it sounds like the people are really great as well. I cant believe how far along staci is. Also it is hard to believe how big the baby is as well. It sounds like she has been growing fast.Tell Tyler good luck with the rest of school coming up. Katey i sure hope everything is going well for you. I sent the family a letter and I mentioned a little bit about you and your situation. Dont worry I will be sending you a better and longer one soon. Last but not least Hannah I am sorry you were so upset. It sounds like you have got a good new friend that is awesome. I am really happy for you . It is so important to have good friends.

So about the Book of Mormon challenge, I am glad you all liked the idea. I have a paper I need to send you that can help mark your progress. I will get it to you. Linds maybe you could do something on the blog that helps mark the progress. Im not sure if you can do that but just let me know. Well I think that is pretty much all I have for you. I love you all. Have a great week.

 

Love Elder Payne

 

And, here's a picture that was texted to my mom from a member sometime last week. It's of Elder Payne and his comp at a Birthday party at the church. 

 

Email: 6 month BOM challenge

Hello to everyone,
                    Well I hope everyone is finding some time to rest after this past week. It sounded like things were pretty crazy everywhere. I saw on Lindsay's blog that you all made it alright and didn't have the usual mishap of some kind that accompanies big moves in our family. How is the new house looking? Are you enjoying the beautiful Northern California weather? I really hope everything is going well for you. Staci have there been any new updates with the baby? How big is she now? How did the bears do this past weekend? I heard they were playing to see if they would go to play at Rice-Eccles stadium so hopefully they won. Thank you very much as well for the package you sent me. I baked the cake and it ended up looking pretty cool.
                     Well now that I got most of my questions out of the way let me fill you in on what has been going on here in Cali. This past week has been a very tiring one. We were out a ton and were able to teach quite a few lessons. I'm not sure if i told you about Hailey Duncan so if i did i will just retell you about her. So Hailey is a 14 year old girl who they started teaching only about a week before I got here. She is really smart and loves learning about the Gospel. She really wants to be baptized as well. Unfortunately her parents are extremely against her getting baptized. Her father is an extreme alcoholic who is drunk every day by noon. Her mom is just super anti-Mormon and wants nothing to do with her daughter.it is just such a hard situation and I feel just terrible for her. she has such a tender heart and has probably cried 9 or 10 times during lessons. Right now we are just reading through the Book of Mormon. If she cant get permission from her parents to be baptized she has to wait until she is 18. So we just keep working with her as much as we can. She actually wants to meet with us like every single day! Its really great because she is one that really needs daily contact. The man we had a baptismal date with actually dropped us so we are no longer teaching him right now. It sucks but hopefully he will realize how much this gospel can help him. We set two more baptismal dates on Friday for December 8th. A husband and wife named Juanita and Mario. They are really searching for the truth and we are trying to help them find it. Some of you might be wondering how Halloween went. It was alright. It sucked because we had to be in by 6 because they don't want any of us getting in trouble. Those are just kind of the main updates of this week. We have a few more people that we are teaching but they aren't as mentionable as the ones I put down. This area is really great and i am really happy to be here. Oh also another thing that i found out that is really cool. Honey Greenshield is getting baptized this coming Saturday. Elder Halle told me and I was so excited. I immediately called my mission president to get permission to go to it. He told me I could so i am really excited to go watch her be baptized this coming Saturday. I will make sure and let you know how it goes. So that is the update from this week. Things are going really well and i am really happy here.
                                          Something I have been thinking about doing. I want to do a 6 month Book of Mormon challenge. On the build up from 6 months to a year for me being out here. It would be about 1 chapter a day for 6 months. Starting on the 30th of November. It would end about the 30th of May.(my year mark) Let me know what you think. I think it might be kind of fun to do. Just let me know what you think about it. I hope you all have a great week. I love you all very much.

                                                                                              Love Elder Payne

I hope you like the pictures!

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

Pictures Galore! (Sept-Oct)

The memory card is back and we have many pictures to share! Enjoy!

Pictures from 7/28/12-10/17/12

(with Hunter's captions)

Pioneer Day Celebration

 Creepy spiders I saw-

Awesome picture I made- 

 Somebody's cool dog-

 The Triple Burger- I ate a triple, then a double, then a single. Yes, I was very sick after.

 Pretty flower-

 Last P-day before transfers-

 Last time with Elder Woolley-

New companion, Elder Halle/ We got new chairs!-

Nathan and Renton, the two coolest kids in the ward-

My little trick I do-

 Ultimate Plan of Salvation chart-

 Brolympics (ward party)-

Nasty pie with almonds, olives, and prunes (he won the pie eating contest)

 Jousting, I was the overall champion- (with red helmet)

 Bouncy velcro wall-

 Sweet rifle-

 Monkey bread!

 Sister Funua-

 Announcement 18 year olds can now go on missions!

 Elder Rodriguez, Spanish Elder-

 Daddy Daves, Part II

 We are Awesome!

(Elder Halle)

 Last of the district-

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: How great will be your joy...

Hello to everyone back home and those suckers on a cruise ship somewhere in the Caribbean,
                     Well I apologize for the size of the email last week. I didn't have to much time so I had to write quick. So this past week has actually been a pretty good one. We had a lot of up and a lot of downs. I did learn a ton though and that, I believe is the biggest thing. Anyways so let me begin with the downs of the week.
                    We officially handed Honey and her Husband off to the Sacramento missionaries. It was a sad, sad day but it had to be done. We were able to talk with Honey and her husband as well as deliver a large print Book of Mormon to her. They were both just very grateful for the service that we had provided them as well as the time we took to help them learn more. I have been talking a lot about them both in my Presidents letters that I send each week. We actually had Presidents interviews earlier today. He told me that there are going to be some leadership opportunities coming up soon for me. That was pretty crazy to hear. President told me that I should count them as baptisms, because I was part of their conversion process. It was awesome because he told both Elder Halle and myself that if and when they get baptized we will be able to attend. That was such great news to hear. Dad shared with me some great incite, and sent me some things that were exactly what I needed to hear. I was very grateful for what he sent and it helped me to understand so much.
               " If Honey does join the church, you can still take pride in knowing you helped "bring" her into the gospel, and you were part of it.
               "And if it so be that ye should labor all your days…and bring, save it be one soul unto me, how great shall be your joy with him in the kingdom of my Father! And now, if your joy will be great with one soul that you have brought unto me into the kingdom of my Father, how great will be your joy if you should bring many souls unto me!” (Doctrine & Covenants Section 18, verses 10, 15, and 16.)"
                 So more of the ups of the week. We picked up a new investigator. His name is Gary. He is an awesome guy that we actually have a lesson with later on today. I just really hope the things that we teach him will stick because I know that is can really bless his life. Things with Kaylee are still going great as well. She is a very smart little girl so she is able to understand so much that we teach her. We have just been going over the commandments with her. She has maybe one or two lessons left. So that is pretty exciting as well. Other than that this past week has been a pretty ordinary week, nothing to crazy or unusual that has gone on. Ok I guess there were a few interesting things that happened. So we were on exchanges last Wednesday, I was with our District leader in my ward. At the beginning of the day we had set a goal to stop every single person we could at bus stops. So we are going around doing this. We had just crossed a street when I noticed a lady sitting at a bus stop. So before I passed her I slammed on my brakes to talk to her. Well the other Elder was behind me and didn't notice that I had come to and abrupt halt, so he looked up just in the nic of time to barely swerve passed me. I just continued on talking to her while he had to gather himself and come back around. We thought it was pretty hilarious because we just about ate it right in the middle of the busiest street in my area. So later on down the same road we were riding next to each other, he was in the gutter and I was on the sidewalk. All of a sudden a bus pulls up right next to us and starts to merge right into where he was. So he had to come right up onto the sidewalk to avoid getting hit. unfortunately that is exactly where I was. Also I couldn't get over any further because there was a bench blocking my way. We were so close his handlebars overlapped mine and I could feel his hands touch mine, ,all of this while still riding at about 15 MPH. Pretty fun stuff . Luckily we didn't collide and we ended up being OK. Anyways so that is a little bit of my week.
                    It sounds like things are going well back home. I  cant believe that Linds Rob and Drake are really getting ready to move out. It just doesn't seem real to me. I really hope things go well in the move. Also Staci I am so excited for you. I loved seeing the 3D pictures of the baby. I just cant believe there is really a baby inside you. ha ha How are you feeling about things? Nervous?Excited? A little of both? You are going to be such a great mother and I am so excited for you. Katey I got your letter thank you so much. I sent my reply back to you yesterday, so you should be getting it soon. And last of all but definitely not least Hannah thank you so much for the brownies. They are delicious. My companion was even saying how amazing they were. So thank you so much for doing that. You are getting to be a pretty amazing cook. Also mom and dad I hope you are having fun out on the cruise. I am extremely jealous because that is the ship that I wanted to go on like a year ago. Anyways things are great. Thank you so much for all of the support. I know you are all doing so much to help me out and I thank you for that. I love you all so much.

Love Elder Payne

Letter from a Member

Monday, October 14th, Mom received this email from a member. What an awesome surprise and so great to hear how Hunter is doing from someone else's perspective!

Hey Sheri,

The Elder's are over for dinner right now. They were playing a card game after dinner with my kids that your son taught them. We kinda had a weird dinner tonight. I asked the Elders last month what their favorite meals were. Your son said Poppy seed chicken. He described it pretty well, so I looked up a recipe on the internet that was pretty close to what he described and made it for them last time they came over. That was pretty good stuff! My kids really liked it too. This time was Elder Halle's favorite dinner night which is breakfast foods. It was a little messed up cuz we didn't have any milk to make buttermilk waffles out of so we had pancakes and cake dessert waffles. We also had this breakfast pizza thing. Anyways, I'm stuffed. I hope I didn't ruin these missionaries favorite meals. After having my cooking. Hee Hee. We are having them over again the Sunday before Halloween so we are having a fun meal that I will be more prepared for..

The missionaries sounded great today in Sacrament meeting. They helped sing a part in the Young Women Presentation. It really turned out awesome. Everyone in the ward loved it. I wonder when my son goes on a mission if he would actually get up and sing in church cuz he's not so much the singing type, but hopefully, especially because he thinks your son and Elder Halle are cool and they sang.

So I asked your son what I should tell you...my daughter just said to tell you that these missionaries are "hyper and annoying" hee hee. Your son just said to tell you that my son should marry Katelyn. Not so sure Katelyn would like that since she has a boyfriend....I think I will see if we can play a quick game of pit before they go home tonight.

I really appreciate the example these missionaries set for the youth of our ward!

Sandi Bryan

Pictures of Elder Payne & Elder Halle at the Bryan's Home-