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

Great pic of Elder Payne

Email: Update on Investigators

How is the ol' Payne clan doing this week? Well I sure hope everything is going well. It sounds like there has been a lot of craziness that has been taking place recently. I cant believe that the cabinet up above the desk finally got cleaned. That thing has been cluttered since before I can remember. I just wonder how long it will stay that way. Next thing you know the far left closet in the living room will be clean too. ha ha That is great though I am very proud of you all that you got that done. I cant wait to see pictures. I cant believe that you got rid of the couches downstairs. Did you get rid of the big blue one down there as well? I sure hope not because I love that couch. Anyways that is also really good news that Lindsay got the ipad back. She should probably just like duct tape that to her or something like that.
                 So I have had a a very long week our here. I don't really know why it seemed so long but it definitely took a while.  Like I said in last weeks email, we had transfers this past week. We only lost two of the people in our zone but it was sad to see them go. We got two new greenies though so we are very happy about that. They are both great Elders who are going to be a great addition to our zone. Over this past week we had to do a lot of running around because of those new missionaries. We were able to get a lot of good work done though. We mainly met with a lot of our regulars. We saw the Windom family a few times this week. It was great because they are just fired up and really trying hard to make it to baptism. The only problem is the Father is still having a problem with smoking, hopefully he can get past it soon and be able to enter into the waters of baptism. The other great highlight of the week is the Lockwood family. I think I talked a little about them last week but I'm not quite sure. Anyways they are a family we have been trying to work with a lot lately. What we have been doing mainly is just being their friends. At first they weren't really ready to take the lessons because there was a ton of stuff going on in their lives. I am so very grateful that we have stuck with it though. On Sunday we had a great Restoration lesson with them. The spirit was so strong in there. You can just really tell when people are truly open to what you are saying and they are definitely open. They have plenty of friends in the church who have told them a lot of stuff but now being able to hear it first hand from the missionaries I think will really help move them a long. We soft committed them both to baptism and they both accepted. We are so excited for them because I can just see how much it can bless their lives. What was also great was right after the lesson they were just like hey would you guys like to stay for dinner. So of course we weren't going to say no. While they were finishing dinner we got to go out and play football and some games with their boys. I absolutely love that family. So ya that was a few little bits of our week. Overall it was pretty great. This week we have a lot going on we have a bunch of meeting we have to prepare for and that is always great, let me tell you I just love paper work.
                 Anyways I love you all and I hope you have a wonderful week. Keep staying strong and trusting in the lord. Proverbs 3:5-6 I love you all

Love Elder Payne

Email: Gratitude for the Book of Mormon & a Baptism

 Wow so this past week has absolutely just flown by. There has been a ton of stuff going on. We had a few big meetings and we also had a baptism! It was a really good week but also very busy.
                                 This past week we had a really great meeting with our whole zone. It was a great meeting where we got to cover a lot of material. We talked a lot about the Book of Mormon. Mainly a lot about what the BoM is, why we should use it , and how we should use it. We watched Elder Hollands talk where he talks about the BoM. It was such an amazing talk to watch. Every time I watch it I get chills. Just the way he testifies of the truthfulness of the BoM and how we  can gain a testimony of it. I personally am so grateful for the Book of Mormon. It has definitely made a huge difference for me out here. As I am sure many of you remember I had not read the Book of Mormon all the way through by myself before I came out. I struggled to read it and definitely struggled to get anything out of it, but now i am happy to say that has  changed. I have now read through it almost 5 times and wow what a difference it has made. I am able to see the way that the Book of Mormon can affect people. I can see the relevance of reading and studying from its pages. We also talked a lot about the power and authority of our calling. I love studying how it is the lord has called us to this work and has prepared us to be able to go out and teach to those around us. We read from John Ch.15 V.1-16 which is a lot about how the lord has allowed us to assist in this work. i love it!
                        So as I said we had a baptism this past Saturday. It was of a girl named Julia. For a long time it has really just been very off and on with her. At times it has been very difficult to meet with her and others not so much. Finally she just fully committed and put forth just a little more effort and then was able to get baptized. It was a wonderful meeting and the spirit was so strong there. I was very grateful that I was able to be apart of that ordinance by being a witness. I was so happy for her.
                           So the last thing i wanted to address was transfers. We had transfer calls again yesterday. This one was pretty nerve racking because we weren't quite sure what was going to happen. For all we knew either one of us could have been transferred, but neither of us did. Elder McMurray is staying here. He was very happy about that because if he had been transferred he would have only been there for 6 weeks. It is crazy though because he has been up here for 9 months already and by the end he will have been here for 10 and a half months. I am very happy that he is staying because he is a good comp and we get a long very well.
                          Well that is about it. It was a great week and all is well here. I love you all and I am very grateful for all of the wonderful support that you give me. I miss and love you all. Love Elder Payne

Email: Member Present Lessons

Hello my dear family,
                              How is everything going back at home? It sounds like things are going great back there with everything, except for of course grandma breaking her wrist. That was really unfortunate that, that happened Make sure and give her my best and let her know that I am praying for her.
                              So wow let me tell you a little about my week. Things have been amazing out here. This is definitely one of the happiest times of my life. I am just absolutely so blessed to be where I am right now with all that is going on around me. So to start off the whole Facebook thing is crazy! It is really nice in some ways but sort of weird in others. We are currently working through all of the kinks and things but it seems to be working out ok. i an awesome experience with it on Tuesday. I was on and i saw that one of our investigators was online. she is one that it has been very hard to get a hold of for a very long time. So what I did was start chatting with her and asked how her day was going. She was struggling really bad because of some things with her mother. i was able to share a little bit with her. Then i noticed that our Elders quorum president from out at the branch was on. i connected with them both and boom there you go, an online member present lesson. It was absolutely amazing being able to help her just by sitting at a computer. That girl is actually getting baptized this coming Saturday, we are super excited because it has been a long time coming. That experience right there showed me just how effective this tool can be.
                               Well lets see what else took place this past week. On Friday we headed about an hour and a half away from Redding to a place called Gridley. We had our monthly zone leader meeting. it was a really great meeting with everyone. We discussed a lot about the way things are going in our zones. Like some of my past emails have said Redding is just exploding right now. This past month in August we averaged 36.2 member present lessons, this is huge because back in like May and June we only averaged about 19, so that is a huge jump. This past week we had 41, it is just so awesome to see the work moving forward the way that it is and to see the way that the members are rallying around us missionaries to help is such a blessing. We also talked about our upcoming training meetings, which will take place this Thursday. It was a great meeting where i really feel like i learned a lot.
                               So the reason that i am emailing so late is because we decided to utilize our surroundings and go do something fun outside. We went and did this hike called the Castle Crags hike. It is about 3 miles to the top, it was a ton of fun and great to switch things up and do things a little differently. It was a little tiring and reminded me of how out of shape i am but it was definitely worth it. Also on our way back we saw this huge fire going on. It is a couple miles outside of Redding and moving fast! But luckily not in our direction. it is headed towards two small towns call Igo and Ono which are both in our ward boundaries so hopefully they can knock it down before it gets there.
                           Well that is about it for the week. Dont worry i am still doing great and loving it here. I love you all and hope all is going well. i love you all and hope you have a great week

Love Elder Payne

Email: The Future is Now!

Hello to my wonderful Family,
                                  Well I have some very big news to share with all of you. You may have noticed some activity on my account on a certain social networking site over the past few days. No, you don't need to worry I have not just gone super disobedient and started breaking all of the rules. My mission is now one of 12 missions in the World that are piloting, you guessed it, Facebook! We found out on Friday that we are going to be using Facebook as a proselyting tool. It is crazy, I never in a million years would have thought that I would be adding people on Facebook and sharing videos and stuff on there while on my mission. The past few days have been very strange trying to figure out how we are going to be doing this. We found out that it is just going to be starting with the Zone Leaders and some select Sisters and then eventually filter out to the rest of the mission. One of the things we have to do is make our Facebook pages much more professional. That involves going through and hiding all of the pictures that are not in line with our calling, as you can imagine that means there are quite a few that I have to go through and hide. We also have to clean up all of the posts that we have been tagged in or have posted ourselves. So if you have seen that I have untagged myself there is a reason for that.
                      I am very sure that this new tool that has just opened up to us will definitely help to further the work. This is most assuredly the generation that can use these resources for what they were meant to be used for. Like I said on Friday I learned a little of how we can use Facebook to teach lessons and do things like that. This is going to be a huge learning experience for me and I am excited to see where it will lead the work.
                  So other than the announcement about Facebook the rest of the week has been pretty dull. haha  So on Wednesday I was on exchanges up in a little place called Weaverville. It is this little tiny city of only about 3,000. I got to meet some really neat people and have a lot of really great lessons. One of which was with this Less Active family. They are older and just kind of one day stopped coming to church. We talked a lot about the Book of Mormon and how we need to continually be reading it. There are so many teachings in there and so many things that can help us that we really can be blessed by it. The woman at one point said," I have already read it why do I need to read it again?" At the point I was able to bear my testimony of the divinity of the Book of Mormon and how it has blessed my life by continually reading it. I sure hope something that I said will help them. Anyways then on Friday we had our Zone conference. That is where I found out about Facebook. Then Elder McMurray and I got to give a training on the Doctrine of Love. It was a really neat experience teaching about love and how important it is to have it in our zones, districts, and companionship's. We read from Matthew 22:36-40 that talked about the first great commandment. Then we read a little from Jeffrey R. Hollands talk "The First Great Commandment". It went really well, we got to talk for about 25-30 minutes.
                                  In our zone we had 4 baptisms this past week. It was amazing to see the miracles that are taking place out here. Well I believe that is all I have for the week. Like I said it was a crazy one but it was great. I love you all and I am so grateful for the amazing family that I have. I hope you all have a wonderful week.

Love Elder Payne

Email: How Blessed I Am

Hello to my wonderful Family,
                     I hope this email finds you all doing very well. From the emails that I have gotten it sounds like this past week was pretty crazy. Well ya know I wouldn't expect anything different from the last few weeks of summer in the Payne household. I am really glad that baby Sara is doing well. I have been thinking a lot about the recent additions to the Payne family and it is just such a miracle that we have two brand new little babies that are doing so well. The miracles seem to just keep coming. I am so grateful to the Lord for blessing me with such a wonderful and supportive family. I have been contemplating that a lot lately, just how truly blessed I am. The reason that it has come up and I have been thinking about it is because I have quite a few investigators that are really struggling right now with their families. One person is a girl who just recently had her two kids taken away from her. Her ex-husband came and took them away because her husband has some custody. The problem is that he took them all the way to Wyoming. She has been really distraught because of it. She started questioning everything that she has been taught and she is just in a really rough spot right now. We went over and talked a lot with her, mainly that we need to look at the eternal perspective of things. That when times get tough, that is the time that we need to really lean on the Lord for help. We seemed to help her feel at least a little bit better towards the end of the lesson. Now second the other family that is going through a rough time. It is the family that just recently had the mother and the Son baptized. They are just going through a really rough time as well. The husband is currently trying to quit smoking a he is having a really rough time of that as well. He is extremely stressed and as you can imagine it is not easy to quit smoking. He has been trying really hard to quit for a long time and it hasn't worked yet. So right now they are having a lot of financial hardship. I feel so bad because I wish there was more that I could do. We are just constantly reassuring them that the Lord is going to help them and just to have faith in him. So like i said I have been expressing a lot of thanks in my prayers to my Heavenly Father because of the wonderful family I have. Along with that i want to wish Mom a very Happy Birthday this week. Thank you so much for always being there for me. I am so blessed to have you. I know that i can always rely on you for help. Thank you again. Well I love you all very much. I apologize that this weeks email was sort of jumbled and crazy but that was sorta like my week. haha i love you all so very much. Also before I forget thank you very much for that package. It pretty much just came up out of the blue and definitely brightened my week, especially the Superman ring. i actually ended up wearing it to church on Sunday. It may just become my new Sunday ring. I love you all  once again.

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

Email: 2 Baptisms! And a McDonalds Stand-Off

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

 Love Elder Payne

Pretty Pretty Princess

This picture came from a member saying that Elder Payne rocked at Pretty Pretty Princess!

Email: Paperwork and a Miracle

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

Love Elder Payne

Email: Happy Monday!

Well hello to you all
                    It was so good to here from you all and be able to hear a little about what has been going on back home. It sounds like everyone has been extremely busy with parties and trips and other crazy things so I am sure many of you are exhausted. I guess it is getting to be that part of the summer when you need to start fitting in all of those extra vacations, just make sure you don't wear yourselves out too much. Thank you all so very much for all of the pictures that you sent me, it is always good to see all of your faces. Per request of Staci i need to answer a question for her. I would love for you to print off pics and send them to me because it would be a lot easier for me to get good prints of them, thank you. I am glad that the fireworks went over so well, that is great. Ya, you better expect next years show to be the biggest ever.
                       so let me tell you a bit of how my week went. Compared to most weeks this has been a relatively slow week. ha ha only because we didn't have a million and one things to get done just a million. This coming week is going to be insane! i don't quite know how to put this but it is by far going to be the busiest week of my mission. We have 2 baptismal services to schedule this week, then we also have a meeting on Friday that is for the mission leadership (Zone Leaders) that goes pretty much all day, and we also have a huge stake meeting on Sunday that we have to prepare for. On top of those few things we have to meet with all of our investigators and do many other things. So if you wouldn't mind praying for me, especially that we will be able to accomplish it all that would be wonderful! We are continuing to a lot of miracles happen though so of course I am not complaining and being busy is definitely a huge blessing. things around here are just exploding and I love it. We are getting close to the end of the transfer and i am pretty sure Elder McMurray is leaving. It will be sad to see him go but I know that i have learned a lot from him. I don't know if you heard about the Elder that died in Guatemala in  a car wreck, but that was actually one of Elder McMurrays close friends back home. So please also keep him in your prayers.
                             I am sure you are wondering why i am emailing to late as well. Well that is because for P-day today we did something a little out of the ordinary. We decide to go do an awesome hike. There are so many beautiful hikes and mountains around here that it is crazy. We hiked up to this place called Whiskeytown falls. It was only like a 2 mile hike but it was amazing. i will include some pictures at the end.
                         I want to send a HUGE shout out to the girl that is a play this evening. Yes i am talking about the magnificent and talented Hannah Rose Payne! I want to wish you good luck, and you know like they say "break a leg" but not really at least not like Drake almost did but in the way that means you are going to awesome in the play. :) I hope everything goes well and know that i will be praying for you.
                       Well everyone i love you all so much and once again i will close my email with a "I love you" and a " Cant wait to hear from yall" Hope all goes well this week.

Love Elder Payne

Email: Crazy, Busy Week!

Hello to my wonderful family,
                    So did I mention last week that this was going to be a busy week, why yes I believe I did. Well that definitely came to pass. Holy smokes let me tell you this past week has been insane! It has been so stressful and yet at the same time there have been so many amazing things that have happened.
                    Let us start at the beginning of the week. How about Tuesday? So Tuesday we had interviews with President Weston. They went really well. He didn't have to much to say to me in fact it only took like five minutes. I think a big part of it was that I told him in my last interview before this that I just want to be one of those missionaries that he doesn't have to worry about. That he knows that I am always doing what I am supposed to do and being diligent. We talked a little about me being a zone leader and how I was liking that. We talked about the work a little bit, so ya it went well. So after that the miracles really started to happen. We had a lesson with Nike one of our investigators in the singles branch and we committed her to quit smoking and then right after that we committed her to be baptized. She accepted both so we are currently working with her on that. Well then later that evening we had a lesson with Dean and Tracey, and before I go on I am just going to tell you that they could really use your prayers. Anyways so we have been working with them for a long time now. Especially with Dean because he is trying to quit smoking and it has been really hard for him and that is the only thing holding them back from being baptized. Well we committed him right then and there to quit smoking and for both of them to be baptized. I then asked him for his cigarettes, it was extremely hard for him but he gave them to us. So for all three people we are working towards the 3rd of August for baptism. After that we went on exchanges the Assistants to the President. Well let me tell you that was an interesting day. I was with one of the assistants who is known as one of those missionaries that likes to brown noes President. Anyways it was a pretty good day. Apart from him partially offending one of the members of our ward.
                         Well the rest of the week was pretty great but stressful none the less. On Friday we had to do a ton of reports so yes mom there are a few things different about being zone leader. I feel like I am adjusting pretty well to all of the new work load though. So then came the craziest day yet, Saturday. So in the morning we had to drive about an hour and a half South to a baptism in a place called Chico. Someone that Elder McMurray taught about a year ago was getting baptized and he asked McMurray to come baptize him. So that was an amazing thing getting to see someone that went through so much get baptized. Then later on , on Saturday we had another baptism, this one was for Mitch who was an investigator in our ward. It went so well, he was just absolutely glowing. I love seeing someone who is so prepared get to enter into the waters of baptism. That is something that I have really seen out here so far. That there really are people that are so ready to be baptized. I love being able to feel the spirit in those lessons. I know for a fact that the lord is mindful of his children, he knows what we need and he loves us all so much. I also know that repentance is such a real thing. Repentance is available for everyone, no matter what we have done as long as we come with that truly repentant heart the Lord will forgive us.
                        So Sunday Mitch received the Holy Ghost. One of the members of the Ward was able to give him that. He told us that he just felt so much of a difference now. Well like I said there was a ton of stress this week but it was so worth it. It is a great feeling at the end of the day when you are able to lay your head down on the pillow and know you put in a hard days work. Well I love you all so much. Good luck to all of you especially Hannah and Katelyn. I know that you have a ton of stuff going on and just know that I am praying for you all. I love you and hope you all have a great week.

Love Elder Payne

Email: Some Manual Labor

Hi everyone how are you all doing this week?
                    So first off I must apologize for something I accidentally omitted from my email last week. Mom called me to repentance for not doing the following and I am grateful for that. So let me tell one particular person I am so sosososososososososososososososo sorry that I forgot to tell you Happy Birthday last week. I am also sososososososososososo sorry that my card took so long to get there. I hope you at least liked it. Elder McMurray and I put a lot of thought into it. We actually were trying to decide what to do for your birthday for about 2 weeks before hand and couldn't decide on it until we finally found that card. So I hope even though it was a little late you still enjoyed it.
                   So a little about my past week. It has been a pretty good week. There actually isn't really that much to report on because even though it was a great week it was still a pretty average week. I know that isn't exactly what you want to hear but that is really about it. I was able to take over the area for the first time this past Thursday. It was a lot of fun even though I was a little nervous about it. We had quite a few good solid lessons with a few of the less active people in the ward. I guess one of the most interesting things that happened this past week was on Saturday. I was on exchanges in the Weaverville ward which is like an hour and a half west of Redding which is way up in the boonies. We had a big huge service project going on for this less active family. We had to build a wheelchair ramp into their house for their father who had been really sick. We had to build it across this big about 5 foot gap. Well lets just say it took quite a while. We started at about 8 and didn't finish up until 3:30. It was a lot of fun actually getting to do a little manual labor, the only problem was my neck and face has not seen too much sun lately well not until Saturday at least and let me tell you they saw all of the sun they could handle. After all those hours I looked at my neck and it was absolutely fried. I unfortunately wasn't too smart and forgot to wear sunblock. Way to go Elder Payne! haha Anyways like I said earlier it was a good week and this coming week is going to be even better. There is a lot going on. On Tuesday we have Presidents interviews, then Wednesday we have AP exchanges, then Saturday is our investigators baptism. So don't worry next Monday there will be a lot to report on .
                     I guess I better answer a few questions, I am in the Redding 5th ward and Shasta YSA branch and they are both great. Anyways I love you all so much and mom and dad I hope you both have a wonderful anniversary I love you both and happy 30 years together.

Love Elder Payne

Email: Following the counsel of the Prophet

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

 Love Elder Payne

Elder Payne and his new companion Elder McMurray

 Hot! Hot! HOT!

Email: 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: 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