October 27, 2010
Dear Mom and Dad,
Hey, I didn’t get to say everything I wanted to say in my last email letter, as usual, so I am going to tell you everything else I need to say in a real letter. I saw the movie you were telling me about that used to be at the Joseph Smith Memorial building called the Testaments. It’s kind of corny but at the same time awesome! When Jesus heals the blind man at the end you can’t help but feel the Savior’s love.
Good luck with your visits to the home teaching families in the Ward. I hope you are successful in finding and helping bring people back to the Church. One thing we members forget sometimes is that we can really help the missionaries find people to teach. Ever since I’ve been here in the MTC, they have always said to encourage the members to find contacts. We need to work harder to help the Elders find people to teach. It is sad to say but door knocking and tracting isn’t the most effective way to bring the gospel into people’s lives.
Something cool happened the other day and you can put this in the eldernathanpayne.blogspot.com blog if you want. We were playing Jeopardy in our class the other day to practice our missionary skills. It was like missionary Jeopardy. Anyway, everyone was getting really into it except me. I wasn’t really feeling it for some reason. It came down to each team having a tie with each other so our teacher was like Elder Payne, you have the last question and if you get it right your team will win. If you get it wrong, the other team wins. So the other team started chanting my name and saying, “Get it wrong so we can win, you like us more”. I love everyone in my district so I knew it would be hard to choose since I didn’t care who won the game anyway. Each team was begging me to help them win and I was just chillin. When the teacher asked the question, it was to see if I had planted two or more Spanish goals for today on my agenda. As the class stayed still, I slowly opened up my planner and I read two Spanish goals I had set the night before in planning meeting. The class went wild as they both thought it was good that I got it right and nobody was mad. Everyone was glad that I got the question right and it was pretty funny.
I have learned another thing while I have been here at the MTC. Keeping the Mission rules are easy. They are pretty simple and straightforward. You are promised too many blessings for keeping them, so why not? It is easier to keep them than to try to get around them. Our teacher also told us this sad story of how he was treated badly at the beginning of his mission by a missionary that didn’t want to work hard. I hope when I get into the mission field in a few days, I get a really hard working companion. I promise if I see any missionary being treated badly, I will go out of my way to help him out.
I loved the pictures of the baby pigs and the mother Tiger. Pork chops! It was hilarious. I guess everybody just needs someone to love them!
I love you guys!
Peace out!
Elder Dolor
P.S. Tell Brother Yates I said thanks for the letter and I really am thankful for having his example in my life.
