February 28, 2011


Dear family and friends,

Que Paso? Dang, this week has flown by with my boy Elder White. It is so crazy that this transfer is almost over. Next Monday is transfers and I don’t know if I’m heading out or staying here. I've heard talk that I might be going English speaking because every Spanish Elder has to serve at least 6 months in English so we will see what happens. To be honest, whatever happens or wherever I’m sent I’m cool with because I’m ready to work wherever the Lord wants me to be. I’ll let you know what happened this week and what I’ve learned.

We have our Zone activity happening today and that will be pretty sweet. It is really cool out here because all the missionaries are like family, its sick. I’ll get a call at night after getting back home from my boys in other areas just calling to see what’s up and see how the works going. We really have each other’s backs out here and its pretty legit.

I got to give a spiritual thought at District meeting last Tuesday and that went pretty well. It was about how you can have joy on your mission. The spirit was there as I shared with all the missionaries, it’s not how many baptisms you get or lessons you teach, but how boldly you are willing to share the gospel. Many missionaries only look for the visual fruits of their labors and don't notice all the things that happen that they can't see. It was pretty sweet and I think I helped some missionaries in our district realize that it's not all about what you can see from hard work, but that the fact you’re giving it your all and truly converted! I can truly say as I have taken this perspective on my mission I have been so happy, as every day I talk to anyone I see and share my testimony when I feel prompted. Chyeah!

Elder White and I rearranged the apartment and it’s looking pretty legit. Ill finish this up later, I have got to go to the zone activity now!

We just got back from the Zone activity and it was sick! We went to this place in Tigard where it’s just a huge warehouse with trampolines everywhere! Everyone was going crazy doing gainers and back flips everywhere. There was a sweet foam pit that people were just diving into ha-ha. We then got a huge game of dodge ball going and it was crazy. I got rocked in the face but the balls weren't that hard so it was all good! It was pretty good to get the whole Spanish Zone out and the English Zone out as well.

Well, I’ve told you a lot about Antonio and how he's the man. Well, one day last week we decided to stop by and see how he was doing. When we stopped by he told us that he wants to be baptized, but he’s still not sure if the church is true. We set a baptismal date for him that he can work towards and it’s the 26th of March. He accepted and it was pretty sweet. Well we stopped by last night and talked to him and found out a doubt that he has. His doubt is that we claim that we are the only ones with the authority of God to baptize and confirm the gift of the Holy Ghost. He thinks that other churches have authority and if you live your life just keeping the commandments it doesn't matter. He has this doubt because many of his family are members of so many different faiths and he doesn't want to believe that they don't have the authority in these other churches too. But we talked to him and explained the great apostasy really well. He still couldn’t understand or maybe didn't want to understand. Well we told him that we would bring him to Mario Papa's house this Tuesday and explain it to him really well. So I hope that the spirit can touch his heart tomorrow as we try to share the most important message that we can with him. Rosa, a lady that just moved here from West Salem, is really awesome. I feel really sad because she is living in a really hard situation. She is a single mother with 5 children living in a tiny little apartment. So we have been trying to help her strengthen her relationship with God and haven't really talked too much about baptism as she really needs help. We talked to the President of the Branch and we are going to go over there soon and give them some help. She is really awesome and she wants to follow the Savior, she just is going through some really hard times. Maria Ceja is holding up really well, we taught her about authority and Joseph Smith and she accepted the message of the restoration! She still has a baptismal date on the 12th and we will talk to her more this week about it. We have been teaching this family and I think that the son is the most interested, his name is Juan. We met them knocking and he is pretty sweet. We taught him about the gospel of Jesus Christ and what we need to do to return to Heavenly Father after this life. We have a ton of investigators to be honest, we just need to cut down and find out who is really willing to keep their commitments. We have also been focusing on having more member present lessons to create a relationship between the investigators and the members. The members are behind us and it’s pretty sweet. The Lord has been blessing us with people to teach, we just need to find a way that we can get them to come to church.

My companionship is going really good. Elder White has grown like 100% from the first time I met him. He isn't as shy and now he is willing to talk to anyone. I guess it’s true if you care about someone, then they will trust you and then your friendship or relationship will grow. It’s been a really good learning experience and Elder White has truly helped me to grow!

Let me think if anything funny happened this week! We went to go teach Antonio and he lives with two roommates named Jose and Matt. Matt is like a huge 6'3 Mexican guy with a mustache and Jose is a little guy who usually likes to argue. So while we were teaching Antonio, Matt comes up and is like, “I don’t believe in your Book of Mormon." He basically just told us things that he heard from his Catholic Priest but after I shared my testimony about how I knew it was true the room got kind of quiet. He was like, are you going to cry? And I was like," Naw man, I haven’t cried since like 3rd grade." And then he said to me," It’s alright to cry man, I cry sometimes!" It got quiet again and I asked," Really?" He then told me," I don’t cry because I’m a girl, but sometimes you got to cry!" After talking for a little bit more I got up and gave everyone in the room a hug. I knew that even though Matt and Jose didn't agree, we were still buds and we could end the lesson with a nice big hug. HA-HA

Well I pretty much told you everything that has been going on this week. I have been trying to find out the range between being bold and not being overbearing! As I follow the spirit I hope what I say will be exactly what is needed. Also, my Spanish is coming along really well and I’m fluent right now, I just need to work on expanding my vocabulary and using new words every day. The Lord has really helped me with the language as I have come unto him for help.

Love,

Elder Payne