Sweet times in Seaside

May 31, 2011

Dear family and friends,

What’s going on? Things are going great out here in Seaside and I know I say that every week, but it's true. I Love it. Elder Allred is with me for another transfer and I’m excited, we are becoming tighter and we are working really hard together. We don't waste a minute and we give it our all each day.  We are picking up more investigators and they are progressing. We have been working with some less active families as well and one of them came to church this Sunday. It was awesome to see their four kids singing at the top of their lungs as we walked by the Primary room. Well, our two investigators with Baptismal dates went out of town this weekend but we were able to teach them before they left. They are doing good but unfortunately Charlie’s mom doesn't want us teaching him when she isn't home, but then I looked at it from a different perspective and realized this is great as we can start teaching her too. Anyway, German is the man and he is doing great, he will be back tomorrow. Lynn is doing good and it just so happens that her daughter is best friends with a member in the ward and she is going to invite her to mutual. We have been working with the members a lot and teaching them about every day. We also have been reaching our goals of tracting and have seen many blessings coming from that. Anyway,  things are going great and we will continue to work with the investigators we have to get them ready for baptism.

What a view from my apartment huh?

This reminds me of Chile!

P-day with Brother Smith, Elder Allred and my boy Will!

I’m glad that you enjoyed my Journal and I hope that you could understand the experiences that I have been having. I just started in my new Journal and this thing is nice. I bought it from Deseret book and it’s got my name embroidered on it. It looks fresh and it’s an upgrade from the other journals I have sent home.  I have included some tough times in my journal too but  I’m having the best time of my life. Things couldn't be better but you know that Satan always tries to stop your flow and that gets hard sometimes. He's always trying to throw dirt in your eyes and slow your momentum but I have found that those days are few and far between. Miracles happen every day and I’m grateful to be serving here in Oregon. It's my home now and I love it.

Well, let me give you a quick recap of what’s been going down here. I’ll just start off with the Spanish is going great. I am able to practice almost every day and I was teaching this family in Spanish that we tracted into and I asked them how my Spanish was and they said, out of a scale from 1 to 10, a 10. I was happy to hear that because I know only the Power of God could make it possible for me to keep my Spanish flowing even though I’m serving in English in Seaside for a few months.  They even said I have a bit of a Mexican accent.  Sorry Mom, but Cheayh!

I have had a tendency to run into Preachers while tracting on my mission and I have never had a bad experience. Yesterday, while knocking doors a Preacher came out and we talked about our love for the Savior. He told me that we didn’t believe in the same Jesus, but I brushed that off like nothing was said as there is no need to get in an argument because nobody wins that. All I did was testify to him about Jesus Christ being the Savior of the world and I even testified that we have a living Prophet today too,  Thomas S. Monson. He just stood there and listened, and wasn't angry about it either.  It has been a pretty cool experience because I’ve come to learn from these experiences that when you testify, no one can deny it. They might disagree with you, but they can't tell you that what you know to be true is wrong.

Some pretty funny things have been happening recently and I’ll fill you in on what they are about. While tracting we me this lady that was about 90 years old. She was way nice but she couldn’t hear very well. She was basically deaf. So after telling her why we were there she said," What?" I raised my voice a little bit and told her why we were there again. She said," What?, come closer Sunny." So I edged a little closer to her front door and closer to her. I told her in a loud voice about the plan that God had for her, but she still couldn't hear. She insisted for me to get closer so I did. I was right about 5 inches away from her face, explaining to her fairly loudly why we had come to her door. She finally understood and asked us to leave her a pamphlet. It was a pretty funny experience because I’ve never been that close nor spoken so loudly to an older lady before. She seemed cool with it and hopefully next time we come back, we will be able to teach her more about the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Another funny experience reminds me of my boys from back home. The very first day I got here in this area in Seaside, I saw this crew of long boarders riding around and I tried to stop them to contact them, but every time they just rode by me and said," Look at this!" and they would throw up the upside down SkizzySkizzy about 4 times. Well yesterday on our p-day, I saw the crew walking to their car as I was at subway. I thought to myself, I’m going to get them this time. So I ran down behind their car and waved them down. They were probably like, who is this crazy dude. So they turned around and pulled up to the alongside of me and said who are you? I said," You guys don’t remember me?" They were like," No dude, you’re crazy." Then I threw up the Skizzy and they all started going nuts and laughing. Then they said, “Dang you’re the dude in the suit, we didn’t recognize you without the suit on (it was P-day). So anyway I showed them the Skizzy shirt I was wearing and they all wanted one. Anyway it was funny and I’ll probably see them again and maybe now that the ice is broken we can talk about more important things.

Mom and Dad, I hope you both had wonderful birthdays last week.  Give my love to everyone, I miss you and think of you often,

Love,

Elder Payne