December 12, 2011
Dear Family and Friends,
I love you guys and I’m glad to hear things are going well on your mission in the Cherokee Branch. I’m going to answer some of the questions that you have asked me in your last letter. I’m not sure if we are allowed to talk on Skype at Christmas and I think it will just be a phone call. I’ll probably call you guys after church here so after 2 o’clock here in Oregon. To answer your question about why I haven’t been putting anything funny in my letters is because I haven’t had too much time to write as I’ve been trying to write so many people in my limited amount of time. I’ll try and add in a funny story this week as some pretty funny stuff happens out here every week. Well I think those were all your questions. I was wondering if for Christmas you guys could hook me up with some more razor heads for the Gillette fusion you sent me a few months back. I’m cursed and have to shave twice a day now and I’m about out and those things do a great job.
Things are going great here in Woodburn and the work with the less active families in the Branch is on fire. We have truly taking Elder Grows invitation to the extreme and we are teaching about every less active family in our area. It will take some time but I can see the spirit working on them as we teach them true gospel principles again and invite them to come back to Christ. We have also been teaching a member named R and he is the man. He is going to the temple this weekend to go through to receive his endowments and he has asked us to come. I really want to go and support him as we have seen him grow so much. Also, B brought one of her friends to church today and her friend has a really huge family. We will start teaching them this week and I feel like this is the family we have been praying for. It's amazing to see how the work of the Lord progresses and how people are prepared.
That’s so awesome about the baptism you guys are having and it’s true that the work is going amazing. One of the families from Seaside, the H’s just shot me an email and told me that they are doing well and having some baptisms out there too. It’s amazing and nothing can stop the work, no unhallowed hand right? Well things are going great here and I’m having the time of my life. But now I need to talk to you guys about a really serious matter. Well it’s not too serious but it’s something I have been praying a lot about and I feel like the lord has answered my prayers. I have been praying a lot about finding a way to further serve the Lord and give it all I’ve got. I went on an exchange with the District Leader the other day and I feel like my prayers were answered there through him. For some reason we got to talking about A.D.D. and how it can really put a block on studying and retaining information. I told him that I gave up taking medication and that I didn’t want to be dependent on that for the rest of my life. He told me he felt the same way but since he started taking medicine again his mission has changed. I didn’t think it was a good idea to go back but then I thought and reflected on it and how much it could help me I decided to pray about it and I feel that I should do it. It’s like this, if a guy has heart problems, is he just going to tuff it out and not take the medicine that will help him. Well I could say the same thing about ADD and tuff it out and I have since I stopped taking my meds five years ago, but I’m not going to lie, it’s been super tough. I feel like I’ve gone as far as I can go with the potential I have and if I take the medicine I can go a lot further. Like for example, right now if I keep going on after my mission and for the rest of my life, I feel like I can go to college for 4 years and get a decent job. But if I take the medicine and really focus, I can go to school for 6 years and graduate from BYU law school. That’s what I think, but I’m just ranting on. That’s what I’m feeling right now and I just had to give you guys a heads up because I want to give taking ADD medication a try again. Well you know I gave it the good fight but even with trying to overcome it, I still have ADD ha-ha. I was also thinking about transferring to BYU from BYUI after the mission as I have a 3.875 GPA and they might accept me as I’m a RM. If I want to try I should get started now so I’m ready when I get back. I still will have to pray about it as my future wife might be chillen on a farm in Idaho, just an idea.
Well, a funny story that happened this week is that we were leaving our apartment in the morning to go do something. When we got outside we saw this guy with this little ghetto truck bouncing up and down as he has hydraulics or something like that. He thought he was the man and I’m not going to lie it looked pretty cool. Well he finally drove off and as he was driving, I guess he pressed the wrong button and his truck bed bottomed out and sparks started flying. I’m guessing he just got them installed so he still didn’t know what he was doing ha-ha. Well it was funny to see and only in Woodburn.
My Spanish is really improving as I’m calling on all the members in the Rama to help me. I guess you will be able to see if that’s true in a couple of weeks though when I call home for Christmas.
Well I love you guys and I love serving the Lord.
Elder Payne
