January 3, 2012
Dear Familia,
Things have been awesome this past week and it’s good to hear that you guys had a good time in Florida. Thanks for the pictures and it was good to see how everyone’s doing. That Indian guy with the Alligator looked like it was a fun show to watch and its sounds like you guys had a blast together. I’ll be sending my memory card home soon that will give you all the pictures from my last couple of weeks in Seaside up until now. I had a good time talking to you guys on Christmas too and I’m glad you feel like my Spanish has improved. Thanks to the help of the Lord and diligent study, I have been able to improve. In no time, instead of saying I’m from Georgia, I will say I’m from Chile and people won’t question ha-ha. Thanks for updating me on my boy Elder Hardy. I talked to him last week and he told me that he wants to go back to Georgia and go to school at GA State. Before the mission, Lansky, Hardy and I talked about getting together and getting a show started and it seems like it might be a possibility ha-ha. Well I still have a lot of time and I don’t need to worry about things like that yet, just got to keep my options open.
Well that’s pretty cool that President P called you to give you a report on how our talks went. The 6 missionaries in the branch all gave talks and it was an awesome experience. This was my second talk I have given on my mission and I learned that if you truly prepare, the Lord will guide your words through the Holy Ghost. President P is the man and it is a privilege to serve with him in the Lords work. Well a lot of things happened this weekend and daily we see the miracles of the Lord.
Yesterday we had a great experience with one of the members from our branch. He took us and the Elders from Gervais to go crabbing at the beach. So we got ready to go early in the morning and left to go to the beach. It was really fun and we joked around and after 6 hours of fishing and crabbing, we caught 1 crab!!!!!!!!!!! It only had 5 legs instead of 6 because he lost one so that meant one leg for each of us, Chyeah!!!!!! It was super cold but the jacket I bought from Columbia that is waterproof really helped out and deflected all of the rain. I also used the gloves you sent me for Christmas and they really helped to keep my hands warm. Not to mention I was able to fish with them on since I could use my fingers ha-ha. Anyway, things have been really good and the work is going really well.
New Years Eve was pretty exciting as we returned to the apartment around 9:00pm and went to bed at 10:30pm. All in all it’s just another day for a missionary but we had our members let us know when it was new years by sending us some texts at 12:00 and waking my comp up ha-ha.
I love Woodburn and I love working with the members here. It is a great place and the work is going great. The less actives are coming back to church and little by little things are progressing. We are seeing the fruits of our labors as yesterday we set 3 baptismal dates with a family and hope they will be prepared by the 29 of January. We have been praying hard for this and I feel like the Lord has prepared this family to receive the gospel at this time. We will continue to work with them and help them progress. I’m just super glad to be in this branch and to be working in this exact place at this exact time of my mission.
Things are going really well between Elder B and me as each day we find ways to improve. He is an awesome missionary!!
This week we had some pretty funny experiences and one of them was while we were eating out at a restaurant, this 92 year old guys comes up to us and says "Como estan?" We didn’t know who he was but later he told us that he was a member. He told us that 70 years ago he served his mission in the Spanish States that covered the now southern part of the United States. He kept on telling us that we were great missionaries and to keep working hard. It is always a pleasure to meet other former missionaries!
Love,
Elder Payne
