February 21, 2012
Dear Family and Friends,
Hey it’s good to hear back from you guys and I’m really glad you liked the journal. It’s really hard to remember all the experiences in the mission I have had so I’m glad I have written most of them all down. I agree with you guys and I think I should put the date next to the experiences so I can remember when it happened. Well, life is going great out here in the Oregon Portland Mission. We are having a ton of spiritual experiences and the Lord is really blessing this area. I love Woodburn and rumor has it that I might be staying here for another transfer but we will see. President M talked to my companion Elder A and he said that the Trio is temporary and Elder A will be transferred most likely at the next transfer meeting. We are all enjoying our time together and I love my companions.
Yesterday we played futbol with the whole entire Spanish mission and it was pretty tight. I got to see all my brothers again like Elders W, H, W, B, and the list goes on. We also invited Hermano P and his son Junior to come with us, they are members in the Woodburn Branch, and they tore things up as they are really good at soccer. We had a good time and we played almost the entire P-day. Well things are going cool with the ADHD medicine and I’m really able to get a lot more done now.
I’m going to answer some of the questions you wanted to know about. Let us know more about your companions, where they are from, where they have served and how things are going with investigators. Well to start off, Elder A is from Peru and he is pretty cool. He is about the same height as me and then we have our other companion Elder H who towers over the both of us at 6 ‘4 or something like that ha-ha. Elder A is from Chiclayo, Peru but I’m not sure if I spelled that right. He has been out for 6 months in the mission field and is a really hard worker. He served his first area in McMinnville just north form Woodburn. Elder H is the man and he is from California. He is 23 years old and when he teaches the gospel he lays the law done ha-ha. He has served in 6 different areas and was a Zone Leader in Spanish and in English. He has about 4 months left in the mission field so he will most likely die here or end his mission here. We are all pretty different but we all get along really well. It’s pretty fun because we don’t speak English at all unless we have to go to Wal-Mart and other places to shop. But things are great and this transfer is flying by. I’m glad for the opportunity to be out here in the service of the Lord and thanks for all of your support.
This weekend we have a baptism with a family of 5 but recently the father of the family has been showing some doubts as his next door neighbor is telling him a lot of lies about the Church. I’ve learned that the adversary always tries to mess things up as families get close to making covenants with the Lord but we are on top of it. We will continue to work with the family as we know that it would be better to baptize the whole family instead of just the mom and the children. The children really have strong testimonies and are doing their part to show their desire to learn. We had a Family Home Evening with them the other night in the house of a member and they showed up wearing white shirts and ties!!!! I love those kids ha-ha.
I need to think a little bit more about BYU Idaho but it would be nice to start in the winter so I could have a few months to work and a little time to adjust to real life ha-ha. But at the same time maybe going right away in the fall would be good as I need to get going and find my wife and start my foundation for the rest of my life ha-ha. Obviously this will require more prayer but we will talk about this some more in the next few months. I love you guys and keep on keepin on.
Love,
Elder Payne
