February 13, 2012
Dear Familia y Amigos,I love you guys and you guys are the best. I just sent you a package today with my 5th journal, 6 gigs of pictures and some CD's that I have received from members that I can’t listen to in the mission field so I will have to wait until after my mission. I hope you enjoy them and after you are done copying the pictures to the computer can you erase all the pictures on the flash drive so I can start adding more pictures? I am sending a lot of pictures home and hopefully you can get the feel for some of the things that have happened during the last couple of months. I put some videos on there and they all need explanations and I hope you don’t think I’m going to crazy out here. Well everything’s going great and the missionary work is really on fire. My 2 new companions are really hard workers and this transfer is going to be awesome. I’m really excited that I’m in a trio as in the MTC that didn’t really count. I decided to bring the come over back so I cold rock one with my new companions Elder H who is the man. Elder A from Peru is a G and I’m glad we are all serving together.
After quite an ordeal, I got my medicine from Dr. P and he put me on 50mg of Vyvanse. I have been taking it for about a week and I feel like I can lift a BUS ! My studies in the morning are a lot more effective and I am really able to learn a lot more. It hasn’t made me feel moody but I will keep tract of my feelings. But as for now I feel like a million bucks. I’m losing a little weight as the medicine reduces your appetite. I hope the members here don’t get offended because I’m not eating 3 plates of food anymore ha-ha. Well other than that nothing’s really new.
I’m loving life out here in Woodburn and it’s the best place ever! My companions are awesome and the work is going really great. Well I have to say that I have two of the best companions in the OPM. Elder H is a great example to me and a very hard worker. Elder A is a great missionary and really has a love for the people. I have learned so much from them and it has only been one week ha-ha. Well these missionaries are awesome and again I’m grateful to have the opportunity to serve with them here in Woodburn.
We have been teaching this family of 6 for a while now and they are progressing. The father still has a hard time understanding and his heart is a little hard still. 4 members of the family have a baptismal date for the 26th of this month. We will continue to pray so that they will be prepared for this date. We are also teaching the husband of one a less active member that decided to reactive in the church again about 3 months ago. Her husband is a great guy and really sincere. He has already read all the way to Jacob and he really likes the Book of Mormon. We were able to set a baptismal date with him as a goal for the 18th of March. He is really progressing but more than anything his wife is super happy. She is an older lady and every time we stop by to visit her she tells us about how much her husband has changed.
We had an awesome week as I said and on Saturday we had the Valentines party. We showed up there as the 7 missionaries in the Branch. It was a fun activity and we were able to talk to a couple visitors that came to the activity. At the party, all the couples from the Rama that were there got to play games. There was this one game where the couples had to put an orange in between their foreheads and dance to some Latin beats. It was really fun and I didn’t know that my main man Hermano P had moves like that ha-ha. It was fun to enjoy the night with the members and see them have a good time too. Well I am learning so much out here and I know that I don’t have too much time left. I’ll try to write my sisters and let them know what’s going on here in Woodburn and how much I love them. Out here in the mission I have truly learned about the importance of family and how it is the key to happiness. I teach people that they can be together forever as families if they keep the commandments and follow the Savior. But when I think about my family and how we can be together forever if we do what is right, it makes me really happy. I know what I’m teaching is true and I am so grateful to have this opportunity to share this gospel to the people in Oregon. Something funny happened the other day. We were sitting in gospel principles Sunday school class learning about the plan of salvation. Elder H and I got up to draw a diagram on the board to help the class visualize the plan of salvation. As we drew the pictures, one of our members raised his hand and said you forget to draw the temple. I thought it was pretty funny as it was so true that the temple is essential but I never thought of drawing it. I love Hermano P!!!!!
I love you guys and have a good week.
Love,
Elder Payne
