May 21, 2012
Dear Family,Hey what’s going on everyone! Thanks for the great letter G, it got me pumped up! Sorry, but I don’t have too much time to write today as we have been pretty busy! We have a lesson in just a couple of minutes so I will try to knock out something real quick and let you guys know the scoop. Last week was great and we saw a ton of success and many blessings from the Lord. You know my boy B, the one who just started coming back to church. He was just called as the new branch mission leader, CHYEAH!!! That just makes me super happy and pumped to see how in the Lords kingdom, somebody can change their life as soon as they are willing too. Like it says in Lucas chapter 14 I think, the Lord is happy when we are ready to come back to him!!
Last week I got some sweet boots and a cowboy suit at a member’s garage sale. It is like a $500.00 Mexican cowboy suit and I got it for $5.00. I’m pumped as I’m ready to go and I’ve got my style on now. I haven’t gotten the birthday package from Heather yet but I did get a card in the mail from Alex with some dinero. I will thank her with a nice card once I get some time. We went to Winco with G and his mom today and I got the essentials, fruit, pickles, protein and cereal. G is like my brother and I’m so excited to see where he gets called to serve on his mission. I’m glad to hear that Heather and Ben are okay on their trip over in Egypt and Israel and are doing well. I hope they don’t get stuck in a riot over there.
Things are going great out here and the work is growing. We have been focusing on Sacrament meeting and yesterday went great. Now we are consistently getting about 60 people every week, up from 25 and we are working hard to reach our goal of 100 this transfer. We are seeing so many miracles as the less active members are coming back and getting callings and becoming more involved. I just realized that my companion goes home in a few weeks but he is working so hard we hardly talk about it. He is a good example to me and is truly helping me out to be a better missionary. We are still trying to reach our goal of baptizing 46 people more and I know the Lord will bless us with that desire as we try with all our might to find the Lords elect.
We had a Zone conference last week and I was asked to give a spiritual thought about excitement and truly loving the missionary work. For my spiritual thought I dressed up in my new Mexican cowboy clothes and I roll played as one of our investigators. Then some missionaries taught me a lesson without excitement and then they taught with excitement and there was a night and day difference between the first and second examples. When we share the gospel with excitement and a smile, more people want to listen and can see that the gospel truly means something to you. Like we say in our District, “If you can’t get excited about the Lord’s work, you might as well go home”. Ensenar con Animo! Everybody loves that and laughs but it is so true, sometimes we get bogged down in all the little things and forget what a privilege it is to represent the Lord Jesus Christ and how important our message really is. We got the missionaries pumped up and they are doing great work. McMinnville, one of the areas in our district is now teaching 20 lessons a week and doing a great job. Less hour’s tracting and more teaching lessons, now that’s what I like to see.
Well family, I have got to get going but I love you guys and I am loving being in the service of the Lord!!
Love,
Elder Payne
