Monday, March 31, 2014

Pictures!

"My Garrafa"
Translation: Bottle




Elder Payne with Elder Rocha and Elder Rios
Elder Payne with his American friend Elder Dodson 
Elders with Luana.  She is getting baptized soon. 
Kyle with Elder Kennington at Israel's baptism
"Love this family!  Bishop, his wife and son."
Missionaries in 3rd ward with Bishop

Kyle and Gabriel on his baptism day.  Kyle's first physical baptism.




WEEK #54

Hello Friends and Family!

This letter is going to be kind of short, I am pretty sick right now and we are going to go to the center to get some medicine. Hopefully I haven't picked up Dengue! its super bad haha. I think i just drank some bad water or caught a bug. But this week was pretty good for us, we got transfer calls last night, I am going to be staying here in Ponta Pora again with Elder Rocha. Also, I am getting another American in my district, so now there will be 3 Americans in our district so that will be pretty good!

We had two baptisms lined up for last Saturday, but they fell through. We are set to have two baptisms this Saturday, Cida and Roselia. We are going to baptize them before conference on Saturday. We are super excited! 

We are also getting a new zone leader and he is an American as well. Pretty much in our zone there will only be like 4 Brazilians. The rest will be Americans! its pretty strange, because the mission only has like 35 Americans so it is unusual to have so many in one zone. Should be interesting though.

We are still teaching Maxwell and his family, they all came to church on Sunday and are progressing beautifully! :) haha we haven't marked a date for baptism yet, they are really strong in their other faith so we are treating the situation pretty carefully. But things are going really good here, looking forward to another transfer in Ponta Porã! I have a feeling it will be my last transfer here. Hopefully it is though, because it is going to start getting cold, and none of the missionaries here have clothes for cold! Haha the members said that every year they have to give missionaries coats and blankets and stuff, because in our mission calls it doesn't say to bring anything for cold weather. Oh well we will see!

Anyways, sorry this letter is pretty short, I feel like I'm about to pass out haha so we better go get some medicine. I love you all so much and pray for you every day! 

Love,

Elder Kyle Payne

Monday, March 24, 2014

WEEK #53

Friends and Family,

This was a really good week for us in Ponta Porã! We were finally able to see one of our investigators enter the waters of Baptism. His name is Gabriel and he is 10 years old, we have been teaching him and his mom, and also his grandma. Gabriel was baptized on Sunday, and his Mom and Grandma are preparing to be baptized on April 5th. We are all really excited, it was the first baptism of the year for Ponta Porã 3rd ward. Good to finally see the fruits of our labors! ;)

We also had a new family come to church. We taught a man named Maxwell and his family on Friday, and he came to church with his wife and two kids! It was awesome to have him there. On Sunday we had 8 investigators at church so it was sweet. We are planning on teaching Maxwell and his family later this week. In Priesthood on Sunday the teacher taught a great lesson about the importance about women in our lives, wives, children, etc. Maxwell made several comments and he also commented a lot in Gospel Doctorine class, he is Mormon already he just doesn't know it! I know he felt the spirit on Sunday so I'm excited to see what happens.

Right now we have 6 investigators with baptismal dates, 2 for this week so hopefully it will go through. We are teaching a girl named Stefanie and her Brother named Guilerme. They have been to church before with a family in our ward, and they said they liked it. I taught Stefanie with Elder Vecchio like 2 months ago and she wasn't very interested, but now she wants to start coming to church and has been going to young women's with the girls in the ward so its sweet!

Friday we had divisions with the zone leaders again. They like to do divisions with the district leaders in the zone once a week. This time I went to their area and my companion stayed in my area. I went with Elder Kennington so it was way fun with him. But the other Elder that came to our area ate ALL of my frosted flakes that I had in our house! Cereal is wayyyy expensive here and i was saving it. Oh well I have forgiven him... kind of! haha ;) 

But this was a good week for us, nothing too crazy like spider bites or anything, we just worked a lot this week. We didn't go get sushi with the bishop because his father in law passed away early last week, so he and his family went to Cuiaba to be with family. Also we aren't having our Churrasco because the elders in the zone either don't have money to pitch in or time to come to our area so we will do it another day i think. 

Well this is the last week of the transfer, so we are going to finish strong! I hope I stay here one more transfer. Also, apparently Ponta Porã gets pretty cold during May and June! It gets below zero. It is the farthest area south in our mission, so it gets cold here. Already in the night i have been having to use my sheet because i was little chilly! haha. 

Anyways, I love you all so much and I'm grateful for the support! 12 months down, 12 more to go! :)

Falou,
Elder Kyle Payne

Monday, March 17, 2014

WEEK #52 - ONE YEAR MARK!

Friends and Family,

This Thursday I will hit the one year mark on the mission! I cant believe how fast time has flown by! The bishop in our ward said he is taking us out for Sushi on Thursday to celebrate, so I'm stoked!!!

It has been a pretty good week for me and Elder Rocha, we finally moved into our new house and it is amazing for us! We don't live with the other missionaries anymore, so it is a lot less cluttered and much more clean and organized! The house is like twice as big, it has 3 bedrooms and two bathrooms and a Churrasqueira (bbq pit) so it is pretty sweet! Next p-day we are planning a Churrasco with all the Elders in the Zone, they are coming over to our house to eat and celebrate our milestones on the mission, plus it is the last pday of the transfer next week so it will be a fun night for all of us! We are all going to pitch in 10 Reais for food, so we are planning on tons of meat and all the goodies :)

The week was kind of weird for us, with moving houses and getting everything organized again. We don't have a dresser in our house now, so we have been living out of our suitcases for the past few days, but we are getting a dresser soon. We were without plates and cups and silverware because the other elders we were living with took them to their house, but we have some awesome members in our ward who donated some dishes to us! Also, an amazing family in the ward came over and saw that we had no food in our house, so the next night they showed up with food, and all the other stuff like soap, sugar, salt, oil, everything! They bought a bunch of stuff for us. I'm so grateful for this ward and all the members here! I love the people here and they do so much for us. 

Our ward is kind of in a dry spell right now, our ward is the smallest ward in Ponta Pora and the most difficult. We don't have a ward mission leader, so it is hard to get members to go with us to appointments. Also, our area is suuuuuper far from the chapel, so we are having a really hard time getting people to come to church! Church starts at 8 o clock in the morning, and most the people don't have cars or motorcycles, so the only way they can come to church is to take a 45 minute bus ride, which leaves at 7 in the morning. So it is just hard to convince new investigators to come to church, because they have to wake up early and pay for a bus pass, then pay to get back home again after church. We have members in our ward with cars but they are busy in the mornings with meetings and picking some people up, so it is just frustrating! But since our ward is struggling in attendance, we are really focusing on bringing families back to church and getting reactivations. So we have been teaching investigators but also a lot of less active members, and trying to contact inactive members that are in our ward boundaries. 

I went on exchanges with Elder Kennington on Friday and Saturday, so that was a lot of fun! It was good to be with him again for a few days, also we talked in English when we were at our house, so it was just good to be able to express everything and tell funny stories and stuff! also just talking about all the good food we both miss back in the states haha. But we taught some good lessons and worked hard.

We are still helping Martina stop smoking, and have taught her son Cesar, but they didn't come to church. I think they stayed home because the road they live on is muddy and dangerous to ride on after it rains, and she just has a motorcycle so it wouldn't be safe to come to church. But we are going to focus on making a lot of new contacts this week to find some more investigators. Hopefully we can score some investigators with modes of transportation! haha

This week I have been thinking and studying a lot about Our Savior and the Atonement, and how through his grace, our burdens are made light. He knows and loves us, and he suffered for each and every one of us individually. He knows our pains and sorrows and is there to help us. He is our savior, and through his atonement and gospel we can receive eternal exaltation and blessings. We read in Hebrews 5 that Jesus, being made perfect, became the author of eternal salvation unto all those that obey him. I know that when we live the Gospel of Jesus Christ and continually strive to follow him, we will truly be happy in this life, and receive the blessings of eternal life in the life to come. I'm so grateful for my savior and his sacrifice for me!

I love you all, and I hope you have a wonderful week! Sounds like Utah is starting to get a little warmer so that's good news! Oh and Happy St Patrick's Day!!! :)

Love,
Elder Kyle Payne

Monday, March 10, 2014

WEEK #51 or AREA 51?

Blisters, Bedbugs, and Sunshine!

Well that pretty much sums up the week! haha just kidding. But I'll start with the blisters! So we have been working in a new part of our area that is far from our house, I'm not exactly sure the distance but its probably like 5 or 7 miles or so each way. We have been teaching some people out there and have been walking a ton, so I have some huge blisters on my feet now! My companion does as well. We met a new investigator last week in that area named Martina, and she accepted our invitation to be baptized on March 22. The only difficulty is that she is trying to overcome a smoking addiction, so we are working with her to prepare for baptism on the 22nd. Hopefully it will work out and she will be able to stop smoking! Her son was baptized last month in Paraguay, so hopefully he will be able to help his mother as well. Also she has another son that is 12 named Cesar, but he has been gone every time we have visited them. But hopefully we can teach and baptize him as well. Right now we have 2 other investigators, Sonaira and Erica, who both want to be baptized but their mothers wont let them.

We had divisions with the Zone Leaders on Friday, so Elder Souza came with me in my area and my companion went with Elder Kennington in his area. (Elder Kennington, my first companion in Cuiaba, is now a zone leader in Ponta Pora) Elder Souza and I taught Sonaira and talked with her mom to try to get her to sign so she could be baptized. And after a 2 hour discussion with her and after testifying and all that, she still wouldn't give Sonaira permission to be baptized. Haha I swear I have never been so frustrated in my life! We both bore our testimonies and the spirit was super strong, I know her mom felt the spirit, but she just kept saying that it is her opinion as a mother and that we need to respect her opinion. She also kept saying that we are joking about God and that we shouldn't try to take advantage of people anymore. But she said she could be baptized when she is 18, so that will be good. We are still going to visit Sonaira and everything but at this point we cant do anything.

Erica's mom is a lot more approachable and I think that there is a possibility of her being baptized, we will see when we get a chance to talk to her again.

So about the bed bugs!!! My bed had bed bugs earlier in the week,Ii didn't notice it until I woke up. But when I woke up in the morning I had probably hundreds of little bites all over my body! So that was pretty bad, but now all the bites have gone away and its all good now :)

We had interviews with president on Thursday, so that was good to be able to talk to him in English and talk about the missionary work in Ponta Pora! Haha it was really hard for me at first to start talking to him, I couldn't put my thoughts into sentences very well but after about 5 minutes of talking it was almost back to normal.

This week also had tons of sunshine, which was great for me because I love the sun, but also bad at the same time. So the only person with a truck in our area that we know went fishing last week, so we were unable to move into our new house. But we are setting it up to move tomorrow hopefully. It is complicated because we live with two other missionaries who are in a different ward, so we had to work it out where they would be moving into a different house with the other missionaries in their ward and get supplies for us both, so it has just been lots of work and stress haha but this week we will move in for sure! the house is awesome too so we are really excited!

We met a new man named Augusto this week as well, he is super super humble and willing to listen to us. We are teaching him tomorrow, we are hoping he will come with us to church on Sunday. If all goes well we will have a few baptisms at the end of this transfer! Even though we had a tough and frustrating week, life is still good! The work is progressing and there is so much potential here, we just have to trust in the lords timing and be diligent. Everything will work out!

Well everyone, I hope you all have a wonderful week! I heard the weather is getting a little warmer up there so get out and enjoy it! :) Love and miss you all!

1 Peter 1:7-9

Elder Kyle Payne


Monday, March 3, 2014

Pictures!

We have FOOD in our fridge!


WEEK #50

Opa!


Hey everyone,  I don't have a ton of time to write today, we have a lot to do today and we are going to start moving into our new house so things are kind of crazy today! 

But I hope you all had a great last week of February! I cant believe it is already MARCH!!! Time is flying by. But I can sum up the week in one word... RAIN!!! It rained so much this week so the work was a little slower than usual, it is super hard to work when we have heavy rain because of all the dirt roads and stuff! Plus the streets just turn into muddy rivers haha so its no fun. But it was pretty cold this week for a couple days, it would probably be really warm for everybody back in Utah but it was super cold for us! I actually had to use my sheet to sleep and I turned off my fan because I was cold! I think it was like 65 or 70 degrees F but it was cold for me. Its gonna be rough coming home next year to snow!

But we met some great people, we had a new investigator at church! Her name is Martina, she came to church with her son. Her son was already baptized in Paraguay and she likes going to church with him in Paraguay, but we met them in the street when we were walking one day and invited them to our ward her in Brazil since they live in Brazil. And they showed up! Its so great when that happens! haha. We are meeting with her tomorrow to get to know her better and we will see where she is at and whether or not she wants to be baptized.

This week we decided to work in another part of our area, its super far from our house and I had never been there before. But we decided to go there and it turned out to be an awesome experience! We met some great people and taught some lessons there. Also, we found a huge pond and waterfall so we are gonna return there again and fish at the pond next pday! 

Emily came to church on Sunday as well so that was an awesome experience for all of us! She is such a special girl and we were all really happy when she decided to come back to church. I'm so excited for the things that are happening here! The members are so awesome and I have fallen in love with Ponta Pora! Also I have fallen in love with Terere, the herbal drink that EVERYBODY drinks here! Its a huge part of the culture in this part of Brazil as well as Paraguay. Nothing better than drinking ice cold Terere after walking for hours!

Anyways I think that about sums up the week, I hope you all have a warm and safe week! Love you much!

2 Corinthians 12:9

Love,
Elder Kyle Payne

Pictures!