WEEK #71

Hello fwends and famwy!

So I don't have a ton of time today, we have lots to do. We got transfer calls last night, I will be staying here in Mapim with Elder Nere for another transfer. I'm excited it should be good! But the thing is, our ward has two companionships so it is divided into two areas. But this transfer one of the areas is being shut down, so me and Elder Nere will be taking over both of the areas, so there will be lots more walking and working in new areas this next transfer! We figured out it takes about 4 hours to walk from one side of our area to the other now. 

Elder man Elder Moody is getting transferred to Ponta Porã! I will miss him for sure, it has been really fun living with him this past transfer, we had some way good times! He is going to first ward in Ponta, but I knew a lot of people in that ward as well so he will tell everyone hi for me, I told him to send my love to everyone down there. Elder Blalock who lived with us is going to Campo Grande in the south, it will be good for him he will be with a Brazilian now so he will pick up the language faster.

We will be moving houses this week, but first we have to find one and get it approved, it is a huge hassle here haha its been a pain in the butt. But we will find one for sure.

So Alexandre didn't end up getting baptized, I was a little bummed out but I think its for the best! We just remarked his baptismal date for this next Saturday or possibly the next one. Not everyone in his family approved of his decision and he felt like he wanted to take care of things and get it worked out before he got baptized, to avoid hard feelings and confrontation. He will be the only member in his family so it is a huge leap of faith for him. But we didn't find out until Friday night while we were waiting for him to show up for the baptism interview. But we will meet with him this week and straighten everything out, I have a lot of faith in him. He asked me to baptize him so it will really be an honor for me. Hopefully we can make it happen this week.

The past week was kind of crazy getting things ready for transfers and with divisions, so our numbers weren't as high as they usually are but we still taught a decent amount of lessons. We are going to be super busy this next week because we are taking over Elder Moody's and Blalocks area and investigators, so we will be getting to know a lot of new people and hopefully we can mark some more baptismal dates. 

We had some good experiences this past week though, Elder Moody and I got stuck in a huge tropical storm on our way back home the other night, it took us forever to get back because the streets turned into rivers practically, we got drenched. I´ll attach a photo. 

Anyways, that about sums up the week, we have a lot on our plate this next transfer but I'm ready! I hope you all have an amazing week, thank you for the love and support. 

Com muito amor,

Elder Kyle Payne

WEEK #70

Friends and Family,

I hope you all had a great week! I heard it is pretty hot back in the States as well, so we are both in the same boat! It has been super hot this past week as well, but it is winter so it isn't as hot as it usually is. But here in the winter the air gets super dry compared to what we are used to, so we have been getting dry throats and bloody noses and stuff. Its been pretty fun! haha. I think it has been in the high 80s in Fahrenheit, but it seems much hotter because of the clothes we have to wear and how much we walk. 

So we are going to have a baptism this Saturday, it will be awesome! Alexandre accepted our invitation to be baptized last week and we set the date for this Saturday, he is so awesome! He is so prepared by the Lord to be baptized at this time in his life. He has 23 years, so its been pretty cool teaching someone that's pretty much our age. He has been progressing very well, he remembers everything we teach and has been reading the scriptures and coming to church. We are so excited for him. Also he will get the priesthood which will be a huge blessing in his life.

We didn't end up going to Caceres last week, there were a lot of problems with getting a bus and working it out with the Elders there and their schedule, so we are just going to do it next transfer instead. Also we haven't been able to move into our new house because we haven't been able to get the elders from the office to come approve the house. So we will keep trying! There are some pretty nice houses though that we have in mind so hopefully we can work something out.

Eder, our recent convert, is doing very well. He is going to all of the youth activities and everyone is welcoming him into the ward. Also Gabrielly and Kevin, who were baptized last transfer, are still doing very well and are still coming to church. We visit them a couple times per week. 

We have been trying to work smart this transfer as well, working with members and trying to reactivate families as well. We have met some amazing people and have learned so much from them! We have been visiting a member named Alice, she has terminal cancer but is the one of the bravest and nicest women I have ever met! We have been working with her granddaughter Jaqueline who is less active in the church. She is very receptive to us and is starting to think about life in a different frame of mind because of her grandmothers situation. She came to church one time but is still hesitant about coming every week, but we will keep working with her as well.

This week we are going to focus on getting Alexandre to the waters of baptism and work on finding new investigators and setting everything up for next transfer so we can hit the ground running. We will get transfer calls on Sunday so we will see what happens! I think I will get transferred, one of the Assistants told us that we need to prepare things for the next Zone Leader that comes into the area. So I think either me or Elder Nere will leave.

We have still been teaching quite a few lessons but when we have gone back to visit them they haven't kept any commitments or aren't available to meet with us again, so we have dropped quite a few investigators. But we still have a good teaching pool and are focusing on them.

Today we are going to Cuiabá to play futebol and have a churrasco with the Elders in the other Zone there, so it should be pretty fun! It will be good to see Elder Watchman and Rasmussen from my group again.

Anyways, I hope you all have a wonderful week! I love and miss you all so much!

Love,

Elder Kyle Payne

Pictures!

Zona Cuiabá

Baptism of Eder 

This is Rafa.  He lives with us and eats the spiders in our house. 

View of Cuiaba

Kyle and Elder Nere at the Pantanal Stadium in Cuiaba.

Veo da Noiva

Chapada

WEEK #69

Hello everyone!

Sorry I didn't get to email yesterday, we left early to go to a place called Chapada, it is a city/national park outside of Cuiabá that has some awesome waterfalls and views, so we spent most of the day there and didn't get back in time to email. But I included pictures, it was absolutely beautiful!

So last week was really good, we had a baptism on Friday it was a really good experience. It was so awesome to see Eder follow Christs example and be baptized! He will be an awesome missionary one day! The Young Mens president baptized him in Friday then Confirmed him on Sunday. There were also a TON of people at his baptism, some members brought cake and hot dogs and soda, so it was really good to have the ward involved. 

We are all a little bit relieved that the world cup is over! I am kind of sad though, it was tons of fun and just super crazy. But it will be nice for things to go back to normal. 

Last week we found some new investigators, but they didn't come to church on Sunday so we are going to visit them this week try to help them come to church next Sunday. It will be hard though, we are going to be doing lots of divisions this week. Tomorrow we are going to Cuiabá to go to the District Meeting of one of the districts there, me and Elder Nere will be giving a training. Then on Friday we are going to another city called Cáceres for a few day with the Elders there, it should be a lot of fun. Also the missionaries there told us thatFriday night there will be a huge Churrasco so we will bring some money to pitch in. He said it will be the best churrasco of our missions so we will see! haha :)

We are going to be moving houses pretty soon, Elder and Sister Davis (The new Senior missionary couple) came and inspected our house and were absolutely horrified haha. We have plants growing out of the tile, termites eating all of our doors and door jams, we don't have any way of getting clean water, pigeons live in our roof, there is water damage in all the walls, the list goes on! haha. So instead of trying to pay and get the place fixed up, we are just going to be on the lookout for new houses in the area to rent. So hopefully we can find one close for a good price and get it approved.

This is already the 5th week of the transfer, so we are going to be working hard to find new investigators and set things up for next transfer so it will be a good one! I think I might be getting transferred, but we will see. Who knows. But the new American that arrived last week his name is Elder Blalock, he is from Mississippi. It is fun having him in the house, so now we have 3 Americans and 1 Brazilian in the house, which is really rare for this mission. But its been fun so far.

Kind of a cool story really quick, so we found a new investigator last week, her name is Ana Paula. She works at the hair salon we got our haircut, and we just started talking to her and she asked us questions about where we were from, what we do, etc. Turns out, her sister is dating a member in one of the other wards here in Varzea Grande, so she was already a little curious. She loves to talk and joke around so we had some good conversations with her then just gave her a card and our number. We invited her to church and said we will pass by the salon and visit her again. She came to church with her sister on Sunday, so that was really cool! We are going to start teaching her this week. But it is just kind of cool how the Lord puts people in our path, even when we just go out to get a haircut. 

Anyways, I hope you all have a great week, I love you and miss you guys! 

Love,

Elder Kyle Payne

WEEK #68

Oi pessoal!

So this was a pretty good week! We got a call from President last night, Elder Andrade who lives with us is getting transferred today to a new area, and Elder Moody will be receiving a new American who just got his visa so Moody will be training him. So now we will have 3 Americans in our house again and only one Brazilian! We will have to pay attention and only speak in Portuguese because we need to help the new missionary learn Portuguese. 

Mirians baptism fell through again, we are dropping her as an investigator because she just isn't progressing. She hasn't been to church for the past two or three weeks. But we will still visit her family because we are working a lot with them, but we wont push baptism anymore until she will start keeping commitments. 

We will have a baptism this Friday of Eder, he is awesome! He has a lot of faith and will be a powerful missionary one day. Also, we have been working with a guy named Alexandre, he is the boyfriend of a member so that helps a lot to set teaching appointments at the house of a member. He said he wants to be baptized, he is just a little nervous and isn't quite sure yet. But he already had a testimony and knows its the right decision, he just needs to take one more step forward. But we marked family night at the house of his girlfriend and her parents, so it will be good. We are going to mark a baptismal date for two weeks from now. 

Things are going good in the zone, we went on exchanges with the other ward in Varzea Grande, it was a lot of fun. I went with Elder W. Rocha, he has 6 months on the mission and is way cool. This week we were supposed to go to Caceres with the elders there, but we are moving it to next week because it will work out better.  But our zone is working hard, the missionaries are doing good work.

Things are still crazy with the World Cup! Brazil plays Germany tomorrow, it will be insane but I'm excited. It has been pretty dangerous lately, there have been a lot of crimes and stuff lately so we just have to use good sense and be careful where we go at night and stuff. I heard from a member that there has already been like 170 homicides this year here in the Varzea Grande area so it makes us a little nervous haha. 

Lately I have been reading and studying a lot of conference talks from this past April conference, and I encourage you all to do the same! The leaders of the church are inspired men and we can learn so much by reading and listening to the words of the prophet and apostles. I love you all so much and pray for you daily! 

Até logo, tchau!

Elder Kyle Payne

Pictures!

WEEK #67

Opa!

I hope you all had a wonderful week! We had a good week here, it was super crazy because of the World Cup, no surprise there. Brazil played Chili on Saturday, it was super intense. The city was like erupting and shooting guns and fireworks everywhere. But the next game is this Friday, so it will be interesting. If Brazil beats Columbia they will advance to the semi finals, so its getting intense now! The United States plays tomorrow, and if they win the Americans might have to stay indoors haha. But its awesome to be here during the world cup! Everybody things we are tourists or something. Elder Moody is tall and really white with blonde hair, so everyone thinks he is German or Australian. The other week when Australia played against Chile here in Cuiaba, everybody was yelling to us Oi Australianos!!! or Vai para casa Alemão! Which means go back home German. but then we tell them we are American and they still tell us to go home haha.

So this week everyone in our house has been sick at least once! I only have a cold luckily, which is really weird. But a lot of missionaries have gotten sick lately in the mission because the air is really dry right now and it has started to cool down a little bit. Plus our house isn't very sanitary and who knows if we are drinking clean water when we are at other peoples houses! 

But we only had 2 investigators at church yesterday, but its alright we have a solid week booked with visits with our investigators so we will be able to make some progress for sure. We are going to mark a date of baptism with our investigator Alexandre, he has been coming to church for a while now with his girlfriend who is a member. Also we have been teaching a young man named Eder, he has 16 years. Technically he lives in the area of the Sister missionaries in the other ward, but he is attending our ward with his girlfriend Amanda because she is in our ward. He said he wants to be baptized in our ward and will attend our ward with her. So we will mark a baptismal date with him this week as well.

We are still working with Mirian, we marked her baptism for last Saturday, but we forgot that the game was on Saturday and we couldn't leave our houses. So we had to schedule it for this coming Saturday. Hopefully she can do what she needs to be worthy to be baptized. But we are working and encouraging her so we are doing all we can.

Also last week we had Zone Training, so all of the missionaries in the zone came to the chapel here in Varzea Grande. We had some changes in the zone during transfers, so now our zone only has 22 missionaries instead of 28 or whatever it was. But we had a really good conference, I gave a training on Helping Investigators Keep Commitments, and my companion gave a training on Having Faith to Baptize. It was good and the sisters made us brownies afterwards so it was sweet! Its been a long time since I had brownies.

This week we will focus on making contacts and finding new investigators, but sometimes its hard to work in our area because we are going to be working with all of the other companionship's in the zone. This week we will be doing divisions with the Elders in the other ward here in Varzea Grande, but then the next week we will be doing it with the Elders in Cáceres, which is like a two hour bus ride from here. Normally just one of us leaves our area and swaps companions with the other area, but since Caceres is so far and since it needs more attention me and Elder Nere will both be going. So me and Elder Nere will both be leaving our area and will stay in Caceres for a few nights. Then the next week we will be going to Cuiaba and doing divisions with the Elders there. So we have everything planned out this transfer to do divisions and work side by side with all the elders in the zone, so it will be fun and I know we will all learn a lot!

Anyways, things are going great, we are working hard and little miracles every day. I love this Gospel and I'm grateful to be a missionary for our Lord and Savior. Today I was informed that my sweet Great Grandma Jennie passed away this morning, and it just makes me realize again how grateful I am for my family and for the knowledge that we can all be together again, even after death. I want my family to know how much I love and appreciate them.

I love and miss you all, hope you have a great week! Hopefully you can all watch some world cup games! :)

Tenha uma boa semana!

Love,

Elder Kyle Payne