WEEK #41- KYLE'S BIRTHDAY!

Hello everyone!

I hope you all had a great Christmas!!! Mine was awesome, I got to Skype my family. That was definitely the highlight of my week. But it was definitely the craziest Christmas of my life! So after dinner, we were walking to a members house, and we saw a dog get hit by a motorcycle. It was really gross. Then when we were walking home a couple hours later, my companion got hit by a car!!!! It was so crazy! The guy was drunk and he wasn't even watching where he was going. We were walking the side of the road, and all of the sudden I heard a car that sounded like it was really close, and I looked back and BOOM! Elder Vecchio got hit from behind. He is okay and isn't hurt too bad, he just has a bruised hip and a few scratches. It all happened really fast. Elder Vecchio is a champ though, he was in the hospital last week, and got hit by a car on Christmas, haha it's crazy. 

Anyways, it has been a great week. Our investigator didn't end up getting baptized but we are working on it. We worked hard this week and made tons of contacts, so we have like 15 new investigators to teach this week. We set a date with one of our investigators Sonaira, she is 14. She will get baptized for sure! She really really wants to join the church and she has a lot of friends in the church, but we just have to get her mom to let her. We will be praying and fasting for it to all work out. But Sonaira is such a great girl we are very excited for her! Her date is January 12 so we will work with her this week! :) 

Brazil is really crazy, I love it. It has been really hot this week and it has rained a lot. I don't care for the rain too much but its all good! I ate Capivara (capybara) the other day. If you don't know what Capivara is, it is pretty much a really big rodent that tastes like pork. I thought it was pork when they fed it to us, but I found out afterwards what I was actually eating. haha. What you don't know doesn't hurt you, right?!

Anyways, things are going really well here, Brazil is awesome, the people here are awesome, the food is awesome, I love it haha. The language is coming along  but it is still really frustrating at times. I'll get it down eventually!

Well all, I hope you have a wonderful new year!!! I love and miss you!

Falou,

Elder Kyle Payne

WEEK #10

Hey everyone!

I hope you all had a good Memorial Day weekend! I didn't get to email on my p-day yesterday because the library was closed. I was so busy though! A lot of people came to their cabins in Lincoln for the weekend, so we just went and talked to everyone in front of the Bars and Casinos haha. It's such a small town but there are like 8 bars and they all have casinos. So much has happened this past week, it flew by! Time on a mission is so weird. That's the only way I can describe it. The days are long and tiring, but the weeks fly by. I can't believe it's almost June!!!

Well, so we have some exciting news with the Jones family! We taught them about the Plan of Salvation and it was really hard to get through the lesson because they ask so many random questions about dumb things haha. Like Bro. Jones always quizzes me on how many species of animals were on the Ark and if I've read from the book of Mary in the Bible (I guess it was taken out? I don't know) He calls us every day to see how we're doing and asks us for help to paint his trailer, take stuff to the dump, dig out tree stumps, etc. Sometimes I think he's just using us haha. But he really likes us and he invites us over all the time. Anyways, after we talked about the Plan on Salvation and the different degrees of glory, all the kids were really excited to learn more. We used ice cream in our lesson, to help the kids understand. We said that in the Telestial Kingdom, we get one scoop of ice cream every day. In the Terestial Kingdom, we get a bucket of ice cream every day. And in the Celestial Kingdom, we get our own ice cream factory that we can go to whenever we want! haha. You can guess which one the Kids wanted. They liked the lesson and especially the Ice cream. I extended an invitation to the family to be baptized, and they said yes! Brother and sister jones thought our belief about different kingdoms was weird, and he didn't agree to baptism, but we'll get him eventually! haha. We also invited them to pray what we taught was true, and Matthew, the second youngest, came up to us the next day and said that after he prayed he felt like something hot went into his body and then went out, and he said he knows that God told him that it was true. How cool is that?! It was so awesome to hear him tell us his experience with the Holy Ghost. I had to hold back the tears. I'm so excited to teach him and his family more, hopefully they can be baptized before I go to Brazil.

Our other most progressing investigator is named Doc. I love him so much and want him to be baptized!!! He's just so stubborn haha. He's totally ready, he just doesn't realize it yet. We are working with the branch to help him as well. It's so frustrating because I know that he knows it's true. He just lacks confidence in his decision. We're working on it though, we just need to do our best and the Holy Ghost can continue to testifify to him.

Well, me and my companion have had a lot of fun this week, we are working our butts off! I've never been so busy in my life. I'm so grateful for the opportunity I have to serve the people of Montana. I love the people here. I'm going to miss it when I go to Brazil! I have a feeling our Visas are going to come next week. I'm not sure, we'll see :)

I'm learning so much about life and about myself. This week I have thought a lot about eternal families and how blessed we are that we can be with each other forever! I have realized how important it is to spend time with loved ones when we have the chance. Time is something that there never seems to be enough of. I encourage you all to spend as much time as you can with family and friends and not to take them for granted. It's often easy to take things for granted, we don't even realize we are doing it. But my challenge for you this week is to show your love for your family or friends by serving them and letting them know that you love them. I think I've given this challenge before haha, but it's so simple and important. Spending a little extra effort and time to serve someone goes a really long way. I hope you all have a great week! I love you and pray for you every day..

Ate mais! Ti amo!

Love, Elder Kyle Payne