WEEK #91

Friends and Family,

Sorry I wasn't able to email on Monday, we had to travel 8 hours by bus because we had the Christmas Conference yesterday. It was a lot of fun but I am pretty worn out from traveling, we got home at like 1 this morning, but it was good to see everyone again. Our zone performed a song that we wrote for the mission at the talent show, we ate some good food, recited memorized scriptures, all that fun stuff haha. It is still crazy to me that it is almost Christmas, it is so hot here so it doesn't feel like Christmas time but its all good :)

But last week was a good week, our investigators Paulo and Marlene started filling out their papers for marriage, so they are going to get married at the beginning of January I think. so then we will be able to baptize them. I'm super excited for them, I really feel like I have known them for a long time, plus they have a food delivery business so they always make us great food haha :)

Last we also did divisions with the zone leaders, they came to our area and visited our investigators with us, we had a good time. We taught a good amount of lessons, we also had our zone meeting which was pretty cool. Elder Veccho, my old companion, is going home this transfer so I said goodbye to him at the Christmas conference, its crazy that everyone is going home. After this transfer my group will be the oldest group in the mission, super crazy! 

We spent a lot of time last week visiting less actives as well, we are trying to get church attendance up. It used to be over 100 people at church every week but now its usually around 75, there were a lot of things that happened and some drama and gossip between families a little bit ago so the attendance fell, but it is slowly going back up and we are trying to bring as many people as we can to church. 

But overall things are going really well, I am so excited for Christmas! I hope you all have a wonderful week and enjoy the holiday season. I pray that we can all keep Christ in our hearts during this special time of year and remember the true meaning of Christmas. I love you all so much, have a good week!

Love,

Elder Kyle Payne

WEEK #90

Friends and Family,

I hope you all had an amazing week! So this week was pretty crazy, Elder Marstella foi embora and I got a new companion named Elder Rueda, he is from Curitiba, Paraná. He is super cool and we get along great. He started his mission in Cáceres which is in the Cuiabá Zone, so I met him at a zone meeting when I was still in Cuiabá. He has about 8 months on his mission. But my English has gone downhill really fast again haha since I have a Brazilian companion again, but its all good because my Portuguese will get better.

This week we have been taking care of some stuff around the house, we were faulting a lot of supplies and stuff so we have been buying them this week. I have been showing the area to Elder Rueda and we have been teaching all our investigators, it has been a good week so far! 

We got a new investigator with a lot of potential, she is the girlfriend of a member that lives in our area and he brought her to church, so we are going to teach her this week. Also we tried marking some baptismal dates but they didn't come to church or still don't have a testimony, so we will keep working with them. Our investigator named Eliete is progressing and believes in everything we teach her, but she has to work for a couple Sundays so she can take a break for Christmas, so she hasn't been able to come to church. Her daughter Vitória also ran away from home so it has been a really hard time for her so we have been doing our best to help her out. 

But this next week we will be visiting lots of less actives and marking dates, trying to get things going for this transfer. It should be really good, I'm excited. Its crazy to think that this is my second to last transfer! Time has flown by its insane! 

Also the zone leaders are coming to do divisions with us for a couple days so I'm excited for that, the zone leaders are my two good friends Elder Weeks and Elder Stevens, I'm excited! :) 

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

Abraço,

Elder Kyle Payne

WEEK #89

Friends and Family,

Happy December everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving! It was just a normal hot day for us here, it was pretty good though. We ate some pizza with a member so it was alright haha :) We had a good week here, we had the baptism of an investigator named Charles, he just moved here to Lucas do Rio Verde recently and is super awesome! Elder Marstella was able to perform the ordinance. Charles is also married and his wife wants to be baptized. So the goal is for him to get the priesthood soon so he can baptize her in a couple weeks! I'm super excited for them. They have a little blonde daughter named Natasha that is like the cutest thing on the planet as well haha :) Oh also I heard Philadelphia beat Dallas last week, so that's also awesome :)

So today is transfer day, hard to believe another transfer has flown by! We got calls at 11:30 last night... and I am staying here in Lucas! :) President said I will most likely finish my mission here so I'm happy about that, I really like it here. But Elder Marstella is getting transferred to Cáceres in the Cuiabá zone again! When I was a zone leader there he was serving in Cáceres, and now hes going back there again! haha pretty crazy. He is pretty excited though so that's good. Elder Watchman is going down to Campo Grande again, that lucky dog, it is a lot cooler down there in Mato Grosso do Sul than it is here. My new comp is Elder Rueda, he was in my zone a couple months ago when he started his mission so I already know who he is! he is super cool and I think he is from Curitiba but I cant remember. I'm excited though, he will probably be my last comp on the mission so we are gonna tear it up together! 

Katia still wasn't baptized, we are still going to visit her but she hasn't really been progressing as an investigator so we dropped her. She will get baptized one day but right now doesn't seem like the right time for her. We are still teaching Marlene though and they want to get married soon so we are still helping her get ready for baptism.

We also met a family last week and we taught them with the sisters because the wife really likes the sister missionaries. They are an awesome family and seem super interested, but we found out that they aren't married either. they say they are planning on getting married soon but who knows! They have a daughter who has 12 years though so hopefully they can get married and all get baptized together.

We visited a lot of less actives throughout the week as well, we are trying to increase church attendance in the branch. There are so many people that live kinda far from the church and don't have a car or a motorcycle so its hard for them to go, but we are doing our best to help them. We have a couple ideas, like with some of them we will give them our bus passes so they can go or we can set up a ride with a member, but we can only do that for so long before they need to start getting themselves to church. It has been frustrating though because sooo many people have to work on Sundays, so its tough. We will keep trying though :)

Today I start doing the Insanity DVDs as well, and I will stop drinking coke! I made one change though, I decided I will let myself drink coke only on p-days haha. other than that its just water for me! :)

But things are going really well here, I'm excited for the new transfer and for Christmas! I hope you all have a good week and remember our Savior during this special time of year. I love and miss you all, talk to you soon! 

Love,

Elder Kyle Payne

WEEK #88

Friends and Family,

I hope you all had a wonderful week! We had a good week here in Lucas do Rio Verde, it was really hot but it also rained almost every day during the afternoon so it helped cool off for a little bit... then it heated up again and got really muggy haha. Our area is just small enough that we don't need to take the buses everywhere because it wouldn't be worth the 3 bucks each pass, but it is still big enough that we have to walk a ton. But its all good! When its super hot outside and we have to walk far to appointments I seriously just daydream about diving into a huge pool of Gatorade...

But anyways we weren't able to mark a date with Katia, she also didn't come to church yesterday which is a bummer. Everybody says they will come to church on Sunday but only like 1 in 10 actually come here in Brazil. It is hard when they don't have rides and stuff, so we are trying to get people rides and friends to help them get their butts to church. 

We were able to reactivate a guy named Anderson, he is 17 and was baptized a while ago but hasn't come to church since and has had some hard times recently, but he has shown a lot of faith and humility and he came to family night last week and came to church on Sunday it was awesome!

Yesterday we had a family night again at a members house, there was a really good turnout, almost the whole branch came and there were several less actives and investigators. We then ate Salgadinhos (fried dough ball things with meat inside) and cake :D 

We visited a lot of less actives this week, trying to get them to come to church. We also talked with Paulo and Marlene, the couple who want to get married so that Marlene can get baptized, and they have plans to do it at the end of this year or first of next year, so I think I will be here when they finally get married! I am super excited for them though, they are an awesome couple. We also got a few references this week from some members, so we will be visiting them and teaching about the restoration, it will be good.

The 6 month to sexy program is still coming along, I will start doing the Insanity workout program on the 1st of December so I'm taking it pretty serious! haha. Also I will stop drinking soda as well, which is super hard here because everybody drinks so much Coke. But I just have to resist :) 

But overall things have been going really well, just a normal week as a missionary :) This is the last week of the transfer already so we are gonna finish strong! I think Elder Marstella might be transferred, he has been here for about 4 months already but we will see. Anyways, I love you all so much, and I hope you all have a great Thanksgiving. I heard the Eagles and the Cowboys are playing on thanksgiving day, I love the Eagles and my companion is from Dallas and a die hard Cowboys fan so it will be exciting! haha. Boa semana, abraço! 

Love,

Elder Kyle Payne

WEEK #87

Hey everyone!

I hope you all had a great week, we had a good week here in Lucas do Rio Verde! We didn't end up having Katias baptism, although she came to church on Sunday. Last Thursday we marked a date with her for next week and she came to church, but She left right before sacrament meeting because she had to go prepare lunch for her family. Before she left she told Elder Marstella that she wasn't sure about getting baptized anymore, so we will visit with her tomorrow and see what's up. 

Also, we went to a city that is about an hour from Lucas to spend the night with a member family that lives out there. The city is called Novo Mutum, it doesn't have a ward or a branch, just that family but they don't have the means to come to church here in Lucas every week. So once a transfer we are allowed to go there. We stayed the night there at their house on Friday and had a family night with them and another family that they invited. We had a churrasco with lots of meat and good food, it was super fun. We will be going back next month as well. We taught about the restoration and it went well. There were a bunch of kids though so me and my companion were kept really busy doing magic tricks and translating things into English haha. 

The sisters here had a baptism though of a 17 year old girl, it was really cool. After the baptism we had a branch activity at the chapel and had a decent turnout. Also last night we had family night with the whole branch at a members house, we do it every Sunday night. But we made visits with the young men during the afternoon on Sunday and brought some less actives with us to the family night, it was a lot of fun! We also played this game where you have to switch and compete for chairs a lot and run around, and I ended up basically tackling two people by accident haha everyone was laughing super hard! I felt bad though but its a dangerous game! haha.

Also our investigator Marlene came to church with Paulo who is a member, they are planning on getting married soon so we can get her baptized, hopefully before I go home in February! Marriage here is pretty expensive and takes a while so we have to see what we can do to help them. 

That about sums up the week, we just worked as usual and tried to strengthen the branch. but it was a good and fun week. I hope you all have a great week, I love and miss you all! 

Com muito amor,

Elder Kyle Payne

WEEK #86

Hello Everyone,

I don't have very much time today so I will get right to it! :) This week went really well, although we didn't have our baptism of Katia. Her birthday was Saturday so she traveled with her husband to spend the weekend in Rondonopolis. But we will try for this next week :)

We taught English on Friday night, we only had 2 people show up this week but we got their names and addresses so we will visit them this next week. Right now our focus as far as work goes is increasing the attendance at church on Sundays and helping the branch grow, so we are trying to find new families to baptize, as well as reactive less active members. Also we had interviews with President on Friday night, and he said that he wants Elder Marstella and me to really help the young men in the branch, right now there are about 7 who will be able to go on missions next year, so he wants us to go make visits with them, teach them, and help prepare them to go on missions next year. It should be a lot of fun though, the young men here are awesome! I will be really happy when they all go on missions soon.

We have a couple investigators who want to get baptized they just need to get married first, so we are trying to work things out and help them do that. Also we have been teaching Katia´s son, he is super interested and wants to be baptized as well, he just has a hard time coming to church because he has to work. So we are praying that all of our investigators and less actives and members we are working with will be able to resolve things with their work so that they can attend church on Sundays. We will help them as much as we can and keep encouraging them, but they still have to work and provide for their families so its a tough situation.

I have really been thinking a lot the past few weeks just how important it is for us to show love for our family members, friends, neighbors, coworkers, etc. Little acts of kindness make the biggest difference in the lives of those around us. When members or missionaries or investigators have helped me and shown me love even in the simplest ways, it has made a huge difference in my life and in my mission. I was reading the other day that love is not only a noun, but it is a VERB. If we want to feel more love in our lives we need to show more love for others. I hope this week that we can all take advantage of opportunities to serve, encourage, and most of all love those around us. I know that as we do so, the spirit will be more abundant in our lives and we will truly be blessed. "Do good, feel good!" :)

Anyways, things are going good, we are working with the members here and the work is going great. This branch has grown a lot this past year and I'm excited to be a part of it, hopefully we can make a difference here as well! I hope you all have a wonderful week, I love and miss you!

"Começar é para todos. Continuar é para os valentes. Terminar é para os heróis!"
(To begin is for everyone. Continue is for the brave. Finish is for heroes.)

Love,
Elder Kyle Payne

WEEK #85

Hey Everyone,

I hope you all had a good Halloween! They don't celebrate it here in Brazil, or at least where I'm at, so I didn't even realize it was Halloween until like 6 at night! haha. But its crazy to think about, I received my mission call 2 years ago on Halloween! Time has gone by so dang fast!

This week was really good for me and Elder Marstella. We still have Katia on date to be baptized this Sunday, she didn't come to church yesterday so it was a bummer. She had to work. We only had one of our investigators show up for church, even though we invited like 6 of them! It is so hard to get people off their butts sometimes! haha jk. But church starts at 9 am, and everybody here wants to sleep and relax on Sunday mornings. Most churches here have their Sunday services in the evenings, so some people think its weird to have it Sunday morning. We will keep trying though! We actually got a lot of references from members here though and taught some good lessons. Some members also brought their friends to church so we got some new investigators that seem really cool, we will go visit them this week and invite them to church next Sunday as well.

We had a pretty crazy experience though on Saturday night though, we were walking at night on our way to one of our appointments, and a drunk guy rode past us on his bike and called us over. We went over and he started saying I'm a drunk, I'm a drunk, you guys need to help me. Then he started saying how he is drinking again because his wife doesn't want to be with him anymore and that she has a new boyfriend now. Then he starts getting all mad and saying how he is going to kill her and her new boyfriend and anyone that is at the house! The thing is he was a little drunk, but he wasn't totally wasted either, so we weren't sure how serious he was haha. But then he said he was going to get an axe and kill everyone, so we just told him not to do that and that he needs to cool down a little bit and pray and ask for help. We told him that things would be much worse if he killed somebody so he shouldn't do it. But he kept on saying that he was going to, so we just invited him to church and said it would help him and change his life and we gave him a pamphlet about the Gospel. Then he rode off. he didn't come to church but I wish the best for him haha! We got his address and phone number so we will go visit him this week.

We also got some new beds finally, they are still really crappy beds and are super hard but they are better than the other ones we had. They got delivered on Thursday, we had to wait for 5 and a half hours for them to deliver the beds. They said they would be there at 2 but didn't show up until 7 30, so there wasn't much we could do but everything worked out. On Friday we had a meeting with our zone leaders Elder Nere and Elder Weeks, they slept at our house and had to use our old mattresses! haha. But then we did divisions with them and it was a lot of fun, good to see them again.
6 months to sexy program is still going strong! haha. I'm trying to eat as healthy as I can. I limited myself to only one coke per week, its hard though because we always have soda at members houses for lunch. But I'm trying haha.

Anyways things are going really well though, we should mark some more baptismal dates this week and if everything goes according to plan Katia should be baptized this Sunday. We are super excited! We also have 2 investigators who want to get baptized really bad and come to church every Sunday, they just have to get married first because they live together. But we will still work with them. But I hope you all have a wonderful week, love and miss you guys!

Love,
Elder Kyle Payne