April 29, 2013

Hey everyone!

This week was probably the busiest week on the mission, but it was great! Elder Permann was transferred and I was sad to see him go. But now I am with Elder Albuquerque! He is one of the Brasilians that arrived in the MTC the same day I did! I couldn't believe when they said he was my comp! I was super excited and it has been nothing but great! I have learned so much from him in just a few days and am super grateful for the opportunity that the Lord blessed me with to learn from him. 
        So we had an activity planned for the youth (who are all inactive) in the branch. It was the missionary's job to get it all put together. So we walked the entire city getting the youth to promise to come and play X Box Kinect at the church and we arranged everything to have plenty of food! It was pretty fun and all, but we only had one of the young women show up and that’s because her mom was helping prepare the food. But it was all good! 

Elder Albuquerque brought some workout DVDs, called "insanity". It’s basically a bunch of plyometrics, and we did a part of a workout for two days straight. Ha-ha I could hardly walk on the third day because my legs were so sore! But thank heavens we had two members who did divisions with us the entire day, so we got to chill in the car the entire day and relax the legs and feet! I have already lost some weight and we will be starting up again tomorrow now that our muscles have gotten a wrest! 

Albuquerque does some super effective missionary work; he has such a love for the Lord. It is so good to be with a comp as excited as him. He does contacts in such crazy ways, but they work so well. The other day we were sitting on a bench on the corner of a street and he told me just to start yelling in English at everyone who passes by, and he would act like he was translating! Ha-ha it was crazy but it was super effective. We got plenty of addresses and one lady stopped and talked a lot with us. All in all we walked with her to her house and taught her. On the way there she made me ride her bike, she wanted to see an American ride a bike. And while Elder Albuquerque was talking, she cut him off and said let the American talk. It was just super weird and all, but we taught her and she came to church this week! It was pretty good! Ha-ha unfortunately she was the only investigator that came to church. But at least we had one! It is already a big improvement.

Elder Albuquerque has brought some great new ideas here to help the branch. Each time we leave a message at lunch, we ask the members to share their testimony. The first house we went to for lunch, is with an older couple who have an 18 year old daughter who fell away from the church and sadly does all the wrong the world has to offer. But Elder Albuquerque asked her to share her testimony, and she kind of wouldn't. But he asked her questions and in the end she bore her testimony. I thought he was crazy. Elder Permann and I never got her to eat at the table with us, Albuquerque got her to eat at the table, talk with us, and bare her testimony. This kid is super persistent, brave, friendly and just awesome. It is so much that I am learning from him in all situations and I just love it.

This past week was super busy, we had the activity, we had all of Thursday filled with splits with members and had to plan to fill the schedule, and then to top it all off we had to speak in church on Sunday. It all went really well though, now I am excited to keep working this week and just focus on getting our investigators to church. I am loving the mission so much and am so glad that I am where I am at and with who I am with and doing what I am doing! It has been such a blast. I am sorry that this letter was super quick. The LAN house here was having problems so we didn’t get to email until late. Now I got to run! Can't wait to tell you more about what comes this week! Thanks so much for everything! I love you all! God loves you all!

Elder Paynter