December 30, 2013

 Our Hot Wheels Derby was way cool.

 Fried Chicken and Grape Drink

 Tiago and I on Christmas Eve

 Elder Liesmann and I bought these ties for all of them. 

Felipe, Kaique and the ward mission leaders who are great friends of Tiago.

December 16, 2013

You know something Dad, I love my comp. I love this area just you wait and see, these last few weeks we will have baptisms and we will also be the happiest missionaries on the face of the planet.

Wow, just hearing about people already ending the missions makes me so sad. I never want to end the mission. I'm going to move out of Utah just so I can preach the gospel to more people. I don’t know dad, but it’s already been a year and 2 months and I still have fourty years of work left to accomplish in these last 10 months.

One thing is for sure though dad, if I don’t get to talk to you on Christmas, it wont be Christmas. That’s all I could ask for is to talk to my father, and I have been wanting to have just a couple minutes just to talk with you alone. I miss you and love you to death dad. I am not homesick, but fathersick. Ha-ha jk I am fine and we are able to stay really focused here on the work and things are going quite well.

The Christmas Spirit is really hard to get going here but we are going to carol in front of the church and try and stop people so we can talk to them. Its just so weird passing December without any snow, but hey next year this time I am going to be with the fam.

Well this week was a lot of fun, we had some great spiritual experiences and I’ll tell ya about them in moms letter. Well I will definitely be praying hard to have you off for Christmas; you have never worked one in my life so I think that God will keep the streak going. I sure can’t wait for it. Don’t you worry either this ward takes really good care of us, along with God. Ugh, I don’t ever want to leave this place or end my mission. I miss ya dad, I love you tons. Have a good one alrighty. Be so safe too. I love ya 

Elder Paynter

Mom,

I hope you know just how much I love you. I can’t wait to talk to you on Christmas. Its looking like it will be pretty early in the morning, so keep the computer ready while you are opening presents. Maybe I can watch you all open some. Will Ashley and Miguel be opening presents at our house? It’s so crazy that everyone is just grown up now. Ha-ha when I get back, it’s going to be so weird.

Well I love this talk of Zion mom.  It feels so good to say that we are building Zion! The Millennium will be so magnificent to be able to rest with the Savior here on earth and everyone so happy and loving. 

This week was really quite fun and I was able to learn a lot of things. We had been so blessed by the members this week they have been so loving. I don’t know if its because Christmas is close or that they really like us, but its been fun.

We had been running around trying to track down some references but they weren’t ever home, so some time was left over and I asked Elder Liesmann what we should do. He reminded me of a contact that he had done a while back, so we went to visit him. We knocked on the door and an old lady answered and said that nobody with the guys name lived there. I was a little turned off but we decided to knock across the street to see if they lived on the other side and sure enough, he did. It was a big family and they were so so friendly. Tons of people were walking in and out of the house, and they listened to us teaching. In the end they didn’t want much, because they are super Catholic but they were some of the most loving people I had ever met in my life. We left the house and I just kept thinking about how essential it is for everyone to be so loving to ALL people. They truly were great examples to me. And just as it says in D&C we both were edified when we left. I am so grateful my comp follows the spirit and helped us to have that opportunity.  

We had a big ward activity this Saturday, and it was such a blast and brought many new investigators for us also. They had an inflatable soccer field and threw a ton of soap and water in it. The kids played, and then the guys got on and went crazy. It was a pretty crazy thing to watch. Elder Liesmann and I were dying to go play because it was also pretty hot but we stuck around helping set up tables and played a little Jenga also.

Yesterday, we had gone to church and all of the sudden a lady showed up with her boyfriend.  Her name is Vanessa and her boyfriend is Rafael. It was a reference we had from back when Elder Vianna was here. We went to visit Vanessa but she had never let us in, she just kept saying that she would go to church. So we left her alone, and here two months later, she came and now we will teach them both this Thursday. They absolutely loved church.

Our lunch we had was with a family of four and it was so wonderful. They are so loving and I hope one day to have a family like theirs. The kids adored us and we had a blast feeling the love from them. It was just a wonderful week.

And I almost forgot, we got a new ward mission leader and assistant to the mission leader. They are so cool and we are going to buy them ties today to get them excited and tomorrow when we are at the temple we will buy them copies of preach my gospel too. They are both recent converts within a year so they are still so amped up about the gospel.

Well family, this week will be wonderful, we are going to baptize someone, I don’t know who it will be but the Lord will provide the means for us to accomplish this for Him. Let us all go build Zion! I love you all and miss you tons! Have a great week! H.A.G.W.  Ha-ha just like the old yearbook signing.

Elder Paynter

December 9, 2013

Thanks so much for that email. It’s so great to hear such powerful words again. I still remember that talk but there are some key things I had forgotten. I love that phrase, it’s up on the board in our church. I absolutely love this ward, and you know what that means, now that I like where I am at I will get transferred. Ha-ha.

Well just a quick recap of these days we had, the baptism we were going to have fell through and doesn’t look like it is one that will recover, however we have a lot of great plans up ahead of us and the ward is just boiling with excitement to build the lords kingdom here on earth! This last Thursday we were out working and I wasn’t feeling good at all so we ended up going easier and I bought some meds and slept really early that night. Woke up on Friday with fire in ma bones and we worked as hard as we could that day and then at 7 we had an activity with the priesthood at the church, playing soccer and having an American bbq with hamburgers and soda. Good times. It was really productive we were able to get a lot of less active members there and get into contact with some new investigators also. I am so excited.

Saturday we went to teach a retired dentist/scientist/author that is partially deaf and it was a cool experience. I had to speak really loud and clear, and that cold stuffy sound that I have been stuck with lately helped with a little with the accent so it was a blessing. He was a really nice guy but said he wouldn’t be going back much to our church because he can’t understand anything and it’s not worth it to sit there for three hours if he can’t hear. We are trying to figure out what we can do to make it worth the while.

That afternoon we had lunch with the bishop, and it was a really cool experience to be able to get to know him better. He is a great guy and in these few short weeks he has brought a lot of great things to the ward and everyone is happy. I am just so happy to be working here with them.

Afterwards we had to go to the temple to help with a Christmas presentations that they had. There were so many people and we were helping to contact all of the non members and get their addresses and such. It was packed and it was super super hot. Especially to be wearing a suit. Nina was there and she gave me Christmas present. It was a jersey from my favorite soccer team here. I had always joked with her about her team. It was really nice of her, and I was also able to see some of the other families that we taught. It was such a great experience to be at the temple to see all of them and also to think about our family and how we are eternal. I really can’t wait to go do some ordinances there again; which we will be doing on the 17th for our Christmas mission devotional.

This week we have a huge ward activity planned for Saturday and we are going to get a bunch of investigators and less actives there and as a result, baptisms and happiness. I just am so happy to be doing the Lords work, and yeah this week was one of the toughest I have had in a long time, but I love this work. It’s so cool to see how the Lord truly is hastening it, and I never ever want to stop helping Him bring about this happiness. I love the gospel so much! I hope you all had such a great week. I am so jealous that you get to see the chubbs again, and I really miss you all. Levi a lot too, but at least Kaique is here to fill in his spot for a bit. He and Levi would get along really well. I love you family, I miss you, and God be with you!

Elder Paynter

December 4, 2013

Hey Dad,

Thanks a lot for the email. It really is a lot of what I needed to hear. This week went quite well. We weren’t able to get tons done on paper but I feel like we are really helping a lot of people with what we were able to accomplish.

Kaique's mom, Andreya, called and said that Marcios, her future husband, decided that he wanted to be baptized and he felt that the time had come! We were all so happy. So his baptism will be this Sunday and Kaique will baptize him now that he is a priest! It has been so cool to see the whole process happening with Kaique and to see that he is so firm in the gospel. He has been talking a lot about a mission lately which would be a huge sacrifice. He has a scholarship from the government that pays everything for him until he graduates but if he leaves on a mission he will lose it all. And college here is super expensive. But those who are converted recognize the importance of sacrifice.

 We also had our activity on Saturday at the church, I didn’t think many people would show up, and it came to the point where I was only expecting to have five or so people, the bishop his wife and the ward mission leader and his wife, but more people showed up with low expectations and we hit a home run. I had bought Jenga with my Christmas money so I could do this game. We divided the group of about 25 people into two and then asked a bunch of questions. If the team got the question right, the other had to take a block out of the Jenga tower if they got it wrong then they themselves had to take the block out. It got so competitive and exciting that people would get up and start dancing when they got the question right. It was such a fun time and I am excited to see the outcome for the next one.  

Sunday night we went to a fireside where an area seventy was there. He and our mission president gave a training thing about working with the members. Kaique and Marcios went and they loved it. They shared some really cool things there and more than ever the work of Salvation here is speeding up. They also said that we had 90 missionaries after the mission divided; now we have 140, and soon we will have 220. Yeah, we have a lot of work to do here to get people trained and ready to go.

Monday was an interesting time at the leadership meeting. I had gotten sick on Sunday and just was not feeling so hot, and then the bus drivers were on strike so I sat waiting at the bus stop for two and a half hours and then ran to the meeting in my suit in the hot humid Brazil and showed up super sweaty. But it all turned out good. President was just throwing it down on some things here on the mission. Obedience is one of them, he basically told everyone if you don’t want to be obedient go home. It was really cool to see that.

We got out of the meeting at about four and then I went to the mission office to talk with the secretaries who are part of my zone and ended up helping them out a bit with some struggles and didn’t leave there until seven thirty at night. We took a bus back home and went to a family home evening with Kaique and some other missionaries who live close by because it was one of the Elder's birthday. We had a big bbq and ate cake and lit fireworks and after we had sang for the cake the members grabbed a bunch of eggs and broke them on our heads. I couldn’t believe it! Then everyone started throwing cake and all kinds of food at each other. Kaique almost escaped but then they threw a bunch of milk on him. It was so funny. We turned on the hose and sprayed everyone down, and then we grabbed a bus home while everyone stared at the guy in the soaking wet suit. It was such a good time and I will never forget it.

Yesterday we had to go downtown to get Elder Liesmann’s visa taken care of. We have got a lot of things to do this week and there will be zero time. We will be having a big activity with all of the priesthood on Friday night and also we will be helping with the Christmas presentation at the temple all day Saturday. But I prefer the busy life. I would just like to get rid of the cold I have.

Well Dad, that’s my week. Full of miracles and great things and I feel like more than ever I am changing. I think I am finally starting to understand what missionary work really is, what the gospel truly brings and what role it’s playing in my life. I have never felt like this before on the mission but it’s something really really good. I love you and thanks so much for the email. I am glad to hear you had a Christmas party and that the week went well. Be safe and have a good one Dad.

I love you.

Elder Paynter  

Super cute little kids, the little girl in the middle is an angel, 

and the other two are pretty wild.

These are some activities we did.

Then for a family home evening we played the game where you have to
get the cookie from your forehead into your mouth without using hands. 
Great memories made in these past couple weeks.

The flag is my buddy's. He is from Georgia and he is hilarious.