June 30, 2014

Well Mumsy,
Sounds like quite a week. This one was much better for us. We had a wonderful activity with the ward on thursday. I think the leadership here wasn’t too confident in us but we threw down an awesome activity and everyone liked it. We have another marked for this week and the next so we had won some confidence of these people. We had also found a family of less actives and started teaching their kids that are like 24 years old and everything was just going perfectly this week. It was so good, I was so excited to get my suit but I got a call yesterday and me and three other people from our zone were emergency transferred. And I discovered today that president swapped around tons of missionaries in the entire mission. I was pretty upset at first when I found out because we had just barely gotten the area going well and we had a perfect week planned this week. But after my angry hour I recognized how much of a blessing it was to be able to meet some people here and to be able to see the gospel change their lives. It was really great here, I will probably be going into my last area of the mission now so it is also another thing to think about. 

So yeah the suit will have to wait. we will see what happens. I will just have to buy one in my next area I guess. But I don’t wanna send you pictures you will have to wait for when I get out of the plane. And yeah that is great to put that in my savings. Thanks a ton mom. The package is perfect everything is great. Well we had a fun time staying inside too during the world cup and we got our party in so I will send you some pictures. We had a great time with everything this week. Everything was going perfect so thats why I got transferred. Thats how it is right?!!

I love you so much mom! I am so excited to see little Alaynna and I hope you all have the most wonderful fourth of July! I love you so much!

Hey Dad,

Thanks a lot for hearing me out. It means a lot. It feels so good to be able to tell you everything Dad. I value your advice so much. Well world cup is nuts here, and Brasil will play on the fourth of July so that means we will be stuck at home to party. I will have to see what we can do here! I am really quite excited and I really love July back at home. It’s colder here so it’s not too awesome but it will still be fun. 

We'll get a show too if Brasil wins or scores any goals. Ha ha well you will have to tell Sam that I didn’t grow any taller, my biceps are bigger and my waist is smaller so thats about it. Ha ha but I was transferred Dad, president threw down a big transfer and nobody was expecting it. It was pretty annoying because we had gotten everything going perfectly here. But that’s what happens on the mish right?

Sounds like you guys are having a pretty good time back at home. I sure love Taylorsville days and man do I miss July summers. Be sure to take lots of photos of Alaynna. I cant wait to see her again. She must be so darling. 

You know dad, I sure love being a missionary. I am so grateful for the opportunity that I had to meet such incredible people here and to make some life long friendships. I don’t know if I got all my work here done but I was bettered by the experiences I had here and its all good memories. I am a little nervous for what is to come but I am excited also. This will probably be my last area so we will see how it goes. I am quite excited. I was really hoping the jazz would pick up Parker, but what can you do. I hope they start doing better. And my Rockies too. 

I am happy for ya and I hope the knee is ready to go for October because its gonna get crazy. Haha well Dad, I love you tons. 

Elder Paynter

June 16, 2014

Hey Mumsy,

Well its been quite a stressful but quick week. I was able to get the transfers and saw my new comp who is great. I am finishing his training and the other zone leader who is living in the house with us is  a great guy too. He is from Kansas, and yes he has  a good redneck side so we get along just great. It has been another tough week of knocking lots of doors and talking to everyone and their dog.  We are teaching a family right now, the husband is a less active member and the wife just barely gave birth and so now they are ready to get their marriage papers done so she can get baptized. We have been waiting a while to move forward but now things are going well with them. They are super curious about all of the tiny things but they are very faithful and committed. So many sacrifices they are making to get married and to go to church. It was great to see. 

So with the world cup, we stayed home during the first game of Brasil. We had a bbq and had our own fun at home. It was a great time. The rest of the week we have just been working away and having a good time. The zone has some great missionaries. A lot of them are rule breakers and pretty disobedient but the A.P.s said that president sent them here for me to help them out. I am glad they are here because although they break the rules, they work pretty hard and smart so we will be able to help them out. We had a zone meeting on friday to get to say hello to everyone but it got a little sour because we opened up a bit of time for everyone to say what they wanted from the transfer and some people started arguing because of their different opinions. We were able to figure out really quickly what kind of missionaries we are working with and what we need to do. It will be a good transfer. 

Well mom I love you so much! I hope you have a great week! I love you and miss you so much! 

Elder Paynter

So, our ward threw a dance and a ton of food was left over so they gave us a ton of soda. (mission life is hard.....not) ha ha!

For the game we all took our blankets outside and kicked it on the patio. All of the sudden a load of fireworks went off and everyone started screaming, and yeah, you know that's a goal. But while the game is going on Brasil is the most quiet country in the world. It was pretty cool. 

I wake up every morning at 6:26 and climb on our wall to look at the sunrise. This morning it was especially beautiful and it reminded me of when you would wake me up early to see the beautiful creations of God. Isn't it great! Super beautiful! I love it here!

June 9, 2014

Last p-day at night, me and another Elder that lives in our home went to a music store and we bought crappy little plastic harmonicas to learn how to play. They were a little pricy, but they were worth it. And yeah lets just say the harmonica is really easy to play and we have been playing a bunch of hymns. Its been quite a bit of fun, I remember how I never stuck with it at home but we learned in about one night. It was pretty cool. I just wish I had more than five minutes a day to practice though. Anyways I thought you would also be proud of that one. I wanna learn some other cool songs to play while I am fishing when we get back home, but we just don't have any other music other than hymns.. 

This week was pretty good. Still pretty stressful but we worked pretty hard and it had a lot of good memories. We had a dinner with some recent converts. They cook really well and grow all of their herbs that they use. So its really fresh. Anyways this last week we ate cação. Its shark. And it was the best seafood I have ever eaten but the next day I was down and out because my body didn't take something too well. It was the first time on my mission where I had to stay home but it ended up being a nice time to bond pretty well with my comp. I really really enjoyed these last four weeks with him. He got transferred and so did Elder Batista. so I will get to know two more elders here in my house and we will have a pretty fun time. The world cup starts this thursday and we are praying so hard that it doesn't interrupt our work too much but it will be pretty difficult.

Stake/Regional conference was great. And was quite fun to sing. We sang "Come Thou Fount" and it always seems like when we sing for other people as the Lords missionaries, we have someone helping us. It turned out really good. 

I am pretty excited to stay one more transfer here. We have a lot of great things going and we will see a lot of great miracles here I hope.  I love being a missionary. Its so wonderful. I am so happy for Levi, I remember how little I remembered of my patriarchal blessing. And then when I got to read it for the first time, my jaw dropped again. The Grundvigs are marvelous and their home truly is a sanction. We have been so blessed by them. 

Well I love you all. I hope you have a wonderful week!

This is a pic of my comp up in an avacado tree. We scored that day.

A big ol fat rottweiler that our ward mission leader has.
The thing is a bear. I loved playing around with it yesterday.
It has such a personality.

June 3, 2014

Mom,

It’s so cool how you are so loving and inspired with everything that you do. We decided to have our p day today instead of tomorrow because we have our appointments marked tomorrow. So just to tell you a little bit more about my week, because I didn’t really write much last week (wasn’t in the mood), I decided to write down a few notes so when I was looking at this big white computer screen I would be able to remember what happened this week. It all just seems like such a blur sometimes.

But I got a really nice call from Andreya (Kaique's mom) saying she got the tickets for Kaique. And I really cannot wait at all. We just got to pray that he will get his visa just fine so he can come out. That same day, we went to our district meeting and while we were walking, Elder Ferguson had told me that he wasn’t able to sleep the night before because he wasn’t feeling too well. We called the mission president's wife and she sent us to the hospital after our district meeting. And we ended up spending the entire day in the hospital waiting for some test results and a few shots. It was pretty fun translating for him, and being back around the old medical world. Brought back lots of great memories and reminded me how much I do enjoy the medical life. We will still just have to see what life has in store. 

          The next day I was pretty excited to get up and get rockin on the missionary work again, and then I had gotten a call and we had to go resolve a problem in our zone and ended up being another speed bump for the week. Finally on Thursday we were able to get to work and we worked hard but didn’t have any success in finding some new solid people to teach and bring to the church. 

We went to the church early on Friday to practice singing a song that we sang in sacrament meeting. And while we were there a big man talked with us and said his rabbit had ran into the church property and wanted our help catching it. We ran after it but had no success. We came back a little later to the church and we saw the rabbit, we chased after it again and ended up chasing it back into the school where it belonged. The big man invited some little English students to come and talked with us, and next thing we knew we were inside the school feeling like celebrities talking to all of these darling little kids. It was a fun time, and they invited us to go back and talk with them for a bit this Friday. We are pretty excited for it. 

        Well after everything this week, I was pretty dang stressed out because we hadn’t gotten anyone to teach and we had worked hard. I went to church with a pretty salty attitude. We sang in sacrament meeting for the opening hymn, and everyone loved it. It came out pretty nice. And then the second counselor got up to be the first to bear his testimony and open it up for everyone. It was incredible because his first words were exactly what I needed to hear. I was so grateful and am so grateful that the Lord answers our prayers. It was so cool to be able to once more witness that God blesses others through our help, and blesses us through the help of others. It was a great time all in all. 

We went to our leadership meeting yesterday and it was alright. We found out that its actually going to be pretty dangerous here during the world cup, and that there will be lots of protests and riots because the country spent tons of money on new stadiums and won’t pay to better health care or schooling. People are pretty mad. So I guess the church is pretty nervous about during the world cup. And during all the Brazil games, we have to stay home the entire day. So we will see how that goes, but don’t like being in the same place for a lot of time. I guess I will work out and get ripped. Ha-ha jk. Well mumsy, everyone liked our singing because they asked us to sing at stake conference this Sunday again. It’s been fun and I have thought a lot about how proud you would be of your little boy finally singing. It’s been a lot of fun. Just give us some prayers that we might bring this wonderful truth to some more people this week. I love you so much. I hope you have a wonderful week mumsy!

Elder Paynter