Monday, March 28, 2011

Hola familia!!!! Its me again, hna payne. (my keyboard is a little ghetto, fyi) This letter is coming from good Ol´ Formosa and not Resistencia. Yes i have been transferred. I am now with hna Da Silva. She is from Uruguay. i have a latina! YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! im am sooooo excited abuot that. She is wonderful. i definitely have a lot to learn from here, and not just in spanish either. she is helpin g me a ton. she thinks that we will be together for one transfer because she has been here for a long time. well i hope we have two =) but yay im just soo excited to be with a latina.

Okay, Formosa!!!! Well, it is the poorest part in the mission. lots get sick here. hopefully i wont have that problem. the medical here is horrible. The ward isnt a ward. we are a tiny branch of about 25 people. Needless to say that we have TONS to do. Sacrament is the last meeting for us. This is a first for me. I dont like it either. NO ONE is on time for their callings so we are running around trying to find who can teach primary because we cant be alone with kids.... or who is going to teach young womens... the list goes on and on. So needless to say we are busy Sundays. We had 6 in church tho. We have a baptism this Saturday in between conference sessions. His wife was baptized when she was like 14. She is inactive. But her kids were baptized a few weeeks ago (i think) but he finally got his answer and wants to be baptized. He was supposed to have bee baptized like 2 weeks ago but there were holidays and the civil marriage place was closed the day before. But he said the decision has been made. my comp said the change in him has been incredible. that this is the person that she has REALLy seen the conversion process. We had a little scare on saturday night. we went by the family and the dad was sleeping. somehow we found out that he had been drinking. we werent for sure if he was going to be able to be baptized. Someone is going to talk to president today but we are pretty sure that we are still okay. We talked to him yesterday about how he has to live the commandments now and not just after his baptism.

our apt is smaller than our other one. ha that wouldnt be hard tho. the one is resistencia is really nice. This one is really safe though. there is a big gate and we are behind another house or something. i am soo glad im here this transfer and not before. I have heard all the missionaries talk about Formosa summers. It is soooooooooo hot here in the summers and everyone dies. it is still pretty hot here. well not today, it rained. tthe roads are all mud now. my best purchase here would have to be my rain boots. best 50 pesos i have ever spent.

I am writing back earlier now. So i havent had time to read my letters. in the future if you have something that you want an answer to or that you need in that moment... send it separate =)

Mom if you are up at the outlet stores. could you buy hose? normal and black. Or would it just be better to buy here? there is no bulk here... i think they are about 10 pesos or less... but i havent looked at all here. but i dot know how long it will take to get. i still havent gotten my pics or your little package.

Okay well that is all for now! I LOVE you all. thanks for all that you do for me. Have a great week.

Love,
Hna Payne

Monday, March 21, 2011

Hola Familia, Its me again, Hna Payne!

This last week was great! We had four in church this week and the week before. What a relief!!! Right now we are working with three potential, future priesthood holders. One of them is Gustovo. He has now come to church twice. We found his mom in the ward directory that goes back for like 40 years. She said she was baptized like 20 years ago, but doesnt remember anything, not even the baptism. Kind of weird. I think she quit going after her mom and son died. We went in and asked them to come to church. Gustavo, that has 21 years said they were going to start the very next day. He said no to a baptism date though. But he did read, and now has to pray. After the first lesson we knelt to pray, and he said it. The spirit was really strong. We asked him how he felt and he said that he felt distinct! Well, of course he did... what else would he feel when he has NEVER prayed before. Hopefully we can get a date for him this next week.

Bonifacio. Haha ohh how I wish you could know him. There are absolutely NO words to describe this man and his personality. I love him. He is one of the most child-like people in the world. The Argentine people talk- a lot. We would go and then woudlnt get to talk. So we told him that we had a little piece of paper for him to write all of his questions down, and we were going to talk for 10 minutes without interruption. Ha he was soo confused and didnt understand what we wanted him to do. He finally got it.. and his first question was who baptized Jesus Christ. We finally got through the first lesson and he still didnt understand why he needed to be baptized. We went through the apostasy again and he finally got it! Miracles I tell ya! As of right now he has a fecha for the 9th of april. We are going to have to work with him a ton if he is going to get baptized. He wasnt at church yesterday =( but we have a charla with him tonight. We will see what happened.

Luis. Oh I love him. He is like a grandpa. He is kind of a cowboy and he is always gone with his grandkids on the weekend. But we FINALLY got him to come to church last week (he wasnt there yesterday). He is very smart, and understands the doctrine and what we are saying... He just doesnt have a testimony of it. He is in 2nd Nephi.. if he will just pray. He says he prays.. just in his own way... Im not sure what that means..other than its not the right way. He was baptized in the Catholic church so possible to Mary or something. We will see if he progresses. We dont want to leave him tho. He is soo great.

Mirta was actually at church yesterday. We went this last week to drop cane. We didnt, a member was there as well as her daughters boyfriend. But we went and talked a little bit about sacrifices. She said she was going to go (which she said the last two) so we were just going to be done. But then she came. We arent really sure how we can help her right now. She is soooo busy. President is always talking about how Satan tempts us with people that arent going to progress. Im just not sure if now is her time. I sure hope so tho.

Well, we get transfer calls tomorrow. I will not be surprised if we have another transfer together. There is always kind of a trend.. and the trend lately has been 6 months for quite a few people. Ha I have never heard of this before.. but Hna Runyan only has 2 transfers left.. what if i killed her?? Ha she wants a latin too though... hopefully the Lord wont do that to us.. but hey, he definitely knows better than I do. My trainer goes home this week. Soooo weird. I dont like it... cold prickly.

Well, Im really excited for Holly. Tell her congrats. He will probably be one of the first babies I get to hold. It kills me that I cant hold any here =( what a lame rule.

Karan, I got your card this last tuesday. Thank you sooo much. I was reading it and thinking that it sounded a whole lot like what you always tell me. Then I read that you put that too. Good choice.

Mom, still havent gotten my pics and bobby pins... so definitely not my package.

Congrats on finally makin it to spring. I know yall were getting antsy. Its so weird that its almost conference. If I stay here I will get to watch all the sessions. If we are more than an hour away from the stake center we only get to watch one on Sunday.

Dad, that is such a tough job that you have to go to Kelsie´s and take care of Brecken. Tell her I love her!

Im so glad that the Griffith´s got to come. It sounds like yall had tons of fun. And I have no doubt that Ben is an exceptional kid. I got the pics. Im quite impressed yall can do pics now.

Yes, I am soo happy and loving life. No need to worry =)

Well, that is about all I have for now. I LOVE LOVE LOVE yall.

Love,
Hna Payne
xoxo

Monday, March 14, 2011

Hello Brother and Sister Payne,
Our daughter asked us to pass the following note on to you.
Thanks,
Ray and Kim Runyan



Dear Brother and Sister Payne!
Hola! Im Hérmana Runyan...the comp of your wonderful Hermana Payne. I just wanted to thank you for daughters birthday lunch....and for letting her share it with me :D It was delicious...as is pretty much everything here in Argentina :D
Thank you for your wonderful daughter. She always keeps me smiling and has taught me how to be a better missionary through her love, obedience and diligence. :D She is doing great things here in Resistencia :D
Thanks again!
Love,
Hna Runyan






Hola Familia! Its me again, Hna Payne! Sorry but im pretty much just sending pictures this week! Its been a while. Hopefully they all work.

The picture with me in the pink shirt is Mario and Nelly. We were walking by one evening and they were sitting outside, and asked what we were doing. We set another day to go talk to them. Mario told us his life story and why he is sick. He had been sick for a long time, and was depressed as well. We told him of the love that our Heavenly Father has for him and how aware he is of him. He always cried when we were there. We got him to come to church with us. We told them we were picking up Gladys for church and that we could swing by and get them. They agreed. When we got there Nelly wouldnt come though. She told us that she was from another church and couldnt. So we went to church with Mario. We werent too sure if he was all there. He had some pretty out there questions. But hey, he came to church and he liked it. The next week Nelly came with him. I could tell she didnt really like it. Ha she was quick to tell us that when we asked her. She said she would not come again, and she did NOT believe in our book.
They didnt come again. We decided they werent going to progress. And we really werent sure what he understood.
Another day they saw us and we stopped by. They asked us to come have lunch with them. I made sure to have my camera because he had said how he wanted a picture with us.
A few weeks later one of their neighbors that is a neighbor told us that he passed away. We tried to talk to Nelly but she wasnt there or didnt want to talk. About a month later we stopped by hoping to talk to her. She told us what happened. I think he drank himself to death. (he told us at lunch that water made him sick so he drank wine.. i guess that could explain him not being all there)
We were sad. To us he was a new person, a couple lessons, a lesson with a member, someone at church.. but for him.. we were the chicas and someone he felt good around when we were in church. It is always said that no effort goes unwasted... Nelly told us that he in the hospital, dying and he said Estoy en la casa de los mormones The doctor was just what?? How can you be in the house of the Mormons if you are in the hospital? He was like No, estoy en la casa de los mormones.创 That was a testimony to me that NO effort goes unwasted. I know that he is just chillin up in the spirit world, and two sister missionaries are going to walk by and he is going to say chicas! And there he will be able to listen and understand.

The other picture with the older couple is one of the faithful members. They are rock solid. We went to their house yesterday. My comp and I decided there is absolutely no way that we are going to make it to the Celestial Kingdom. Here they sacrifice sooo much. Sacrifices that we will never, ever have to. So how do we compete? Where is the fairness in it? Every day I am more and more humbled by the people that I talk to.. and the things that they have to do. How blessed I am. The other picture of the little girls is one of my favorites. They think that we are sooo cool. Some of them want to be missionaries some day. They started asking us if we knew Disney and what it was like. They kids will NEVER know Disney. I didnt know how lucky I was.

The really old lady is Hna Nuz. She is like 94 and still going like a mad women. She gives sooooo much to everyone. I could sit and talk about her allllll day. But im about out of time. But she is such an example to me in the way that she gives service.

We heard, but I dont think we were supposed to have heard... but we were in the house of a member of the stake something and he said that our President is from the US and that he is a lawyer from money... That is all I know.

Karan, I got your email today =) still waitin on the card =)

Okay, well I LOVE LOVE LOVE yall. Have a great week.

Love, Hna Payne

Monday, March 7, 2011

Hola Familia, its me again, Hna Payne!

Im sitting here again with out much to write. Sorry.
Thanks for all the birthday wishes. Dad you definitely made up for it with the luch special. It was a whole $12ish for me and my comp, and we ate well too! Ha thanks! I ate lamb today. I thought I might as well splurge =) It was pretty good. We had our training on wednesday and everyone sang to me. Hna Runyan made me a cake... sort of. Its called sopa paraguaya. The best way to describe it is cornbread delux x 100 it has onions and tons of cheese. YUUUMMM sooo good. I will make it someday. Yall made a good choice and went to CPK. I hope it was good. I liked the pics drew sent to me, Ha if only I looked like that now... oh well =)

We found Mirta again. She told us that she is really praying and reading to know if there things are true. We were really excited. She still doesnt want a baptism date. We were there at her house again and asked her what she read in the BoM. She said something about being a good mom or something like that. We about died. She wasnt reading the BoM. Hahah its funny because she comes to church and sees a new book and some how gets one. I said from the very beginning that she isnt going to read because she has every other book competing for her attention. Well we gave her some questions of the soul that the BoM answers. Hopefully now she will have interest to read. We watched the Joseph Smith movie with her that she really liked. We took The Testaments with us just in case something happened with the other. She wanted to watch that one right after. Im pretty sure she put that one in right after we left. I love Mirta. She is one of the sweetest, child-like women that I know. She WILL get baptized. She is soooo good.

The other day we were walkin down the street the other day and we ran into Hna Troncoso. He is one of my favorite old men.. (dont tell Danny Johnson =)) He was just like hey I was lookin for someone to pray for this old lady that he met on the street. Tender mercy for both of us. He needed someone to pray and we needed a lesson with a member. So we shared a scripture and prayed.

Another tender mercy: we were walkin home from church (with out investigators... again) when a husband of an inactive rode by us and asked us if we wanted some impanadas for free. We went and talked to his wife when we first got to the area. He wasnt very warm and friendly. But we always walk by their house in passing and say hi. Well we had to go in and wait for a minute for them to cook. Then the wife came and gave them to us giving us the opportunity to talk. She is one of our 15 families. We are waiting for our mission leader to pass by and ask if we can start coming by and teaching the family. Hopefully in the next week or two =) We are thinking that the husband might like us if he gave us food. Probably not.. but we can hope =) Always a tender mercy if we look for them and recognize them as such, a blessing from the Lord. I love 1 Nephi 1:20.

This last week has warmed back up again. We had 2-3 weeks of nice weather. Its still not too bad though. The way people talked, I thought I was going to die. There were only a few nights that I tossed and turned from it being hot. Thankfully I think we are over the hottest part.

Im sooo thankful to be here. I love, love, love it here. I love the country and people more and more everyday. What a blessing to serve the Lord in this way. I know that the Lord loves everyone of us and he is always trying to show us his love. He gives us so many opportunities to learn and grow. When we dont quite measure up, which feels like always, there is the atonement to help us. I was reading in Ether the other day. Ether 12:27 The Lord gives up weaknesses to humble us. I cant say that it gets any easier to be humbled. It always hurts a little. But when we trust in the Lord and give him our heart, the Lord provides. He loves us enough to hurt us sometimes.

Mom, I got your bday card on March 1st =) I get letters in about 2 weeks. Well, at least while im in Resistencia with the office. It will take a lot longer when im not here. I still havent gotten my pics or your package.

Karan I got your email, still not the letter. Maybe this week =)

Okay well I love, love, love yall. Have a great week. Thank you, thank you, thank you for all you do.

Love,
Hna Payne