"I have beheld his glory, and I am encircled about eternally in the arms of his love" (2 Nephi 2:15) - February 8, 2022

 Spiritual Thought

In the Book of Mormon Nephi declares "I have beheld his glory, and I am encircled about eternally in the arms of his love." (2 Nephi 1:15).  It is interesting that Nephi's first comment after saying "I have beheld his glory" is "I am encircled about eternally in the arms of his love."  Rather than his first reaction being to describe the power or grandeur of our Savior, his most overarching impression is the immense love our Savior has for us.   Just one of the lessons to be learned from this verse is the eternal, unchanging, indescribable love our Savior has for each of us.  He is a King.  The heavens are his throne and the earth his footstool.  Yet, his only purpose or concern is to help us return to his presence.  It is for this very reason he endured all which was required for him to become our Savior and Redeemer.  The love he possessed first for our Heavenly Father then for you and me took him away from his celestial home, carried him through an incomparable mortal ministry, and culminated in a garden, cross, and tomb.  I testify that such a perfect love can and will never die.  Our Savior's hand is eternal stretched toward us.  I pray we will each possess the love for him to accept the gift which he extends to us.

In the name if Jesus Christ, Amen.

Weekly Update

Hello everyone, 

Well, I have some pretty exciting news.  I received an email this week asking me to send my visa documents to church headquarters.  In order to enter Madagascar for a long period of time you need a letter of invitation.  They are still not granting any of those but I was told the church wants to submit everything and have everything ready for when they do award letters.  I will still be in Layton for a while but I have renewed hope that I may make it to Madagascar.

We have transfers tomorrow.  I will be staying in Clearfield another transfer.  My new companion is named Elder Morse.  He only has two transfers left and was moved into Spanish from English about three weeks ago.  Elder Hammer and I have had a great run and I'm sad to see him leave but I'm looking forward to these next six weeks.

Elder Hammer and I have been very blessed because we have received multiple promising referrals.  The majority of this week was spent following up with those individuals.  One of those was with a couple named Eduardo and Gabriela.  They are from Venezuela.  We scheduled a time to meet with them on Friday not knowing we were walking into a comedy of errors.  About an hour before our lesson Eduardo sent a text asking if we could meet a six instead of five.  That worked better with our schedule anyway so we said yes.  Six o'clock rolls around and we start making our way to their house.  Just as we get the house Eduardo calls to tell us they are stuck in traffic midway between Ogden and Clearfield.  Elder Hammer told him not to worry and we would be waiting for them.  Almost immediately after this text was sent Eduardo texted a picture of the traffic.  Then one minute later another picture came.  Then another, then another after that.  Eduardo and Gabriela arrived exactly 22 minutes after our phone call.  I know this because I received 22 pictures of the traffic spaced one minute apart from each other.

Once we were I the house we asked if we could begin the lesson with a prayer.  Eduardo said yes but then proceeded to tell a lengthy story about how when he was a child he didn't know how to pray but he would look at statutes of Mary and say "Mary, Mary, all I need is a house, a dog to play with, and a good wife when I'm older."  It was kind of a cute story about little kids but was really distracting.  As soon as we finished the prayer Eduardo said "I've seen the statue of Jesus by the temple [the Christus in the Salt Lake Temple Visitor's Center] and I think it's so interesting your church practices idol worship!"  Just as we were almost done explaining that we don't pray to statues in visitor's centers, even if you think the worn carpet in front of the statue is from people praying, a woman walked in.  This woman was about thirty years old and definitely not Hispanic.  As soon as she saw us she said "Oh no, are you trying to convert them?"  She then told us that she hasn't been to church in 17 years and in her opinion "the anti stuff isn't actually anti."  We tried to politely bear our testimonies and leave with some sort of spirit left, all the while being fed more and more food from the Costco trip.  Needless to say, it was one of the more interesting nights of my mission.

I hope you all have a great week!

Elder Payne

Pictures

There was a challenge during the quarantine at the beginning of the transfer to see who could teach the most lessons over zoom.  Elder Hammer and I won so President Johnson took us to lunch.  He invited Elder Burgoyne and Elder Kolberg to come with.

In my last email I mentioned I was going to see if I could become a Justice of the Peace.  Well, I did it.  I am now an official Justice of the Peace and could marry any couple who asked me to.  Don't worry though, I won't do it without talking to President Johnson first.

We were doing service one day this week and I snapped the rake I was using.  I guess I was just a little too excited about spreading new dirt in their backyard.

Sometimes people just need a little encouragement before they'll make commitments.

We were in a lesson this week and their dog had the weirdest way of laying down I've ever seen.  It looked like a person on their stomach.  It was so weird I had to sneak a picture.

We've been doing our District Council's in the High Council room for the past few weeks.  I've started calling them the cabinet meetings.  We had to take a very professional and intimidating picture at the last one.