Because of Him

This email is for my mom. I really didn't want to write one this week. lol

I have been thinking about all the changes and progress a full-time mission experience will give you if you let it.

These past two weeks have been making me want to just keep improving more and more. I have an amazing companion who I look up to a lot and he inspires me to try and do better every day.

I love how the Plan of Salvation is a never-ending improvement plan. Especially while here on earth. This is the time we have to make it the best life that we can, so why not choose to follow Jesus Christ the best we can because He will bring us eternal happiness.

I came to a point in my two-year experience, where I could have remained where I was and not try to improve in my knowledge and spirituality. Or remain humble, and recognize that I don't know everything and continue to try and learn, grow, and improve to come closer to my Father in Heaven, through Jesus Christ.

I am still trying to learn how to stay humble and recognize that I don't know as much as I think I do. I have been praying recently to find more ways to improve and have a desire to continue to change and it has been coming to me.

This life we have been given is too short to try and get on with just the bare minimum. I love that I can always try to do better and challenge myself and know that I am just racing the race against myself. There is no one in this life that I will be compared to. It all depends on how well I did and if I let that desire to improve work in me and let me improve.

I love what President Russel M. Nelson says about Thinking Celestial. As I have been reading my scriptures, I have been finding so many that relate to "Think Celestial." I won't even be actively looking for the relationship between the scriptures I am reading and this mindset of thinking, it will just come to me as I read. It is pretty cool.

There is a lot to say about mindset and how it plays a huge part in our lives and the way we go about them. I won't go into super big detail about it but just being positive can change everything. I contribute a lot of my happiness to thinking about Jesus Christ and asking myself, How would He think in this moment? (Thinking Celestial)

Yes, it might be overused but it came from a Prophet of God and I am going to use it as much as I can because he knows what's up.

A little about our friends right now. We have 3 people from Facebook that we are actively meeting with. It's pretty awesome! The way that God just works on people is so awesome. There are no coincidences. I don't care what you say, but I believe that God is working on everyone and He has a plan for everyone and the interactions that we have with people could just be another one of those interactions that those people need that God has been working on and been refining to eventually accept the Gospel into their life.

While I was on an exchange, with a missionary, who is serving down in Pflugerville, the whole theme of the day (what it seemed like to us) was that a lot of the people that we had talked to had already had some experience with missionaries before.

It was a pretty neat experience and reminded me that our efforts don't always go to waste. Just as I said before God is preparing different circumstances in people's lives for them to fully receive the Gospel.

We talked to this nice older couple who had been through quite a lot and he had an amazing story. He told us that the missionaries used to come by when he was younger and lived elsewhere and would love for us to come by. As we were talking about the Book of Mormon, she looked at it and said, "I have one of those books!" She told us that she was just thinking the other day that she needed to get it out of her boxes of books. (No coincidences)

Fast forward a week

I was supposed to get this out last week

This week as a mission we have a goal of teaching 1000 new people. It is our Easter gift back to Jesus Christ. I am pretty excited to exercise my faith and effort to be able to contribute to this goal.

It will take missionaries to open their mouths and talk to people and be OK with rejection because the people who are humble and willing will be there soon enough.

Elder Jones and I were able to go mountain biking with the youth in the ward. I am not lying when I say that we were probably the most experienced there 😅 but it was fun to help and train the youth and leaders. We have been wanting to go biking for a while but I didn't have a mountain bike so I was able to use an extra one that a member of the congregation was kind enough to let me use. It was a tender blessing to be able to go out into nature and ride a bike. The whole rest of the day went so much better. We felt a little sore but other than that, oh man, we felt good.

During my studies this past week I was starting the Book of Mormon over and specifically looking for the answer to the question, 'Is there a God?' I have been marking all the verses that stand out to me about there being a God who knows us and understands us.

The easy answer to this question is yes, but I am finding the scripture that best supports the claim. Finding how people knew there was a God, What we can do to know if there is a God, and diving deep into the reality of God being in our lives. It has been awesome.

I don't have much more to say. If you have any questions, talk to my mom.

That's about it. See ya.

• Elder Payne