Choose you this day...

In my last few emails, I have forgotten to mention transfers and the change that has happened. I have been privileged to train again, and this might sound bad, but I really didn't want to. But alas, God had different plans, which is okay because it's been an absolute blast!

Elder Whicker and I have been having a wonderful time together here in Bastrop. Elder Whicker is from Heriman, UT and went to BYU for a year of schooling before he came out on his mission. I have never met anyone with a stronger testimony of the Atonement than Elder Whicker. He came into the mission field ready to go and put in some work.

He has been helping me stay on track and stay focused as a missionary while I still can. He has been a joy to be with and learn from.

It's sometimes weird to think, that we are just 20-year-olds choosing to be out here in Texas and continue to work and follow the council given. At the end of the day, it really just comes down to that. A choice. We choose to do what is right or not. Crazy that God trusts us.

If you think about how many people are in the world, eight billion +, and the fraction of those eight billion are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. A very small fraction.
Now take that small fraction of members, how many of them are missionaries? An even smaller amount. Compared to the world we are already breaking a norm but to be a group of individuals in their "prime years of life" to CHOOSE to serve a mission is remarkable. And then God trusts us enough to let us follow through with that choice and calls us to the work through His modern day Prophet!

Now that's pretty cool. I have respect for anyone who has, is, or will serve a mission.

It is one thing to already choose to live a different lifestyle compared to the world but to choose to leave what "normalcy" you have and leave it behind is another thing.

I don't want to linger on just missions. The power to choose is an amazing gift that we have been given. I can wake up tomorrow and choose to stay in bed or get out. I can choose to eat or not to eat. Most, if not everything, in life happens from a choice. Free Agency.

Now this is a principle that I don't completely understand, so I won't pretend like I do, but what I do understand is that it has been provided to us to choose right over wrong. Or choose good over bad. Or choose to yield to God over the devil.

This concept has been on my mind recently. The ability to choose. I am by no means perfect and definitely don't always do the right thing but thankfully God knew that. He knew that I, Elder Payne, would choose to not obey Him one hundred percent of the time, but that doesn't mitigate His love or care for me. Yes, He may weep, because of His care for me to make the right decision, but He still leaves it up to me.

That's part of life. To let Him prevail and choose to follow Him. Do His will, for you, one hundred percent of the time. We constantly learn and grow as we work on making His will our will. At times it's not always easy but no one ever said it would be. When you choose to follow His will, or in other terms, Let God Prevail, your true character will start to show. He will reveal unto you the person you can become if you want to.

Again, I am FAR from perfect on this but it's been on my mind.

How can I better follow the direction He has for me?

What would the Master have me do now?

Am I listening to the promptings of the Spirit?

I'd invite you to think about that for yourself. How well are you doing at letting God prevail and "...be the most powerful influence in our lives, or not[?]"

(President Russell M. Nelson - Let God Prevail - October 2020)

You will feel the promptings come, I know I have. Then it is up to you to act.

If you are having trouble acting, pray for strength.

I'm not sure where this quote came from that I am about to absolutely mess up but it goes a little like this,

Every morning pray for the strength from God that you need and every night get down on your knees thanking Him for the strength He gave you. And repeat.

I've seen the most strength from God when I do this cycle. But, I have to mean it. Make Him the "most powerful influence" in your life.

Choose God because He chose you.

Last, last week I was able to go on an exchange with my bud Elder Sharp! We served around each other about a year ago now and have seen each other at other meetings since then and have built this amazing friendship that I couldn't be more grateful for. Throughout the entire day, we had some pretty, for a lack of a better word, 'real' talks.

I've been able to talk to Elder Sharp in a way that I don't feel comfortable with anyone else. We both just chatted it away and had an amazing day full of great lessons, unplanned service opportunities, and laughter.

Get you an Elder Sharp in your life.

During this exchange, there were four of us missionaries in the Bastrop area and the members who signed up to feed us dinner were down to have us all over. W Members
(We planned to start at 6:30. Keep that in mind)

Elder Sharp and I had a few visits and lessons that we needed to do in the small little town of Smithville, TX, which is about 20 minutes away from our church building in Bastrop.

We visit a family that has been going through a hard time recently and love it when we come over. They immediately connected with Elder Sharp and we ended up talking to them for a while. We got to their home at 5:30 and told them that we couldn't be there for long because we needed to be at an appointment at 6:00.

Long story short, we are there until 6:20...

Earlier in the day, around 8:30 am, Elder Sharp and I met up with the Lockhart sisters to get some Spanish copies of the Book of Mormon and to also get some pamphlets that a member wanted. He lives in Smithville and we told him that we would be over in his area that day. So we planned to stop by this Brother.

Noticing that it was 6:20 we rushed on over to this brother's house. I look at Elder Sharp and say, Ok, we are dropping these off and then booking it over to the member's house for dinner. As we get out of the car I can see smoke waving through the air.

As we approach we see our Brother cooking up on a grill. At that moment I knew we weren't going to be in and out of there. After talking to him for a minute and talking to the other Elders we eventually make it out with a case of grilled chicken, sausage, and corn tortillas.

Trust me...we tried saying no. We tried.

We talked to our members and ended up getting there at 7. We ended up having a wonderful time and sharing a good message that we planned on the way over.

Like I said before, get yourself an Elder Sharp in your life.

We have a friend that we just recently started teaching whose name is Oscar. I won't divulge everything about him but to say the least, he is pretty cool!

We met him in the former mentioned parking lot that I have talked about before and come to find out, other missionaries gave him a copy of the Book of Mormon but didn't get a number or anything. So this time we got his number, set up a time to talk, and invited him to church.

Lesson goes through, he comes to church and loves it, then we find out some sad, sad news...

He is going to boot camp!

Devastating. (But not the end)

We talk and try to get all the details of when he will be back. He says he brought his Book of Mormon with him and will be reading it and then we text a final goodbye to our homie. And we got to be a little bummed out.

We wake up the next morning to a text from Oscar explaining that he found out that each Sunday he will have his phone for 4 hours and we can call him during that time! Yay yay yay

So Sunday rolls around and we call, he asks us if he can call us back in a few minutes and we say of course! 10 minutes. 20 minutes. 35 minutes. 2 hours. Nothing from Oscar. We sent a text explaining how we were a little sad we couldn't talk. Later that day, he messages us and says that he will be being sent back for some time and wants to meet!

What?!

I know he doesn't see it yet, but that is a miracle. God has something in store for him and I think it has something to do with meeting with us and coming to church, and water.

Amazing miracles all around. God is so good!

The weather is still warm but it has been windy. Not a nice cool wind. A warm disgusting wind. Prayers that it will cool down soon.

Look at these pictures and video

https://photos.app.goo.gl/WUYwsyauonMKVuc29

That's about it. See ya.

• Elder Payne