Elder Giuffra's Birthday

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ELDER GIUFFRA!! Woohoo the big 20!!

What a great week! Elder Giuffra and I went all out for his birthday! Monday we went to Panda Express. (Elder Giuffra's favorite place ever apparently) It was so fun. Just the two of us, getting some PE at 10:30 in the morning. Nothing better than that. He also got quadruple Orange Chicken and he downed it in 10 minutes. I got half of what he got and he finished before me! Homie was grubbing hard!! I got a baller haircut! It was way shorter than I was expecting it to be but it is actually pretty dang nice! I keep seeing pictures of my long hair days and oh boy, short hair is so much nicer. I am debating if I will grow it out a little bit after I get back or not. Haven't decided yet. Who knows? It probably won't happen.

For our Zone we have a Facebook group chat. Elder Giuffra and I hype that thing up!! We send voice recordings all the time and try to get everyone to feel more faith filled so that we can reach our "DAH GUM GOALS!!" -Elder Giuffra. Anything from reading scriptures, making monkey noises, screaming into the microphone, or words of encouragement Elder Giuffra and I do it all!! We are the undesignated zone hype men.

Pretty cool thing that happened this week. We were trying to film introduction videos for our Facebook profiles. Just something to say who we are and what we do as missionaries. We were filming Elder Giuffra for quite some time and we weren't having it. It was too bright for the camera, or too dark, we would mess up. Just random minor inconveniences. So we knew that it wasn't inspired to happen at that moment. We saw a guy sitting down a little ways off, so as the good missionaries we are we went to talk to him. We had a really good conversation and we knew that was the reason we needed to come to this park. Turns out that he is a member and went on a mission to Argentina. He shared some pretty wild mission stories with us! It was cool to hear from him. He is in Texas doing summer sales right now and gave us some life advice for after the mission. We had a really nice talk with him. I won't go into detail but I think it is what all of us needed at that point in time.

Something that I have been getting accustomed to recently is having a lunch nap. Oh boy, these are so nice. Just get back to the apartment for lunch, untuck the shirt and snooze. Wake up in 40 minutes, get ready to go and then get on the grind. It's been pretty nice.

In District Council this week Elder Porter asked me to give a training on Preach My Gospel chapter 1. I was supposed to give it last week but, we got stuck in a service and ended up being 20 minutes late to DC. So we held off on my training until this past week. Good thing though. It went perfectly inline with the goals that we had set as a district. My goal for the day was to give my training with power and authority to hype up the district. And I want to be as humble as possible here but I think I did just that. Elder Steven's said that it was the best PMG training that someone has ever given on his mission. I think I was able to hype them up. So for this week we now have the Faith, Hope, and Charity to get 110 finds! We are excited!

I have been trying to work on following through with my promptings. I will sometimes get random promptings to pray or ask for a blessing. Best thing I can do is follow through with one of these things. The other day during lunch, I was about to snooze when my mind started wandering. I then got a really strong impression that I needed to pray right then and there. I don't know what it was for but I got on my knees and prayed. I wasn't sure what I was supposed to pray for, so I asked in my prayer, and all I can say is that the answer came. My mind started getting full of all these different things and It was a pretty cool experience.

This one is for all my missionary friends out there:

One random night we decided to call a really old referral that had been dropped a while ago. So this friend was no one that we knew. We called and there was no answer. A few minutes later this friend called back!! It was such an awesome, wild time. We read 3 Nephi 11 with them and they knew what it was about and they have a pretty good testimony of the Book of Mormon! Elder Giuffra and I were freaking out!! It was so awesome! So missionaries, contact some old grey referrals. They could be golden. . .

Had an awesome exchange this week with Elder Porter. It was my last one with him. Elder Porter will be heading home next week. It's been a great 2 transfers with District Leader Elder Porter. We had a wild exchange though. We were supposed to have this service project that was 20 or so minutes away, but then they texted us saying it wouldn't happen that day, our lessons were canceled, and the member dinner. So now our whole day was open. What did the Lord have in store for us? I don't know. We spent all day trying to find people, just door knocking really. The most door knocking I have ever done in my mission! Some pretty crazy things though. We saw a super poor cat that someone should just put out of its misery. This had no soul and I mean that. Talked to some pretty fun people. Trackting is where things get interesting!

On Elder Giuffra's actual Birthday, the day after the exchange, the Belton Elders came to our apartment at 6:30 to wake Elder Giuffra up. Elder Porter asked me to leave the door unlocked so that they could. So, I did! It was pretty funny! We all dog piled on his bed and then went to play Basketball at the church. We balled up! Elder Giuffra's birthday gave us some type of faith power. That day was awesome!! We didn't do a lot with having weekly planning being moved to Saturday, but we had the faith and we exercised it! A member in the Temple 2 ward fed us. She knew Elder Giuffra in his first area and had us over with the T2 Elders! It was super awesome! She stuffed us to the brim and then some! No joke. And it was all so so good. Elder Giuffra's Birthday was definitely a special one.

Overall a super duper week! I am running out of time to get this thing done and sent, so this is all. Hope you enjoy the pictures! Love you all!

Join my Google Photos album!^^^

That's about it. See ya.

-Elder Kohl Payne