Gratitude.

This week has been pretty good. Not too much of a different week. We had a few good experiences this week like always. The one I want to talk about was the Thanksgiving dinner we had with a less active. Well this less active lady called us out of the blue and said she had a friend she wanted us to meet and help get Jesus in her life. Well we went over and met the less active and her son. They are super awesome and live in a little humble trailer. We met the friend and tried to share an uplifting message that would touch her. But what touched me more than anything was the type of lives these few people were living. They had holes in the ground that they had to cover with boards so they wouldn't step in them. The turkey we had came from a food bank and we had some potatoes and gravy that came in a microwave dinner. Then they had some beans to go along with it. It was pretty different after coming from a dinner with 4 tables of food. With the little they had they were still super happy and glad to be together. The only things they wanted was a little bit of food and friends and family surrounding them. I was amazed at how humble of a dinner it was and how happy they were. Later on that night after leaving and thinking about it I was filled with gratitude for everything that I have. But most of all I'd like to express my gratitude for our Savior. Definitely the best thing I've learned on my mission is the relationship I have with my Savior. It so hard to even begin to comprehend how much he loves each of us personally. He literally took every sin I have ever committed and every sin I'm ever going to commit upon him self. He took the blame for all my wrongs. I know no matter how many times I mess up he will forgive me every time. Even if I make the same mistake over and over again. There is no limit to his love and his atonement. But the most comforting thing is that he descended below them all. He didn't just meet the requirement and go out with as little as He could get away with, but he went below them all. And I know that even if I was the one that made him suffer the most and take upon the most sins, He would love me enough to go below me and pay for everything I did. I'm so grateful for Jesus Christ and everything He has done for me but beyond all I'm grateful for the closeness of the relationship I've gained with him. 

The gift of having a family!

This week was pretty good. At the beginning of the week we got a add on to our area. Young! It's about an hour and a half away and the hour of it is on a dirt road. The area is a super small town. Lots of people who ranch and raise cows and just kind of keep to themselves. We went down this week and met our Branch President. He took us around town and we met with a few different branch members. The only thing they have down there is one gas station and everything else they have come out to Payson for. I'm pretty excited though. It's should be pretty good getting in the and starting things up. 

We had a pretty good lesson with one of our investigators this week. His name is Terry. We met him a little bit ago tracting and he said he would be interested in having us come over again. Well this Sunday we went over and had a lesson with him. It went pretty well. It's started off kind of weird because he didn't know what we do so he thought we were just coming over to talk instead of teach a lesson. We asked if we could come in and maybe talk little bit more about The Book of Mormon and then started the lesson from there. We got about half of the lesson in because he kept talking about how he has seen God in his life the the role God played in his life. His only set back is coming to church. He said he used to go to a church and stopped going because he didn't see he importance of it and doesn't see the importance of coming to church now. I guess he just needs a lesson on the Sabbath day. He is a really good guy though and has some potential. If he just feels the Spirit I think he will want to change

I hope all of you have a really good week this week and eat lots of turkey. Spend time with your family and appreciate them and the gift of having a family. No family is perfect and no family is meant to be perfect. But we are met to learn and grow with them. I love the talk President Uchtdorf gave in April 2016. He talks about the importance of saving our relationships with our families and cherishing them. Families are a huge blessing and never take them for granted, Heavenly Father put you in your family for a reason! Love yours while I'm out here for a short while helping others bring theirs together :)

Celebrating Elder Hamptoms Birthday!  

Good ol Payson

This week has been a pretty good week. We found this investigator that had come to church on Sunday and said she just got in her car and was led by the Spirit to the church and felt like she needed to go in. Well she really liked it and wanted to meet with us. Her name is Laurie. We met with her twice this week. The first lesson was really good and we invited her to baptism. She said she was willing to do anything that we told her she needed to do. Well our next lesson she had read from the Book of Mormon and had already prayed to know if it was true. Both the lessons went pretty well and she was making some good progress. Well later that week we were walking around the park and saw her and decided to talk to her. She has struggled with drugs in the past and wasn't living in the best house. She ask to see if we could find a place for her to move into and so we had been looking that week trying to find things. Come to find out while talking to her at the park she found a place and is moving out of our area. A pretty solid investigator just picked up and left. But the good thing is that she had a friend that was with her. While we were talking to her we set up a lesson to see her on Tuesday. Before we left we asked if he wanted to join us too. He was pretty excited to come. He said that he needs to find a church to go to. He hasn't been to church since he was a little kid and was excited to come to ours. So hopefully he turns out just as good. He lives in our area and his name is Brian. He has a strong belief in God and Jesus Christ and "wouldn't be anywhere close to where he is today without them". Other than that just slowly trying to pick up our number out here in good ol Payson.

Knockin on doors!

Well this week has been so good. So awhile back at the beginning of the transfer we made a goal as a district to try and talk to 5 new people a day. We don't have very many people in Payson so we decided to do 5. There was a General Authority that gave a promise that if you talk to 10 new people a day and try and teach them the gospel, our numbers will quadruple. Well elder Hampton and I have been trying to get 5 a day and this week we just hit the ground running. We were going to try and talk to everyone we see. We got 70 TTIs this week (teach, testify, invite). We had so many miracles doing this. We stayed out till we got at least 10 a day. We passed out over 12 Book of Mormons throughout the week and picked up about 5 pretty solid people that are interested in learning more. It was so awesome to see the miracle that happened this week. Some of the missionaries in the valley think its hard to get 60 TTIs in a week and there are people everywhere down there. 

One miracle that was super awesome was a 16 year old kid named Doug. We were out knocking doors in an apartment complex and we hit most of the doors and there wasn't a lot of success that happened so we were walking to our truck to drive to the new area we were going to go tracting. Well before we hopped in we both decided to hit 4 more doors. Well we got to our last door and we had knocked 3 times and was about to leave when Doug came walking around the corner. I was like "Hey whats up? Do you live here?" He said yes and we started to explain what we were doing and what missionaries are. We asked if he would be interested in learning more about what we talked about. To our surprise he said he had some time so we taught the Restoration on his door step and he was super interested. He accepted a Book of Mormon and said he would pray to know if what we had taught him was true. It was so crazy to think that if we didn't decide to knock on just 4 more doors we would of missed the opportunity to bless this kids life forever. 

There are people waiting to hear the message we have to share they just don't know where to find it and if we dont listen to the spirit on where to find them they are going to miss the opportunity of a life time D&C 123: 12 For there are many yet on the earth among all sects, parties, and denominations, who are blinded by the subtle craftiness of men, whereby they lie in wait to deceive, and who are only kept from the truth because they know not where to find it-

Love Elder Lange