Happy New Year! #2018- January 1, 2018

It is way exciting to be in the new year!!! It is absolutely insane looking back at 2017 and all the changes that have happened in my life. Through all the fun times and all the many challenges I look back and just have to think What a blessing it is to be alive. Wow. Life is great. At the start of the year I was in high school, I got my mission call February 16th and learned I'd be living in the Philippines for the next 2 years of my life.  Later on in February, I made it through soccer tryouts and was able to be a part of my high school soccer team, winning state championship with my soccer "brothers", I was able to go to high school dances, I entered the MTC June 28 and started the hardest and most incredible journey of my life. I set foot on Filipino soil on August 11.  On September 9, I witnessed my first baptism in the field. I was able to baptize twice more on September 17 and once more on November 11th. I skyped my family, had Christmas away from home, and now its 2018! What a blessing my challenges have been in my life. I have never learned so much in so short a time. Being here on the mission is never comfortable or easy but the lessons I am learning out here are priceless and I wouldn't be able to learn them anywhere else. How grateful I am for my challenges. This new year seems like the largest and scariest year of my life but I am ready to tackle it head on and will pray that the lord will mold me into the person he needs me to become. 

Love you all, please look back on your year and find something that makes you smile cause life is so worth living! Good luck with the new year! Take care everyone and stay safe!!! 

-Elder Payne