Week #58

[Mom note: This one was a little more personal, but I wanted to include it since it was the most we'd heard from him since being back in the hood.]

We did actually get a lot of snow. I'll try and get some better pictures but I have one that I'll tack onto this email. 

The snacks were a life saver. No special requests, I love all snacks and food. Some Costco snacks like pistachios or choco raisins would be sweet. Do you think you could spot me a little cash here soon? I'm want to take my comp to Buffalo Wild Wings for my birthday. Let me know what you think.

I've been feeling pretty good. Any episodes that I have are spread out and very brief. Some of them feel really weird though. I'm not worried about it though. I'll just deal with it. :) if you've already paid for the meds go ahead and send them. It wouldn't be a bad backup to have. 

My companion is good. He's been pretty sick and I've been pretty sick but we deal with it. We shoveled a ton of snow yesterday. We also helped three people get unstuck. One of them was a guy from queens in a gas dodge pickup with street tires. It had four wheel drive but the tires would slip and the differential would unlock so we basically had to dig him out. It took about three hours to get him down the street to roads that had been cleared out a little. We ended up going home at about midnight. We got about 28 inches of snow. Cars were completely buried. 

We've been working with Tito. He's eleven and ready to be baptized. 

I'll get dad a happy birthday letter written. I got his first letter a few days ago. I think mail has been very very slow. Also don't ship anything that will spoil. Our zone leaders won't pick up packages for us. And we're not allowed to go pick them up ourselves. Tell dad to take care of himself. He needs to tint the glass on his car. Don't even give him the option. In Idaho you can get a prescription and you can even tint the front glass. Elder Neuenschwander (my comp) got burned really bad and he has a prescription for it in Washington. 

That's great that they're skiing. I did crash once but it was into the last gate so I didn't dq. Tell Jeff I love him too. 

Get me Kylee's email, I'd love to write her. 

This week one of the members from Brentwood came to Brooklyn and took us out to Chinese. She's so awesome. Sister Mercado. Her daughters boyfriend just got baptized!!!

Anyone want to visit NYC in the winter? 

Where do they put all of that snow -- in front of your steps
and house. Talk about being barricaded in.
 But at least there is a nice narrow escape plowed!

BRKLN

Hello family!

Well week two back in the Bush here in Brooklyn and I'm alive! Things have been really good here in our area. This week we had a weird thing happened. We were walking on the street and we heard a car accident behind us. We went back to see if everyone was alive and alright. Basically some guy blew through a stop sign at the speed of light and t-boned some random lady. The guy ditched his car and ran
before the cops got there. The lady wasn't wearing her seatbelt but she was really lucky and wasn't messed up except for her wrist was really really broken. When we ran up she was knocked out so we just made sure she stayed calm and didn't move until the cops showed up. The lady's car also had like twenty or thirty rolls of Benjamins rolling around in the back seat. It was also pretty funny the way the cops rolled into the scene of the accident. It was just a bunch of
random guys that ran in all wearing normal clothes. A guy wearing a NY Giants sweater and carrying a Glock took over and we dipped out because we didn't want to get wrapped up in the whole mess on account
of the large amount of cash in that lady's car. Seemed kinda odd.

We ate an extremely large amount of Dominican food yesterday. It was
bomb. We could barely walk ourselves home. That's the best.

My companion got super sick and we were stuck at home quite a bit.
That wasn't the best. Kinda frustrating. This week should be a lot
better.

Overall I'm doing really well and enjoying my time back in this
horrible city! This area is pretty cool but it isn't Queens! I love
you all!!

Keep the faith!
Ryry

Elder Dolor is Back in the Hood

I'm here in Bushwick with Neuenschwander!

I'm feeling pretty good. Still fighting the dang cold that I had. Not too fun because it's really really cold. My gloves also disappeared which sucks. I think that probably happened during the move. The other missionaries did pack my stuff. They tried to steal my pillow too. I was pretty ticked but I got it back. The flight back was good. Not a huge fan of flying. Also there must've been a little miscommunication because I never met up with any other missionaries.

I was in this area one day before I got moved to far rock. I've been with N before too. He's a redneck kid from Washington. He lives right on the snake river. He's from the tri cities area.

Anything you want to send me would be great. Snacks of all kinds would be greatly appreciated. I think everything is going to have to go through the mission office because we live in a really bad area. It kinda sucks because I don't trust our idiot zone leaders out here either. They're both kind of dip sticks as dad would say. I think Kate's camera battery is on or around the entertainment center up stairs. I didn't hide it I just set it down somewhere. I got the package you sent for Christmas by the way. The cookies were still really good. Thanks for that. I will be looking forward to any packages that come in the future. I think food is going to be a bit of a struggle here. Brooklyn is soooo expensive. On well. Hopefully they'll put me back out on the island eventually and I won't go hungry anymore.

Ok here's a couple of pictures. I took some with my good camera too but I don't have a way of emailing those today. I'm off to go buy a pair of shoes before I walk right out of mine.

Love to all!

Ry

We somehow found our way to the top of a 20 story project building and got a few very cool pictures looking towards Manhattan.

¡Buenas tardes!

Hey everyone!

Good week here in Brentwood. We taught lots of lessons. Teaching people about something that has the ability to change their life is quite the privilege. Helping people leave their bad habits and start new ones is very powerful. The veracity of what we teach is completely backed up by the way it changes people. Bad things and untrue things change people for the worse. Good things, true things, do the exact opposite. I've seen people with huge problems with their families and marriages and addictions and jobs and finances completely turn things around because of them making sacrifices to follow what a guy who lived about two thousand years ago taught. Principles that were taught when a donkey was the sweetest transportation around is still working in an age where we've been to the moon and beyond? Hm. Interesting.

Seems pretty true to me! Don't believe it? TRY IT. Yes that's a challenge. Give it a shot.

Keep on keepin' on!

Ryan

The little kids had a church activity and they dressed up like us weirdos! BLACK TAGS. BLACK TAGS EVERYWHERE.

Que onda!

This last week I got transferred to Brentwood! It's an area pretty close to Queens and Brooklyn but it's out on the island. There is a really big Spanish ward here. They all love to feed missionaries so I like it here, a lot. This last week is been a week of getting to know the area the roads are really messed up around here and sometimes we get really lost a lot. I have really been enjoying driving. We don't go fast ever.

My new companion is Elder Ruiz. He does a killer Bill Clinton impersonation it's pretty great. He is super white and Mexican at the same time. It's great because the members wanna feed us even more because he's a native.

We have a little tiny gym in her apartment so we work out every morning. I actually purchased a mass gainer in a pre-workout and I'm trying to gain a bunch of weight we'll see how that goes.

I'm not really sure what else to talk about because this week has just been mostly us getting lost. I love you guys I will update you on next week with awesome adventures with Elder Ruiz!

Also I will include pictures.

Peace out!

Ry

Melissa! She's hilarious. We played tag for like an hour. This is why my dress shoes are destroyed. Also. I dunno how y'all women do the hair things. It hurts. Hahaha

Until next week!

-Payne

NEW ADDRESS:  

Elder Ryan M. Payne

94 4th Ave, Unit 309

Bay Shore, NY 11706

Translados otra vez!

Me, nuenschwander, Melvin, and Morrison!

Well first of all, I'm leaving Rego Park/Corona! I will find out where I'm going tomorrow. I'm all packed up and ready to go wherever they want me to!

This week has been a great finale to the transfer. My companions are both training new missionaries here and I'm leaving. It'll be a new adventure.

This last week we were helping someone move into our boundaries. We were hauling the stuff back and forth in a uhaul truck. We were out super late (for missionaries) and we got a call from the girl missionaries saying that someone had broken into their house and that they were hiding in the second floor of their house. So we all piled into the back of the uhaul and booked it through downtown queens. It felt like we hit every pothole in the city(there are MANY of those).

We rolled up to the house and went through and made sure no one was in there. We didn't find anyone which kinda worried us but we told them to lock their door and give the girl from Mongolia a big knife.

Helped another guy change a tire. Not sure why no one here can figure that out. I've probably helped fifteen people change tires. The jack wasn't tall enough so me and the other hick here did something really ghetto and sketchy and got it done.

Well I'll know where I'm going tomorrow and I'll let y'all know next week!

Oh. Just tried balut. Not bad. Weird. Very weird.

Peace!

Ry

Everything in Queens is chained down...

MOM NOTE: Kylee Jenkins showed me what balut looks like...I recommend not looking that one up. (Apparently it is a delicacy in the Philippines.) 

Yellow Ones

Hey everyone!

Hope all is well wherever you are to be found!

This last week has been..... Interesting.

Last Sunday we were walking down the street through a sketchy part of Corona when this guy stopped us and asked us if we spoke Spanish. Nuenschwander said that we did. The guy, clearly hammered out of his mind, immediately said you don't speak Spanish, he speaks Spanish, pointing to me. He then asked me if I would buy him food because he spent all of his money on booze. I said sure and we went to this dirty Chinese place that was on the corner. We walked in, he ordered his food and I paid for it. He then told us about how God is an alien and some other really funny stuff. He asked Morrison, 'do you believe that God is huge?' Morrison said, "God is everything." The drunk dude seemed amazed at this and promptly started to blubber. Meanwhile the chino people working at this restaurant were all laughing their butts off at all of us. To be fair it was pretty funny. We were probably the oddity of the week. I asked the drunk guy where he was from. He said he was from Honduras. I said the standard response, "tu eres catracho!" He lit up and started singing a song "No Ay un pueblo mas macho que un pueblo catracho". Then he started crying again. We decided it was time to go so I told him to not drink anymore, he said no, and then we left.

We've noticed [lately] that Chinese people will gladly run you over in their cars this last little while. A whole new meaning to the quote from the movie Elf, "the yellow ones don't stop!" The other day we were crossing junction and I almost got run over I looked up and screamed "the yellow ones don't stop!" just out of pure instinct, and sure enough it was a chino dude trying to murder me.

There is only one week left of this transfer and then los tres mosqueteros will be broken up! Being in a trio is fun but it takes a lot of dedication to get everyone headed in one direction.

Can't wait to see what happens this next transfer! I hit my 8 month mark a week ago! 1/3 of the way done!

We'll keep on rockin here!

Ry

Melvin, a member here that's about to leave for Colombia Cali! Then Saul Sarmiento -- eating a sandwich. Oh and the good looking one is me.