Elder Payton

My very, very, very, very good friend from Georgia is named Teresa.  I miss her so much.  She has a boy Maysen's age.  His name is Payton. They were both born in 1997, so they were always in the same primary class.  Maysen met him when he was 4.  Anyways, Payton is now on a mission.  He is serving in the Salt Lake City North Mission (I think). Whatever it is, it is just miles from our house.  I think our house is officially in the Salt Lake City South Mission.  I have been telling Mike for months that we should call up the mission president and see if we could take Payton out to lunch.  I have no idea what the rules are about this.  A few months ago Mike and I went to see Melissa's baby Leo blessed.  The kids went to church without us.  (They all had something they couldn't miss.  For example, Maysen was teaching her Sunday school class that day.)  Payton's mission president spoke in sacrament that day!  I couldn't believe it!  I felt like I missed my chance to find out if we could take Payton to lunch!  Well, a few weeks ago Mike went to the bank to open up a checking account for Maysen.  While he was there he saw Payton's mission president!  Mike started talking to him and asked him if he knew Elder Myers.  He did.  Mike told him we lived next to Payton in Georgia and asked if we could take him to lunch.  His mission president said, "You live close enough, that will be fine."  Yay!!! I have been so excited!!!  We met Payton and his companion at Hires Big H.

Elder Farnsworth & Elder Myers

Mike wanted to take him to Braza Grill, but that is out of his area right now.  Payton told us that his trainer was Brazilian, so he has been to Braza Grill about 50 times already.  Missionaries eat free there.  How cool is that?  When kids eat free the restaurant is hoping to make money on their parents. With missionaries eating free, there is no hope with that.  Just doing it out of the goodness of their heart.  Mike says we need to support that restaurant more often.

Stephanie, Elder Payton :), Mike

Payton's birthday was on Saturday.  We were originally supposed to meet last week.  Teresa wanted me to bring him balloons.  Payton had to reschedule, so I brought him a late birthday present instead. I got him a pound of assorted See's chocolates and a 1/2 pound of truffles.  I also got his companion a 1/2 pound of assorted chocolates because I'm sure he has a birthday sometime too.

I went to diving later today.  I was looking through my phone for some information I needed.  I came across this picture I had randomly texted to myself a few months back.  I have no idea why I did that. This snow is from the snow machine Maysen made with Mike.  Wow.  That was a long time ago.

Payton & Maysen

I texted Josh's mom why we were at diving.  I asked her when Josh was going to come back.  It has been three months now.  She said in the summer with Mike.  I asked if he was ever going to come back to BYU. She said she didn't think so.  That made me sad.  Stockton loves diving with Josh.  It is such a struggle to get to BYU twice a week.  Carpooling made my life so much easier!  Stockton picked BYU 100% because Josh wanted to go there.  We were trying to convince him to go to the U.  It would be closer and Gage and Gavin were going there.  Plus Stockton could ride trax if he needed to.  I have really liked BYU though.  I feel like Stockton has improved a lot.  I just with Josh was with us for the ride.