Jacksonville, North Carolina-December 21

How is Everyone?? Are you guys excited for Christmas! I can't believe that Christmas is this week. 
The mission field is really weird but amazing. President James and his wife are really the sweetest people ever. My first area here in North Carolina is Jacksonville. My trainer and companion is Sister Alldredge. She is from Colorado Springs, CO. She really has been helping me to grow as a missionary. She always tells me she keeps forgetting that I am a new missionary. So all packages and letters need to come directly to me!! Yay! I don't have to wait for transfers and such! The address is 118 Arabian LN. Richlands, NC 28574. 
So the very first night that I got here we went tracting..... Uh ok! It's so hard for me because we go at like 8:00 at night and it's pitch black outside... We have some of the greatest investigators. We have Joyce who is the sweetest little old lady!! And she LOVES to talk. When we ask her a question, she will go on and on for about 10 minutes. She did have a baptismal date back in October but backed out because she is scared of committing. We are really working hard with her to understand that it isn't scary, we are just taking necessary steps to return to our Heavenly Father. We then have Robert (he is actually Joyce's husband but they are separated) and he is just as sweet and talkative as Joyce. He too backed out of his baptism date but he loves family history and we have set a date for him to do baptisms for his ancestors so we just have to get him baptized before! We have already had a couple of investigators who have backed out but that is ok. Last night, we went and stopped by some houses with the Relief Society President Sister Mitchell. One of the houses was a part member, less active family the Winkler's. Amber is a member but fell away from the church a while ago and her husband Chase is not a member. They invited us back for dinner next Sunday! I really hope that we can make some great progress with them!! The members here in the ward are amazing! They really are so kind and welcoming. It was hard though because sitting in sacrament yesterday really was the first major time that I have realized that I won't be home for 18 months... Mission life really does take quite a while to get used to. I'm really glad that I get to Skype home on Friday!! I was really bummed that I wasn't able to call home on Monday... The Elder who was in charge of our traveling group was not very good and he didn't tell us that we had to call home in Salt Lake until it was time to board. By that time all of the phones were in use and it was time to get on the plane....I was not too happy about that. At least we get to Skype on Friday!! Well that is about it for this week. I hope you all have a Merry Christmas!! Love You!!!

Sister Paynter 

*** Hey so in our mission they ask us to have all letters and packages mailed directly to us. My address is 118 Arabian LN. Richlands, NC 28574. If you have already sent stuff to the Mission office then I probably won't get it for a while unless it was sent through the United States Postal Services because that can be forwarded. If you sent stuff through UPS or FedEx, let me know. There is a member going up to Raleigh this week who said they could pick my mail up. I just have to know! Thanks I love you!!

Sister Paynter

President and Sister James

Sister Alldredge my trainer

This is Sister Silvan. Her mom is best friends with Martha!! One day at dinner in the MTC she asked me if my name Paynter was from Minneapolis, Minnesota....CRAZY!!

This is for Heather.....I packed my bag just like she taught me when I left the MTC!!