Family!!,
Ok sorry i can't hold back form writing you cause my joy is full this week, I'm being truly blessed for Enduring so well to the end, i know i said that last week was my last email but i really want to tell you about Stephen. So you all remember Jesse, who just got Baptized last weekend, and you all remember Carrol, the rough around the edges lady we've been teaching, well her son was over at her house when we popped around and he was a bumbling mad man, pretty drunk, and we just said hello, and i had no intentions of ever teaching him, but he Came to Jesse's Baptism and loved it we then taught a mad first discussion and he was so excited about. we gave him reading in the Book of Mormon and he read that and beyond. He has also quit smoking drugs and drinking and he is on fire, never have i ever seen an investigator so thoroughly energized by the spirit of God. He is full on into everything, and man i have nothing but pure love for him and the enormous effort he is making, Also Jesse got the Aaronic Priesthood this sunday past and he will be the one performing the saving ordinance of baptizm for Stephen. I'm so Excited for the future of these three Y.S.A (Bree, Jesse, Stephen) This ward has really taken them in and themselve are a power of missionary force to be reckoned with, I can only put my trust in god that they'll be able to progress in the gosple with the love and support of mornington ward. I'm very excited to Come home but dreading saying goodbye, love you all... especially you.
Cheers,
Elder Wesley Ballard
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Friday, November 26, 2010
November 21, 2010 Last Email...we'll see!
G'day Family,
So as you have been previously told this will be my last Email, well lets say my last "Full Detail" email depicting my triumphs over the adversary during the week. I know it will be tough but it's something i think would be fun to do, and although almost all of you can't stand the fact I'm doing this makes me smile hahahaha, if you have any urgent of pressing enquiries, please still ask them and i will respond also i still want to know how every one's doing, but as for me you'll just have to wait a couple of weeks. Ok, So, this week was so good, We spent the greater part of the week with Jesse, to help him and protect him from the JW so they wouldn't come and get him. and on Wednesday straight after his Baptismal interview he got a call from his Nan and they bought him a car to lure him home, but they had no idea he was planning on getting baptised this time but they still tried to take him away but he figured it out and was able to continue on throughout the week, really cool experience happened with him too, so on Thursday we spent the day With him and he was going good, then we left and did some work for the rest of the day but i had promised to call him that evening to just have a chat. and we got super flat out at night with something and it was past lights out time it was like 11:30pm and I Just had the thought to call him. and my companion told me not to cause we needed to be in bed and it wouldn't be that good if he knew we weren't keeping the rules but I disregarded him and called anyways and right when i call he was debating with Bree, weather to call or not cause they knew we were probably sleeping but they wanted to call us cause one of the older house mates had gotten drunk and was literally the devil himself it was crazy i heard it over the phone and it was crazy. but i was able to give them some comfort and got them out of their house and they went to Bree's mum's house, and I thought nothing much i hung up the phone and we prayed form them straight away. and the next day Jesse and Bree were going on and on about how perfect that call was, just when they needed it, it came, Jesse was pretty blown away by it, he gain a testimony that day on how we are true servants of God, and also Bree said as soon as they hung up they felt the spirit comfort them and protect them the rest of the night, and Bree said "right when that happened, I told Jesse, Yup! Elder Ballard just prayed for us!" hahaha it thought was so cool, cause I'm sure throughout our mission things happen like that but we never really know we just continue throughout our work, but it's pretty Great to hear that you're doing your job and bringing other to know the power of Heavenly Father. After that Fiasco not much else Happened and he came and got baptised with out a hitch, and yesterday I bestowed the Gift of the Holy Ghost upon him and he was glowing at church everyone was commenting on him, he's gonna be a great member, and were hoping next year sometime we can get this kid out on him Mission, he's off to great start. other than that, my week was routine, we slacked on our other people cause we focused a lot on Jesse this week, but We hope to have two more baptism my last Saturday as a missionary. Were working hard all the way until the end, I love you all and Hope your as excited to see me as i am to see you all. I hope all goes well these next couple weeks. I Love you all thank you so much for your support. Be good, and We'll see you soon. Cheers
-Elder Wesley Bryan Ballard
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
October 31, 2010
G'day Family,
Big news new this week, after all the stress and worry about were we will spend the rest of our missions and who it will be with, transfers new finally came last night and Sadly for my companion he will be leaving mornington and i will be staying. I could be happier that i get to finish here in this awesome area, and although i would have loved to finish with Fenochietti, he was a bit to far on the trunkie side, so my hope is to get a fun companion who will help me endure to the end... i'll get on tomorrow and tell you all about him when i get him. but as for our week it went really well, first off we met this lady, her name is Carol, and she is a month older than mum, but due to life decisions of substance abuse she look a lot older than she is, but at first her appearance gave me the impression of one who is less than interested but as we got to know her and taught her, she is great i really like her, she has strong faith and a good thirst for the truth. so we taught her the Restoration and set a baptismal date for the 27th of November, funny thing is the JW's have been visiting her for 20 years now and nothing came of it but get the real servants of the lord and give us twenty minutes and we get the job done hahaha, then also we were teaching these other people and they were friends to this member, and we just taught them a little bit and they hadn't been taught about church and this member who isn't all together brought them anyways and they had no idea what to expect, and they just were miserable and didn't get anything i felt bad, it may be hard to get them to Church in the future, but that was about it for the week, hope some good stuff will happen this week. but i start my last transfer today it's pretty intense. but just gotta keep rolling. love you all.
-Elder Ballard
Big news new this week, after all the stress and worry about were we will spend the rest of our missions and who it will be with, transfers new finally came last night and Sadly for my companion he will be leaving mornington and i will be staying. I could be happier that i get to finish here in this awesome area, and although i would have loved to finish with Fenochietti, he was a bit to far on the trunkie side, so my hope is to get a fun companion who will help me endure to the end... i'll get on tomorrow and tell you all about him when i get him. but as for our week it went really well, first off we met this lady, her name is Carol, and she is a month older than mum, but due to life decisions of substance abuse she look a lot older than she is, but at first her appearance gave me the impression of one who is less than interested but as we got to know her and taught her, she is great i really like her, she has strong faith and a good thirst for the truth. so we taught her the Restoration and set a baptismal date for the 27th of November, funny thing is the JW's have been visiting her for 20 years now and nothing came of it but get the real servants of the lord and give us twenty minutes and we get the job done hahaha, then also we were teaching these other people and they were friends to this member, and we just taught them a little bit and they hadn't been taught about church and this member who isn't all together brought them anyways and they had no idea what to expect, and they just were miserable and didn't get anything i felt bad, it may be hard to get them to Church in the future, but that was about it for the week, hope some good stuff will happen this week. but i start my last transfer today it's pretty intense. but just gotta keep rolling. love you all.
-Elder Ballard
November 16, 2010...Last Email?!?!
G'day
Family, I apologize for getting you a late email but eh it's OK,I'm thinking of next week being my last email to you all anyways just to make the homecoming that much better, you can and must still write to me but don't expect a weekly update... but if it's dire then I'll respond. so Ya yesterday was busy as and as well of this whole previous week, We me the Area Presidency and Seventy Elder Brent Neilson and had a zone conference he was secretly interviewing all; the dodgy missionaries and I know what conclusion you are all jumping to "oh then he totally interviewed Wes." well as a matter of fact he certainly did not. hahah but we had a good chat his training and President Lifferth's and their wives were very good i love the stuff they had to say to help us be better missionaries. But my Companion is keeping me working hard the whole week in the missionary aspect and I myself am keeping him working hard in the Physical aspect, I dragged him along to our first handful of boot camp sessions this week and although looks may disagree I am in better shape and he's been doggin behind but it's super fun the Personal Trainers Hayden + Nicky are so Great they are so fun and also we got to teach them this week and they are basically dry Mormons they're holding back only cause they're not too sure whats on the other side but we just gotta let them realize it's far greener and they don't have to change much. but they're a longer term project but I'll sink my sickle in while i have the time to harvest. But their morning boot camp work out has been kicking my butt, i love it i only wish it was more often than three times a week. But the best part of the week has been the resurfacing of the formerly taught Jesse, he was the kid that we had two days before baptism his JW Grandparents threw him in the back of a car or something and drove him off to the whoop whoop to get these foolish prophet notions out of his head, we a month and a half later he came back had a read of the book of Mormon prayed about it and got his answer more powerful than before, so we are setting up for his baptism this weekend at 6:30pm on Saturday, I'm so excited he is freshly 19 and want to serve a mission and do great things I'm pretty pumped for that he is the man. so this whole week we'll be seeing him everyday. but other than that, it's supposed to be summer her but it rained all week, but the sun's out today. but that's about it for me family, so you only get one more email, hahahaha your all gonna go nuts without um, well i hope, cause in my mind, my emails are the best part of your weeks and you can't live without them... ya that's probably a myth, well love you all and i hope your safe!!
-Elder Ballard
Family, I apologize for getting you a late email but eh it's OK,I'm thinking of next week being my last email to you all anyways just to make the homecoming that much better, you can and must still write to me but don't expect a weekly update... but if it's dire then I'll respond. so Ya yesterday was busy as and as well of this whole previous week, We me the Area Presidency and Seventy Elder Brent Neilson and had a zone conference he was secretly interviewing all; the dodgy missionaries and I know what conclusion you are all jumping to "oh then he totally interviewed Wes." well as a matter of fact he certainly did not. hahah but we had a good chat his training and President Lifferth's and their wives were very good i love the stuff they had to say to help us be better missionaries. But my Companion is keeping me working hard the whole week in the missionary aspect and I myself am keeping him working hard in the Physical aspect, I dragged him along to our first handful of boot camp sessions this week and although looks may disagree I am in better shape and he's been doggin behind but it's super fun the Personal Trainers Hayden + Nicky are so Great they are so fun and also we got to teach them this week and they are basically dry Mormons they're holding back only cause they're not too sure whats on the other side but we just gotta let them realize it's far greener and they don't have to change much. but they're a longer term project but I'll sink my sickle in while i have the time to harvest. But their morning boot camp work out has been kicking my butt, i love it i only wish it was more often than three times a week. But the best part of the week has been the resurfacing of the formerly taught Jesse, he was the kid that we had two days before baptism his JW Grandparents threw him in the back of a car or something and drove him off to the whoop whoop to get these foolish prophet notions out of his head, we a month and a half later he came back had a read of the book of Mormon prayed about it and got his answer more powerful than before, so we are setting up for his baptism this weekend at 6:30pm on Saturday, I'm so excited he is freshly 19 and want to serve a mission and do great things I'm pretty pumped for that he is the man. so this whole week we'll be seeing him everyday. but other than that, it's supposed to be summer her but it rained all week, but the sun's out today. but that's about it for me family, so you only get one more email, hahahaha your all gonna go nuts without um, well i hope, cause in my mind, my emails are the best part of your weeks and you can't live without them... ya that's probably a myth, well love you all and i hope your safe!!
-Elder Ballard
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Release Date!!
We Finally have received Elder Ballard's Itinerary for arriving home! He will arrive in Salt Lake City on December 15th !! We are so looking forward to his homecoming!
November 7, 2010
G'day family,
So this week was hectic As!! we did so much and it feels like it went by so slow but at this stage of the mission i don't mind it too much. So i have my new companion, he is from the east Side Mission his name is Elder Cody Lara from Arizona City AZ, he has been out 17 months and he actually started his mission here in mornington so he has come back to redeem his poor efforts from the last time around. he's pretty fun we work had but I'm currently trying to unwind this fool, he's a good kid but to hard on himself and his teaching and I'm trying to make him love everything a bit more. he so fun I'm glad i have him to bust my butt until i go home, this is my enduring stage and i think I'll be going till the end. I keep catching myself thinking of the work and how we'll find a whole heap and teach a lot this transfer and next transfer we'll be baptising up a storm, but then i sadly remember there will be no next transfer. :( As for this week for my birthday we had so much fun so The Kannar family and the Tennant Family took us to this national park Called the Dandenong Ranges, where they have this this called "The 1000 Steps" and there are over 1000 steps to the top of a mountain, and so before going i Spoke with Brittany Kannar and we agreed on a race to the top, she willingly said yes cause she is very fit and runs all the time and i Defiantly look less than athletic. so when we got there i saw everyone else but Britt was gone, so when i asked they said she had taken of five minutes previous, What!!! CHEATER!!! so i just was stirred up but decided to just walk with the family, but then i just decided to go for it and try to catch up with her to i started up the stairs at a very quick pace, after about five hundred steps i caught up to her friend Asha and she said that Britt was so far ahead, and i was already super tired so i sorta gave up and just strolled with Asha, but after about a minute something grew inside of me and I Wanted to have another go, so i really pushed my fatigued muscles and went hard the rest of the was and then around the next corner i see her!! so i bolt up those stairs and around people like Emmit Smith and i pass her with only fifteen stairs to go, caught and passed by surprise she grabbed my short for a last fighting effort but i Shook her and beat her by a few steps. it was glorious, she was acting like i didn't win but she was cut so deep that i beats her even when she cheated best birthday race ever!!! and family make sure you rub salt in this wound when she is at our house in a few weeks, that would be legendary, and i love it when i tell this story to people they all say at the beginning that Britt will smash me cause she is so fit but no sir not that day hahahha. then for the rest of the day we walked the national parks and fed giant white Cockatoo's there as big as eagles so intense. then i had cake at these other people's house over all it was a great birthday. the rest of the week we tried to teach people but our appointments kept falling through. but we found this great couple they are personal trainers and they own this boot camp thingy and they are letting us do it for free 6:00am every morning, I'm pumped for that so i can get even more fit before I'm home. they're great I'll tell you how their teaching goes later. we have a lot going on this week so I'm excited for it, but as for me I'm happy having a great time. Love you all family and i hope your getting ready to party this Christmas!!!
Love,
Elder Ballard
So this week was hectic As!! we did so much and it feels like it went by so slow but at this stage of the mission i don't mind it too much. So i have my new companion, he is from the east Side Mission his name is Elder Cody Lara from Arizona City AZ, he has been out 17 months and he actually started his mission here in mornington so he has come back to redeem his poor efforts from the last time around. he's pretty fun we work had but I'm currently trying to unwind this fool, he's a good kid but to hard on himself and his teaching and I'm trying to make him love everything a bit more. he so fun I'm glad i have him to bust my butt until i go home, this is my enduring stage and i think I'll be going till the end. I keep catching myself thinking of the work and how we'll find a whole heap and teach a lot this transfer and next transfer we'll be baptising up a storm, but then i sadly remember there will be no next transfer. :( As for this week for my birthday we had so much fun so The Kannar family and the Tennant Family took us to this national park Called the Dandenong Ranges, where they have this this called "The 1000 Steps" and there are over 1000 steps to the top of a mountain, and so before going i Spoke with Brittany Kannar and we agreed on a race to the top, she willingly said yes cause she is very fit and runs all the time and i Defiantly look less than athletic. so when we got there i saw everyone else but Britt was gone, so when i asked they said she had taken of five minutes previous, What!!! CHEATER!!! so i just was stirred up but decided to just walk with the family, but then i just decided to go for it and try to catch up with her to i started up the stairs at a very quick pace, after about five hundred steps i caught up to her friend Asha and she said that Britt was so far ahead, and i was already super tired so i sorta gave up and just strolled with Asha, but after about a minute something grew inside of me and I Wanted to have another go, so i really pushed my fatigued muscles and went hard the rest of the was and then around the next corner i see her!! so i bolt up those stairs and around people like Emmit Smith and i pass her with only fifteen stairs to go, caught and passed by surprise she grabbed my short for a last fighting effort but i Shook her and beat her by a few steps. it was glorious, she was acting like i didn't win but she was cut so deep that i beats her even when she cheated best birthday race ever!!! and family make sure you rub salt in this wound when she is at our house in a few weeks, that would be legendary, and i love it when i tell this story to people they all say at the beginning that Britt will smash me cause she is so fit but no sir not that day hahahha. then for the rest of the day we walked the national parks and fed giant white Cockatoo's there as big as eagles so intense. then i had cake at these other people's house over all it was a great birthday. the rest of the week we tried to teach people but our appointments kept falling through. but we found this great couple they are personal trainers and they own this boot camp thingy and they are letting us do it for free 6:00am every morning, I'm pumped for that so i can get even more fit before I'm home. they're great I'll tell you how their teaching goes later. we have a lot going on this week so I'm excited for it, but as for me I'm happy having a great time. Love you all family and i hope your getting ready to party this Christmas!!!
Love,
Elder Ballard
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
October 17, 2010
G'day family...
Man this week was so boring, honestly nothing happened. we work really really hard and nothing came of it. I had a new missionary in my area for a few days and i wanted to show him some good effective hard working missionary and it was just a no fest. but eh it happens, but I'm definitely making sure i finish with nothing left, and sometime i think I'll finish up short. i never thought it would be this much of a struggle to continue to have a burning desire all the way until the end. but i guess it's probably cause nothing happened this week, usually when we find someone great and they're progressing it's like a re boost that's all we've gotta do. But of them seem to be duds and not wanting to do much or being just yanked from us at the worst times. But other than a bugger week, I'll happy as always. everything is going great and this week is packed with fun stuff like meeting Julie B Beck, the Relief General President and the Daughter of the Patriarch that gave me my blessing. and we have president interviews my second one since the new guy and my last one for my mission until the final interview. but they'll be included next week. be good Family love you all.!!!
Man this week was so boring, honestly nothing happened. we work really really hard and nothing came of it. I had a new missionary in my area for a few days and i wanted to show him some good effective hard working missionary and it was just a no fest. but eh it happens, but I'm definitely making sure i finish with nothing left, and sometime i think I'll finish up short. i never thought it would be this much of a struggle to continue to have a burning desire all the way until the end. but i guess it's probably cause nothing happened this week, usually when we find someone great and they're progressing it's like a re boost that's all we've gotta do. But of them seem to be duds and not wanting to do much or being just yanked from us at the worst times. But other than a bugger week, I'll happy as always. everything is going great and this week is packed with fun stuff like meeting Julie B Beck, the Relief General President and the Daughter of the Patriarch that gave me my blessing. and we have president interviews my second one since the new guy and my last one for my mission until the final interview. but they'll be included next week. be good Family love you all.!!!
October 10, 2010
G'day family,
This week was pretty dang good, mostly cause we got to watch conference this weekend. i love just sitting there for ten hours over two days and just get spiritually fed, for yourself, cause we worry so much about what everyone else needs and how we can best help them but during conference you have the opportunity to look and yourself and find the weak part and decide to act and make them strong. The big message that i got form conference was LISTEN to the living prophet, he's critical right now, and also They hammered the gift of Agency into us, our righteousness is all on us and we need to make good decisions always, so great that we get to have that every six months. something sad that happened this week is that young girl who was gonna be baptised this week, well here mom wasn't informed of her recent investigating and choice to be baptised and she chucked a whobbly (tantrum) and forbid her from seeing us and breathed out threatening to her friends in the church who were assisting in her teaching, we're still assessing the situation and we hope some things can be reconciled. Also this week we finally went to COSTCO it was the best, so exact like the ones there, except mostly aussie brands but there was some unique American stuff man it was so fun, felt like i was home. And i finally discovered one thing i am allergic to. we did some service for this older lady and she wanted me to mulch this plant with massive green leaves so i did and right in the middle of handling them my hand felt like it was on fire, like there was a billion micro cuts all over my hand it was highly painful i tried to wash it off but this invisible mini ninja continued to hack up my hand. it sucked but I'm over it and now i know I'm not immune to everything, bummer, but as for my week thats about it, i have nine weeks Left oh boy oh boy!!! love you all hepas and actually email me next week... except for Christy she did well. hahaha.
-Elder Ballard
This week was pretty dang good, mostly cause we got to watch conference this weekend. i love just sitting there for ten hours over two days and just get spiritually fed, for yourself, cause we worry so much about what everyone else needs and how we can best help them but during conference you have the opportunity to look and yourself and find the weak part and decide to act and make them strong. The big message that i got form conference was LISTEN to the living prophet, he's critical right now, and also They hammered the gift of Agency into us, our righteousness is all on us and we need to make good decisions always, so great that we get to have that every six months. something sad that happened this week is that young girl who was gonna be baptised this week, well here mom wasn't informed of her recent investigating and choice to be baptised and she chucked a whobbly (tantrum) and forbid her from seeing us and breathed out threatening to her friends in the church who were assisting in her teaching, we're still assessing the situation and we hope some things can be reconciled. Also this week we finally went to COSTCO it was the best, so exact like the ones there, except mostly aussie brands but there was some unique American stuff man it was so fun, felt like i was home. And i finally discovered one thing i am allergic to. we did some service for this older lady and she wanted me to mulch this plant with massive green leaves so i did and right in the middle of handling them my hand felt like it was on fire, like there was a billion micro cuts all over my hand it was highly painful i tried to wash it off but this invisible mini ninja continued to hack up my hand. it sucked but I'm over it and now i know I'm not immune to everything, bummer, but as for my week thats about it, i have nine weeks Left oh boy oh boy!!! love you all hepas and actually email me next week... except for Christy she did well. hahaha.
-Elder Ballard
October 3, 2010
G'day family.
This week was pretty good we worked way hard and got quite a bit done and the blessings are pouring in. so update on Jesse so two days before his baptism he was all set and going so great and all of the sudden his Nan and Pop (g-parents) drugged him threw him in a burlap sack and tossed him in the boot of their car and drove to New South Whales to brain wash him back to the JW faith. OK so it may have not happened that way but i read between the line of what i was being told. so ya he did up and go to his grandparents who are JW's and i do reckon they will have something to say about his up and coming baptism. but I'm sure he'll be fine he has a good testimony, and when he gets back we'll have to suss it out. But as one door closes another one opens so this last week we found Danielle, she is a friend of a members and we had dinner with them and taught her this week. we taught the Restoration and challenged her to pray, though she has no previous knowledge of god or anything, but that night we got a call from he and she was all excited she told us we were right and she did get her answer just like we promised, she said she prayed for time and it worked every time, she was at church yesterday and she was able to witness a baptism as well, and she is now preparing for her own baptism. so that's the best news from the week, we also have heaps of appointments this week with new people we hope to help progress in the gospel, so Also this weekend was the first time the sun actually came out in the two months I've been here,and oh man it was wonderful, it was probably 75-80 the whole weekend and the beaches were packed and there were hundreds of boats and jet ski's it felt like i was in the Bahamas with the turquoise water. i'm pretty sure by the time summer is in full swing i won't come home. but all it well family, only 10 weeks left thats ages so don't get too excited. i lvoe you all and be good.
Elder Ballard
This week was pretty good we worked way hard and got quite a bit done and the blessings are pouring in. so update on Jesse so two days before his baptism he was all set and going so great and all of the sudden his Nan and Pop (g-parents) drugged him threw him in a burlap sack and tossed him in the boot of their car and drove to New South Whales to brain wash him back to the JW faith. OK so it may have not happened that way but i read between the line of what i was being told. so ya he did up and go to his grandparents who are JW's and i do reckon they will have something to say about his up and coming baptism. but I'm sure he'll be fine he has a good testimony, and when he gets back we'll have to suss it out. But as one door closes another one opens so this last week we found Danielle, she is a friend of a members and we had dinner with them and taught her this week. we taught the Restoration and challenged her to pray, though she has no previous knowledge of god or anything, but that night we got a call from he and she was all excited she told us we were right and she did get her answer just like we promised, she said she prayed for time and it worked every time, she was at church yesterday and she was able to witness a baptism as well, and she is now preparing for her own baptism. so that's the best news from the week, we also have heaps of appointments this week with new people we hope to help progress in the gospel, so Also this weekend was the first time the sun actually came out in the two months I've been here,and oh man it was wonderful, it was probably 75-80 the whole weekend and the beaches were packed and there were hundreds of boats and jet ski's it felt like i was in the Bahamas with the turquoise water. i'm pretty sure by the time summer is in full swing i won't come home. but all it well family, only 10 weeks left thats ages so don't get too excited. i lvoe you all and be good.
Elder Ballard
September 26, 2010
G'day Family,
This week Was great! it went pretty quick but we are making a lot of progress with the people we are teaching so this one young man i've talked about before, if he doesn't smoke form now til saturday he'll be able to get baptised and men he's so pumped it's something he wants to do really bad and he's 19 so he wants to thuink about a mission maybe, and thats would honestly be the best for him, so were helping him make that journey. and then we have Anne, a mum of five and she is great we helped clean her yard the other day, her whole family wants to be baptised but she soen't feel like she should go to church but after a lot of the ward nmembers helped her last week she had a change of heart and she told us she wants to come and she is very excited about it. she said she doesn't want to miss one week ever. so we'll get her there finish up teaching her and help her and her children recieve baptism. Another awesome thing this week was it was the "Australian Football League" Grand final... so basically their super bowl. and we got to watch it and manit was so fun it's such a completwly different sport, but so fun to play anf watch but it was so back and forth such a good match, anf it ended in a draw the teams tied exactly. and so they have to have another grand final next week, so funny for the 100,000+ people who pay'd hundreds for their tickets hahahaha they don't get to go next week hahah but it was really cool. i can't wait to watch all the games with you guys when i'm back but the season starts next april so i'll fill you all in. other than that our week was great, went fast and the end is drawing nigh. i love you all be good
Elder Ballard
This week Was great! it went pretty quick but we are making a lot of progress with the people we are teaching so this one young man i've talked about before, if he doesn't smoke form now til saturday he'll be able to get baptised and men he's so pumped it's something he wants to do really bad and he's 19 so he wants to thuink about a mission maybe, and thats would honestly be the best for him, so were helping him make that journey. and then we have Anne, a mum of five and she is great we helped clean her yard the other day, her whole family wants to be baptised but she soen't feel like she should go to church but after a lot of the ward nmembers helped her last week she had a change of heart and she told us she wants to come and she is very excited about it. she said she doesn't want to miss one week ever. so we'll get her there finish up teaching her and help her and her children recieve baptism. Another awesome thing this week was it was the "Australian Football League" Grand final... so basically their super bowl. and we got to watch it and manit was so fun it's such a completwly different sport, but so fun to play anf watch but it was so back and forth such a good match, anf it ended in a draw the teams tied exactly. and so they have to have another grand final next week, so funny for the 100,000+ people who pay'd hundreds for their tickets hahahaha they don't get to go next week hahah but it was really cool. i can't wait to watch all the games with you guys when i'm back but the season starts next april so i'll fill you all in. other than that our week was great, went fast and the end is drawing nigh. i love you all be good
Elder Ballard
September 19, 2010
G'day Family,
This week was a bit differnet than the lasts, because this one felt like an eternity but it was still pretty good none the less. first off i guess i'll tell you all tranfer news.... after much fasting a prayers Elder Fenochietti and myslef will be staying in the mornington area and we couldn't be more jazzed about that. we really really really hope we can die here (that means finish you mission) But as for our week We are Hammered as, due to fatigue. man we did so much this week. so One of the highlights/ worst part about the week was on friday we decided it would be a wonderful idea to hop on our push bikes and ride them all the way to end of the penninsula. wich was a 55 kilometer ride but hey what the heck mostly flat and along the beach the whole way and we were gonna visit some people along the way. man we got 20 kilometers into the trip and we were finished, already climbed like three huge mountains and then when we got to the flat beach paert we had a 35kmh headwind that stopped our progression it wqas ridiculous but after many tears and a lot of sweat we made it to the end of the penninsula dn it was amazing in the Bass straight there was a swell with like 25 foot waves it was mouthwatering hahaha and there was the coolest cliffs and old army barracks and man it was fun but the whole time our aching bodies knew we had to eventually ride back but we actually did the alternative and just hucked our bikes in the bushes to collect later and we hopped on a buss and took the hour trip home. but still completely woth it. but we were so sore and the next day we got up early and did soem yard service for our investagator, then we went to the kannar's house and mulched sticks for three more hours, if it was for anybody else i probably would have passed but they're the best so we trudgged on.... by the end of the day we were fnished, spent zero energy. and my body just gave up and at our tea appointment my nose just started pouring blood it was yuck but i servived and lived to type about it. thats about it for my week. starting my 2nd to last transfer today, thants crazy but fun to think about it. love you all be good and play safe.
Elder Ballard
This week was a bit differnet than the lasts, because this one felt like an eternity but it was still pretty good none the less. first off i guess i'll tell you all tranfer news.... after much fasting a prayers Elder Fenochietti and myslef will be staying in the mornington area and we couldn't be more jazzed about that. we really really really hope we can die here (that means finish you mission) But as for our week We are Hammered as, due to fatigue. man we did so much this week. so One of the highlights/ worst part about the week was on friday we decided it would be a wonderful idea to hop on our push bikes and ride them all the way to end of the penninsula. wich was a 55 kilometer ride but hey what the heck mostly flat and along the beach the whole way and we were gonna visit some people along the way. man we got 20 kilometers into the trip and we were finished, already climbed like three huge mountains and then when we got to the flat beach paert we had a 35kmh headwind that stopped our progression it wqas ridiculous but after many tears and a lot of sweat we made it to the end of the penninsula dn it was amazing in the Bass straight there was a swell with like 25 foot waves it was mouthwatering hahaha and there was the coolest cliffs and old army barracks and man it was fun but the whole time our aching bodies knew we had to eventually ride back but we actually did the alternative and just hucked our bikes in the bushes to collect later and we hopped on a buss and took the hour trip home. but still completely woth it. but we were so sore and the next day we got up early and did soem yard service for our investagator, then we went to the kannar's house and mulched sticks for three more hours, if it was for anybody else i probably would have passed but they're the best so we trudgged on.... by the end of the day we were fnished, spent zero energy. and my body just gave up and at our tea appointment my nose just started pouring blood it was yuck but i servived and lived to type about it. thats about it for my week. starting my 2nd to last transfer today, thants crazy but fun to think about it. love you all be good and play safe.
Elder Ballard
September 12, 2010-
G'day family!
This week.... hmmm honeslty nothing happened it feels like it was just a flash. we did do something pretty cool, we got to go the temple and the better part was we got to see some people from Tasmania, that was awesome i havn't seen them in ages but it was great to see a few of them,i also saw Elder Don Carlos Leota he was there with the Tazzy people, that hoon went back to tazzy were me and him served and picked up some Palagi (white) girl. hahaha it was wya nice to see him. We also got to teach these two pretty great families, one is a Mum with four kids and she is keen as, her and her kids have been taught before and they said they all wanted to be baptised when we got there and thats good to hear but were teaching the lessons over and it's gonna be a pretty fun time teaching them, then i was on exchange but Fenochietti finally got to teach the Hispanic family and they are "golden" and i 'm so excited to see them this week. things are great i love this ward, they are the coolest... transfers are next week pray hard that i stay cause if i move i'll die. hahaha love you family be good and take care.
Elder Balllard
This week.... hmmm honeslty nothing happened it feels like it was just a flash. we did do something pretty cool, we got to go the temple and the better part was we got to see some people from Tasmania, that was awesome i havn't seen them in ages but it was great to see a few of them,i also saw Elder Don Carlos Leota he was there with the Tazzy people, that hoon went back to tazzy were me and him served and picked up some Palagi (white) girl. hahaha it was wya nice to see him. We also got to teach these two pretty great families, one is a Mum with four kids and she is keen as, her and her kids have been taught before and they said they all wanted to be baptised when we got there and thats good to hear but were teaching the lessons over and it's gonna be a pretty fun time teaching them, then i was on exchange but Fenochietti finally got to teach the Hispanic family and they are "golden" and i 'm so excited to see them this week. things are great i love this ward, they are the coolest... transfers are next week pray hard that i stay cause if i move i'll die. hahaha love you family be good and take care.
Elder Balllard
August 29, 2010
G'day Familia
This week could not have gone faster, man it feel like i was just one this computer tell you about my week, but another one (week) bites the dust, and there are only a handful of these weeks i have left but we''l make the best of them. this week was actually a good one, we have some success coming up in this area. So on Friday we went all the way to the polar opposite of the peninsula to go and see this member named Bree, some call her Breesus, and it fits cause this girl is on the ball about missionary work, we went to her house and she had a friend there and his name is Jesse he's 18 and way into the lesson his grandparents are JW's and have been pestering him to join but he's confused so we taught the Plan of salvation and committed him to baptism and he's be baptized on September 11th which is way cool he's solid and the best this is Breesus has more friends we went through a list of nine of her friends that want the missionary discussions, so that;ll be a gold mine and it'll be fun going down there all the time. Also this week, I Went on exchanges wich a samoan Edler that was way fun he is F.O.B. as! (fresh off the boat) but way cool i feel like a greenie missionary cause we are surrounded by East Side boys, some are lame but most are very cool. but the weather is warming up and the Beach go'ers are coming out and this place is getting pretty busy, i'm so glad spring is here but i want it to be hot. soon it will come. I'm pretty sure i decided that i could quite possibly move here this place is so great. but as for anything else exciting this week there was none, but i love you all and be good.
-Elder Ballard
This week could not have gone faster, man it feel like i was just one this computer tell you about my week, but another one (week) bites the dust, and there are only a handful of these weeks i have left but we''l make the best of them. this week was actually a good one, we have some success coming up in this area. So on Friday we went all the way to the polar opposite of the peninsula to go and see this member named Bree, some call her Breesus, and it fits cause this girl is on the ball about missionary work, we went to her house and she had a friend there and his name is Jesse he's 18 and way into the lesson his grandparents are JW's and have been pestering him to join but he's confused so we taught the Plan of salvation and committed him to baptism and he's be baptized on September 11th which is way cool he's solid and the best this is Breesus has more friends we went through a list of nine of her friends that want the missionary discussions, so that;ll be a gold mine and it'll be fun going down there all the time. Also this week, I Went on exchanges wich a samoan Edler that was way fun he is F.O.B. as! (fresh off the boat) but way cool i feel like a greenie missionary cause we are surrounded by East Side boys, some are lame but most are very cool. but the weather is warming up and the Beach go'ers are coming out and this place is getting pretty busy, i'm so glad spring is here but i want it to be hot. soon it will come. I'm pretty sure i decided that i could quite possibly move here this place is so great. but as for anything else exciting this week there was none, but i love you all and be good.
-Elder Ballard
August 22, 2010
G'day Family,
Man this week went fast they all seem to be going faster and faster. one thing i forgot to tell you last week is we got a call from the office and i'm talking to the office sister, and she asks me what airport i'll be going home to and who will come pick me up because she has just purchased my flight home and i will be home in utah on December 15th 2010, I hung up the phone looked at Elder Fenochietti who just had the same conversation moments before me and i just said "That was Scay!" it made it feel so close, uh oh it's soon but at the same time i have ages to go so don't get trunkie family cause i'll probably never get trunkie (read further to find out why not). So i really like my area but this week my companion had Strep throat and so we took it really easy, but we still found a few people to teach and it's going alright, a bit slow but i have no worries this ward is picking up and will fill our teaching pool in no time. But we met this super Awesome family in the ward this week it's the Kannar family. we went over on saturday to remove "a small little stump" said sister kannar but we got there and is was seven medium size stumps and one massive gum tree stump with four tree waiting to be planted hahaha, it was a big job but it was so fun to help them out they're way funny filled with that dry Aussie humor. They are so fun and We were having lunch with them and just talking about austrlaia and our mission and i just was hit by a trunkie wave, not homesick or anything but irealized i'm gonna hate leaving this place, i love australia no matter how weird these people are, it's just the best, and i just want to make the best of it. but as for that nothing bug happened this week, we have a potential familia of five from mexico to teach soon and i really really really hope we get to teach and baptise them it would be a dream come tru hahaha but i'll continue to make it out here, thatnks famiyl for all your help love you all heaps!!
-Elder Ballard
Man this week went fast they all seem to be going faster and faster. one thing i forgot to tell you last week is we got a call from the office and i'm talking to the office sister, and she asks me what airport i'll be going home to and who will come pick me up because she has just purchased my flight home and i will be home in utah on December 15th 2010, I hung up the phone looked at Elder Fenochietti who just had the same conversation moments before me and i just said "That was Scay!" it made it feel so close, uh oh it's soon but at the same time i have ages to go so don't get trunkie family cause i'll probably never get trunkie (read further to find out why not). So i really like my area but this week my companion had Strep throat and so we took it really easy, but we still found a few people to teach and it's going alright, a bit slow but i have no worries this ward is picking up and will fill our teaching pool in no time. But we met this super Awesome family in the ward this week it's the Kannar family. we went over on saturday to remove "a small little stump" said sister kannar but we got there and is was seven medium size stumps and one massive gum tree stump with four tree waiting to be planted hahaha, it was a big job but it was so fun to help them out they're way funny filled with that dry Aussie humor. They are so fun and We were having lunch with them and just talking about austrlaia and our mission and i just was hit by a trunkie wave, not homesick or anything but irealized i'm gonna hate leaving this place, i love australia no matter how weird these people are, it's just the best, and i just want to make the best of it. but as for that nothing bug happened this week, we have a potential familia of five from mexico to teach soon and i really really really hope we get to teach and baptise them it would be a dream come tru hahaha but i'll continue to make it out here, thatnks famiyl for all your help love you all heaps!!
-Elder Ballard
August 15, 2010
G'day family,
This week has been crazy, man my new area is crazy i'll tell you about it in a minute, but my last day in Glenroy was so awesome, i got to see all my recent converts, and man, it made my whole mission worth it i was basically surrounded the whole day with people who i had grown to love and also i have pointed towards eternal life with heavely father, it was so nice to see all of them one last time before the ned of my mission. So were so cut that i was going and so am I but I like my new Area it seems so cool. So I have moved over to the east mission or the east side of the city, i was really hoping to go to some town out in the woop woop and die (as a missionary) out in the country, but i am in a place called Mornington penninsula, it is a thumb hanging off of melbourne, and it is so cool we can the ocean all the time i love it and my new companion is the coolest, It's Edler Fenochietti from the MTC were just as close as Zabriskie, man i've served with everyone form my intake except Elder Feller but he is my Zone leader so i see him lots. but As for my ward my ward is way awesome, there are so many white people!!! hahaha its fun as! they are so excited to have us around. Also there are Hispanics and some somoans so i can get weened from Glenroys onslaught of Tarro (yuck samoan potato thing) There hasn't been a day that has gone by where i havn't seen the ocean. We really don't have much going on in the way of work though there is this one guy who came to church his name is Phil, he's a talker man he goes for ages, but he's way smart, and pretty cool guy, he used to be gay, but now knows better and he's the coolest, we had an hour appoinmtent and it went two hours and i bearely said anything, but i'll let you know on his progress a little later on. Our Area is massive and we have to drive at least half hour to get anywhere it seem, but i got a little bimbed this week that i only get to be here maximum four months, i want to be here longer but it i die (finish) here i'd be happy its way awesome, except it's raining 24/7 i want summer!!
Love you all be good.
Elder B
This week has been crazy, man my new area is crazy i'll tell you about it in a minute, but my last day in Glenroy was so awesome, i got to see all my recent converts, and man, it made my whole mission worth it i was basically surrounded the whole day with people who i had grown to love and also i have pointed towards eternal life with heavely father, it was so nice to see all of them one last time before the ned of my mission. So were so cut that i was going and so am I but I like my new Area it seems so cool. So I have moved over to the east mission or the east side of the city, i was really hoping to go to some town out in the woop woop and die (as a missionary) out in the country, but i am in a place called Mornington penninsula, it is a thumb hanging off of melbourne, and it is so cool we can the ocean all the time i love it and my new companion is the coolest, It's Edler Fenochietti from the MTC were just as close as Zabriskie, man i've served with everyone form my intake except Elder Feller but he is my Zone leader so i see him lots. but As for my ward my ward is way awesome, there are so many white people!!! hahaha its fun as! they are so excited to have us around. Also there are Hispanics and some somoans so i can get weened from Glenroys onslaught of Tarro (yuck samoan potato thing) There hasn't been a day that has gone by where i havn't seen the ocean. We really don't have much going on in the way of work though there is this one guy who came to church his name is Phil, he's a talker man he goes for ages, but he's way smart, and pretty cool guy, he used to be gay, but now knows better and he's the coolest, we had an hour appoinmtent and it went two hours and i bearely said anything, but i'll let you know on his progress a little later on. Our Area is massive and we have to drive at least half hour to get anywhere it seem, but i got a little bimbed this week that i only get to be here maximum four months, i want to be here longer but it i die (finish) here i'd be happy its way awesome, except it's raining 24/7 i want summer!!
Love you all be good.
Elder B
Sunday, August 15, 2010
August 8, 2010
G'day Family
So this Week I am "moving on up, to the East sy-hide" hahahaha maybe. so last night i got the Call that my 7 and 1/2 month sabaticle has come to an end I am being transfered, i'm not sure were to, but I am gonza and super excited, i mean i was so done with this area, i squeezed the juice out of this area, like three months ago, I only love it so much cause of the awesome converts i have they were the only thing keeping me hapy and going but now i'm gonna get a fresh new area to blast it to pieces for the last few months i'm here. I'm glad i finished strong, we had heaps of success this week we still have three people set for baptism and we had them all there at church this week, i'm glad i'll leave this place actually rolling and not dead as. Joe Was sweet this week she's really keen,a dn sincere in her learning. and she is way genuine, when we schedule we know the appointmment will go through and if it doesn't she calls and tells us another time for us to come. we still go some things for her to get over but i hope the other Elders are in the right position and worthiness to bring her the blessings she deserves. Not much else happened this week, i kinda just mozied until transfer calls came, i got to see a lot of my converts and say goodbye. also i realy hope my next companion will actually want to run in the morning, i went from running like crazy to just trying to roll this mountain of a companion out of bed on time. so i'm pretty jazzed to get some one slightly physically active cause i've put on a few kgs this last nine weeks. um well thats about it for the week. i'll tell you all about my new companion and area next week. Oh and One more thing.... So this Week Our old Mission President, President Lee suffered a Serveir Heart attack and i Would just ask for you ghuys to remember him in your prayers. Thank you family i love you and and take care.
Elder Ballard
So this Week I am "moving on up, to the East sy-hide" hahahaha maybe. so last night i got the Call that my 7 and 1/2 month sabaticle has come to an end I am being transfered, i'm not sure were to, but I am gonza and super excited, i mean i was so done with this area, i squeezed the juice out of this area, like three months ago, I only love it so much cause of the awesome converts i have they were the only thing keeping me hapy and going but now i'm gonna get a fresh new area to blast it to pieces for the last few months i'm here. I'm glad i finished strong, we had heaps of success this week we still have three people set for baptism and we had them all there at church this week, i'm glad i'll leave this place actually rolling and not dead as. Joe Was sweet this week she's really keen,a dn sincere in her learning. and she is way genuine, when we schedule we know the appointmment will go through and if it doesn't she calls and tells us another time for us to come. we still go some things for her to get over but i hope the other Elders are in the right position and worthiness to bring her the blessings she deserves. Not much else happened this week, i kinda just mozied until transfer calls came, i got to see a lot of my converts and say goodbye. also i realy hope my next companion will actually want to run in the morning, i went from running like crazy to just trying to roll this mountain of a companion out of bed on time. so i'm pretty jazzed to get some one slightly physically active cause i've put on a few kgs this last nine weeks. um well thats about it for the week. i'll tell you all about my new companion and area next week. Oh and One more thing.... So this Week Our old Mission President, President Lee suffered a Serveir Heart attack and i Would just ask for you ghuys to remember him in your prayers. Thank you family i love you and and take care.
Elder Ballard
Monday, August 2, 2010
August 1, 2010
G'day
Family this week was slow and really good at the same time, we only had a few lessons with people but man did we make them count, We taught this Aussie lady 50 years old and we taught her last week it was Joe, you should know all about her but she is a heavy as smoker and we were concerned she wouldn't want to continue but when we taught her the gospel and also the plan of salvation she was so excited and we set a baptismal date for the coming weeks. she wasn;t able to make it to church but still she's wonderfull and it's nice to teach some people who speaks our lanuage. then we have Suman and his family we met him a few weeks ago he said he and his family will be bap't if we got him son in school so we did and no were rounding him and his friends family up its way good but they're pretty dodgy with our appoinments. but things are going good. Also we had our first President interviews and they were awesome i love our new president completely different than President Lee i loved him but man President Liffereth is the man. he's so cool, he loves my ragged shoes it shows that i work, i'm pretty weird as you guys know and he understands me perfectly hahaha, and laso they are such new missionaries we taught sister Liffert how to talk to people so funnny us teaching them. um thats about it i'm sure so many other things happened to me but thats all you guys get hahahaha, next week are transfers so emails might be llate, but don't fret i still love you all be good and pray always
Elder Ballard
Friday, July 23, 2010
July 18, 2010
This week Was good, but i'm having a minor time remembering anything that has happened this week. it flew by and not much has happened. Cool thing that happend this is we had Zone conference it was way good, we got to meet the President way more. we had a whole lot of awesome trainings. Um we taught quite a few of nepalese families which was pretty good. one thing thats pretty lame is i have 11 recent converts in this ward which i care for a lot and some of them are not getting the support from the ward that they need and i can't see all of them every week and it's getting really tough to keep thiem active, so i'm hounding the ward for some support and it's like kicking rocks but i gotta "kick against the pricks" as the scriptures say, someday they'll move. um i Wrote you all a long as letter this week i'll be sending it soon that fill you in on all that jazz ofthe mission. so not to sound repetative i'll save it and tell you all to wait. But the awesome thing of the week as well is WE GOT OUR CAR!!!! it was the best day ever. i'm so happy we can teach SO many more people. but other then that all is well i'm happy and Trying to fight off the trunkie. love you all be good. Hoo roo
_Ewlda Balodd
_Ewlda Balodd
Sunday, July 18, 2010
July 11, 2010
G'day Family.
This week was alright, it went so Fast. Partly because most of the missionaries in the area spent it sleeping. so on Tuesday my Comp got really sick so he slept then another missionary got sick so he satyed with my comp and i went out and worked, then i got sick (just a fever) on Thursday. and this carried us allt the way until saturday untill we were all back to the plate. We're all still coughing up storm but the worst has past and that wasn't even that bad. But on thursday because we half the missionaries in the Area were sick we didn't get a lot of work done so Elder Mulitalo and I went out with a determination to make up for the lost time. it was so much fun we ran from person to person teaching and asking them if they want to learn, i met so many cool people most not interested but some of them were keen as on us coming over so next week should yeild some good results. Another cool thing we did this week is we toured a Siekh (seek... it's a religion, the ones who wear turbans) temple it was way weird they totally ahd a Ramiumptom (book of mormon look it up ) so hilarious and the gave us free food, kinda buh!, but they gave us free siekh jewelyry it was so awesome. but i think thats it for this week. i hope you warm weather is great, pray for me, i love you all.
Elder Ballard
Monday, July 5, 2010
July 5, 2010
G'day Family,
This week has been way good. so we started this week with really nobody to teach and we decided to take action and do things a whole new way. we set out plans and promised heavenly father that if we work hard to meet these goal that he would give us certain blessings. we had also made plans to talk to over 1000 people (outside of planned activities...like street contacting) over the next six week and a whole heap of other goals. we named this new plan of action "Wudonga" it's an aboriginal word meaning... i have no idea! but we say it to pump ourselves up and to go get these lost sheep. and it totally work we found like three families to teach and a few seem very promising. a few came to church yesterday and they are from Nepal. really awesome people and the people seem to just be piling up. also there was this one Family, they mostly members the mom and son are and we just recently baptised the daughter (Moorisha) the fijians. but the dad is a Jehovah Wittness and he is very nice but always leaves when we come over but this week he came out we taught him of the book of mormon and he accepted one (which JW's arn't allowed to do) it was way exciting and we taught him and built a good relationship of trust with him. i hope to be able t teach hm in the comming days. this is the begining of a new surge of baptism and i'm happy to be the driving force. Also our new Mission President came i havn't spoken with him yet but we meet him in two days and i'm excited. I't july Holy cow!! well Don't let seeing mikey make you think i'm arund the corner. i've got donkey yonks. but I love it. Be good family. seek to better yoursleves always. much love..
Elder ballard
P.S. the picture last week i was holding a Wholl fih on my plate, it mtches with one photo i got from mikey ask him about it.
This week has been way good. so we started this week with really nobody to teach and we decided to take action and do things a whole new way. we set out plans and promised heavenly father that if we work hard to meet these goal that he would give us certain blessings. we had also made plans to talk to over 1000 people (outside of planned activities...like street contacting) over the next six week and a whole heap of other goals. we named this new plan of action "Wudonga" it's an aboriginal word meaning... i have no idea! but we say it to pump ourselves up and to go get these lost sheep. and it totally work we found like three families to teach and a few seem very promising. a few came to church yesterday and they are from Nepal. really awesome people and the people seem to just be piling up. also there was this one Family, they mostly members the mom and son are and we just recently baptised the daughter (Moorisha) the fijians. but the dad is a Jehovah Wittness and he is very nice but always leaves when we come over but this week he came out we taught him of the book of mormon and he accepted one (which JW's arn't allowed to do) it was way exciting and we taught him and built a good relationship of trust with him. i hope to be able t teach hm in the comming days. this is the begining of a new surge of baptism and i'm happy to be the driving force. Also our new Mission President came i havn't spoken with him yet but we meet him in two days and i'm excited. I't july Holy cow!! well Don't let seeing mikey make you think i'm arund the corner. i've got donkey yonks. but I love it. Be good family. seek to better yoursleves always. much love..
Elder ballard
P.S. the picture last week i was holding a Wholl fih on my plate, it mtches with one photo i got from mikey ask him about it.
Sunday, June 27, 2010
June 27, 2010
G'day Family,
Sorry in advance but this email is gonna be tiny. litterall tiny. we basically just got rained on this whole week. and i've been fill with a godd dose of trunk thinking about mikey beinig home in two days. but all is well this week was once again really slow, we did almost nop work cause of our hindering Bipedalysis (walking) but We still found a lot of joy in the work, so no big worries on our end. SOmething kind of sad this week is we Had our farewell for President and sister Lee, we had a big frieside for them on thrusday. it was a bit sad i'm gonna miss those two like crazy, they were like our mom and Dad out here. but the best part about it was i got to hug sister Lee, alright!!! my only leagal hug on the mission, it was way funny cause i've been hyping up this hug for the last five or six months with her. so we get our new Mission President on thurday and that will be so crazy not having the Lee's around. but i'll Deal. I hit 18 months this week!!! how nuts my skip day pretty insane.i might burn a suit ya probably. um thats about it for me thanks for only a few email this week. nut i still love you all... HEAPs i promise, be good and Always trying a better yourself.
Sorry in advance but this email is gonna be tiny. litterall tiny. we basically just got rained on this whole week. and i've been fill with a godd dose of trunk thinking about mikey beinig home in two days. but all is well this week was once again really slow, we did almost nop work cause of our hindering Bipedalysis (walking) but We still found a lot of joy in the work, so no big worries on our end. SOmething kind of sad this week is we Had our farewell for President and sister Lee, we had a big frieside for them on thrusday. it was a bit sad i'm gonna miss those two like crazy, they were like our mom and Dad out here. but the best part about it was i got to hug sister Lee, alright!!! my only leagal hug on the mission, it was way funny cause i've been hyping up this hug for the last five or six months with her. so we get our new Mission President on thurday and that will be so crazy not having the Lee's around. but i'll Deal. I hit 18 months this week!!! how nuts my skip day pretty insane.i might burn a suit ya probably. um thats about it for me thanks for only a few email this week. nut i still love you all... HEAPs i promise, be good and Always trying a better yourself.
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
June 20, 2010
G'day Family.
Ok so this week was Alright, so it was a carbon copy of last week, int he fact that we still have no car or bikes and it takes Ages to get from appoinment to appointment. and we have to gap it from everything early. But we did have our very last Zone confernece with President and Sister Lee. Kind of sad but we have a farewell for them this week that should be grouse. oh cool thing that happened this week is two of our Recent converts Danial and Shelly, they both received the priesthood and thay were so pumped it's pretty exciting those were my first RC's to recieve the Priesthood. um nnot much else happend this week other than trying to get kill by the city council setting boobie traps for me to die in. ok so here's the happening of the event. so Elder Pullman and I just had finished contacting this one lady and we were on our way back to our flat, when we decided to cut through a Reserve (park/nature thing, but more nature than park) and we were just walking me a little in front of elder Pullman, when i Took one step then Disappeared, i stepped onto a manhole gutter sort of the and the top of it just flipped up and down i went in an instant. the second i rested my foot on it i knew it was a bad idea but it happened to fast to do anyhting about it. down i went with a thud!! I just about cracked my ribs on the conrete slab that flipped up and javelined itself into my abdomine. and there were sharp bits of cement that took there toll on my Shins. and half in the hole and half out all i could yell is "What the Hell!!" over and over and over. and Instead of being a careing loving companion Elder Pullman just Laughed until he pee'd himslef and snapped photo's of the horrific Scene (Photo's attached) i servived and i'll be fine, but i totally wish it wasn't me that fell in cause i needed a good laugh hahahah. well thats it family. i Lvoe you all and Say Hi the Mikey for me next week.
-Love Elder Ballard
Thursday, June 17, 2010
June 15, 2010
G'day Family,
This week was Pretty good, but a bit trying but nothing that is too big. We just got Elder Pullman Settled into my area, it has taken some time due to the fact that we don't have a car and we have to walk everywhere because elder Pullman is to big for a bike. because before elder Bennetts and i could do so mush work on the bikes almost as well as a car but now we have to rely on our feet and dumb busses that come three minutes early and leave us who got there two minutes early ughhh! hahaha but it's all good i'm Still smiles. We have been blessed from being on our feet though, because we get to talk to everyone on the street, and have been able to find a few prospects in our area for the coming months. I hope to get twice the amount of work done. my time is dwindeling and i don't really want to waste any of it. hey Mikey is home in two weeks thats insane. give him a kiss on the lips for me hahahaha. Hmm the mission will be combining into one mission in twoo weeks as well thats super exciting on new mission president and 85 new missionaries, oh boi it'll be the best. well i got no love from you all this week except wayne that why he's my favorite. hahah but i still love you all and be sure you be good and pray always.
-Elder Ballard
This week was Pretty good, but a bit trying but nothing that is too big. We just got Elder Pullman Settled into my area, it has taken some time due to the fact that we don't have a car and we have to walk everywhere because elder Pullman is to big for a bike. because before elder Bennetts and i could do so mush work on the bikes almost as well as a car but now we have to rely on our feet and dumb busses that come three minutes early and leave us who got there two minutes early ughhh! hahaha but it's all good i'm Still smiles. We have been blessed from being on our feet though, because we get to talk to everyone on the street, and have been able to find a few prospects in our area for the coming months. I hope to get twice the amount of work done. my time is dwindeling and i don't really want to waste any of it. hey Mikey is home in two weeks thats insane. give him a kiss on the lips for me hahahaha. Hmm the mission will be combining into one mission in twoo weeks as well thats super exciting on new mission president and 85 new missionaries, oh boi it'll be the best. well i got no love from you all this week except wayne that why he's my favorite. hahah but i still love you all and be sure you be good and pray always.
-Elder Ballard
June 8, 2010
G'day Family,
This week has been one of a few trials, but I'll be fine i always take then with a smile and a brighter look for the future. OK so this week was business as usual and we were doing our normal thing, it was going really good because our recent Convert Shelly is so pumped up and he wants to just hang out and teach with us all day it's so fun, we just drive him around to everyone with him. until thready... on Thursday we were driving and i was taking a right turn (left turn for you guys, the kind were i have to yield) so i stop and the on coming car is turning right so we are both stopped to yield oncoming traffic and so i see nobody is moving and she gives me the go ahead and so i look and then go. then Wham!!! we get basically T-boned (well L-boned they hit our back tire and door) by a car that was flying around the opposite cars. she spun us around in a 180 and we came to a stop, every body was alright. and the hit happened right on the door where Shelly was sitting but he's right. the police came and so did one of the office missionaries to help us out, no i don't think it was my fault cause she was flying and didn't even hit the brakes at all. but the police said minus the circumstances, the cut and dry definition it was my fault. so lame i have to pay some fine so lame, so now our Car is gone as well. it makes our work a lot different we Ride our bikes everywhere the first day was way strange, but i got used to the trains and buses and bikes and now i love it. we don't as much work done but i really enjoy it. we have a nice video of us a Shelly on the bikes you'll enjoi it. hahaha I've had a really good time on the bikes. and we're just truggin along. but now transfers came, and I've been here six months now and i was kinda of expecting to leave but the calls have come and i Am staying in the Glenroy ward. but Elder Jacob Bennetts is leaving to Tasmania. yup so at the moment i have a new Comp here his name is Jared Pullman from New Zealand and he is a Big boy. he's like 6'9" and massive i think I've talked about him before, he was down in tazzy with me and we went on a lot of exchanges, I'm excited to work with him but the only thing is he is too big for bike so I'm super bummed about that, we don't have a car for the next four weeks. man!! but it's good I'm excited. and also only three more weeks until the mission combine it's getting intense now. but I'm still pushing along being a foot soldier here on the front lines trying my hardest to pull my weight in the mission. I love you all and Be good.
Elder Ballard
This week has been one of a few trials, but I'll be fine i always take then with a smile and a brighter look for the future. OK so this week was business as usual and we were doing our normal thing, it was going really good because our recent Convert Shelly is so pumped up and he wants to just hang out and teach with us all day it's so fun, we just drive him around to everyone with him. until thready... on Thursday we were driving and i was taking a right turn (left turn for you guys, the kind were i have to yield) so i stop and the on coming car is turning right so we are both stopped to yield oncoming traffic and so i see nobody is moving and she gives me the go ahead and so i look and then go. then Wham!!! we get basically T-boned (well L-boned they hit our back tire and door) by a car that was flying around the opposite cars. she spun us around in a 180 and we came to a stop, every body was alright. and the hit happened right on the door where Shelly was sitting but he's right. the police came and so did one of the office missionaries to help us out, no i don't think it was my fault cause she was flying and didn't even hit the brakes at all. but the police said minus the circumstances, the cut and dry definition it was my fault. so lame i have to pay some fine so lame, so now our Car is gone as well. it makes our work a lot different we Ride our bikes everywhere the first day was way strange, but i got used to the trains and buses and bikes and now i love it. we don't as much work done but i really enjoy it. we have a nice video of us a Shelly on the bikes you'll enjoi it. hahaha I've had a really good time on the bikes. and we're just truggin along. but now transfers came, and I've been here six months now and i was kinda of expecting to leave but the calls have come and i Am staying in the Glenroy ward. but Elder Jacob Bennetts is leaving to Tasmania. yup so at the moment i have a new Comp here his name is Jared Pullman from New Zealand and he is a Big boy. he's like 6'9" and massive i think I've talked about him before, he was down in tazzy with me and we went on a lot of exchanges, I'm excited to work with him but the only thing is he is too big for bike so I'm super bummed about that, we don't have a car for the next four weeks. man!! but it's good I'm excited. and also only three more weeks until the mission combine it's getting intense now. but I'm still pushing along being a foot soldier here on the front lines trying my hardest to pull my weight in the mission. I love you all and Be good.
Elder Ballard
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
May 30, 2010 Ewlda Baillod( Aussie Way)
G'day Family,
This week was a little better, no luck with any of my stolen goods but I'll be OK, Really sad thing though is we had president interviews with President Lee for the very last time in four weeks him and sister Lee will be going home, sad day. it's weird i don't want to say goodbye but i'm sure the new president will be great the merger of mission is coming faster and faster it's gonna be quite crazy. I'm sure my life won't melo down anytime soon. also this Thursday i got my new set of scriptures. my old ones were one size bigger than normal ones and these ones are the little kind. and man it's so hard to teach with out all my links and notes and stuff, i can barely navigate these one, i can even find the bible in it ahahah, my other ones i could put then on my head think about a scripture and nod my head they would fall into my lap opened to right scripture (that's an exaggeration) I'm kind of excited though new set i can be more organised. so i just have to go on... Good story of the week, Shelly our investigator he got Baptized this saturday, he was so pumped about it. he Told us mid week his parents said if he gets baptized that he will no longer be their son. but he said he didn't care he knew this was true and good, and also his girlfriend from india called me told me he is stupid and said i should not let him get baptized he was so funny about the whole this, he just laughed and made us promise him that the ward will become his family, and of course we would thats our baptismal covenant "mourn with those that Mourn" (mosiah), Elder bennets baptised him and he shouted thank you to all those who came to the Bap. then yesterday i confirmed him a member of the church and gave hime the holy ghost. other than that my week was way good found a bunch of people to teach and just had a good time. i love it here. Transfers are next week, i'm 80% i'll saty and next transfer is a nine week transfer for the merger, so if i stay thats 7 months in this area. i like it. i love the work, thanks for the love and i can't wait for you're packages yeeee!! lov you all!!
-Ewlda Baillod (aussie way)
May 23, 2010 Wilt Thou Rob God?
G'day Family
This week was so bad but at the same time it was way way good, so do you want the bad news first or second?.... ok i'll give you the bad news first if you really want. So on thursday night we met at anohyter missionaries flat for exchanges. we got out of the car and went inside for five minutes and came out. i noticed some stuff moved around the car, but didn't anythign of it. until the morning i put the pieces together. we had been broken into. they honestly took everything. they took Elder Bennetts' GPS, our Mobile, Ipod, Ipod Dock, My missionary bag, My other leather bag which had my camera in it, Our petrol credit card, and i don't really care that i lost any of this but the worst thing they got in my sciptures. my life and Brain as a missionary. i feel like i lost my child, it's sucks so bad to not have it, man i put so many notes and study into that and now it's gone. I've got another brand new set already but man, i was just telling Elder Page how they were gonna be my big family scriptures that my kids read out of every night. i guess not anymroe :(. oh well you can't let this slow yiou down. And now for the good part of the week. We met this man named shelly, he'd been previously taught in India and already knew everythnig he was gonna get Baptized over ther but had to come here so he is so excited for his baptism which is this saturday, and also we got heaps of our investigators to this special meeting with Elder Callister (first quorrum on the 70) and Area President. it was such a cool meeting and our recent converts and investigators loved it. i'm excited for next week it's gonna be a good one. thanks family for your prayers, i'm doing way good. i love it here and the people i may never come home. hahaha. i lvoe you all
-Elder Ballard
This week was so bad but at the same time it was way way good, so do you want the bad news first or second?.... ok i'll give you the bad news first if you really want. So on thursday night we met at anohyter missionaries flat for exchanges. we got out of the car and went inside for five minutes and came out. i noticed some stuff moved around the car, but didn't anythign of it. until the morning i put the pieces together. we had been broken into. they honestly took everything. they took Elder Bennetts' GPS, our Mobile, Ipod, Ipod Dock, My missionary bag, My other leather bag which had my camera in it, Our petrol credit card, and i don't really care that i lost any of this but the worst thing they got in my sciptures. my life and Brain as a missionary. i feel like i lost my child, it's sucks so bad to not have it, man i put so many notes and study into that and now it's gone. I've got another brand new set already but man, i was just telling Elder Page how they were gonna be my big family scriptures that my kids read out of every night. i guess not anymroe :(. oh well you can't let this slow yiou down. And now for the good part of the week. We met this man named shelly, he'd been previously taught in India and already knew everythnig he was gonna get Baptized over ther but had to come here so he is so excited for his baptism which is this saturday, and also we got heaps of our investigators to this special meeting with Elder Callister (first quorrum on the 70) and Area President. it was such a cool meeting and our recent converts and investigators loved it. i'm excited for next week it's gonna be a good one. thanks family for your prayers, i'm doing way good. i love it here and the people i may never come home. hahaha. i lvoe you all
-Elder Ballard
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
May 16, 2010
G'day family,
This week was really exciting we worked really hard and a few really cool and really disappointing things happened to us. ok so i guess I'll tell you about this guy we met named Abdule Raheem. So last Monday he Flagged us down on the Corner and talked to us, he is Austrailian but has changed his name cause he has converted to Islam. We think the lesson isn't gonna be that great we think he just wants to tell us all about Islam. So we go over there and teach him and it was going really well he's really smart, and understands ever thing, we relate the First vision and we ask him how he felt, and all he said is, it reminds him of a dream he had a year back. he told us all about his dream and what happened a lot of really interesting things, and then he said right before his dream closed he heard "Isaiah 28" and so he searched through all of that in Isaiah 28 and 29 and 30, and he searched for ages and found the only scripture that was pulling him in was Isaiah 29:11, and so i opened to that scripture and it was one prophecying of Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon and it was also written in 2Nephi 27:9 or somthing and man, the excitment that filled the room was palpable, and so when we shared this with Abdule he was shocked he had never expected us to pull something like that off. and the reason he had converted to Islam recently is that scripture matches up with he story of Mohammad, but he was really willing to pray about it and i knew he'd get his answer if he prayed. so in two days we saw him and we brought president lee to help us teach. but at the end he told us a few weeks ago he dreamed about Joseph Smith and he was a little boy and just said "i'm a Mason" thats it and so Abdule looked online and Found out joseph smith was a mason, and for some reason he has this deep deep deep hatred for masons, so he politely gae us the book back and refused to read it, i was so dissappointed. but i have no hatred towards him, we figure the he's just had something happen in his life but he'll hopefully find that islam is hullabaloo and he'll come our way, but as for that we taught quite a bit of other people. these people are wonerfull i lvoe serving and in order to keep some of these new people in the gospel and for anyone they just gotta read pray everyday and come to church it's simple easy, and with bring the most happiness. Love you family, be good, take care and go to church.
Elder Ballard
Monday, May 10, 2010
May 9, 2010
G'day Family,
So I just Got to Talk to Most of you on the Phone like an Hour ago, That was really good and really cool to think thats the last ohone call and the next step is to come home hahaha really exciting and scary at the same time, i don't want to leave really so i'll just be sure to work really hard the next few months i won't get trunkie till December and i'll give me a week to be in the words of Mikey Trunk-a-licious. hahaha, i've got ages to go so lets not think about it to much. So this Week, First off i Want to tell you this super cool expirience i had this last Friday. We saw on this list of poeple there was a brazillian family that had shown some insterest a few months back and seeing that brazillians are pretty prepared people, we wanted to go and see them, we get to there house and i knock on the door an older lady comes to the door, and when she see;s us she says, "oh, no ingles" now this happens to us a lot when were at the door but it's usually greek or italian people, and we can't do anything about that, but i knew this lady was Brazillian, and so she could understand me if i spoke spanish, i Before she Shut the Door i Blurted " Por Favor, aprendes espanol, conosco eres Brazillian pero hablo espanol" then she opened the door and i started to ask here questions in spannish she understood well but when she responed i couldn't understand a word of Portugues. it was still cool and we were able to find out the answers we needed, and hopefully this weekend we'll get to teach her and her family or neighbor i don't know all the details. that was a coll this that happend, other than that a sad thing is Fiona our Chinese Baptismal Date she doesn't want us aound and we went by with a Chinese speaking missionary abd it was so cool to see a american just spout off chinese so well. but she has been anti'd or something but man it's a little bit sad, were also teaching lots of indians hopefully one of them will be ready for baptism soon. I miss Elder Zabriskie me and Him taught like champions nobody could say no, but it's gonna take a bit longer to get teaching well with my comp, but i gotta be patient, he's awesome we get along great, just working hard waiting for some blessings. thanks for the phone calls it was great, happy Mothers Day to all you mothers, love you guys.
Monday, May 3, 2010
May 2, 2010- Parable of the Legos
G'day Family,
This week was a good one, we worked really hard, so it's a bit different not having Zabriskie around because he has Cronick fatigue syndrom, so we napped and took the work really easy but still baptised like crazy. we did so well but never got overwhelmed by anything, i thought it was a pretty good system, because we were the most effective. but this Chooseday (tuesday the way an Aussie says it) I got my New Companion Elder Jacob Bennetts, he is from a place in Western Australia called Bunbry. he has a thick accent and is helping me out with some word at a time, and soon i'll be pro at it. he's pretty new only been out 4 months but he works pretty hard but isn't serious all the time which calls for a fun time, we can't be serious always or we'll go crazy. But this week we wroked really hard, and got a lot of stuff done this week, exciting news is Fiona has accepted the Baptismal Invite and will be dunked in the next few weeks. we also have found quite a few indian investigators that we'll have our new convert Priyanker come around and help us out. it's looking like the success will continue to come but also i'm concerned, so there are many missionaries who go out and try and get as many people as possible andevery time they take on board more name they know what to do with, here's my analogy, " It's like your sitting in a room up to your neck in Legos, there is no way you'll ever be able to make anything cool because you'll never find the right peices, the peices are there but there are so many peices you don't want that it'll take way more than six weeks to do anything great" thats my parable of the Legos, thats i hope to continue the work here, organized, orderly, and simpley. Elder Bennetts and i have had a great first week, our first day even was exciting, because i got introuble for... well we all know what, i was made junior comp and not driver anymore, and the first day Elder Bennetts side swipped two cars, ahahaha it was crazy, so i took the keys off him for the sake of mine and his life, and i think we all feel a lot safer with me behind the wheel. I've been out 16 months now, prettty crazy, the missions are getting combine in two months, i'm so pumped for that, i guess i'll talk to you all on mothers day, love you all and thanks Christy for the only email this week. haha
-Elder Ballard
This week was a good one, we worked really hard, so it's a bit different not having Zabriskie around because he has Cronick fatigue syndrom, so we napped and took the work really easy but still baptised like crazy. we did so well but never got overwhelmed by anything, i thought it was a pretty good system, because we were the most effective. but this Chooseday (tuesday the way an Aussie says it) I got my New Companion Elder Jacob Bennetts, he is from a place in Western Australia called Bunbry. he has a thick accent and is helping me out with some word at a time, and soon i'll be pro at it. he's pretty new only been out 4 months but he works pretty hard but isn't serious all the time which calls for a fun time, we can't be serious always or we'll go crazy. But this week we wroked really hard, and got a lot of stuff done this week, exciting news is Fiona has accepted the Baptismal Invite and will be dunked in the next few weeks. we also have found quite a few indian investigators that we'll have our new convert Priyanker come around and help us out. it's looking like the success will continue to come but also i'm concerned, so there are many missionaries who go out and try and get as many people as possible andevery time they take on board more name they know what to do with, here's my analogy, " It's like your sitting in a room up to your neck in Legos, there is no way you'll ever be able to make anything cool because you'll never find the right peices, the peices are there but there are so many peices you don't want that it'll take way more than six weeks to do anything great" thats my parable of the Legos, thats i hope to continue the work here, organized, orderly, and simpley. Elder Bennetts and i have had a great first week, our first day even was exciting, because i got introuble for... well we all know what, i was made junior comp and not driver anymore, and the first day Elder Bennetts side swipped two cars, ahahaha it was crazy, so i took the keys off him for the sake of mine and his life, and i think we all feel a lot safer with me behind the wheel. I've been out 16 months now, prettty crazy, the missions are getting combine in two months, i'm so pumped for that, i guess i'll talk to you all on mothers day, love you all and thanks Christy for the only email this week. haha
-Elder Ballard
Saturday, May 1, 2010
April 26, 2010
G'day Family,
This Week was the Last week of the Tranfer, and i guess i'll give you tranfer news now, I'm Staying here in this ward and my Companion Elder Zabriskie will be moving, so i'm excited to still be here we have more poeple to baptise, but i'm bummed me and Z-bo arn't together anymore, i get my new companion in about 2 hours. as for this week a couple exciting things happend is we Baptised one more Fijian girl her name is Morrisha, her older brother baptised her this saturday and it went really well. so that make me and Zabriskie's total baptisms together at 7, thats a pretty good number hahaha we had some fun. We have a few other people were teaching frist is Fiona, she is a chinese student and super cool she just rocked up to church last sunday we talked to her and then met up and taught her, we invited her to a ward dance and she came and went crazier than anyone else she's really fun and i'm sure she'll be baptized in the next few weeks. the other one is Sanjay he is Priyanker's (previous baptism) roomate he came to priyankers room in the middle of the lesson and said, "i've been learnign with the jehovah wittnesses and they are full of it can you teach me", so we did and we invited to a FHE and we asked if he'd like to be baptised and his response was classic, he said "thats a dumb question... of course i do" hahaha pretty cool, we'll get those two all converted fairly soon. I'm doing good and having a great time, i'llemail next week and tell you all about my new comp. Love you all, be good and love one another
Elder Ballard
Monday, April 19, 2010
April 18, 2010
G'day Family,
Man the past few weeks have been pretty uneventful but as for heart racing this one has been insane. So we have no body else to teach because we baptized them all it's a rare problem but i guess it only happens to a handful of us. so we've been searching for people to teach and baptize for a few weeks now and just this weekend a few of them fell into our hands. we were over at Priyanker's house a recent convert of our and his room mate came in and just said, "i've been studying with the Jehovah Wittnesses and they are crap, can i come to church with you and can you teach me?" hahaha ya i guess we can take time out of our busy day to bring the great joy of the restored gospel and Plan of salvation. it's a sacrifice be eh? i guess we'll do it hahaha. so cool. then yesterday at church this chinese girl came to church her name is fiona, she came and was approached by the samoan missionaries first but she declined them and asked us to teach her, because she is in a white country learnign english so she wants to be taught by white poeple who speak english. it was funny to hear he say that. cause the other missionaries their first language is english but eh what ever i'll take her haha. so i guess this is were the bright part of the week were, but as for the other part oh man.... ok so family i may be coming home early, but we'll find out this afternoon. so here is the story. on wednesday we had interviews with our mission pres. we met with him it went well and then we walked to the train station but on the way we walked past the sister's flat. so we decided to stop for a glass of water, we there and they arn't home, but this used to be an elders flat and we know very well how to break in, so we do and grab a drink and leave. this was on thursday and we didn't hear anything until saturday, the sisters call us and ask if we broke in, of course we say "ya" then they proceed to tell us of the happenings of what happened fallowing our water hiest. apparently they got home saw somethings rearrainged and they freaked out thinking someone was in the house they run outside call the Zoneleaders and then the Assistants and the mission president. everyone is freaking out and the bishops wife slept at the flat with them to keep them safe, people just went crazy and this whole time we're oblivious, we thought nothing had happend because what we did was harmless. but i guess not. so we are meeting with president Lee this afternoon, to go over what happened and see whats happeneing to us. i'm really nervoius and kinda really mad that were even in this postion, what we did was so little but dumb people who didn't take the time to think, blew this thing way out of proportion. so i guess if you don;t get a call from me in the next week i'm staying but as for now you may see me sooner than christmas. I've been praying a lot and i Really would die if i go home. but i guess it's up to the mission President. thats about it i'm just waiting, pray for me, i love you guys
-Elder Ballard
Man the past few weeks have been pretty uneventful but as for heart racing this one has been insane. So we have no body else to teach because we baptized them all it's a rare problem but i guess it only happens to a handful of us. so we've been searching for people to teach and baptize for a few weeks now and just this weekend a few of them fell into our hands. we were over at Priyanker's house a recent convert of our and his room mate came in and just said, "i've been studying with the Jehovah Wittnesses and they are crap, can i come to church with you and can you teach me?" hahaha ya i guess we can take time out of our busy day to bring the great joy of the restored gospel and Plan of salvation. it's a sacrifice be eh? i guess we'll do it hahaha. so cool. then yesterday at church this chinese girl came to church her name is fiona, she came and was approached by the samoan missionaries first but she declined them and asked us to teach her, because she is in a white country learnign english so she wants to be taught by white poeple who speak english. it was funny to hear he say that. cause the other missionaries their first language is english but eh what ever i'll take her haha. so i guess this is were the bright part of the week were, but as for the other part oh man.... ok so family i may be coming home early, but we'll find out this afternoon. so here is the story. on wednesday we had interviews with our mission pres. we met with him it went well and then we walked to the train station but on the way we walked past the sister's flat. so we decided to stop for a glass of water, we there and they arn't home, but this used to be an elders flat and we know very well how to break in, so we do and grab a drink and leave. this was on thursday and we didn't hear anything until saturday, the sisters call us and ask if we broke in, of course we say "ya" then they proceed to tell us of the happenings of what happened fallowing our water hiest. apparently they got home saw somethings rearrainged and they freaked out thinking someone was in the house they run outside call the Zoneleaders and then the Assistants and the mission president. everyone is freaking out and the bishops wife slept at the flat with them to keep them safe, people just went crazy and this whole time we're oblivious, we thought nothing had happend because what we did was harmless. but i guess not. so we are meeting with president Lee this afternoon, to go over what happened and see whats happeneing to us. i'm really nervoius and kinda really mad that were even in this postion, what we did was so little but dumb people who didn't take the time to think, blew this thing way out of proportion. so i guess if you don;t get a call from me in the next week i'm staying but as for now you may see me sooner than christmas. I've been praying a lot and i Really would die if i go home. but i guess it's up to the mission President. thats about it i'm just waiting, pray for me, i love you guys
-Elder Ballard
April 4, 2010
G'day Family
Yeah i'm jealous that you guys got to see conference Australia wathces it one week late because it's night night here while the sessions are going. I guess the easter holidays came and went fast for me i didn't really feel that different, but church was very good tomorrow and i get to see conference this weekend, my third one so far that nuts. this week just flashed by well kinda cause i emailed you all like four days ago. nothing has happened. just trying to find more people to teach and see. this afternoon we are going to an AFL (Australian Football League) game i'm so pumped for it i've wanted to go one my whole mission and finally i'm in the city for when a game falls on a p-day. YAY. it's at the MCG (Melbourne Criket Grounds) at 2:10 our time it's a big gameyou all should watch it online. i'm gonna take so many photo's i'll send them next week. well Family i hope you all had a wonderful easter and thats about it for me this week. i lvoe you all and be good and take care and remember to think of your Savior's sacrifice this season and take advantage of it and find the time to ask for forgivness and better your self and the ones around you.
Elder Ballard
Yeah i'm jealous that you guys got to see conference Australia wathces it one week late because it's night night here while the sessions are going. I guess the easter holidays came and went fast for me i didn't really feel that different, but church was very good tomorrow and i get to see conference this weekend, my third one so far that nuts. this week just flashed by well kinda cause i emailed you all like four days ago. nothing has happened. just trying to find more people to teach and see. this afternoon we are going to an AFL (Australian Football League) game i'm so pumped for it i've wanted to go one my whole mission and finally i'm in the city for when a game falls on a p-day. YAY. it's at the MCG (Melbourne Criket Grounds) at 2:10 our time it's a big gameyou all should watch it online. i'm gonna take so many photo's i'll send them next week. well Family i hope you all had a wonderful easter and thats about it for me this week. i lvoe you all and be good and take care and remember to think of your Savior's sacrifice this season and take advantage of it and find the time to ask for forgivness and better your self and the ones around you.
Elder Ballard
March 30, 2010
G'day Fmaily,
So i guess I'll apologize now for getting an email to you all two days ago, i was busy and so we had to push P-day back a few days in order to acomidate the high demands of our work. What we did is we had taken a priest from our ward Elder Chookoon (Andrew) and he was set apart as a missionary for i guess you could say a mini mission, he hung out with us for a good portion of a week and we showed him the ropes of missionary life so he can have a taste for it and start preparing for his own in a few years. it was a lot of fun seeing him go crazy with out his phone and tv and having to actually get up early and work. it was a fun time for us and i hope we helped him out a little bit in deciding if he wants to serve or not, i kinda wish i did that before my mission it would have been so benificial. another big thing that happened this week was Dolly and Radika's Baptism, these are those super great Fijian mother and daughter, their faith is an example to mine i those these two. there baptism went... uh guess all right there was a small hiccup. so the program went well and Dolly had asked me to baptise her and Radika wanted Elder Zabriskie, and it was Radika who was baptized first. and so we get to the font and the water was really low and the water was pretty cold and i felt really bad for this little girl cause sshe has no meat on her bones but i was worried about the low water for her (the water was a little over our knee). so he did the baptism and the first time her head didn't go down then because we had to do it again she got scarred and her hand popped up the next time but nobody said anything till she got out of the water and she was so scarred and cold and she would not get back in. then i get in and baptise doll i was really scared i wouldn't be able to get her under but i did the first time, so we decided we would come back the next morning with just Radika and dolly and two witnesses and the font was really high and warm so it was done welland she said she was happy now and wantd to do it again. then i confirmed dolly in sacrament (my first confirmation) and that was good and the Radika was confirmed and the funniest thing happened, dolly's two year old sone hopped up on the chair when they were done and put his hands on his head and said "my turn" it was funny. they are such good convert the ward loves them. ok so kind of a funny story is on friday we had ward sports night and this samoan guy got super intense at basketball, so we went up for a rebound but i just way higher and elbowed him in the mouth and he got all bloody, i guess like karl malone always said " in the christmas season it's always better to give gift elbow then recieve gift elbow" he was all mad at me and Z-bo for smashing him at basketbal and he yelled at us outside kind of ridiculous and the ward members said he laways does that. um family thats about it, for me at leats, love you all and be good and take care.
-Elder Ballard
So i guess I'll apologize now for getting an email to you all two days ago, i was busy and so we had to push P-day back a few days in order to acomidate the high demands of our work. What we did is we had taken a priest from our ward Elder Chookoon (Andrew) and he was set apart as a missionary for i guess you could say a mini mission, he hung out with us for a good portion of a week and we showed him the ropes of missionary life so he can have a taste for it and start preparing for his own in a few years. it was a lot of fun seeing him go crazy with out his phone and tv and having to actually get up early and work. it was a fun time for us and i hope we helped him out a little bit in deciding if he wants to serve or not, i kinda wish i did that before my mission it would have been so benificial. another big thing that happened this week was Dolly and Radika's Baptism, these are those super great Fijian mother and daughter, their faith is an example to mine i those these two. there baptism went... uh guess all right there was a small hiccup. so the program went well and Dolly had asked me to baptise her and Radika wanted Elder Zabriskie, and it was Radika who was baptized first. and so we get to the font and the water was really low and the water was pretty cold and i felt really bad for this little girl cause sshe has no meat on her bones but i was worried about the low water for her (the water was a little over our knee). so he did the baptism and the first time her head didn't go down then because we had to do it again she got scarred and her hand popped up the next time but nobody said anything till she got out of the water and she was so scarred and cold and she would not get back in. then i get in and baptise doll i was really scared i wouldn't be able to get her under but i did the first time, so we decided we would come back the next morning with just Radika and dolly and two witnesses and the font was really high and warm so it was done welland she said she was happy now and wantd to do it again. then i confirmed dolly in sacrament (my first confirmation) and that was good and the Radika was confirmed and the funniest thing happened, dolly's two year old sone hopped up on the chair when they were done and put his hands on his head and said "my turn" it was funny. they are such good convert the ward loves them. ok so kind of a funny story is on friday we had ward sports night and this samoan guy got super intense at basketball, so we went up for a rebound but i just way higher and elbowed him in the mouth and he got all bloody, i guess like karl malone always said " in the christmas season it's always better to give gift elbow then recieve gift elbow" he was all mad at me and Z-bo for smashing him at basketbal and he yelled at us outside kind of ridiculous and the ward members said he laways does that. um family thats about it, for me at leats, love you all and be good and take care.
-Elder Ballard
March 21, 2010
G'day family.
Thanks for the heaps of photo's you sent me this week, man there was a lot, but i feel like i'm not missing anything when you keep me filled in like that. fanks. well my week was very good not gonna be as entertaining as the other past few emails but i'll try my best to call upon my memory and try and fill you in. I'm still in Glenroy ward and the work is still going great. and Elder Zabriskie and I are still together and we are awesome, were pretty much the most envied companionship in the mission, partly cause we get on so well. i feel bad for others who don't like there comps cause man the work is so fun when you get a long and just have fun. it really impeads the work. thats probably why we are having such rdiculously amazing success. people see how happy we are and they want that so they listen. it's good. so this week we focused on our Fijian Dolly, and her Daughter Radika, they are the most prepared people i've found so far. and while in a lesson this week as we were teachignher a lesson she taught us a valuable lesson, you see dolly enjoys her Coffee and this week we taught her the Word of Wisdom (D+C89) and as we taught it to her we addressed the coffee issue, and we asked her if she could try and "cut back" in the next few days and also try and quit before her baptisms and what she said to us shocked us. so we asked her if she could start to cut back and she said "No, you see I want to fallow god, and if he says no coffee then you need to take my coffee away, i love coffee but i love god more" and me and Elder Zabriskie were just blown away, so we took off her like three huge tins of coffee and she's been fine so far. her Baptism is this saturday she has asked me to baptise her and elder Zabriskie will baptise her daughter. they are great we saw them this morning. and she is loved by the ward. the only kind of hiccup is her two year old... he is... uh well lets just say he's two and we'll all get the picture. other than her nothing special happened this week. everything went well this week and we moved into a new house today the address is 15/9 Chris Ct if you all want to google map it, oh and could you send me Karen's email i wanna forward my emails to her unless you guys are dioing it anyways. ok well Thanks for everything and i love you and and be good. pray always.
Elder ballard
Thanks for the heaps of photo's you sent me this week, man there was a lot, but i feel like i'm not missing anything when you keep me filled in like that. fanks. well my week was very good not gonna be as entertaining as the other past few emails but i'll try my best to call upon my memory and try and fill you in. I'm still in Glenroy ward and the work is still going great. and Elder Zabriskie and I are still together and we are awesome, were pretty much the most envied companionship in the mission, partly cause we get on so well. i feel bad for others who don't like there comps cause man the work is so fun when you get a long and just have fun. it really impeads the work. thats probably why we are having such rdiculously amazing success. people see how happy we are and they want that so they listen. it's good. so this week we focused on our Fijian Dolly, and her Daughter Radika, they are the most prepared people i've found so far. and while in a lesson this week as we were teachignher a lesson she taught us a valuable lesson, you see dolly enjoys her Coffee and this week we taught her the Word of Wisdom (D+C89) and as we taught it to her we addressed the coffee issue, and we asked her if she could try and "cut back" in the next few days and also try and quit before her baptisms and what she said to us shocked us. so we asked her if she could start to cut back and she said "No, you see I want to fallow god, and if he says no coffee then you need to take my coffee away, i love coffee but i love god more" and me and Elder Zabriskie were just blown away, so we took off her like three huge tins of coffee and she's been fine so far. her Baptism is this saturday she has asked me to baptise her and elder Zabriskie will baptise her daughter. they are great we saw them this morning. and she is loved by the ward. the only kind of hiccup is her two year old... he is... uh well lets just say he's two and we'll all get the picture. other than her nothing special happened this week. everything went well this week and we moved into a new house today the address is 15/9 Chris Ct if you all want to google map it, oh and could you send me Karen's email i wanna forward my emails to her unless you guys are dioing it anyways. ok well Thanks for everything and i love you and and be good. pray always.
Elder ballard
March 15, 2010
G'day Fam Damily,
Man this week was good, it seems since i got Dear John'd by Merrill (new name) I've actually been opened up to have all the awesome expiriences missionaries are supposed to have I felt as if i was missing them or maybe just not noticing them but i Definately like it way better now... ok so first off coolest part about his week, and man there were a lot to choose from, but this one was just the best. It's always been my dream to baptise a Fijian and a Peruvian, because jordan and mikey are serving there. so on tuesday we decided to walk to a meeting we have. and on the way some lady just walks right beside her, Z-bo starts to talk with her and he say she is Fijian and i Perk up and jus in the conversation, we get her info and go and teach her on saturday. on saturday, we teach her and it went beautfully. we taught with such a strong spirit, and when i handed her the Book Of Mormon she gave a kind of nervous laugh smile thing and so we asked her how she felt, and she said "When you spoke to me on te street i felt reallly good and i needed to talk to you and now that feeling is back, and i know his is what i need to be doing." So we set a baptismal date for her and her daughter on the 27h of march, and later she told us that she had gone to a catholic preist to get her daughter baptizd and the priest was too busy to see her, and that day she met us... hahaha how great. then we also Met another fijian girl and we taught her sunday she wants to be baptised and we'll do it on the 10th of April, and the funny part is her Dad is Jehovah Wittness and she had a JW calender and so we had her write in her baptism o that and we took a photo hahaha sooo funny. but hey i wanted to just baptise one fijian in two year and we found three in one week hahaha how great. we are truely blessed. Another great thing that happened this week was Daniel To'omata Was baptized. Daniel is so cool he's twenty three he met the missionaries a year a go when he was involved with drugs and crime and he really wants to turn his life around. and he did, we've been teaching him and it's been a struggle but he had a court hearing and he excaped jail on thursday so he was able to enter the waters of baptism on saturday. he was baptised by Pai, the blind man and good thing Pai is the strongest man in Victoria (not a joke he has a Medal, he's massive) because Dan is a big boy and i couldn't have done it. and with this baptism i tripled my baptism for my whole mission, pretty exciting. also Dan rocked up to his baptism in an Emmit Smith jersey how FREAKIN COOL, there are few things more beautiful than seeing a ex-criminal bearing his testimony in an Emmit smith Jersey, with a blind man beside huim supporting him. ahhhhh my life is complete. Also Transfer news came in yesterday, and Finally i get to stay in Glenroy ward for six more week. i'm so happy Elder Zabriskie and I get to stay together, i honestly think the key to bing a successful missionary is having that bond with your comp because when you have that your able to teahc with the spirit ten fold. Oh ok so the funny story for this week happend this morning. so We decided to have a Root Beer Mile, Where we Skull (chug) Root beer and then run a lap drink another can and run a lep and so on... so we set this up as a grudge match of Me and some ohter lame missionary wgho's been talking smack, no he thinks because he LOOKS fitter than me then he is. and so we set this up, and the root beer mile is there to test your strenth and endurence it's suppose to hurt. so we do this and buy a whole heap of root beer (which was ver expensive cause they don't sell it here and you have to go to special shops) and we Start. We drink two cans to start, and then all start at the same time. Elder Zabriskie finish the first lap first but then somebody drinks fast than us and leaves before us but w finish and catch and pass him then basically it's all over from there we leave these poofs in the dust, no don't get me wrong i was hurting and throwing up everywhere, and there was like 60 crosscounrty kids there wathcing us. but Elder Zabriskie and I Lapped everyone he beat me by 20 seconds i smashed the other homo missionary. it was so fun and aweful at the same time, i don't recomend it to anyone but if you want to test someone's guts take them to the track. I thinks thats about it i got a package, it was so awesome i'm writing responses today thats for the love and support i love you all, take Care, Hooroo
Elder Ballard
Man this week was good, it seems since i got Dear John'd by Merrill (new name) I've actually been opened up to have all the awesome expiriences missionaries are supposed to have I felt as if i was missing them or maybe just not noticing them but i Definately like it way better now... ok so first off coolest part about his week, and man there were a lot to choose from, but this one was just the best. It's always been my dream to baptise a Fijian and a Peruvian, because jordan and mikey are serving there. so on tuesday we decided to walk to a meeting we have. and on the way some lady just walks right beside her, Z-bo starts to talk with her and he say she is Fijian and i Perk up and jus in the conversation, we get her info and go and teach her on saturday. on saturday, we teach her and it went beautfully. we taught with such a strong spirit, and when i handed her the Book Of Mormon she gave a kind of nervous laugh smile thing and so we asked her how she felt, and she said "When you spoke to me on te street i felt reallly good and i needed to talk to you and now that feeling is back, and i know his is what i need to be doing." So we set a baptismal date for her and her daughter on the 27h of march, and later she told us that she had gone to a catholic preist to get her daughter baptizd and the priest was too busy to see her, and that day she met us... hahaha how great. then we also Met another fijian girl and we taught her sunday she wants to be baptised and we'll do it on the 10th of April, and the funny part is her Dad is Jehovah Wittness and she had a JW calender and so we had her write in her baptism o that and we took a photo hahaha sooo funny. but hey i wanted to just baptise one fijian in two year and we found three in one week hahaha how great. we are truely blessed. Another great thing that happened this week was Daniel To'omata Was baptized. Daniel is so cool he's twenty three he met the missionaries a year a go when he was involved with drugs and crime and he really wants to turn his life around. and he did, we've been teaching him and it's been a struggle but he had a court hearing and he excaped jail on thursday so he was able to enter the waters of baptism on saturday. he was baptised by Pai, the blind man and good thing Pai is the strongest man in Victoria (not a joke he has a Medal, he's massive) because Dan is a big boy and i couldn't have done it. and with this baptism i tripled my baptism for my whole mission, pretty exciting. also Dan rocked up to his baptism in an Emmit Smith jersey how FREAKIN COOL, there are few things more beautiful than seeing a ex-criminal bearing his testimony in an Emmit smith Jersey, with a blind man beside huim supporting him. ahhhhh my life is complete. Also Transfer news came in yesterday, and Finally i get to stay in Glenroy ward for six more week. i'm so happy Elder Zabriskie and I get to stay together, i honestly think the key to bing a successful missionary is having that bond with your comp because when you have that your able to teahc with the spirit ten fold. Oh ok so the funny story for this week happend this morning. so We decided to have a Root Beer Mile, Where we Skull (chug) Root beer and then run a lap drink another can and run a lep and so on... so we set this up as a grudge match of Me and some ohter lame missionary wgho's been talking smack, no he thinks because he LOOKS fitter than me then he is. and so we set this up, and the root beer mile is there to test your strenth and endurence it's suppose to hurt. so we do this and buy a whole heap of root beer (which was ver expensive cause they don't sell it here and you have to go to special shops) and we Start. We drink two cans to start, and then all start at the same time. Elder Zabriskie finish the first lap first but then somebody drinks fast than us and leaves before us but w finish and catch and pass him then basically it's all over from there we leave these poofs in the dust, no don't get me wrong i was hurting and throwing up everywhere, and there was like 60 crosscounrty kids there wathcing us. but Elder Zabriskie and I Lapped everyone he beat me by 20 seconds i smashed the other homo missionary. it was so fun and aweful at the same time, i don't recomend it to anyone but if you want to test someone's guts take them to the track. I thinks thats about it i got a package, it was so awesome i'm writing responses today thats for the love and support i love you all, take Care, Hooroo
Elder Ballard
March 9, 2010
G'day Family,
Well As you can Tell from my first email this week was insane! hahaha well they always are, seeing that i'm... well me! Ok really were to begin. um i guess the best part about the week. After 14 month of being a missionary i was finally alloud the chance to go to the house of the lord and attend the TEMPLE!!. I was so happy to go it was greta we got there and our lame Zone leaders hadn't reseved us a time to go in so they were gonna let us do endowments but seeing that me and one other missionary hadn't been in donkey years they let us go. it was great i always love going to the temple. the feeling there is great and no matter where i am in the world it feels like home. Man all my sweet expiriences are slipping out of my broken dumb head (you'll know why it's broken later.) Ok so on saturday we decided to be on foot all day, well not really we ride trains and busses all day. so first we ride to the chapel and walk there for a baptism of this SriLAnkin lady the other missionaries were baptising, and they did it on the first try by the way. but afterwards they drive us to the train station and we wait for our train. Then our train comes a few minutes later and i realize "oh crap were on the wrong side of the tracks!" uh oh and obviously we can't make it to the other side intime so we just walk over there. and as we walk thats when the heavens open and pour all it contains on to me and my companion. we ran thirty meters and we got soaked from head to toe, i also got cracked in the face by a giant peice of hail the size of an average bouncy ball. it hurt so bad but left no damgae, but i bet it would have super attractive next to my knife scar. man we were met, the term "dry as a bone" didn't apply to me even our bones were wet. it was bad but we were able to take some photo's and all the people were trapped under the overhang so they had to talk to us. hehehehe. Ok, ok i guess i'll tell you about the blind day we had, but first i need to tell you about the Nanai's (Na-nie), this is a samoan family in our ward and both the husband and wife are blind. So Pai (pa-ee), really helps us with missionary work a lot, he has us over 10 nights a week seriously, we love him, also he is Victoria's strongest man, oh and did i mention HE IS BLIND, how awesome. so Pai said we could last a day being blind we would freak out, so after weeks of contemplation we took his challenge and committed ourselves to being blind for a day. So on sunday i Fashioned a blind stick and some blinders for elder zabriskie and I to wear. it's pretty leggit. we honselty can't see A thing. so at nine o'clock sunday night our vision is blocked. we shower and prepare for bed with no vision. i even write in my journal it's so funny. and then we try to sleep and in the morning we wake up.... still blind. we get up and get dressed and listen to the sciptures on CD for our study. then around 9:30 be decide to brave the big outdoors. i take three steps outside and freak out all i want to do is stay in bed all day but we have tasks to perform like buy a certain can of soup or purchase some jeans. so we make our way to the train station, we make it to the end of our not so busy street safely. but thats when the fun happens, it's such a struggle just to walk straight and every four steps i'm in the street or who knows were i was. there was this one time where i thought i was standing in a relatively safe spot but the i feel a car whipp past me fast and i feel the wind of the car so it was close! i freaked out and ran to an area where i thought was safe turns out from the video we had around our necks is i ran further into traffic and onto the median of the road. Now we figured out quickely that we were no good at this whole blind thing, so when we heard people walking past we would call out for help but lame Aussie poeple wouldn't help us so many people just ignorred us ughh!! until we met Mel, Mel is a nice young mum who guided us all the way to the station and even held our hands all the way onto the train. i took a blind photo of her so you'll see that. then while on the train we thought we were alone but somebody ran up to us and scared us, and he just tapped the exit button of the train door like a thousand times really fast then we tried to talk to them but they refused to talk so we made fun of them being scared to talk to "The Freaks". We finally get to the station we need to get off at so we step off and as soon as i start to walk a hand grabs my arm and starts to lead me and by the sound of her it was a little aisian girl hahaha it was funny she leads us all the way to the front of the station and that when some other bloke decides to try and guide us, he was greek his name was peter her helps us cross this super busy road and gets us all the way to the shopping center where we were gonna meet Pai to help us out. We decide to wander around the mall for a bit and thats when i run into a Wall that was just sticking out it hurt so bad, i had already three close calls with poles and steel girders but this one finally snagged me. Pai calls us and wants us to meet him across the street (oh oh not another street) at the gym where we'll work out with him. we barely get there after more close calls with cars and when we get into the gym they make us take off our blind eyes because it was a safety issue so we did and lets just say once we saw the glories of sight we never went blind ever again. man it was scary and my head still kills but lets hope i showed heavenly father that i can never be blind and he should bless me with my sight always. I think thats about it that happened this week well there is more i just can't think of anything. I love you all and we have a baptism this week i'll tell you about it later. take care be good and keep finding girls to write me.
-Elder Ballard
Well As you can Tell from my first email this week was insane! hahaha well they always are, seeing that i'm... well me! Ok really were to begin. um i guess the best part about the week. After 14 month of being a missionary i was finally alloud the chance to go to the house of the lord and attend the TEMPLE!!. I was so happy to go it was greta we got there and our lame Zone leaders hadn't reseved us a time to go in so they were gonna let us do endowments but seeing that me and one other missionary hadn't been in donkey years they let us go. it was great i always love going to the temple. the feeling there is great and no matter where i am in the world it feels like home. Man all my sweet expiriences are slipping out of my broken dumb head (you'll know why it's broken later.) Ok so on saturday we decided to be on foot all day, well not really we ride trains and busses all day. so first we ride to the chapel and walk there for a baptism of this SriLAnkin lady the other missionaries were baptising, and they did it on the first try by the way. but afterwards they drive us to the train station and we wait for our train. Then our train comes a few minutes later and i realize "oh crap were on the wrong side of the tracks!" uh oh and obviously we can't make it to the other side intime so we just walk over there. and as we walk thats when the heavens open and pour all it contains on to me and my companion. we ran thirty meters and we got soaked from head to toe, i also got cracked in the face by a giant peice of hail the size of an average bouncy ball. it hurt so bad but left no damgae, but i bet it would have super attractive next to my knife scar. man we were met, the term "dry as a bone" didn't apply to me even our bones were wet. it was bad but we were able to take some photo's and all the people were trapped under the overhang so they had to talk to us. hehehehe. Ok, ok i guess i'll tell you about the blind day we had, but first i need to tell you about the Nanai's (Na-nie), this is a samoan family in our ward and both the husband and wife are blind. So Pai (pa-ee), really helps us with missionary work a lot, he has us over 10 nights a week seriously, we love him, also he is Victoria's strongest man, oh and did i mention HE IS BLIND, how awesome. so Pai said we could last a day being blind we would freak out, so after weeks of contemplation we took his challenge and committed ourselves to being blind for a day. So on sunday i Fashioned a blind stick and some blinders for elder zabriskie and I to wear. it's pretty leggit. we honselty can't see A thing. so at nine o'clock sunday night our vision is blocked. we shower and prepare for bed with no vision. i even write in my journal it's so funny. and then we try to sleep and in the morning we wake up.... still blind. we get up and get dressed and listen to the sciptures on CD for our study. then around 9:30 be decide to brave the big outdoors. i take three steps outside and freak out all i want to do is stay in bed all day but we have tasks to perform like buy a certain can of soup or purchase some jeans. so we make our way to the train station, we make it to the end of our not so busy street safely. but thats when the fun happens, it's such a struggle just to walk straight and every four steps i'm in the street or who knows were i was. there was this one time where i thought i was standing in a relatively safe spot but the i feel a car whipp past me fast and i feel the wind of the car so it was close! i freaked out and ran to an area where i thought was safe turns out from the video we had around our necks is i ran further into traffic and onto the median of the road. Now we figured out quickely that we were no good at this whole blind thing, so when we heard people walking past we would call out for help but lame Aussie poeple wouldn't help us so many people just ignorred us ughh!! until we met Mel, Mel is a nice young mum who guided us all the way to the station and even held our hands all the way onto the train. i took a blind photo of her so you'll see that. then while on the train we thought we were alone but somebody ran up to us and scared us, and he just tapped the exit button of the train door like a thousand times really fast then we tried to talk to them but they refused to talk so we made fun of them being scared to talk to "The Freaks". We finally get to the station we need to get off at so we step off and as soon as i start to walk a hand grabs my arm and starts to lead me and by the sound of her it was a little aisian girl hahaha it was funny she leads us all the way to the front of the station and that when some other bloke decides to try and guide us, he was greek his name was peter her helps us cross this super busy road and gets us all the way to the shopping center where we were gonna meet Pai to help us out. We decide to wander around the mall for a bit and thats when i run into a Wall that was just sticking out it hurt so bad, i had already three close calls with poles and steel girders but this one finally snagged me. Pai calls us and wants us to meet him across the street (oh oh not another street) at the gym where we'll work out with him. we barely get there after more close calls with cars and when we get into the gym they make us take off our blind eyes because it was a safety issue so we did and lets just say once we saw the glories of sight we never went blind ever again. man it was scary and my head still kills but lets hope i showed heavenly father that i can never be blind and he should bless me with my sight always. I think thats about it that happened this week well there is more i just can't think of anything. I love you all and we have a baptism this week i'll tell you about it later. take care be good and keep finding girls to write me.
-Elder Ballard
March 8, 2010
Sorry i didn't get an email to you all this week, I would have been very hard for me for twp reasons, one being it was labour (spelling in Australia) Day, and also it would have been very hard to type when i have no sight, Starting sunday night at nine o'clock blined ourselves, i will get on the computer and tell all about our day, as well as the other expiriences throughout the week. love yu all and will talk tomorrow.
-Elder Blind Bat Ballard
-Elder Blind Bat Ballard
February 28, 2010
G'day family,
This week was awesome, I really hope i have enough time to fit it all in. ok, so first off Elder Zabriskie and I baptized two more people this weekend, therer names are Talia he's samoan and 11 years old he is the man my favorite investigator so far. and then also his little 9 years old sister kristina, there baptism went perfectly and they were comfirmed this sunday. everything went great, i wish i could say that about the other two baptisms this saturday. ok so the othe missionaries had a baptism three hour before our and so we decided to attend, we get there and it is complete chaos. the two people to be baptised didn't even know they were gonna get wet, they didn't even have all white on. and when we got there the ward members jumped down our throat for not teaching them well enough but, we explained we are not their missionaries. on top of that, the missionaries who did teach them were not there and the program was supposed to start 15 minutes previous. they finally arrive 30 minutes late to their own baptism and things finally seemed to be in order. then it's time to baptise these two first is an 8 years old girl. the missionaries steps into the font and he tries to baptise her but messes up and has to do it again, the sencond time the same thing happend, her feet kept popping up, maybe thrid times the charm?... no, how bout fourth time,...no, fifth?... sixth?...no, seventh?... nope, it was the eighth time till she finally went all the way down. man the ward was just laighing poor little girl it was so funny. then when i thought it was all gonna be fine from there, we go up and confirm this little girl, i thought to myself "well atleast you can't mess up a confirmation." well i was very mistaken, this old man confirmes her he just said the things he needed to say and said amen with no blessing so they made him giver her a blessing then they made him do it all together. it was a wreck and this little girls name is Agueet Magok, but the older man was hard of hearing so he said Amulek, So little amulek was confirmed a member of the church. that nightmare ended and our baptism came and went perfectly. it was really nice. another really cool expirience we had this week was we went over to this less-active man's house (trevor) and gave him a blessing for his arthritic legs and he lives with a very drunk angry man, pretty much a Whino. he's crazy, so he had our hands on Trevor's head, and right in the middle of the administration the drunkard wine bibber comes out and he sees us in kitchen he pauses for two seconds and then says "What the Fu..." he was silenced, and he just walked through the room and right outside until he got out back. it was pretty cool, the spirit bound his tongue. we all talked about it in the car afterwards it was amazing. I think thats about it for this week. found a couple new investiagator i'm pumped to teach. And our mission presidents says Elder Zabriskie and I are leading the mission in success. he is very pleased with us, because everyone expected us to screw up because we are the goof off companionship, but nope were smashing everyone it feels nice. hahaha ya i kow thats prideful but it's nice to be looked at and asked how were so good at what we do. Oh I've been gone 14 months yesterday wahoo. I love you gus and Keep in touch please.
-Elder Ballard
This week was awesome, I really hope i have enough time to fit it all in. ok, so first off Elder Zabriskie and I baptized two more people this weekend, therer names are Talia he's samoan and 11 years old he is the man my favorite investigator so far. and then also his little 9 years old sister kristina, there baptism went perfectly and they were comfirmed this sunday. everything went great, i wish i could say that about the other two baptisms this saturday. ok so the othe missionaries had a baptism three hour before our and so we decided to attend, we get there and it is complete chaos. the two people to be baptised didn't even know they were gonna get wet, they didn't even have all white on. and when we got there the ward members jumped down our throat for not teaching them well enough but, we explained we are not their missionaries. on top of that, the missionaries who did teach them were not there and the program was supposed to start 15 minutes previous. they finally arrive 30 minutes late to their own baptism and things finally seemed to be in order. then it's time to baptise these two first is an 8 years old girl. the missionaries steps into the font and he tries to baptise her but messes up and has to do it again, the sencond time the same thing happend, her feet kept popping up, maybe thrid times the charm?... no, how bout fourth time,...no, fifth?... sixth?...no, seventh?... nope, it was the eighth time till she finally went all the way down. man the ward was just laighing poor little girl it was so funny. then when i thought it was all gonna be fine from there, we go up and confirm this little girl, i thought to myself "well atleast you can't mess up a confirmation." well i was very mistaken, this old man confirmes her he just said the things he needed to say and said amen with no blessing so they made him giver her a blessing then they made him do it all together. it was a wreck and this little girls name is Agueet Magok, but the older man was hard of hearing so he said Amulek, So little amulek was confirmed a member of the church. that nightmare ended and our baptism came and went perfectly. it was really nice. another really cool expirience we had this week was we went over to this less-active man's house (trevor) and gave him a blessing for his arthritic legs and he lives with a very drunk angry man, pretty much a Whino. he's crazy, so he had our hands on Trevor's head, and right in the middle of the administration the drunkard wine bibber comes out and he sees us in kitchen he pauses for two seconds and then says "What the Fu..." he was silenced, and he just walked through the room and right outside until he got out back. it was pretty cool, the spirit bound his tongue. we all talked about it in the car afterwards it was amazing. I think thats about it for this week. found a couple new investiagator i'm pumped to teach. And our mission presidents says Elder Zabriskie and I are leading the mission in success. he is very pleased with us, because everyone expected us to screw up because we are the goof off companionship, but nope were smashing everyone it feels nice. hahaha ya i kow thats prideful but it's nice to be looked at and asked how were so good at what we do. Oh I've been gone 14 months yesterday wahoo. I love you gus and Keep in touch please.
-Elder Ballard
February 21, 2010
G'day Family,
This week was a Good one it went really fast, so fast i can't remember anything, other than this part. So we got this refferal to go and see this man named Mark. so we go there , and we find out Mark is not here and at the door is a massive man all tatooed up and super not LDS-like. but it turns out he's a big sook and, he actually is a member of the church, he told us how him and Mark met the missionaries a week previous, he said they were driving around looking for the chapel cause they wanted to go to church, but they couldn't find it then he pulled into a driveway to flip around and the lady was backing out at the same time, the hinked for like five seconds and she just rammed into them. once they got out to look at the damage they looked across the street and there was the church, they finished up the accident and then just walked into church, it happend to be a Tongan speaking ward hahaha they still went and understood nothing ahahaha then they met the missionaries and thats how they were passed to us. pretty cool thing they were totally guided to the church and when they went pass it god hit them with a car, haha pretty cool thing. a few days later we met Mark. he's a funny guy i had met in one of my previous areas like six months ago, we taught him a bit and told him we have a baptism this saturday, and invited him them we told him we have another one a week later, and his words were priceless he said, "ok so you have one this week next week and then the next week you can baptise me." hahaha sure thing we then set a date and went on our merry little way. pretty cool thing. we were pretty busy teaching this week. but that was about it, Oh i dropped my Ipod in the toilet and it is now confirmed Ipods can't survive baptism by urine. sad day, it's ok i sent it back they gave me a new one. hahaha. well thats about it for me, we are baptising a brother and sister this week thats gonna be great, these two are my favorites i love them i send pictures next week. I love you all, I'm doign good.
Elder Ballard
This week was a Good one it went really fast, so fast i can't remember anything, other than this part. So we got this refferal to go and see this man named Mark. so we go there , and we find out Mark is not here and at the door is a massive man all tatooed up and super not LDS-like. but it turns out he's a big sook and, he actually is a member of the church, he told us how him and Mark met the missionaries a week previous, he said they were driving around looking for the chapel cause they wanted to go to church, but they couldn't find it then he pulled into a driveway to flip around and the lady was backing out at the same time, the hinked for like five seconds and she just rammed into them. once they got out to look at the damage they looked across the street and there was the church, they finished up the accident and then just walked into church, it happend to be a Tongan speaking ward hahaha they still went and understood nothing ahahaha then they met the missionaries and thats how they were passed to us. pretty cool thing they were totally guided to the church and when they went pass it god hit them with a car, haha pretty cool thing. a few days later we met Mark. he's a funny guy i had met in one of my previous areas like six months ago, we taught him a bit and told him we have a baptism this saturday, and invited him them we told him we have another one a week later, and his words were priceless he said, "ok so you have one this week next week and then the next week you can baptise me." hahaha sure thing we then set a date and went on our merry little way. pretty cool thing. we were pretty busy teaching this week. but that was about it, Oh i dropped my Ipod in the toilet and it is now confirmed Ipods can't survive baptism by urine. sad day, it's ok i sent it back they gave me a new one. hahaha. well thats about it for me, we are baptising a brother and sister this week thats gonna be great, these two are my favorites i love them i send pictures next week. I love you all, I'm doign good.
Elder Ballard
February 14, 2010
G'dai Family,
This Week was a Good one, pretty melo for the crazy stories but we did a who heap of work this week. Well first off I got to see the last four mintues of the Super Bowl, and can I Say Booooooring what a lame and not fun super bowl, Sorry dad your Colts Lost, maybe you should stick with the 49ers where your guarrenteed for disappointment every year. hahaha Then on tuesday We get a Call from Pai (Pah-ee) he is a Blind member in our ward we love him, his wife is also blind and they are amazing, but anyways he calls me and says "Hey Melvin (as in Melvin J. Ballard) I found someone for you to teach, his name is Danial and he wants to be Baptized" I was so excited, we met Daniel on friday he is sweet as. we set a date for march 6th (his birthday) and he says he wants to be a missionary so bad, he can't wait his goal is in a years he'll leave on his mission how awesome is that. awesome kids. Oh so on thurday we had planned to ride the trains all day and talked to people and so we go and all the trains are shut down for the day, Whaaaat! We were dumbstruck, we honeslty had no clue what to do, the trains we our fail safe but they were not running so we went into shut down mode and curled up in a chair and did paper work all day long. Also yesterday we were able to see Priyanker get Confirmed at Sacrament meeting that was amazing, this young man it great. he also got a brand new Quad (scriptures) he's so excited, I hope we can help him along his way learnign the Gospel. man after writing this email my week seems empty. We had Zone conference that was good our mission are being combined in july which is very exciting. not sure if i told you that. Last thing, It's was Jocelyn's Birthday on the 11th make sure you wish her a happy birthday, if you havn't. Love you all thanks for the letters i got this week, take care,
-Elder Ballard
This Week was a Good one, pretty melo for the crazy stories but we did a who heap of work this week. Well first off I got to see the last four mintues of the Super Bowl, and can I Say Booooooring what a lame and not fun super bowl, Sorry dad your Colts Lost, maybe you should stick with the 49ers where your guarrenteed for disappointment every year. hahaha Then on tuesday We get a Call from Pai (Pah-ee) he is a Blind member in our ward we love him, his wife is also blind and they are amazing, but anyways he calls me and says "Hey Melvin (as in Melvin J. Ballard) I found someone for you to teach, his name is Danial and he wants to be Baptized" I was so excited, we met Daniel on friday he is sweet as. we set a date for march 6th (his birthday) and he says he wants to be a missionary so bad, he can't wait his goal is in a years he'll leave on his mission how awesome is that. awesome kids. Oh so on thurday we had planned to ride the trains all day and talked to people and so we go and all the trains are shut down for the day, Whaaaat! We were dumbstruck, we honeslty had no clue what to do, the trains we our fail safe but they were not running so we went into shut down mode and curled up in a chair and did paper work all day long. Also yesterday we were able to see Priyanker get Confirmed at Sacrament meeting that was amazing, this young man it great. he also got a brand new Quad (scriptures) he's so excited, I hope we can help him along his way learnign the Gospel. man after writing this email my week seems empty. We had Zone conference that was good our mission are being combined in july which is very exciting. not sure if i told you that. Last thing, It's was Jocelyn's Birthday on the 11th make sure you wish her a happy birthday, if you havn't. Love you all thanks for the letters i got this week, take care,
-Elder Ballard
February 7, 2010
G'day Family,
This week was Crazy, as they are everytime. First off, the Missionary aspect of it. this saturday We Baptised Priyanker he's so awesome the Baptism got moved from sunday to saturday and we only had like eight hours to plan it but this ward s so aweome it came together really well, The spirit was so strong. I loved it, he said "that was good but I can't wait to get the Holy Ghost!" he's the madest Convert, I can't wait to teach him how to be an awesome saint. so cool. Also we Went over to teach this family a member in the ward found for us, and we taught them, the mom is a recent convert from NZ (New Zealand) and she wants her kids to be baptized and these kids are smart as!! We set a Baptismal date with them for second saturday so the 20th, I'm so pumped for this, but it didn't stop, We got up early in the morning on sunday went upstair to our friends who live above us and we just tld them they were coming to church with us, they got dressed and rode the train with us to the chapel, on the way we set a baptismal date with one of them, for a few weeks from now, and if that wasn't enough there was this guy who's been coming to church for months and no missionaries have taught him because he was about to move back to india but his visa was extened for four years and he wants us to come over now, we'll probably baptise him next week, It's so insane, I and Like tripling a Years worth of work in only five weeks. it's so awesome when your with a smart companion thats not a doofus, and when your like best friends it's fun all the time. I really hope we saty together for a very long time and I think that'll be the case cause President kept puting Zebriskie with the worlds wort missionaries, and he theatened to go home if he wasn't put with a good missionary, so he got me. and I think We'll saty cause we work so well together.
Ok other stories, oh this week since Z-bo is a Cross country runner we got running a lot. about 5-6 miles every day, well actually 10 kilometers wich is 6.21 miles. it's so fun i've never ran that far but it's not to hard I'm really enjoying it and I'm pretty sure my hearts massive now. On day while we were running I found an I pod shuffle one f the new models it was pretty cool, also we meet some cool people at the track, we met some really cocky anti christ guy but he said he'll come to church if Zebriskie beats him at a race, so we have a race this saturday, he's gonna get smashed, hahaha poor kid. oh also one of our investogators challenged me to a two mile race, and if I won he had to come to church the next day, he chickened out and wanted only a mile race then lowered that to a 400 meter (one lap) race, I don't know why he chickened, I'm big and he's a slim fit man. but none the less we raced one lap. it was night time and they had put poles up to stop people from running in the first two lanes. and so we started our race, I was just keeping pace ready to burn him at the end, but he realized i wasn't tired what so ever, and his smoker lungs couldn't take it so i Purposely jumped in front of the bar that ung over the first two lanes. man i was so angry he did that and didn't just finish like a man. but he came to church wich was that good thing. (sigh) well I think thats it for me I love you all and Hope your learnig and growing everyday. be good and stay safe.
Love, Elder Ballard
This week was Crazy, as they are everytime. First off, the Missionary aspect of it. this saturday We Baptised Priyanker he's so awesome the Baptism got moved from sunday to saturday and we only had like eight hours to plan it but this ward s so aweome it came together really well, The spirit was so strong. I loved it, he said "that was good but I can't wait to get the Holy Ghost!" he's the madest Convert, I can't wait to teach him how to be an awesome saint. so cool. Also we Went over to teach this family a member in the ward found for us, and we taught them, the mom is a recent convert from NZ (New Zealand) and she wants her kids to be baptized and these kids are smart as!! We set a Baptismal date with them for second saturday so the 20th, I'm so pumped for this, but it didn't stop, We got up early in the morning on sunday went upstair to our friends who live above us and we just tld them they were coming to church with us, they got dressed and rode the train with us to the chapel, on the way we set a baptismal date with one of them, for a few weeks from now, and if that wasn't enough there was this guy who's been coming to church for months and no missionaries have taught him because he was about to move back to india but his visa was extened for four years and he wants us to come over now, we'll probably baptise him next week, It's so insane, I and Like tripling a Years worth of work in only five weeks. it's so awesome when your with a smart companion thats not a doofus, and when your like best friends it's fun all the time. I really hope we saty together for a very long time and I think that'll be the case cause President kept puting Zebriskie with the worlds wort missionaries, and he theatened to go home if he wasn't put with a good missionary, so he got me. and I think We'll saty cause we work so well together.
Ok other stories, oh this week since Z-bo is a Cross country runner we got running a lot. about 5-6 miles every day, well actually 10 kilometers wich is 6.21 miles. it's so fun i've never ran that far but it's not to hard I'm really enjoying it and I'm pretty sure my hearts massive now. On day while we were running I found an I pod shuffle one f the new models it was pretty cool, also we meet some cool people at the track, we met some really cocky anti christ guy but he said he'll come to church if Zebriskie beats him at a race, so we have a race this saturday, he's gonna get smashed, hahaha poor kid. oh also one of our investogators challenged me to a two mile race, and if I won he had to come to church the next day, he chickened out and wanted only a mile race then lowered that to a 400 meter (one lap) race, I don't know why he chickened, I'm big and he's a slim fit man. but none the less we raced one lap. it was night time and they had put poles up to stop people from running in the first two lanes. and so we started our race, I was just keeping pace ready to burn him at the end, but he realized i wasn't tired what so ever, and his smoker lungs couldn't take it so i Purposely jumped in front of the bar that ung over the first two lanes. man i was so angry he did that and didn't just finish like a man. but he came to church wich was that good thing. (sigh) well I think thats it for me I love you all and Hope your learnig and growing everyday. be good and stay safe.
Love, Elder Ballard
February 1, 2010
G'day Family,
Hey guys, thank you all for the uplifting emails, sorry i wasn't on yesterday it was trnafers and it was a normal work your butt off day. but good news is I am staying in the Glenroy ward. I love this ward, they've warmed up to me very fast. they're great. As compared to last week this week was a bit better. only to the fact that We got to meet an Apostle. Quentin L Cook came and visited our mission and it was really fun to meet him. This was the first one i got to meet because i was exhiled to tazzy when Jeffry R Holland came so it was grouse to see him. Funny thing is When I Shook his hand I knew exactly what he was gonna ask me "Are you Related to Russell?" hahaha it's very cool becuase Edler Cook and Elder Ballard Work together on the missionary department of the church so my response to him was " Well Elder Cook, Maybe you should ask him... Ask him "hey hows your grandson in melbourne doing?", and if he says "good" then I'm related, If he says "what are you talking about?" then I'm not" Elder Cook Laughed really hard when i said this and he grabbed my shoulders and looked me in the eyes and said "Your definately a Ballard Through and through!" hahaha there it is I heard it form an apostles mouth he says i'm related. wahoo i'm related to an apostle. hahaha his words to us were very good. I enjoyed the spirit he brings and he really strengthened me and made my desire to work harder grow. Also some good news of the week is we have a young man named Priyanker getting baptised this sunday he is 19 and a stud he reads and learns everything very well he understands all the commandments and wants to do his best we found him only like a week and a half ago, he is what you call a golden investigator. The funny story of the week happened while we were at the train sation. Elder Zabriskie and I walk to the end of the station where we see two men walking along the tracks we stare at them and them back at us. they talk amongst themselves off in the distance debating on weather they should turn back. you see they thought we were train security there to write them a ticket for walking by the tracks. but we weren't but they were still confused. then i decide to pull out our mobile t scare them and it didn't the second i put the phone to my ear they turned around. then they yelled out and asked "how long has this been here?" i had no clue what they were talking about there were only two things the train tracks and a reall old grafitied fence. so i just yelled back "looks like centuries" then they turned and returned they way they were coming but then we yelled out and told them we weren't security. they looked so dumb in the face and embarassed hahahaha it was hilarious they then turned back towards us and crossed
the track and went home. we were laughing so hard. other than doing some work this week with minimal success we also got to go to a gym and help member in our ward work out. he's blind and flippin strong, he is the third strongest man in victoria he is awesome, by far my favorite type of service. haha well fam thats about it for me this week i love you all and i'm doing a bit better, i thinki just have to work harder. but thanks for the love and support. oh ya 13 months down.
-Elder Ballard
Hey guys, thank you all for the uplifting emails, sorry i wasn't on yesterday it was trnafers and it was a normal work your butt off day. but good news is I am staying in the Glenroy ward. I love this ward, they've warmed up to me very fast. they're great. As compared to last week this week was a bit better. only to the fact that We got to meet an Apostle. Quentin L Cook came and visited our mission and it was really fun to meet him. This was the first one i got to meet because i was exhiled to tazzy when Jeffry R Holland came so it was grouse to see him. Funny thing is When I Shook his hand I knew exactly what he was gonna ask me "Are you Related to Russell?" hahaha it's very cool becuase Edler Cook and Elder Ballard Work together on the missionary department of the church so my response to him was " Well Elder Cook, Maybe you should ask him... Ask him "hey hows your grandson in melbourne doing?", and if he says "good" then I'm related, If he says "what are you talking about?" then I'm not" Elder Cook Laughed really hard when i said this and he grabbed my shoulders and looked me in the eyes and said "Your definately a Ballard Through and through!" hahaha there it is I heard it form an apostles mouth he says i'm related. wahoo i'm related to an apostle. hahaha his words to us were very good. I enjoyed the spirit he brings and he really strengthened me and made my desire to work harder grow. Also some good news of the week is we have a young man named Priyanker getting baptised this sunday he is 19 and a stud he reads and learns everything very well he understands all the commandments and wants to do his best we found him only like a week and a half ago, he is what you call a golden investigator. The funny story of the week happened while we were at the train sation. Elder Zabriskie and I walk to the end of the station where we see two men walking along the tracks we stare at them and them back at us. they talk amongst themselves off in the distance debating on weather they should turn back. you see they thought we were train security there to write them a ticket for walking by the tracks. but we weren't but they were still confused. then i decide to pull out our mobile t scare them and it didn't the second i put the phone to my ear they turned around. then they yelled out and asked "how long has this been here?" i had no clue what they were talking about there were only two things the train tracks and a reall old grafitied fence. so i just yelled back "looks like centuries" then they turned and returned they way they were coming but then we yelled out and told them we weren't security. they looked so dumb in the face and embarassed hahahaha it was hilarious they then turned back towards us and crossed
the track and went home. we were laughing so hard. other than doing some work this week with minimal success we also got to go to a gym and help member in our ward work out. he's blind and flippin strong, he is the third strongest man in victoria he is awesome, by far my favorite type of service. haha well fam thats about it for me this week i love you all and i'm doing a bit better, i thinki just have to work harder. but thanks for the love and support. oh ya 13 months down.
-Elder Ballard
January 24, 2010
G'day family.
Thanks for the email this week i had so many and was s happy that you guys actually sent me some because i've been having a pretty aweful week. the best part about the week is this young man named Priyanker, he is 19 and from india he met us at the chapel and wanted a tour s we gave him one and when we showed him the baptism font he was all jazzed and wante to jump in right there. but we had to teach him first. so we taught him right there and extended a baptismal date for Feb 6th he accepted very excited it was great. but with that we also found a few people on the train after hours and hours of talking to people. our succes is slow oviing but its coming. As you all know i'm with Elder Zabriskie and he is the best we have so much fun together, but for some weird reason i'm finding myself really down on myself, i'm not sure what it is but this whole week i've not been able to feel happy with the work. this place is tough but i love it when it's hard, i thrive on it. i hate when it's smooth flowing all day but man i really don't know what it is, well i have ideas but i'll try and work them out on my own. also this week there was another instance in which i was sure fatality was looming around me. Elder zabrskie and I got in the car and started to drive to our Tea appointment. i was feeling great, then all the sudden it hit me... the sharpest pain right below my sternum, it hurt so bad i was writhing as i drove i endured till we got to the member house and then i stood up and the pain brought me to my knees. it hurt so bad and i figured iit was something wrong with my stomach. so i forced myself to throw up right in some strangers lawn. i got every bit of matter out of my stomach and the pain still peirced my abdomin. i Went into the members home and they gave me some Mylanta, but nothing was helping so Btother Frost (the members house we were at) he offer me a priesthood blessing, so he administered to me and i tried wth all my might to stay still. after he asked me to lay on a bed whale and keep still, so i dd and all of the sudden i needed to go to the bathroom and after 7-9 trips to the restroom i felt slightly better. but i then got fever but that broke later that evening. but i was so greatful for the power of the priesthood and the worthyness of brother frost. i know with mmy faith and his worthiness we were able to call upon our saviour for comfort and i'm so greatful that us as a family have that same ability anywere and always. lvoe the lord and love servng him. thank you Family for yor support. I'll work harder so you can recieve some blessings. i love you all and if you havn't written to me in a while please do i'd really love to hear from you ad i really need it. love you all. e good stay safe and trust on the lord.
-Elder Ballard
Thanks for the email this week i had so many and was s happy that you guys actually sent me some because i've been having a pretty aweful week. the best part about the week is this young man named Priyanker, he is 19 and from india he met us at the chapel and wanted a tour s we gave him one and when we showed him the baptism font he was all jazzed and wante to jump in right there. but we had to teach him first. so we taught him right there and extended a baptismal date for Feb 6th he accepted very excited it was great. but with that we also found a few people on the train after hours and hours of talking to people. our succes is slow oviing but its coming. As you all know i'm with Elder Zabriskie and he is the best we have so much fun together, but for some weird reason i'm finding myself really down on myself, i'm not sure what it is but this whole week i've not been able to feel happy with the work. this place is tough but i love it when it's hard, i thrive on it. i hate when it's smooth flowing all day but man i really don't know what it is, well i have ideas but i'll try and work them out on my own. also this week there was another instance in which i was sure fatality was looming around me. Elder zabrskie and I got in the car and started to drive to our Tea appointment. i was feeling great, then all the sudden it hit me... the sharpest pain right below my sternum, it hurt so bad i was writhing as i drove i endured till we got to the member house and then i stood up and the pain brought me to my knees. it hurt so bad and i figured iit was something wrong with my stomach. so i forced myself to throw up right in some strangers lawn. i got every bit of matter out of my stomach and the pain still peirced my abdomin. i Went into the members home and they gave me some Mylanta, but nothing was helping so Btother Frost (the members house we were at) he offer me a priesthood blessing, so he administered to me and i tried wth all my might to stay still. after he asked me to lay on a bed whale and keep still, so i dd and all of the sudden i needed to go to the bathroom and after 7-9 trips to the restroom i felt slightly better. but i then got fever but that broke later that evening. but i was so greatful for the power of the priesthood and the worthyness of brother frost. i know with mmy faith and his worthiness we were able to call upon our saviour for comfort and i'm so greatful that us as a family have that same ability anywere and always. lvoe the lord and love servng him. thank you Family for yor support. I'll work harder so you can recieve some blessings. i love you all and if you havn't written to me in a while please do i'd really love to hear from you ad i really need it. love you all. e good stay safe and trust on the lord.
-Elder Ballard
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