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
Monday, April 19, 2010
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
January 17, 2010
G'day, Family,
Well as you know the last week ended with a crazy finish and this one was just as nuts and thats why i love the city is so amazing everyday is off the walls so much fun. but as for my new comp it's Elder Zabriskie and i love him he is my best friend out here and we could only dream of being together to tear up this place and thats exactly what were doing. we have this kid he's 16 and he is the best last week he couldn't get a ride to church so he walked like six miles he is so cool he'll eb naptized next weekend and were plannign on having heaps in a few weeks. but as for the momentum stopper in the middle of the week this is the story that will be know for my whole life... ok so thursday morning we had finished our studies so i decide to go and wash the few dishes tha are int he sink. while over there i see that there is a brand new kitchen knife still in it's wrapper so i decide to pull of the wrapper and and wash it. so i pull off 90% of the plastic but the is a bit left and also a saftey tie on the handle so i grabb the handle and then the remaining plastic and in one motion pull in opposite direction. the plastic break a lot easier than i thought. and crack i slam the blunt side of the knife right on the ridge of my nose. OUCH MOther...! i thought it really hurt i checked for blood... no blood ok good... then the flood gate is opened blood starts pouring out all over the sink and dishes. i Call out to elder Zabriskie and he tell me to hold on because he is too busy photo copying his hand, i tell him he's gonna feel really bad for not responding quicker when he see's what has happened. he finally come and then gets tissues and we stopp the flow, i the go to the bathroom and see tht the tissues are not stopping the blodd cause it's not comming only out of my nose but also from a huge laseration down the ridge of my nose. i show Z-bo and he cracks some joke wich makes me laugh and i shoot blood all over my self. it was funny. we make it to the emergency room where they make me wait for three hours before they super glue my nose back together in ten seconds and send me on my way hahahah it's pretty funny there is a pic attached. my time is low but i'll tell you this other cool story in short form there are other detailes thats are pretty cool. we were just walking by some sports ground where they play somthing like bocce ball it's called lawn bowles it's fun as. they let us in and play with them and we found some guy who hasn't been to church in 20 years and he was a crying when we came so he's awesome and were gonna go back and play with them like twice a week. well thants it well not really i just have no time thank you all i love you all bye.
-Elder ballard
Well as you know the last week ended with a crazy finish and this one was just as nuts and thats why i love the city is so amazing everyday is off the walls so much fun. but as for my new comp it's Elder Zabriskie and i love him he is my best friend out here and we could only dream of being together to tear up this place and thats exactly what were doing. we have this kid he's 16 and he is the best last week he couldn't get a ride to church so he walked like six miles he is so cool he'll eb naptized next weekend and were plannign on having heaps in a few weeks. but as for the momentum stopper in the middle of the week this is the story that will be know for my whole life... ok so thursday morning we had finished our studies so i decide to go and wash the few dishes tha are int he sink. while over there i see that there is a brand new kitchen knife still in it's wrapper so i decide to pull of the wrapper and and wash it. so i pull off 90% of the plastic but the is a bit left and also a saftey tie on the handle so i grabb the handle and then the remaining plastic and in one motion pull in opposite direction. the plastic break a lot easier than i thought. and crack i slam the blunt side of the knife right on the ridge of my nose. OUCH MOther...! i thought it really hurt i checked for blood... no blood ok good... then the flood gate is opened blood starts pouring out all over the sink and dishes. i Call out to elder Zabriskie and he tell me to hold on because he is too busy photo copying his hand, i tell him he's gonna feel really bad for not responding quicker when he see's what has happened. he finally come and then gets tissues and we stopp the flow, i the go to the bathroom and see tht the tissues are not stopping the blodd cause it's not comming only out of my nose but also from a huge laseration down the ridge of my nose. i show Z-bo and he cracks some joke wich makes me laugh and i shoot blood all over my self. it was funny. we make it to the emergency room where they make me wait for three hours before they super glue my nose back together in ten seconds and send me on my way hahahah it's pretty funny there is a pic attached. my time is low but i'll tell you this other cool story in short form there are other detailes thats are pretty cool. we were just walking by some sports ground where they play somthing like bocce ball it's called lawn bowles it's fun as. they let us in and play with them and we found some guy who hasn't been to church in 20 years and he was a crying when we came so he's awesome and were gonna go back and play with them like twice a week. well thants it well not really i just have no time thank you all i love you all bye.
-Elder ballard
Sunday, April 18, 2010
January 10, 2010
G'day family,
This Week was Aweful, and super awesome and crazy all at the same time. so on monday we went to teach this family of five from a country called Karen, and i've been praying for this family like crazy and we get there and something just doesn't feel right, it's the same feelin i got right before that one guy peter freaked out in the middle of a super spiritual lesson. ya and we were talking to the daughter and she was all jazzed about coming to church, then the brother comes in and says they would not like us to come around any more, he said they were buddhist and thats their religion. it was so confusing because they go to a church and are total christians the only problem is JW's go over there all the time and i think they poisened them against us but hey i think thats the JW's sole perpose to do to us. they are my Lex Luther in missionary Work. Then after that the next day we went to colleen (our soon to be newest member of the church) we tuaght he about recieving strength through prayer and the spirit was so strong i figured she was gonna get over smoking for sure. she knows it's true and everything but then the next night we get a call from a ward member and they say she doesn't want us around anymore. What!! how could this be! we've spent so much time with her, she loves us ughhh!! The work is so tough. but eh that's why i love it. that was the bad part of the week then the next day we call this girl who had called the office to contact missionaries, she siad she wants to be taught and to go to our church and also her friend does too. how great of a blessing is that. then also we found a couple more investigators that are solid as!. Our Sri Lankin couple were teaching said they'd be baptized if they get an answer to her prayers, oh it was wonderful, our week just kept getting better from there. i Also spoke in sacrament on the Book of mormon and the ward is now starting to get moving. and then to bring this wonderful joyride to a firey ball driving off a cliff i got a call last night telling me to pack my bags i'm getting emergency tranfered out of bendigo, (thats the bad part) but my new companion will be Elder Zabriskie (thats the most awesome thing in the world) i'm in shock i don't know what to think. i don't want to go but elder Zabriskie (my MTC comp) is like my best friend out here i love him we'll have such a blast. so thats my crazy week. i'm going back to melbourne YAY!!! i'll miss BENDIGehttO. but thats about it HAPPY anniversery Chad and Christy. love you all take care
_Edler Ballard
PS how Bout them COwboys
This Week was Aweful, and super awesome and crazy all at the same time. so on monday we went to teach this family of five from a country called Karen, and i've been praying for this family like crazy and we get there and something just doesn't feel right, it's the same feelin i got right before that one guy peter freaked out in the middle of a super spiritual lesson. ya and we were talking to the daughter and she was all jazzed about coming to church, then the brother comes in and says they would not like us to come around any more, he said they were buddhist and thats their religion. it was so confusing because they go to a church and are total christians the only problem is JW's go over there all the time and i think they poisened them against us but hey i think thats the JW's sole perpose to do to us. they are my Lex Luther in missionary Work. Then after that the next day we went to colleen (our soon to be newest member of the church) we tuaght he about recieving strength through prayer and the spirit was so strong i figured she was gonna get over smoking for sure. she knows it's true and everything but then the next night we get a call from a ward member and they say she doesn't want us around anymore. What!! how could this be! we've spent so much time with her, she loves us ughhh!! The work is so tough. but eh that's why i love it. that was the bad part of the week then the next day we call this girl who had called the office to contact missionaries, she siad she wants to be taught and to go to our church and also her friend does too. how great of a blessing is that. then also we found a couple more investigators that are solid as!. Our Sri Lankin couple were teaching said they'd be baptized if they get an answer to her prayers, oh it was wonderful, our week just kept getting better from there. i Also spoke in sacrament on the Book of mormon and the ward is now starting to get moving. and then to bring this wonderful joyride to a firey ball driving off a cliff i got a call last night telling me to pack my bags i'm getting emergency tranfered out of bendigo, (thats the bad part) but my new companion will be Elder Zabriskie (thats the most awesome thing in the world) i'm in shock i don't know what to think. i don't want to go but elder Zabriskie (my MTC comp) is like my best friend out here i love him we'll have such a blast. so thats my crazy week. i'm going back to melbourne YAY!!! i'll miss BENDIGehttO. but thats about it HAPPY anniversery Chad and Christy. love you all take care
_Edler Ballard
PS how Bout them COwboys
January 3, 2010
Hey Fam Damily,
This week a lot of stuff happened, some flippin funny stories, the fist one happened last monday, we drove to the train station to pick up the zone leaders who were coming for an exchange for the comeing day. and as we drove into our drivway i shouted "OOO Slanty Eyes!" (now i said this because i saw a person of aisian heritage and these people are humble and love to be taught so we scope out there houses to talk to them later, we love teaching them) but aparently my exclamiation distrancted elder merrell and he looked also instead of paying attention to the road and next thing we here is CRUNCH! hahaha he hit a two foot brick wall and knocked it over hahahaha i couldn't stop laughing it was so funny it made a huge dent but fortunatley it popped right out. but some scratches remain and also a pile of bricks on our driveway. but that'll be solved soon, oh also on Monday we went golfing and on six holes i got six bogeys which is way good for me. the next day Elder Fawson and i Went out to see this man named james. he was a little funny when we first met him but we jsut wanted to find out. so when we got there he had a fake microphone and the dvd concert of kiley Monogue and he sang us the concert word for word and movment for movement. hahaha it was hilarious i got photo's and videos i may send one to you all. hey Breaking news i am now officially over a year. ya hoooooo
so there is this word here it's called "busking" it is the same as pan-handling where just people play music for money, and so jsut the other day i went up to some buskers it was a boy and girl both 18 and they were jsut chillin so i sat and chatted with them for a while and i asked them to play me a song and so they played the song it was so good. that was really cool i loved the song i'm gonna get the cd. new years was great we stayed up and rang in the new year and then the next day we palyed sports all day with everyone in the mission. i finally got a lacrosse stick back in my hand and it felt wonderful ahhhhhh. as for people we are teaching we have Colleen she is gonna be baptized on the 16th she just has to get over smoking but she is a great lady. and we also have heaps of people from Ka-ren (a state in Burma) they are awesome. but thats about it for me i really have to pee so i'm trying .... never mind sensation releaved. well thats about it for this week and new years, it's weird to say i'm coming home this year but i am. love you all and we'll talk to you later, oh and actually write me i have only got four email in the last two weeks
-Elder Ballard
This week a lot of stuff happened, some flippin funny stories, the fist one happened last monday, we drove to the train station to pick up the zone leaders who were coming for an exchange for the comeing day. and as we drove into our drivway i shouted "OOO Slanty Eyes!" (now i said this because i saw a person of aisian heritage and these people are humble and love to be taught so we scope out there houses to talk to them later, we love teaching them) but aparently my exclamiation distrancted elder merrell and he looked also instead of paying attention to the road and next thing we here is CRUNCH! hahaha he hit a two foot brick wall and knocked it over hahahaha i couldn't stop laughing it was so funny it made a huge dent but fortunatley it popped right out. but some scratches remain and also a pile of bricks on our driveway. but that'll be solved soon, oh also on Monday we went golfing and on six holes i got six bogeys which is way good for me. the next day Elder Fawson and i Went out to see this man named james. he was a little funny when we first met him but we jsut wanted to find out. so when we got there he had a fake microphone and the dvd concert of kiley Monogue and he sang us the concert word for word and movment for movement. hahaha it was hilarious i got photo's and videos i may send one to you all. hey Breaking news i am now officially over a year. ya hoooooo
so there is this word here it's called "busking" it is the same as pan-handling where just people play music for money, and so jsut the other day i went up to some buskers it was a boy and girl both 18 and they were jsut chillin so i sat and chatted with them for a while and i asked them to play me a song and so they played the song it was so good. that was really cool i loved the song i'm gonna get the cd. new years was great we stayed up and rang in the new year and then the next day we palyed sports all day with everyone in the mission. i finally got a lacrosse stick back in my hand and it felt wonderful ahhhhhh. as for people we are teaching we have Colleen she is gonna be baptized on the 16th she just has to get over smoking but she is a great lady. and we also have heaps of people from Ka-ren (a state in Burma) they are awesome. but thats about it for me i really have to pee so i'm trying .... never mind sensation releaved. well thats about it for this week and new years, it's weird to say i'm coming home this year but i am. love you all and we'll talk to you later, oh and actually write me i have only got four email in the last two weeks
-Elder Ballard
January 3, 2010
G'day family,
well obviously this week was great because i got to talk to you all wich was so fun but now i'm super trunkie or as in the words of mikey trunka -icious but i'll be alright when january hits. so it's only been two days since my last update to you all. but something flippin crazy happened so e went out tracting the day i talked to you all and we saw this guy in his back yard havin a barbie, and so i walked up to his fence and began to speak, and he resoponed very angry so seeing that he wanted nothing to do with religion we offered service and he was all "Whats the catch!" and i said "no catch sir, we just try to be and example of christ at all times" then he goes off! screaming and yelling that god has killed more than he's saved. and then he wanted my address so he could harass me so i gave it to him just the callenge his word, and he won't come becuase he's australian wich means he's a coward. and this whole fit he's having he's been waving a knife around in our face, and to tell you the truth i got closer to him to see if he'd cut me, but he didn't so i didn't have an excuse to smash him. but that was about it for the week everthing went well we got one of our new investigators to church and he enjoyed it he knew like half the ward already. but it was very good, no miss haps i can't wait for 2010 i am super finished with these holiday. so boring and no work to do. well i love you all and hope your holidays are good. take care and be good.
Hooroo
-Elder Ballard
well obviously this week was great because i got to talk to you all wich was so fun but now i'm super trunkie or as in the words of mikey trunka -icious but i'll be alright when january hits. so it's only been two days since my last update to you all. but something flippin crazy happened so e went out tracting the day i talked to you all and we saw this guy in his back yard havin a barbie, and so i walked up to his fence and began to speak, and he resoponed very angry so seeing that he wanted nothing to do with religion we offered service and he was all "Whats the catch!" and i said "no catch sir, we just try to be and example of christ at all times" then he goes off! screaming and yelling that god has killed more than he's saved. and then he wanted my address so he could harass me so i gave it to him just the callenge his word, and he won't come becuase he's australian wich means he's a coward. and this whole fit he's having he's been waving a knife around in our face, and to tell you the truth i got closer to him to see if he'd cut me, but he didn't so i didn't have an excuse to smash him. but that was about it for the week everthing went well we got one of our new investigators to church and he enjoyed it he knew like half the ward already. but it was very good, no miss haps i can't wait for 2010 i am super finished with these holiday. so boring and no work to do. well i love you all and hope your holidays are good. take care and be good.
Hooroo
-Elder Ballard
December 27, 2009
G'day family,
well obviously this week was great because i got to talk to you all wich was so fun but now i'm super trunkie or as in the words of mikey trunka -icious but i'll be alright when january hits. so it's only been two days since my last update to you all. but something flippin crazy happened so e went out tracting the day i talked to you all and we saw this guy in his back yard havin a barbie, and so i walked up to his fence and began to speak, and he resoponed very angry so seeing that he wanted nothing to do with religion we offered service and he was all "Whats the catch!" and i said "no catch sir, we just try to be and example of christ at all times" then he goes off! screaming and yelling that god has killed more than he's saved. and then he wanted my address so he could harass me so i gave it to him just the callenge his word, and he won't come becuase he's australian wich means he's a coward. and this whole fit he's having he's been waving a knife around in our face, and to tell you the truth i got closer to him to see if he'd cut me, but he didn't so i didn't have an excuse to smash him. but that was about it for the week everthing went well we got one of our new investigators to church and he enjoyed it he knew like half the ward already. but it was very good, no miss haps i can't wait for 2010 i am super finished with these holiday. so boring and no work to do. well i love you all and hope your holidays are good. take care and be good.
Hooroo
-Elder Ballard
well obviously this week was great because i got to talk to you all wich was so fun but now i'm super trunkie or as in the words of mikey trunka -icious but i'll be alright when january hits. so it's only been two days since my last update to you all. but something flippin crazy happened so e went out tracting the day i talked to you all and we saw this guy in his back yard havin a barbie, and so i walked up to his fence and began to speak, and he resoponed very angry so seeing that he wanted nothing to do with religion we offered service and he was all "Whats the catch!" and i said "no catch sir, we just try to be and example of christ at all times" then he goes off! screaming and yelling that god has killed more than he's saved. and then he wanted my address so he could harass me so i gave it to him just the callenge his word, and he won't come becuase he's australian wich means he's a coward. and this whole fit he's having he's been waving a knife around in our face, and to tell you the truth i got closer to him to see if he'd cut me, but he didn't so i didn't have an excuse to smash him. but that was about it for the week everthing went well we got one of our new investigators to church and he enjoyed it he knew like half the ward already. but it was very good, no miss haps i can't wait for 2010 i am super finished with these holiday. so boring and no work to do. well i love you all and hope your holidays are good. take care and be good.
Hooroo
-Elder Ballard
December 20, 2009
G'day Family,
This week was sick, lots of fun and lots of work. last monday we went to this place called hanging rock, the rock it self sucked but there were heaps of cliffs to bounce around on and we had a lot of fun, a really creepy thing was like 100 years ago like four girls and a teacher had disappeared from there and then like a week later one girl showed up unharmed and with no memory it is a nuts-o story and they made it a movie it is called "picnic at Hanging Rock" go buy it and tell me how it is. oh i also di something i'm proud of this week, i went to Subway for like the first time i've been out and when they asked what i want on it i said everything and so they did and the sandwich was the bomb. we also had our christmas conference with the whole mission (minus Tazzy) but it was awesome we did a girft exchange and also wathced a move it was the nativity some new movie but it was sweet as. i loved it, some weird part but over all best movie watched on the mission (only movie) then we also got our christmas package it was awesome i love everthing in it all the toys elder Merrel broke the yo-yo string already but eh. we played with the foxtail in the field this morning for morning exercise, it's the best. well i wrote some thing down about "alex-dissappear" i have no idea why but if i remember i'll tell you on CHRISTMAS!!! well i'll talk to you all soon i love you guys!!
_elder Ballar
This week was sick, lots of fun and lots of work. last monday we went to this place called hanging rock, the rock it self sucked but there were heaps of cliffs to bounce around on and we had a lot of fun, a really creepy thing was like 100 years ago like four girls and a teacher had disappeared from there and then like a week later one girl showed up unharmed and with no memory it is a nuts-o story and they made it a movie it is called "picnic at Hanging Rock" go buy it and tell me how it is. oh i also di something i'm proud of this week, i went to Subway for like the first time i've been out and when they asked what i want on it i said everything and so they did and the sandwich was the bomb. we also had our christmas conference with the whole mission (minus Tazzy) but it was awesome we did a girft exchange and also wathced a move it was the nativity some new movie but it was sweet as. i loved it, some weird part but over all best movie watched on the mission (only movie) then we also got our christmas package it was awesome i love everthing in it all the toys elder Merrel broke the yo-yo string already but eh. we played with the foxtail in the field this morning for morning exercise, it's the best. well i wrote some thing down about "alex-dissappear" i have no idea why but if i remember i'll tell you on CHRISTMAS!!! well i'll talk to you all soon i love you guys!!
_elder Ballar
December 20, 2009
G'day family,
this week was normal with it's handful of fun things , well first thing happy 50th on the 8th mom! thats fun what did you guys do? also this week i bought a set of golf clubs for 20$ so awesome i got them from a DI sorta shop i am pumped i'm gonna go pro. also while elder merrel and i were trackting we saw this huge lizard it was like a baby alligator it was massive i thought it was fake so i poked it and sure enough it was real and it got mad at me it had a tonuge the size of mine and it was bright blue it was so cool. except for it was about to pounch on me so we left got my camera and came back and it gapped it. oh and another encounter with wildlfie i was mowing these people lawn and i was just standing there and all the sudden my legs stared to burn and i look down and a swarm of ants had taken my leg and were bitting me it was crazy it was jsut irritating didn't hurt to bad but quite the funny expirience being swarmed by ants. it seems to be somebody wants me dead. i seem to brush with fatality every week. but i'm protected so thats good. oh hahahaha yesterday we went to visit a less active man and so we knock on his door and he answers with just a sweater on no pants or underwear , but i didn't figure that out till he walked away and his saggy old man balls were dangling out the back. kinda hilarious but the man put on pants and he was very nice but just lonely so were gonna visit him on christmas. oh and also this at church yesterday a guy just showed up his name is dan and he jsut wanted to come to church. it was so cool but he was a very opinionated guy he mad me think a bit and challenged us but nothing he asked we couldn't answer it was pretty cool but we'll see him again i'm sure and i'll up date you it was pretty cool. also at church this guy that use to live in Riverton UT he asked me if i had anything to send home for christmas so i gave hime some things and he is flyi9ng back this week so he'll drop off a poackage soemthing soon his name is shane chipman he is really cool. well fam thats my week. my christmas cards are on ther way, have a good week and welcome baby collier to the world. love you guys
Elder Ballard
this week was normal with it's handful of fun things , well first thing happy 50th on the 8th mom! thats fun what did you guys do? also this week i bought a set of golf clubs for 20$ so awesome i got them from a DI sorta shop i am pumped i'm gonna go pro. also while elder merrel and i were trackting we saw this huge lizard it was like a baby alligator it was massive i thought it was fake so i poked it and sure enough it was real and it got mad at me it had a tonuge the size of mine and it was bright blue it was so cool. except for it was about to pounch on me so we left got my camera and came back and it gapped it. oh and another encounter with wildlfie i was mowing these people lawn and i was just standing there and all the sudden my legs stared to burn and i look down and a swarm of ants had taken my leg and were bitting me it was crazy it was jsut irritating didn't hurt to bad but quite the funny expirience being swarmed by ants. it seems to be somebody wants me dead. i seem to brush with fatality every week. but i'm protected so thats good. oh hahahaha yesterday we went to visit a less active man and so we knock on his door and he answers with just a sweater on no pants or underwear , but i didn't figure that out till he walked away and his saggy old man balls were dangling out the back. kinda hilarious but the man put on pants and he was very nice but just lonely so were gonna visit him on christmas. oh and also this at church yesterday a guy just showed up his name is dan and he jsut wanted to come to church. it was so cool but he was a very opinionated guy he mad me think a bit and challenged us but nothing he asked we couldn't answer it was pretty cool but we'll see him again i'm sure and i'll up date you it was pretty cool. also at church this guy that use to live in Riverton UT he asked me if i had anything to send home for christmas so i gave hime some things and he is flyi9ng back this week so he'll drop off a poackage soemthing soon his name is shane chipman he is really cool. well fam thats my week. my christmas cards are on ther way, have a good week and welcome baby collier to the world. love you guys
Elder Ballard
December 12, 2009
G'day Family,
My week was quick but full of a lot of fun and exciting work in the city of Bendigo. so first off the zone leaders (elder Hathaway, from tooele, and Elder Toolson from sand diego) drove up to go on exchanges with us, we golfed for p-day and i got the top score, Watch out chad and Rob!! then Elder toolson and i went to work. and here is the deal elder toolson has been sick he has problems with his adrenal gland so he can only work like for two hours at a time then he's dead tired. so we nap and read and just rest all day then we go out... our appointments fell through so we decided to know this one house i saw a couple days ago where i saw aisians out side (missionaries like aisians cause they are humble and love to learn) so we go, they don't speek much english and it was tough buyt they want to learn, then as we are going to our car we find three more burmese people, we schedule an appointment, then we drive around the corner se another group so we pull over hop out and get them, we set up appointment to teach them, then as were walking a old investagator pulls over and says come over friday for a BBQ then after that we see two more people and get their info and address to teach them and this all happened in like ten minutes it was insane. we were laughing so hard cause it was just so easy. hahaha also this week we have mowed so many people's lawns we helped the retired minister lady she was crazy funny stories on her i killed a spider the size of chloe. then later on in the week Elder Tongsumrith and Elder LEausa came over to exchange. i was with leausa he is awesome he just took all the american candy and talked to poeple on the street offering pixysticks and what not hahaha it was funny and i also met my fisrt full blood aboriganie. oh and we got fed by these investigators from Sri LAnka and it was just an old couple so funny they fed us all this weird food and we ate with our fingers it was fun. for dessert they fed us this jelly called Agar Jelly look it up it's like eating a really weak earaser. a bit weird. ad last thing i almost died last night we were having burgers at a members last night and as i went to swallow my bite i felt my throut being sliced in half. so i just flipped and jammed my hand to the back of my throut to catch it before desended to my stomach to wreak major havok down there. and when i pulled it out it was a two in spiral peice of sharp sharp metal it was aweful. but i got it before it tried to shred my insides. it wasn't gracful but i got it. well family thats it for me this week christmas is coming and my christmas cards will be sent off soon so be on the look out i'm just sending a stack to mom and she'll sned um cause that'll save me heaps. well i love you all take care.
-Elder Ballard
My week was quick but full of a lot of fun and exciting work in the city of Bendigo. so first off the zone leaders (elder Hathaway, from tooele, and Elder Toolson from sand diego) drove up to go on exchanges with us, we golfed for p-day and i got the top score, Watch out chad and Rob!! then Elder toolson and i went to work. and here is the deal elder toolson has been sick he has problems with his adrenal gland so he can only work like for two hours at a time then he's dead tired. so we nap and read and just rest all day then we go out... our appointments fell through so we decided to know this one house i saw a couple days ago where i saw aisians out side (missionaries like aisians cause they are humble and love to learn) so we go, they don't speek much english and it was tough buyt they want to learn, then as we are going to our car we find three more burmese people, we schedule an appointment, then we drive around the corner se another group so we pull over hop out and get them, we set up appointment to teach them, then as were walking a old investagator pulls over and says come over friday for a BBQ then after that we see two more people and get their info and address to teach them and this all happened in like ten minutes it was insane. we were laughing so hard cause it was just so easy. hahaha also this week we have mowed so many people's lawns we helped the retired minister lady she was crazy funny stories on her i killed a spider the size of chloe. then later on in the week Elder Tongsumrith and Elder LEausa came over to exchange. i was with leausa he is awesome he just took all the american candy and talked to poeple on the street offering pixysticks and what not hahaha it was funny and i also met my fisrt full blood aboriganie. oh and we got fed by these investigators from Sri LAnka and it was just an old couple so funny they fed us all this weird food and we ate with our fingers it was fun. for dessert they fed us this jelly called Agar Jelly look it up it's like eating a really weak earaser. a bit weird. ad last thing i almost died last night we were having burgers at a members last night and as i went to swallow my bite i felt my throut being sliced in half. so i just flipped and jammed my hand to the back of my throut to catch it before desended to my stomach to wreak major havok down there. and when i pulled it out it was a two in spiral peice of sharp sharp metal it was aweful. but i got it before it tried to shred my insides. it wasn't gracful but i got it. well family thats it for me this week christmas is coming and my christmas cards will be sent off soon so be on the look out i'm just sending a stack to mom and she'll sned um cause that'll save me heaps. well i love you all take care.
-Elder Ballard
December 6, 2009
G'day Family,
My week was quick but full of a lot of fun and exciting work in the city of Bendigo. so first off the zone leaders (elder Hathaway, from tooele, and Elder Toolson from sand diego) drove up to go on exchanges with us, we golfed for p-day and i got the top score, Watch out chad and Rob!! then Elder toolson and i went to work. and here is the deal elder toolson has been sick he has problems with his adrenal gland so he can only work like for two hours at a time then he's dead tired. so we nap and read and just rest all day then we go out... our appointments fell through so we decided to know this one house i saw a couple days ago where i saw aisians out side (missionaries like aisians cause they are humble and love to learn) so we go, they don't speek much english and it was tough buyt they want to learn, then as we are going to our car we find three more burmese people, we schedule an appointment, then we drive around the corner se another group so we pull over hop out and get them, we set up appointment to teach them, then as were walking a old investagator pulls over and says come over friday for a BBQ then after that we see two more people and get their info and address to teach them and this all happened in like ten minutes it was insane. we were laughing so hard cause it was just so easy. hahaha also this week we have mowed so many people's lawns we helped the retired minister lady she was crazy funny stories on her i killed a spider the size of chloe. then later on in the week Elder Tongsumrith and Elder LEausa came over to exchange. i was with leausa he is awesome he just took all the american candy and talked to poeple on the street offering pixysticks and what not hahaha it was funny and i also met my fisrt full blood aboriganie. oh and we got fed by these investigators from Sri LAnka and it was just an old couple so funny they fed us all this weird food and we ate with our fingers it was fun. for dessert they fed us this jelly called Agar Jelly look it up it's like eating a really weak earaser. a bit weird. ad last thing i almost died last night we were having burgers at a members last night and as i went to swallow my bite i felt my throut being sliced in half. so i just flipped and jammed my hand to the back of my throut to catch it before desended to my stomach to wreak major havok down there. and when i pulled it out it was a two in spiral peice of sharp sharp metal it was aweful. but i got it before it tried to shred my insides. it wasn't gracful but i got it. well family thats it for me this week christmas is coming and my christmas cards will be sent off soon so be on the look out i'm just sending a stack to mom and she'll sned um cause that'll save me heaps. well i love you all take care.
-Elder Ballard
My week was quick but full of a lot of fun and exciting work in the city of Bendigo. so first off the zone leaders (elder Hathaway, from tooele, and Elder Toolson from sand diego) drove up to go on exchanges with us, we golfed for p-day and i got the top score, Watch out chad and Rob!! then Elder toolson and i went to work. and here is the deal elder toolson has been sick he has problems with his adrenal gland so he can only work like for two hours at a time then he's dead tired. so we nap and read and just rest all day then we go out... our appointments fell through so we decided to know this one house i saw a couple days ago where i saw aisians out side (missionaries like aisians cause they are humble and love to learn) so we go, they don't speek much english and it was tough buyt they want to learn, then as we are going to our car we find three more burmese people, we schedule an appointment, then we drive around the corner se another group so we pull over hop out and get them, we set up appointment to teach them, then as were walking a old investagator pulls over and says come over friday for a BBQ then after that we see two more people and get their info and address to teach them and this all happened in like ten minutes it was insane. we were laughing so hard cause it was just so easy. hahaha also this week we have mowed so many people's lawns we helped the retired minister lady she was crazy funny stories on her i killed a spider the size of chloe. then later on in the week Elder Tongsumrith and Elder LEausa came over to exchange. i was with leausa he is awesome he just took all the american candy and talked to poeple on the street offering pixysticks and what not hahaha it was funny and i also met my fisrt full blood aboriganie. oh and we got fed by these investigators from Sri LAnka and it was just an old couple so funny they fed us all this weird food and we ate with our fingers it was fun. for dessert they fed us this jelly called Agar Jelly look it up it's like eating a really weak earaser. a bit weird. ad last thing i almost died last night we were having burgers at a members last night and as i went to swallow my bite i felt my throut being sliced in half. so i just flipped and jammed my hand to the back of my throut to catch it before desended to my stomach to wreak major havok down there. and when i pulled it out it was a two in spiral peice of sharp sharp metal it was aweful. but i got it before it tried to shred my insides. it wasn't gracful but i got it. well family thats it for me this week christmas is coming and my christmas cards will be sent off soon so be on the look out i'm just sending a stack to mom and she'll sned um cause that'll save me heaps. well i love you all take care.
-Elder Ballard
November 29, 2009
MY week has been good but to answer some of you inquiries...Ya ok so i figured somthing out you can send me for christmas, i need a couple whitew short sleeve shirts, some dumb missionaries took mine. and also if you can send a couple mesh garment bottoms that would be great. oh man i miss that huge christmas tree but our puny charlie brown tree is awesome i love it we set all up this week and it was great were working on a christmas card now but zero ideas now. have dad hop on and tell me all about the dallas trip, how was the new stadium and all that jazz. so guess what i actulally wrote down things to talk to you all about so yay you'll actually here some good stories form my week. ok so first off big news i have recently found out that i'm mildly lactose intollerant, so yeah i eat cereal most mornings and have milk and my poo hasn't been hard in like over a year so we bought heaps of soy milk and oat milk this week and since i'm drinking that instead, guess what... Hard Poo hahaha sorry you had to endure that story but you wanted me to share about my week. we had zone conference in Melbourne so as you heard from last week we were down there. it was good and it was president lee's b-day and we got him a pink tie and he swore he'd never wear pink but we got him to wear it, it was great. then we rode a noce long train ride back to our area it was fun, and when we got back we went to this part member families house and they had been having stange happenings with spirits and they wanted us to dedicate there home, so they asked me to do it, so i did and it was very spiritual and it is the dad who is not a member and after the blessing we asked him if he wanted the Priesthood to protect and bless his family and he was blown away he said no body has ever asked him. but he said he'd talk mit over with his wife but i think he will want to recieve that it was such a cool expirience. so my area has been very hard we havn't found any new investogators in the three weeks i've been here, which is weird cause i usually get a couple a week. but just satuday night we knock this one door we saw a couple days previous so we knock it and behind the door is a burmese family they invite us in we teach them and it was tough but i feel they understood, and we got four new investigators it was great, some success finally. that was great, so thing funny that happened was we were talking to this girl on her doorstep for like 45 mins and the whole time this song was playing over and over and over in the background. so i wanted to guess what it was all about so i guessed " is it the title menu for a dvd of the show "third rock from the sun"" and i weas exactly right, how stinkin random i was so proud of my self. anyways my week was good and after being here for three weeks they finally got me to introduce myself in sacrament, after i'd already met 90% of the poeple there. but i think thats about it i love you all thanks for the love. talk to you in 25 days.
-Elder Ballard
-Elder Ballard
November 22, 2009
G'day Family.
This week was nuts-o, for some reason my mind is blanking. Bendigo is a tough area we havn't found anyone to teach in two weeks now it's a little fruterating but about to explode. first off we help this young guy with emphazema mow down a forest in his back yard full of red back (aussie black widows) crazy them we asked if he wanted to be taught and he said o"oh god never helped me!" but my comp said were sent from god to help him and he was just blown away then we just walked aways. he has our number but we were just frusterated. we have this one lady ready for baptism she wuill be getting baptized on jan 1st new years resolution awsome. the ward is awesome.The Rectors are aweomse they gave us a ride down to melbourne for stake conference and we'll be down here for four days cause we have zobne conference tomorrow so i'm kinda bugged about not doing work in my area fro half a week ugh, but something funny that happened this week is one i got trapped in a dust storm it was intense and also a little black boy came up to me and he pointed at the mole on my arm and asked "whats that?": hahahahaha he's never seen a mole cause he's black as night so funny i told it was my skin trying to be like him, and it was jealous skin. i thinks thats it. i apolagize family fdor my memory being aweful i'll make a list next week and it'll be a good one. i love you all and i hera the cowboys are tearing it up and 49ers suck but whats new.
-Elder Ballard
This week was nuts-o, for some reason my mind is blanking. Bendigo is a tough area we havn't found anyone to teach in two weeks now it's a little fruterating but about to explode. first off we help this young guy with emphazema mow down a forest in his back yard full of red back (aussie black widows) crazy them we asked if he wanted to be taught and he said o"oh god never helped me!" but my comp said were sent from god to help him and he was just blown away then we just walked aways. he has our number but we were just frusterated. we have this one lady ready for baptism she wuill be getting baptized on jan 1st new years resolution awsome. the ward is awesome.The Rectors are aweomse they gave us a ride down to melbourne for stake conference and we'll be down here for four days cause we have zobne conference tomorrow so i'm kinda bugged about not doing work in my area fro half a week ugh, but something funny that happened this week is one i got trapped in a dust storm it was intense and also a little black boy came up to me and he pointed at the mole on my arm and asked "whats that?": hahahahaha he's never seen a mole cause he's black as night so funny i told it was my skin trying to be like him, and it was jealous skin. i thinks thats it. i apolagize family fdor my memory being aweful i'll make a list next week and it'll be a good one. i love you all and i hera the cowboys are tearing it up and 49ers suck but whats new.
-Elder Ballard
November 15, 2009
G'day Family
My week was long but most the time the first weeks go slow motion in a new area. it's only been like four days since i last wrote but i guess i'll just tell you a bit about the area. this whole week has been 35 degrees or over which is 95-105 in farhenhite (SP?) but i think i'll survive it's just like cali summers but the ozone is gone so it heats you fast as. but i love it because people take pitty on you and invite you in give you glasses of water and of course while were drinking we get an opportunity to teacha bit so thats good. it's the funniest when we go into a house and it is hotter and muggier than the outside and we swet more so funny. but the work is just the same as most places. but my last area was very multi cultural so we talked to all types of people, but here it's straight true blue aussies. but they are all pretty nice we get some harrassments but those are fun cause all aussies are cowards when confronted. a bit funny. i Met our Ward yesterday they said hi and what not but not overly welcoming like glenorchy in Tazzy. but they seem good they are a lot of very new members to the church which makes me wonder where are the old members they don't come so thats quite a bit of work for me. we also met Sister Rector apparently she knows you mom from online, she is just like mom. there house seems like ours in taste and ecoration and also with the christmas tree being up freakishly early. they are funny. then last night they had a fireside and like 30 nonmembers were invited it was great this ward is on fire. we gave a fat stack of copies of the book of mormon out and some guy started to read it in the foyer instead of socialize in the cultural hall it was awesome. lots of good stuff i can't wait. but other than the imense heat and awesome missionary minded ward, not much else happened. but i'm good my comp and i are doing good, love you guys and take care.
-Eler Ballard
My week was long but most the time the first weeks go slow motion in a new area. it's only been like four days since i last wrote but i guess i'll just tell you a bit about the area. this whole week has been 35 degrees or over which is 95-105 in farhenhite (SP?) but i think i'll survive it's just like cali summers but the ozone is gone so it heats you fast as. but i love it because people take pitty on you and invite you in give you glasses of water and of course while were drinking we get an opportunity to teacha bit so thats good. it's the funniest when we go into a house and it is hotter and muggier than the outside and we swet more so funny. but the work is just the same as most places. but my last area was very multi cultural so we talked to all types of people, but here it's straight true blue aussies. but they are all pretty nice we get some harrassments but those are fun cause all aussies are cowards when confronted. a bit funny. i Met our Ward yesterday they said hi and what not but not overly welcoming like glenorchy in Tazzy. but they seem good they are a lot of very new members to the church which makes me wonder where are the old members they don't come so thats quite a bit of work for me. we also met Sister Rector apparently she knows you mom from online, she is just like mom. there house seems like ours in taste and ecoration and also with the christmas tree being up freakishly early. they are funny. then last night they had a fireside and like 30 nonmembers were invited it was great this ward is on fire. we gave a fat stack of copies of the book of mormon out and some guy started to read it in the foyer instead of socialize in the cultural hall it was awesome. lots of good stuff i can't wait. but other than the imense heat and awesome missionary minded ward, not much else happened. but i'm good my comp and i are doing good, love you guys and take care.
-Eler Ballard
November 10, 2009
G'day Family
Crazy news i have for all of you guys, i spent six tranfers in one area in tasmania and guess what, i'm getting tranfered from Reservoir. what the flip i just got here. they are sending me away to a place called Bendigo way out from the city in the middle of aussie bush. there are zero missionaries close by we are hours away from anything. truely exiled. oh boy i'm so excited. my new companion is Elder David Merrel from Hollister California, he is a real brainiac. we were in the MTC together so you can see him in those pictures. but thats the huge news, i'm gonna miss Rezzy i was starting to like it so i better be here for a while because i don't like this whole moving thing. ok so a couple cool things happened this week. funny thing was while Elder Gremmert and i Where talking to people on the trains we hopped off to go a couple train cars back to talk to more poeple but as we were walking back the doors started to close so i squeezed through but Elder Gremmert didn't the doors close and i see him get smaller and smaller and the trani leaves the staion. hahahaha OH NO! it was so weird toi not have a comp around but i went to the next couple stations and waited for him. but it was funny, and we laughed about it before. oh other thing is we ran a timed mile on monday i got 6:08 pretty good we've been training i want it under six. othere things that happened hmmm not sure wait till i get home hahahah in a very long time. love you family and we'll see you all later.
Elder Ballard
Crazy news i have for all of you guys, i spent six tranfers in one area in tasmania and guess what, i'm getting tranfered from Reservoir. what the flip i just got here. they are sending me away to a place called Bendigo way out from the city in the middle of aussie bush. there are zero missionaries close by we are hours away from anything. truely exiled. oh boy i'm so excited. my new companion is Elder David Merrel from Hollister California, he is a real brainiac. we were in the MTC together so you can see him in those pictures. but thats the huge news, i'm gonna miss Rezzy i was starting to like it so i better be here for a while because i don't like this whole moving thing. ok so a couple cool things happened this week. funny thing was while Elder Gremmert and i Where talking to people on the trains we hopped off to go a couple train cars back to talk to more poeple but as we were walking back the doors started to close so i squeezed through but Elder Gremmert didn't the doors close and i see him get smaller and smaller and the trani leaves the staion. hahahaha OH NO! it was so weird toi not have a comp around but i went to the next couple stations and waited for him. but it was funny, and we laughed about it before. oh other thing is we ran a timed mile on monday i got 6:08 pretty good we've been training i want it under six. othere things that happened hmmm not sure wait till i get home hahahah in a very long time. love you family and we'll see you all later.
Elder Ballard
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