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
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