Tuesday, April 29, 2014

Ups and Downs

Hey Family!
I hope everyone has had a great week. My week has been full of ups and downs. We got Pam and Eric's wedding all planned and situated and it was going to take place on the 10th and the baptism would follow right after. There is a rule that people need to make it to church at least 3 times before being baptized and they missed yesterday due to having sick grand kids to take care of and some out of the ordinary things happening at the hotel they run. Now that screws up what we had planned. We got permission to do the baptism on the 11th, after church but that may not end up working out. I was so stressed out yesterday. And Pam started texting us last night saying she was so overwhelmed that she may want to postpone everything. I hope the responses we gave, gave her some solace. But at this point I think postponing it a couple of weeks wouldn't be a bad idea.

So I was trying to deal with that and on top of all of that, I am super stressed out with Elder Scarpa, because he has been out for 7 months and still doesn't know the lessons. He didn't even know what the scripture reference was for the scripture that Joseph Smith read to inspire him to pray in the Grove. I had a nice chat with him about how he needs to know these things and to start studying PMG, which he never studies.

And on top of that... I had my driving privileges taken away. For 3 months. You know that new rule I was talking about? Yeah we had to go to Neola (54 mile round trip) on the last day until the miles would start over. We ended up going 3 miles over what we were supposed to. 3 miles! BUT... Come to find out yesterday I felt that I should look at the mile log again and recheck the math... The math was done wrong. We added on an extra day to our total miles. We actually went 49 miles under our allotment. So if there is any justice in this mission I will get my privileges back soon. I already informed the Zone Leaders yesterday so hopefully stuff is already happening.

Oh and we went to Neola to teach Christian and Aaliya, both of which would have been baptized on May 17th (we set them for that) but they didn't make it to church for whatever reason so that will have to be
postponed as well. But I'm sure things will work out in the end. They always do.

My faith is being tried, but I'm trying to keep a good attitude and stay calm about everything. It's hard to help other people not be stressed out about things when you're super stressed out
yourself. But I'm doing my best.

We should be going over to talk to Pam later today so hopefully we can get some things straightened out.

Oh also we will probably be Skyping from their place on the 11th. Still don't have details but it should be fairly soon after church.

Well other than that stuff it has been a fairly decent week. We had interviews with our Mission President and they were really good. I was very happy with the outcome of mine.

Well I hope everyone has a fabulous week. And thanks for that Easter package, Jenn. I think I have devoured everything in it. And Cameron is looking pretty good in his suit. ;)

Stay safe everyone. Have fun in Maryland and Virginia, Dad.
I love you guys!

Love,
Elder Ballif

Monday, April 21, 2014

Happy Easter

Hey Family!
How is everyone doing? I hope everyone had a great Easter. I sure did. Pam, Eric and Spencer all came to church. Spencer even brought a friend. It was a great sacrament meeting (that's all they stayed for, due to them running the Hillside Cottages, but I think they'll work it out to stay the full time one of these weeks) that was of course centered on Christ. I don't know how much Eric paid attention, but Pam said she loved it. I hope they can make it out for the full 3 hours next time.
We also got in contact with the less active member that wants to come back to church and she wants her 2 kids (9 and 11) to be baptized. She wasn't able to make it to church yesterday, because apparently she had something wrong with her neck and she had to go to the hospital. We plan on making it up to Harlan, where she lives, in a few days. We'll need to get a ride from someone, however, because we don't have a lot of miles left for the week. So it should be fun.
After church yesterday, we spent Easter with the Ortiz family. They're actually a bit less active but they pretty darn cool.
We went over to another less active's house, with the Ortiz's, for dinner. We had grilled chicken, corn, and pie and cobbler. It was some good stuff.
I found a tick crawling on me when we were there and I was freaking out the rest of the day, but I didn't find anything upon further inspection.
When then went back to Scott and Alisha's house (Ortiz) and played a round of Settlers of Catan and called it a night. I won, of course. :)
Oh Dad, before I forget. I checked the ATM and I'm like negative 2 bucks... Sorry about that. If you could put some money in my account for some food, that would be greatly appreciated. I ran out of my mission
money, early this month. I don't even really know why. Also we don't eat the food we have at home very often due to the distance away from everything we are, and it would be a waste of miles to drive back home to eat something.
Well I hope everyone had a great Easter. Those pictures that Kim sent were pretty cute. I liked the one
where Clara was eating the handle of the basket.
I hope you are having fun in Hawaii. Let me know how everyone is doing. I don't hear from any of them... Once in a blue moon, :).
Well anyways, have a great week
everyone. Stay safe. I LOVE YOU GUYS!!!!

Love,
Elder Ballif

Oooh so I have a cool story to tell :) So on Friday, Pam was driving
and had an impression to check her mirror and change lanes and
right after she did that (I don't know the exact details) but a semi
would have ended up hitting her and would have most likely killed her.
Friday we went to the temple. I had an impression to put Pam's name on
the prayer roll. Coincidence? I think not.

Monday, April 7, 2014

Conference and Things

Hey Family!

Well first I'd like to wish Cameron a happy belated birthday. I hope it was a good one. And that his baptism went well. I think it happened? My week was not too bad. We did not see as many people as last week seeing how we had conference 2 days straight but it still wentpretty well. 

We taught Pam, Eric and Spencer the Restoration and it went pretty darn well. Eric was being a little immature at times, to be funny, but hey, I do that too. But anyways we taught the lesson, committed them to read the Book of Mormon and pray about it and we then watched the Restoration video because I think that does a better job than us at explaining it. Spencer had a lot of questions so that was good. It showed that he was paying attention and what not. 

We are going over there tomorrow to do some service for them and hopefully we can teach a bit while doing that and set up another time for a lesson. We did not invite them to be baptized (we either spaced it or weren't prompted to, not sure) but we'll get that in hopefully next lesson. Which will probably be the Plan of Salvation. But yeah everything went well and I'll keep you posted with them. 

The other people that I have mentioned, we have not been able to see. Christian and is mother haven't been home whenever we go there. Perhaps they were still in Phoenix seeing a doctor. But we tried several times throughout the day and there was no answer and then drove by at night, right before heading back to Logan and there were no lights on. They live in Harlan which is 30-35 minutes away from Logan and we usually only get there once a week for District Meeting. But we'll get in their door one of these days. 

Things are going alright with Scarpa and I. Nothing much has changed. He still does some things that get on my nerves but whatever, no one is perfect. Like now, for instance. I specifically told him not to get on any unapproved websites, and he's sitting next to me (he might not think I notice since there is a divider) playing a lego building computer game. He loves legos. He has bought easily over 100 dollars worth since I've been with him. Yeah and nerf guns. He also gets on amazon when he thinks I don't notice. But whatever I'm going to lead from the front and not from the back. Hopefully one day he'll get the idea. 

Oh speaking of amazon, there was something I wanted you to check out. If the music for Noah, was any good I might want the soundtrack. I got the soundtrack for the movie Son of God, last week, and it's aight. I mean it's done by Hans Zimmer so that automatically makes it good but not my favorite. 

Don't worry about ordering me the soundtrack for Noah, just let me know who the composer is and if was any good, and I'll find a way to get it. Probably Walmart, next time we are in Council Bluffs. I suppose we could go there today. 

So conference. It was pretty good. I honestly enjoyed the previous 2 more, but it was still very good. And yes Elder Bednar's talk was probably my personal favorite. Holland's was pretty good, President Monson's was as well, as was Uchtdorf's, as was Christopherson's, as was Presiding Bishop Stevenson's. There were many good ones. 

I will admit I "got a bit sleepy" during the middle 3 talks in the last session haha. But yeah it was good as always. You can't really go wrong with the Prophet and Apostles!

Well anyways, I need to get going. I hope everyone has a great week and stays safe. I love you guys!

Love,
Elder Ballif