Bed Bugs Arghhhhh!!!

Hey there Family!

 

Well I don't have a whole lot of time so I'll just start of by saying Happy Birthday Mom! And Kim and Ellie! I forgot to say that last week. I always forget about that stuff, even with the calendar you guys sent me haha. Sorry.

 

Things have been good this week. We went on 3 exchanges this week so we were pretty darn busy. One with the AP's so that was fun. Elder Scott, my MTC companion is an AP so I went with him. It was a lot of fun to be back together. The low light of the week was that we got bed bugs. Gosh dang it. We have no idea how, but we've been cleaning like crazy and I think, and hope we got it all taken care of. I had no idea those things even existed until I came to Nebraska. They're really gross. To make matters worse, our bishop helped us out by buying mattress covers and what not which is good, but he ended up telling everybody in ward council about it, and then they people of ward council told everyone in the ward so now everyone in the ward knows, and doesn't want us over right now. We're like a couple of lepers. But oh well. 

We weren't able to see Big Mike this last week, but we did see Neila and Sheila. They're doing really well. They're set for baptism in December, which I know Neila will make if her health allows it. She is so solid. She's such a nice old black lady haha. Austin came to church again. I don't really know what's going to happen with him. His family is really broken and just does not a have a good mom. But that family that is helping us out with them is awesome.

 

Things are getting better and better as a Zone Leader. I'm adjusting better and Elder Edwards has been good for me. He has helped me improve a lot. There have been some growing pains though haha. I am really glad I am able to experience this. It has been stressful, but I'm becoming a better missionary. This week should be good. We're going to see Meet the Mormons again tomorrow with a less active and his girlfriend. Actually that reminds me. There was a preview for a new movie coming out about a Christian Rock band called Hillsong. If you guys could, could you please, pretty please send me their CD. I'm getting tired of the Christian Rock all of the other missionaries have. PLEASE! Hillsong....Well I need to get going. I need to fill out a survey on LDS.org. We have a general authority doing a mission tour next month so I guess this is in preparation. I love you guys! Have a great week everyone!

 

Love,

Elder Ballif

New Shoes and New Investigators :)

Well hey there family.

 

I hope everyone is doing great! My week was pretty good. We got some new investigators and had some good lessons. Zone training was this past week. That was fun. It was basically District Meeting but with a lot more people. And we have a lot more leeway on the trainings was give. We ended up talking about a plethora of things. Desire, hope, potential, acting, and not procrastinating, and tied it back to goal setting. It was fun. And then we went to Huhot after, which is a really good Mongolian grill buffet place. This is random, but I just looked over at this whiteboard here in the library, and it says movie night, waffles and soda. Man this place is confirming all the stereotypes of black people. Everything is true hahaha ;) EVERYTHING.

 

Well as far as missionary work goes things have been picking up :) We got a new investigator who goes by Big Mike. He's is pretty cool. He was outside working on his truck and we went up and offered to help him. We just talked a little bit and then he asked what we actually do, and then we got into a big discussion on religion, and we talked about prophets and he wants us to come back and show him stuff from Thomas S Monson. Apparently Edwards has talked to him before but he has shown no interest so it's pretty cool to hear how that has changed. We are still working with Neila and Sheila. Neila is progressing a ton. She is gobbling up everything we tell her. We got a large print BoM so she can start reading. I don't know if I've mention him, but we're also working with a 9 year old named Austin. His mom is an excommunicated member and it just a super broken home, but he has been coming to church with a family who we're getting pretty tight with. We actually taught their FHE lesson last night and had dinner. It was homemade lasagna and it was awesome :) Yeah I heard about BYU. That's too bad, but oh well haha. That's awesome about the Jazz. That's actually some great news. How does Exum look?

 

Hmmm responsibilities? Well if there are any announcements we are the ones to get them out to the Zone. Also if there are any companionships struggling we need to take care of it. Apparently it's pretty common in this Zone. There's some specific missionaries, that even argue at church. It's pretty ridiculous. And one of them has like 5 months left and is kind of giving up, so we're going on exchanges with them, and I'm going to talk to him. We get along pretty well actually. We go on a ton of exchanges. We're going on 3 this week with the average being 2. We also make sure everyone is doing what they should. We stay pretty darn busy, which has been great.

 

Oh so I bought some new shoes. Not crocodile skin. I decided that I wasn't black so yeah. They're some really nice lighter brown shoes with a nice design. I also got a belt that matches, all for a total of 52 bucks. I hope that wasn't too much. I got them at Burlington Coat Factory. I'm still going to check that Leflore's place out to see if there anything. If so Burlington has a 30 day return policy.

 

Well I should get going. I hope everyone has a great day! Things have been going really well here. Still a little uncomfortable being in the minority with all the beautiful people of color here but I'm getting there hahaha. The gospel is true!

 

Love,

Elder Ballif