Investigator Pool

Hey Family!

 

My week was pretty good I suppose. We had 14 lessons which is a pretty good number for here. I envy all those foreign missionaries and Utah missionaries. Always have something to do and someone to see and someone to baptize. But whatever I have to deal with what I have been dealt. 

Weight loss has continued to be good. It's up to 20 pounds now so yeah I'm pretty happy. 

I do have unfortunate news about CC and Daniel. They moved to Lewellen just yesterday kind of out of nowhere. It's probably good though. Daniel was not really progressing and didn't understand a lot of things. I think Crozier just wanted another baptism. I mean do too, but not if they're not prepared. And the Gibsons. Man don't even get me started. They are starting to lie to avoid appointments and it's quite frustrating. They lied to us at the door step a few days ago, saying we couldn't come in because Jeremiah wasn't there and their little kids were saying he was and that he was and they we lying. This was all right there at the doorstep. I don't know if they think we're stupid or something but yeah. 

Our only solid investigator's name is Taylor Harrahill. She is for sure getting baptized it's just a matter of when. Her mom is the Relief Society Pres. and stuff. Her dad is a little anti and wouldn't let her get baptized until she was 18 and now she is. She wants to get baptized on trek which is in July but our mission presdient says no "We have baptismal fonts dedicated for baptism" and I don't think she understands that he has stewardship over her. I think a lot of members don't understand stewardship. 

Well anyways. We're still working hard. We just need to clean up the investigator pool now. I hope you guys have a great week! About emailing yesterday. Yeah all of the places were closed so we're doing them today. 

Oh and I do have a question for Mom. Those Docker shoes give me blisters. So yeah Walmart has some nice Dr Scholls shoes for 30 bucks that are really comfy. If I could get them next week that would be awesome! 

Thank you! Love you guys! Take care and have a great week. I hope you guys had a great Memorial Day. And we did go to a BBQ. Held by 2nd ward haha. Yeah 1st ward isn't very good. Anyways. Love you!

 

Elder Ballif

Weather and Teaching Heating Up

Hey Family!

 

Well sorry for not writing back too much last week but there wasn't much to respond too ;) This week went pretty well. We had 16 lessons the most me and Elder Chappell have ever had. We were going for 20 but I got sick on Saturday and was throwing up so yeah we didn't go out but I'm feeling better now. 

Oh and mom that would be nice if you sent the Book of Mormon CD's. But if you want to use them then that's fine. Also didn't you guys send Austin some DVD's of documentaries about the geographical stuff about the BoM? I would love some stuff like that as well. And Mom the only thing on the list you should and are some short sleeve white shirts. I only have 1 that I got in the MTC. And I can't find them at Goodwill. It was 103 degrees last week and humid as tish. It sucks. But I'll survive and having some more short sleeves would help. 

As far as the investigators go I feel that Juan has progressed. As far as I know he is starting to read and pray more which is great. CC and Daniel and still smoking and chewing. Quote of the week "I can quit chewing easily. I've done it like 5 times." Yeah anyways the Gibsons are starting to make excuses how they're "too busy" but they don't work (not one of them) so I have a hard time believing that. But I think we have a set thing on the 24th with them so I hope that works out. 

But yeah, we're going to the driving range with Juan today so that should be fun. Golfing sounds really fun to me right now for some reason. And tomorrow we're going to Lincoln for a Zone Conference so that'll be fun. I've never been so it'll be interesting. 

And as far as reading goes I'm somewhere in the 40's in Alma. I'm still loosing weight so I'm happy about that. And we're having dinner with some of my favorite members in the ward, the Mendez'. Noe and Toni (Antonia). They are super cool. They have been members for about 4 years and just went through the temple a month or 2 ago. I'm excited for that. I'm doing well and I can't believe I've been out almost 4 months already. 

Oh and yeah there haven't been any tornadoes but there have been some pretty crazy rain and thunderstorms the last 2 nights. There was lightning literally ever 2-5 seconds. It was sweet. 

I love you guys so much! And miss you! I hope you guys are having a great week!

 

Love,

Elder Ballif

New Companion Elder Chappel from West Jordan, Utah

Hey everyone!

 

I'm doing pretty good. Elder Chappell (my new companion) is a beast of a missionary. Yeah I've lost 9 pounds since he's gotten here so I'm pretty happy about that. Yeah I loved Elder Crozier but we didn't work as hard as we should have. Anyways I thought it would suck but I'm actually pretty happy. He's a cool guy and a super good missionary. And Elder Chappell is from West Jordan, Utah so that's neat. 

And this transfers a lot of stuff happened to our district. We now have Sisters in Hastings (where Kool-Aid was invented and they are now in our district and used to not be) and Aurora got whitewashed (2 new missionaries) But Grand Island other than Elder Crozier stayed the same. Elder Chappell has been out for about 10 and a half months and has already trained twice and is and has been District Leader so yeah. Pretty crazy. He trained right after he was trained. 

And as far as I know Daniel is off tobacco and could have been baptized this week but it's not going to work out because he's struggling finding a job and they say they don't know if the church is going to pay for another month but I don't know we'll see. 

I've been a little slower with reading. I'm in Alma 26 but yeah I hope I can pick the pace up. 

This past week was pretty good. We ended up having 11 lessons and that's pretty good for P-Week (transfer week). 

I could stay in Grand Island anywhere from 1 more transfer or 3 more transfers so I don't know we'll see. Transfers are 6 weeks. 

That's sweet about the taxes. I'll try not to spend anything as far as my checking account goes. Maybe for some food at the end of the month if I don't have any or some ties at Goodwill ;) So yeah if everything works out, Daniel could be baptized by 5/18 I believe. I'm hoping it does work out. 

I love you guys and I hope you are doing good!

 

Love,

Elder Ballif

Talked in Church and Transfers Coming

Hey Family!

 

That's great about Shelby's farewell. I'm sure she's going to be a great missionary.   Hmm it will probably just be a lot like here as far as missionary work goes. Non existant. Well not really but The NOM mission is supposedly in the top hardest stateside missions. But I'm surviving. Oh and that sucks Missy Bevan is going to Iowa. That place. Oh my goodness. So backwards but whatevs. A lot of Indians there I'm sure.  We have one Sudanese family in our ward , the Ruans or Rials, and they awesome. Sister Ruan is so nice and humble. She is a single mother of 5 and still finds ways to get us money for food. She's awesome. But yeah they are all as black as or blacker than Tyrone Corbin. It's crazy. 

Well our week went a bit better. We reestablished contact with Juan so that was good. We will be meeting with him hopefully sometime this week. And Daniel said that he quit tabacco a few days ago so we're going to reset him sometime this week. 

And Elder Crozier will probably be getting transferred this week. I don't know but it will likely happen. So yeah Mom if you end up sending a letter don't send it unless you send it to the mission home or until you found out if I'm staying or not. And thanks for the 50 bucks! :)

 And as far as basketballs go we haven't been playing the last couple of weeks since we're not allowed to play at the YMCA anymore so yeah our church's court here sucks so yeah. I dont know I'll play it by ear. I really hope I can serve in Lincoln or Souix City sometime. I would like that a lot and from what I hear I the best places to serve as far as having an enjoyable time. 

Oh and Jenny Gibson is still not coming to church. Her husband has been having some issues but yeah I hope they get cleared up soon cause we already talked to him about it. Yesterday they said they couldn't make it to church because they had no gas but Elder Crozier said we could find them a ride and they said "No thank you" so yeeaaah..... Pretty frustrating. 

Oh and my talk went well. I talked for 15 minutes spot on apparently and talked about Member Missionay Work. Yeah I felt like our ward needs a lot of help in that aspect. Oh and our Ward Mission Leader is awesome. But he can only do so much. He's a convert and used to be a druggy and was on probation and all this stuff but now he's married in the Temple and is awesome. Brother Cantino. Alex Cantino. I'm sure you can look him up on FB and friend him or whatever you do. Oh and our Bishop gave us a refferal today so I'm pretty sure my talk worked because that was one of the things my talked stressed. I've talked about tracting before but yeah we don't hardly ever. We only have twice and our Mission President has said not to so I won't complain haha. 

Oh and that suit I got is a winner. It's black and whitish gray specked with lime green lines (not super prominent) and is a cowboy cut style so it looks awesome. Yeah I'll send a picture next week :) Well anyways I hope you guys have a great time in St. George! I love you guys!

 

Love,

Elder Ballif

Tough Week! Investigators still slipping up and Car Accident--Hoping things will improve!

Hey Family.

 

This week was pretty slow again. The less actives aren't progressing, the investigators aren't progressing and the members don't help which is actually the most important part of missionary work. When the members don't help the missionary work goes stagnant. 

We are still working with Daniel. He is just not ready to quit chewing tobacco. He had is baptismal interview and the DL Elder Hawkins (who is awesome) caught him with a can of chew in his pocket and called him out but he made excuses about needing the weight in his pants and some other bs. And then 2 days later me and Elder Crozier stopped by for an unexpected visit and he was chewing and when Elder Crozier asked why he had it in and he said "I didn't know you guys were going to stop by"   So at church Elder Crozier asked him what we needed to do to help him stop chewing and he said "Stop pushing me so hard" and we literally haven't pushed him hard at all. All we have said is you need to quit by this date to get baptized on this date. So yeah. We are not too thrilled with his behavior. 

Oh and I got in a car accident on Saturday. That was fun. It wasn't my fault though so yeah I'm not too worried about it but I still feel bad. Nebraska has a lot of "4 way go's" which is a 4 way intersection with no lights or yields or stop signs. Yeah pretty retarded since the drivers here have a hard enough time handling green means go and red means stop. Or and they don't know what a turn signal is used for I don't think. Yeah sarcasm but there is some truth. Anyways 4 way goes are yield to the rights so this old lady stopped and so yeah I thought she was yielding so yeah by law I wouldn't have to stop anyway and as I was starting to go through the intersection she pulled out and broadsided the car. Yeah she was driving a Buick tank so not really any damage on her car (it was an elderly woman) but the driver's door of the fusion is pretty messed up. So yeah I'm filling out church paperwork for that so it's just a lot of fun.  But on the brightside no one got hurt.

I hoping this week will improve. I had an individual fast yesterday for some help on some things and I hope it works out. I love you guys! Stay safe!

 

Love,

Elder Ballif

Upcoming Baptisms - Hopefully!

Hey Family!

 

This week was a bit slow--again. I'm sure I'll have a lot of slow weeks out here in Nebraska. Anyway we had to push Daniel's baptism off another week to the 27th. If he stopped chewing yesterday he would be fine for the 20th but we're doing the 27th just to make sure. And we may have another baptism on the 27th also. Her name is Jenny Gibson (she's been in the picture since I got here but I just haven't mentioned her) and yeah so her husband and mother-in-law were baptized back in February and she couldn't get baptized because she was on probation but she get's off probabtion tomorrow so that's nice. We're a little worried about them since they haven't really made an effort to come to church but Jenny came yesterday to sacrament meeting so that was good. 

 I bore my testimony in Sacrament Meeting so that was fun. I have a talk about missionary work on the 28th so I just so excited for that--but not really. I still don't like public speaking but I'm sure I get better as more time passes. 

 We haven't been able to get a hold of Juan for about 2 weeks now so yeah we don't know what's going on. He could be ignoring us or he could be in jail for the marijuana thing I don't know. 

 Oh and about Goodwill. Let's just say I have 5 suits now :) I'm sorry but I can't pass up suits. 2 of which I need to lose some weight to fit into but those are my favorite ones so that's some good motivation. And I get ties there. 

 This week should be good. We're planning on watching Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration with CC and Daniel so that should be fun. And then I don't know haha. We have to play a lot of things by ear and drop in because people here don't like setting up appointments. 

 Well I'm still pushing along in Alma. Oh and we did some service with Habitat for Humanity which was fun. As you guessed we're helping build a house for a family. 

 Anyways I love you guys! I hope you have a great week and stay safe! That's great about Mom's diet! I wish I could lose that much that quickly. Well I probably could I just need the motivation. Well I do but it would suck. Yeah anyways I love you!

 

Love,

Elder Ballif