First Week in 1st Area - Grand Island

Hello Family.

 

Yeah Grand Island is about 2 and a half hours away from Omaha with a population of about 50000. It's split up into 3 wards. I'm in the first ward and the poorer part of town. Just in case you didn't catch it fully, my address is 1304 W. Anna Street #B, Grand Island, Nebraska 68801. 

Grand Island is alright. I mean I still definitely need to get used to it. There are a lot of.. how you say... white trash people here. A lot of smokers, and former or current drug addicts. Also rednecks I guess could be another term. I can't understand a word they say sometimes. There's an older member that sounds like that grandpa on Napoleon Dynamite talking about shishoni arrowheads so that's always fun to hear him talk. 

The lady below us in the apartments definitely smokes weed, because it smells pretty darn bad usually every night out in the hallway. But yeah my P-day has been pretty good so far I guess. Me and my companion, whose name is Elder Crozier, went to a members house and did laundry earlier today and then went to Walmart and got some tish for the week. Now we're at the Library so that's been a blast. 

Grand Island and Nebraska in general is a very slow mission. People are not very receptive here despite hearing they were before I came. I hear the average amount of baptisms is 8 for an entire mission here. And my companion already has 8 and has only been out 5 months. But it seems it's going to slow down for a little bit. We need to find some new investigators for now because the ones we have currently are not too great. 

We taught 4 lessons on my first day so that was good. But yeah this place is definitely a lot different than Utah. But I just need to get used to it. I like my companion a lot. He pretty darn funny and makes this mission quite enjoyable. 

I had a pretty strong spiritual experience the first day teaching the Restoration to this lady named Sam on my first day. She is going through some tough times both spiritually and temporally and just isn't happy and I had her read Mosiah 2:41 and she started crying and I felt the spirit pretty darn strong. 

I'm doing good. The Relief Society President here is awesome. Her name is Sister McCain. I'm going to go play some basketball soon at the YMCA here so that should be quite fun. Until next time.

 

Love,

Elder Ballif