Golden Investigator

Hey Family!

This week went pretty well. We weren't able to see Gary (we are going to try to set something up for tomorrow, perhaps) and we did not get to see Ron or Viki.

We went and tried to see Viki but she was recently diagnosed with cervical cancer (stage 1) and she just had surgery so she was resting. Hopefully we can get in contact with her soon. From what it says on the teaching record from about a year ago is that she was raised Jehovah's Witness and what not but when she met with the missionaries, she was super excited to read the Book of Mormon. Her landlord didn't trust missionaries, and they lost contact with her after the holidays. But she is moving to Missouri Valley really soon so hopefully we can start meeting with her more regularly.

Pam, however, is awesome. She is so golden it's not even funny. She just needs to marry her boyfriend of 11 years hahaha. Yeah they're living together but we're going to teach him as well and we're going to teach her step-son. The boyfriends name is Eric and the step son's name is Spencer. She was fully planning on coming to church yesterday, and Eric and Spencer were going to come along as well, but they run a long term motel/hotel thing called Hillside Cottages and I guess they had a ton of people moving in this weekend and they had to get all the rooms ready.

On the 8th they're going to have like 50 people move in and out, so we're going to help them get the rooms ready. And we have an appointment with them to do a lesson. We stopped by last night and basically just chilled there and got to know Pam mostly. Eric was doing stuff to get some rooms ready. Pam is super cool. She knows a ton of Mormons. And she has been to church several times when she was younger with some friends. She is going to be in Des Moines for conference but said that she will be doing a 5k there with her daughter-in-law who is a member so she'll probably watch it with her.

I'm pretty excited for conference. Ever since I've been on a mission I enjoy watching it. Other than that, this week was mostly filled with trying former investigators and street contacting. We placed several Book of Mormon's (that's the correct way to say it, not copies of The Book of Mormon, because it's a title) so we're going to follow up with those contacts this week hopefully.

It sounds like you guys had some fun in St. George. That's good that Austin seems to be doing well. I sent him a letter, and he should be getting it today. It may have been a bit too much fire and brimstone seeing how last I heard from him was Christmas so that's all I had to go off of. So tell him sorry if it was a bit much.

And that's great that everyone is doing well on the weight loss. I have lost some weight since getting to Logan so that's pretty neat.

And that's awesome about Cameron getting baptized so soon! Gosh I wish I could be there but whatever, I'm supposed to be out here.

Things are continuing to improve with Elder Scarpa and I. One thing I need to help him improve on is talking. I do probably around 90-95% of the talking and I need to work with him to get more comfortable doing so. And with Heavenly Father's help all things are possible.

So yeah things are going well over here in Iowa. The weather is good and the work is good. I hope everyone has a great week! I love you guys!
 
Love,
Elder Ballif