Hey Family!!!
So this week was better than the last. Things are improving with Scarpa and I'm getting used to the area. I was a bit concerned at first because Scarpa did buy a machete and bottle rockets (definite no-no's) this week. I had to shake my head on that one. I was praying really hard for help to say something that would get through to him without starting another argument. And I believe my prayers were answered because I didn't say much but it worked. He was looking athis bottle rockets and I said "so what do you plan on doing with those?" and he said he was going to light them off on the and I responded with "You know that it says straight in the white handbook to not have fireworks, right?" And he said yeah, and I left for a second to finish brushing my teeth and came back and explained that it's not like I hate fireworks, I actually love them but we are forfeiting blessing and success in the area by having them. He then thought for a bit and after my nightly prayer he said "Yeah I'm going to send all of that stuff home. Missionaries should not have this stuff." So I was pretty happy and relieved. He already has a box with the stuff in it almost ready to send home.
Anyways things are not too bad at all. Time is going by very quickly. I've already been here for basically a month. And the weeks fly by. We're still doing a lot of service but we've worked it out to the point were we try to get team-ups to go out with members to shorten the service we do. Sometimes it doesn't work out though, but hey at least we're trying.
Oh so about the miles. That rule is from the Mission President not headquarters. We have A LOT of extra rules haha. But whatever. I'm sure they're all there for a reason. But the miles actually aren't working out too bad. We still have plenty for the month and they're doing it by 3 weeks now and I believe we're doing pretty good.
We get a lot of team ups here so that's usually when we go to the further out places we have a team up with the RLDS convert. We had dinner with him and his wife. I looked through the RLDS Book of Mormon for a bit haha. The verses are quite different. Alma only has 30 chapters. I don't think they changed a whole lot but they made the verses different. Like 1 Nephi 1 has over 100 verses. We also have someone in the ward that is a direct descendant of Joseph Smith.
So the RLDS convert... Brother Hussings has been a member for about 7 months and he is already the Elder's Quorum President. He was the Pastor for the RLDS church (Community of Christ) up in Pisgah before he converted. They're going to start allow gays to receive to priesthood starting next month I believe and that was the final straw, when they started to have that go into consideration back when he left.
He has some people that we're going to go see with him to see if we can bring them back into the fold. It kind of helps when he knows like all of the RLDS people and seeing how most of them are upset with the gay thing I'm sure they'll be looking elsewhere.
Oh and that's pretty neat about Chrissy. And I know who Ky Kunz is. I believe the dad is a stockbroker.
Yeah I don't get to play a whole lot of basketball here. Every other week we've gone to the church and I shoot by myself while Scarpa does something else. It's a half court gym. Literally. There is one basket haha.
And the Zone Leaders live in Council Bluffs, like 30 miles away, so yeah we don't see them much.
Elaine is doing good. I'm trying to be a friendly as possible with her husband to gain his trust and we're going to try inviting him to church because if he okay's it, she will come too and will most likely be baptized. She really wants to go inside the Salt Lake Temple, so yeah she'll need to be baptized for that haha.
Oh and they're going to be going to Salt Lake and the Toole area in June for some sort of convention. We'll see how that works out. They've asked me what there is to do around there and I mentioned a few things among seeing Temple Square.
Well anyways I should get going. I hope everyone has a great week! I love you guys!
Love,
Elder Ballif
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