Baptisms and a Marriage

Hey Family!

I hope everyone had a fantastic week. 

My week was a pretty good one. It was very long though. Hopefully this next week will go by a bit faster. So Pam, Eric and Spencer should be good for baptism on the 11th. That is the plan. They will also be married on Saturday. So this week should be a fun one. 

I hope it all works out. Pam had to go to church in Des Moines, because she had to take their dog to the hospital for kidney failure or something in that nature. Which we 'ok'd' with the AP's so everything should be good. Eric, and Spencer went to church here yesterday so that was good. Eric had to take off after Sacrament because he needs to keep an eye on the hotel but he left Spencer for all 3 hours. To my knowledge he enjoyed it. 

Last Monday was a stressful one. We went to see Pam and Eric and they ended up calling the Mission President to see if they could plead their case to still get baptized on the 10th after the marriage. That didn't go over so well. Our Mission President ended up saying something that upset Pam and Eric. Something along the lines of "you don't get baptized for fun"... So Pam after that conversation said "Let's just not get baptized then" so as you can imagine it was very tense in the room. We were able to talk it over with her and Eric, and salvaged the situation. 

One of the reasons that was so stressful, was that I had no backup. Not a word from Scarpa. But the show must go on and it did. The baptism will be on the 11th. 

Oh so transfers are coming up next week, and I'm praying for something to happen. But if not then I'll try to make the best of the situation.

 So with Christian and Aaliyah. They still didn't come to church. I don't know what their mom is doing, but hopefully she doesn't cancel 2 appointments on us, like she did last week. The first lesson went so well. Hopefully these are legit reasons for canceling. And to her credit she did call us both times.

 We met a lot of less active members this week so that was good. We also got a new investigator named Jessie. She is super nice. We talked to her on the doorstep and talked about the Restoration and the Book of Mormon, and she took a copy. She seemed pretty interested and said that we could come back in a week to teach her more about the Church. She works for the Red Cross, so that's pretty neat.

 I make sure to get pictures of the marriage and baptism. That's pretty awesome about Cam's baptism. I'm proud of him. That must've been a cool experience. I wish I could've been there but I'll be there for everyone else's. Tell him congratulations, and Tori told me how he wanted to send her an invitation even though he knew she couldn't make it. Cam is the man. I'm glad he and the other kids like her so much. 

And Dad why didn't you tell me about about the Portland game?! I heard Damian had a pretty spectacular buzzer beater to win it. I wish the Jazz could've gotten him. 

Oh well. Well anyways I need to get going. Have a great week everyone! I love you guys!

Love,
Elder Ballif