Merry Christmas! Oh wait, that´s next month. It just seems like it´s already here since everyone is talking about it in their e-mails and we already started listening to Christmas hymns forever ago :). Mom, loved the idea about finding an ornament to bring home from here. I´ll make sure to do that.
Sounds like Halloween was a blast! Here, they don´t really celebrate it, but after arriving in our house that night, we dressed up, bobbed for apples and ate caramel apples that I attempted to make. The caramel just broke a few teeth, but everyone´s okay ;). So cool that Steven won a prize for his costume, wooohoo! I hope that Grand Dad gets home safely. Always praying for him and his well-being. And sounds like Helen´s funeral was a good experience. Mom, please don´t talk about 'your turn'! Que susto! Glad you´re enjoying your classes. That´s cool that you got the opportunity to be the 'teacher' for a class. I´m sure you did great!
So this week was a pretty normal week. We´re still looking hard to find people that go beyond the first or second lesson and make an effort to wake up for church. It´s funny how the Lord´s timing is. Yesterday, I was talking with Sister Lopez about this, but a bit more hopeless. And today in my personal study, I read something that opened my eyes. I read a story from one of Presidente Uchtdorf´s talks where he spoke of a woman who spent her life dreaming of being the perfect mom and perfect wife, but ended up a single elementary school teacher. She often was very bitter that her dream hadn´t come true and failed to recognize that, although the Lord hadn´t blessed her with children, He had blessed her with the opportunity to change the lives of hundreds of children as a teacher. He said that many times, when we´re looking for the beautiful red roses, we often times fail to recognize the beauty of the countless forget-me-nots around us. It really helped me to realize that even though we may not be finding people who want to accept the gospel and be baptized, we´re being able to help countless other people and I´m being blessed more than I know.
Yesterday after church, the young women walked with us to lunch. They paired off with us and practiced being missionaries for a missionary activity that they were going to have a little later at the stake center. The young woman that stuck with me was such an example. She literally stopped every single person in our path. It didn´t matter what in the world that person was doing, if they were almost sleeping of boredom or incredibly busy, she talked with them! We helped the young women learn how to make contacts and ask for addresses to share a message with everyone, and they did so well! It was a great experience for me to see their determination to share the gospel with everyone. As for investigators, we´re trying to help a few right now think a little longer and pray a little more before giving up on the gospel. But that´s about it. I love you all so much and am so grateful for your love and support! It means more to me than you´ll ever know! Have a fabulous week and keep on keeping on!
Com amor,
Sister Ball
Modeling our dresses before having them made
With E, an investigator and mom of two little girls who were baptized a year ago.
We made banana bread!
The most monstrous hot dog I´ve ever eaten... can you see how the members are trying to make us fat?
One last photo of our cool district before Elder Gross went home... our LZs weren´t there, but that´s all good.
Happy Halloween! Sister Lopez was a doll, Sister Bento tried to be Pocahontas, I was Rapunzel, Mouri was Pastel and Sister Barros was Mrs. Claus.
We carved a melon with the baptism symbol
With my new 'comp', Bianca! Yesterday, the young women helped us talk with everyone in the streets and Bianca teamed up with me.
With Superman! On this same day, we ran into The Incredible Hulk too!
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