"I can honestly say that I needed my mission more than anyone else"

While it just snows more and more there, the sun gets hotter and hotter here. Don´t be too surprised if I return home a bright red tomato! But I´m really hoping all that snow sticks around. The Lord knows how much I´m praying for this wish to come true haha. Yes Mom, I still have so much to learn, but here on the mission, I´ve learned things that I wouldn´t have discovered any way other than being a missionary. I can honestly say that I needed my mission more than anyone else. Of course, I came here to serve the Lord and His children, but the person who has been most benefited is me. I´ve learned what my strengths are, but most important, my weaknesses, and how I can change them. The mission is an incredibly eye-opening experience, one that I´d never give for anything in this world.

Noelle, thanks for the e-mail! I hope you get better... I´m proud of you for choosing to work on a church lesson over going to a fun-filled party. Woohoo! Sounds like Steven´s basketball team is going to rock! And glad that Uncle Dan is getting to spend time with Grand Dad. I´ve already written a Happy Birthday card for him, along with a bunch of other letters, but it´s just always a matter of when we´ll get around to visiting the post office. Speaking of cards and letters, tell everyone thank you so much for sending Christmas cards! I got some from you guys, from Nana and Pops, the Priebes, the Fagans, the Kelly fam aaaand the Karrens! I love you all and am super grateful that you remembered this gringa here in Brasil. You guys rock.

I guess it can be a bit hard to give talks because of our 'training', but to be honest, we don´t really have a strict way of teaching the lessons, so it´s a little easier to expand on what we want to say if necessary. I don´t really know how to say what I´m trying to say. Basically, in the CTM, they trained us to teach the lessons in a super short amount of time, if necessary, but we also learned how to teach the same lessons during a longer period of time. Giving talks isn´t too hard... I think the hardest part is just the fact that we don´t have access to all the same materials as everyone since we don´t have computers to use the church website whenever we want, or church manuals. Does that answer your question, Mom? And there are a lot more colorful houses here than there, that´s for sure! Not every house is as cool and colorful as Bispo´s, but there are a lot of red, orange, pink, blue, green, and yellow houses here :).

As for this week, we didn´t get to spend as much time in our area as usual, but the Lord blessed us and made up for the time we missed. We saw many mini miracles that happened throughout the week! We had a leadership meeting in Maceió on Tuesday with an excellent training on our desires and how we can make goals and plans to acheive those desires. Our greatest desire as the Lord´s servants (which is all of us!) should be the same as His--the 'immortality and eternal life of man'. To accomplish that desire, we need to make goals and plans to reach those goals. We talked about how God created everything spiritually before He made His creation physically and how we need to do the same; we need to create our weeks and our days spiritually by planning so that we can carry out those plans physically by actually doing. I also went on exchanges with Sister Gama this week and, even though it was to help her, I learned a ton. Through her example, I was reminded of how important it is to testify of Christ in all we say and do. At every opportunity she had, she testified of Christ and His gospel and the happiness that she has because of Him. I´m going to improve in this and hope we can all do the same. I love our Heavenly Father and our Savior, Jesus Christ. I´m so grateful that they have blessed us with the opportunity to experience true joy together with our families throughout the eternities if we simply live the gospel. I love each of you and hope you can all have an incredible week.

Com amor,

Sister Ball

 An area of Maceio

 A wonderful Sunday lunch with a wonderful family

Our serenading, accordion-playing Sergipiano friend  :) 

With a caju downtown

Happy New Year All!

Ah família, I don´t have a ton of time left but I loved reading all of your e-mails. I´m hoping and praying that all this snow can stick around until March! It makes me so happy thinking about how much it´s snowing there :). Glad you all had an eventful New Year´s. Hope everyone´s adjusting well to being back in school... it´s always tough to go back, but that´s life, I guess! From the pictures, it looks like you all had a great time with Tina. Love you guys! I laughed so much about what some of the kids designed for the Primary spotlight hahaha. I love Primary! I´ve only been able to visit the Primary a few times because we usually stay in Relief Society, which is always wonderful too. Mom, thank you so much for helping those sister missionaries. I haven´t had to walk in freezing weather like they were, but I can´t tell you how happy and grateful we are when a member stops to help us or give us a ride. Missionaries walk... a lot! I hope you can continue to help out the missionaries in every way possible! Referrals, dinners, rides, FHEs with friends, making visits, etc. We love receiving help from members because that´s really how missionary work should be! Thanks again for saving those sisters´ freezing little legs haha.

So this week with the world celebrating New Year´s, our success in numbers wasn´t spectacular. But we had success in helping those who were really in need of help and serving how Christ would serve. Yesterday, we went to visit an investigator that´s a bit hard to find home. We caught her there though, and sat down to visit her. I gave the opening prayer and as soon as I finished, she told us that she wanted to introduce her to a young lady who´s been living with her and really needs help. So she called this young lady and left, saying she´d remark with us. The young lady sat down and all we had to ask was what was wrong. She began telling us everything. (This is something that amazes me as a missionary. The people tell us their lives so easily! Sometimes we don´t have to say anything... they just start talking.) Through the experiences she told us, her feelings and the Spirit, we were able to teach a lesson that was especially for her. It was so great as the Spirit led us and told us what to say and share. In the end, we gave her a Book of Mormon. She happily accepted it all and accepted to start praying, to exercise her faith in a God that she doesn´t even know really exists or not.

It´s moments like these that make my mission what it is. I´m grateful that we´re here to help others and learn together with them. I hope you´re all well and love you all so much!

Com amor,

Sister Ball

P.S. I´ve received some e-mails from some friends and family and I apologize for still not managing to respond! And thank you to the Gilleys, the Kelly family, the Smidts and Tina for your Christmas cards!! Love you guys!

Here are some pictures from our NYE celebration and feast at the Bishops house, Shoveling dirt, Our Christmas decorations, drinking chimaera a specialty from Porto Alegre, churrasco (Brasilian BBQ), and poor Sister Custodio with tummy pains, but she's all better now!

Feliz Natal 2014

(Bri sent this email out, but I thought I'd post it on her blog as well!  Sorry it's late)

My dear friends,

Another year has come and is already almost gone. What happened to 2014?! This year flew by so much faster than what I was expecting. At least we´re here in the best part of the year though, my favorite time of the season! Since Christmas is all about giving and being thankful for our Savior´s humble birth, I wanted to thank each one of you for giving me your friendship and helping me be more happy and feel loved. I wish so badly that I could send an individual e-mail to each one of you, but know that because you´re receiving this e-mail, you´ve played an incredible role in my life. If it weren´t for many of you, I don´t think I´d still be here as a missionary. If it weren´t for others, I wouldn´t be as happy as I am now or love others as much as I do now or be as chubby as I am now (por aquelas irmãs daqui ;) or have all the amazing and unforgettable experiences that I´ve had over the years. I am so grateful for each one of you. I hope that, not only this week with Christmas approaching but everyday, that we can remember and thank our Heavenly Father for Christ´s simple and humble coming into this world--that we can recognize the miracle of His love in our lives and make an effort this next year to give a little of ourselves to accept His invitation 'Come follow me' and follow Him. I know that as we do this, He will bless us with more joy, peace and spiritual strength to overcome our difficulties. I love each one of you more than you´ll ever know. Thank you for all you´ve done for me and your grand examples you´ve been to me. Have a very merry Christmas and happy new year!

With love,

Sister Ball

Meus queridos amigos,

Mais um ano chegou e já está acabando. Cadê 2014?! Esse ano voou muito mais rápido do que esperei. Pelo menos estamos na melhor época do ano! Como Natal seja uma época de dar e ser grato pelo humilde nascimento de nosso Salvador, quero agradecer cada um de vocês por ter me dado sua amizade e ter me ajudado ser mais feliz e sentir mais amada. Quero tanto poder mandar uma coisa individual por cada um, mas saiba que você está recebendo este e-mail porque teve um grande papel em minha vida. Se não fosse por muitos de vocês, acho que eu não estaria aqui ainda como uma missionária. Se não fosse por outros, não estaria tão feliz nem amaria tanto nem estaria tão gordinha kk nem teria todas as incríveis e inesquecíveis experiências que tive na minha vida. Sou tão grata por cada um de vocês. Espero que, não só durante essa semana de Natal mas todo dia, que possamos lembrar de agradecer nosso Pai Celestial pela simples e humilde Vinda de Cristo ao este mundo--que possamos reconhecer o milagre de Seu amor em nossas vidas e fazer um esforço nesse próximo ano de dar um pouco de nós mesmos, aceitar Seu convite "vinde a mim" e então O seguir. Sei que se fizermos isso, Ele nos abençoará com mais alegria, paz e foça espiritual para vencer nossas dificuldades. Amo vocês mais do que imaginem. Obrigada por tudo que têm feito pra mim e seus grandes exemplos. Feliz Natal e Ano Novo! 

Com amor,

Sister Ball

(me desculpe por qualquer erro que escrevi)

It's Beginning to Feel A Lot Like Christmas!

Can I just say how impressed I get reading your e-mails and hearing about how fast David and Steven are growing up? Glad they had fun at Steven´s birthday party. He deserves it. And that´s even more wonderful that he wasn´t embarrassed to hug and thank you! I think my mission is making him more Brasileiro than me! :) Tell him that I want to see all his cool sporty presents when we Skype next week, okay? Oh and I want to hear David singing :) Good luck to Mom and Noelle on your finals this week. I´m sure that you´ll both do wonderful and will be praying that you can remember what you need to so that you can ace those tests! And thank you for sending me Courtney´s e-mails! I´m not getting them, but I got the two that you sent this week. Glad the little note got to her. I sent it with a young man leaving for the mission here and I guess he managed to find her! It shouldn´t be too hard to find a gorgeous blonde Sister Barbie though :). Aaaaand thank you so much for the shirts and ring. I really really appreciate it!

This week was wonderful. The biggest highlight was probably our Christmas Conference in Maceió. I loved being able to see all my friends that are still here in the mission and catch up with them. Presidente and Sister Gomes gave great talks and panettone (I think it´s fruit cake there... how did I never know that I love that stuff?!) and we had a talent show that was wonderful! Sister Lopez and I sang together and my district did a presentation that everyone loved, not to be modest or anything haha. We sang the cup song and rewrote the words to fit with the mission and Christmas.

This week, I also met an incredible young woman, Jaqueline. Sister Custódio met her last week on exchanges and we visited her again this week. She´s dating a young man from the other stake who´s going on a mission soon and was super curious about the church, so he set up a visit with us. When we got there, she was so excited! She whipped out her cell phone and started showing us all the photos she took on Sunday there at the church for her first time. She already knows pretty much everything about the gospel because her boyfriend is a great future missionary and she´s soaking in everything. She was so happy to receive a Book of Mormon and the Spirit was wonderful as we read it together with her. I´m excited to see where this young woman goes and hope that everything goes well for her baptism soon.

So those are the best parts of this week. Lots of other things happened... oh! We have transfers tomorrow but everyone stayed :). And Mom, Nordestino is someone from the Northeast... Northeasterner? Sei lá. But okay, I think that´s all. I love you guys! Can´t wait to talk with ya next week! Christmas is next week! Can you believe it? Nope. I know I can´t. Tchau tchau e até mais!

Com amor,

Sister Ball

 Yeah!  I finally get to wear my sandals!

Painting Bispo's house

Lunch with Bispo and family

Colorful parrots!

Panda's and Sister Ball love Nana

Feliz Natal Workshop

A Brasilian Nativity

Christmas Conference in Maceio

Seeing Growth From the Seeds I've Planted

Hey Fam Bam! Sounds like you had a great Thanksgiving weekend. Wish I could have been there to celebrate with you all, but we had a pretty good time here too. Our Thanksgiving consisted of three banquets during three days. On Thursday, the elders in our district prepared a wonderful breakfast for us in the church. They earned brownie points! On Friday, I spent most of the morning in the kitchen and we had a Thanksgiving feast in our own house for lunch with two other sisters who´s lunch fell through. And on Saturday, Talita, an irmã in the ward, prepared another feast which was followed by a delicious torta (sorry, I´m really not remembering this word in english!) that an irmão made for dessert. All in all, it was fabulous. Our area is great. It´s the 'interior', or more rural, but not as rural as Eduardo Gomes. It´s far away from the coast. And there are mosquitoes but nothing like Eduardo! I think I´ll be finishing my mission here, but who knows. I just hope I don´t have to pack my bags again before having to pack up for the last time and heading home. I don´t really like packing my bags for transfers haha. The work is going well! To answer your question, Mom, as sister leader trainers, we have leadership councils, take care of four sister missionary companionships and go on exchanges with these sisters to help them in their areas and also to help us out :). This week, I went on my first exchanges as a sister leader trainer which was exciting. I think I was more nervous than the sisters that I was supposed to help out! But it all went super well. I love the miracles that happen during exchanges. On Thanksgiving, I worked in Sister Sleeman´s area (which is my old area here in Socorro 1) and it was a great day. They´ve been having difficulty finding people to teach and it seemed that everything went right that day. We managed to find lots of people ready to hear the gospel who were open to our message. I love being back where I already worked, one of the reasons being because I can see how the seeds that I planted have sprouted. Sometimes as a missionary, we get a little hopeless because it seems that we´re just spending the months planting seeds. Seeing the effect of these 'seeds' has been one of the greatest blessings! For example, Sister Sleeman and Sister Caetano decided to start teaching a lady that I spent a lot of time teaching when I was here before. I can´t tell you how happy I was when I found out that  she´s reading the Book of Mormon and is in Helaman. Her daughter uses the CTR ring I gave her and this Sunday, they all came to church for the first time! It´s also great seeing other people that were my investigators as recent-converts now. Well, that´s my life these days. The miracles we´re seeing are wonderful. We´re working hard and hoping to have baptisms this Saturday. Pray that everything will go as planned! Tell Steven, Kendall, Jack Carroll, Kacy Johnson, Britney Spears and all my other December 2nd birthday friends Happy Birthday for me! That I love them so much and hope they have a wonderful day! There´s a birthday card in the mail for Steven, that stud of a brother of mine. I love you all bunches! Have a wonderful week and Happy December!!! 24 days until Christmas.

Com amor,

Sister Ball

Sis. Sleeman and I trying on heels with our dear friend, S

My first exchange with Sis. Pew

Plate full of Thanksgiving food from our lunch with an irma on Saturday ... soooooo good!!!

Thanksgiving breakfast with our district

Thanksgiving pie from our lunch with an irma on Saturday ... soooooo good!!! 

We made pumpkin pie!!!  Ah, que saudade!

Our Thanksgiving banquet that we cooked up for lunch 

Our Thanksgiving banquet that we cooked up for lunch 

Our Thanksgiving banquet that we cooked up for lunch 

Santa and Coca Cola

Yummy Chicken feet!

Yummy Chicken feet!

Fun Reunion!

Heyo! So everyone´s talking about this new Meet the Mormons movie. I´m excited to see it when I get home. Mom, that story about the candy man was the theme of the Christmas devotional that I went to a couple years ago at Temple Square. Loved it! Sister Custódio goes home in January, so we still have Christmas together... the same time of year that we spent together last year! I opened a few things from the boxes, but nothing wrapped in gift paper yet. I used the blouse that Nana sent for a leadership council. There, I got to see Sister Barker!!! 

This week was pretty good. We found lots of new people to teach and miracles are happening. The majority of these people need to get married. And unfortunately, the place where people get married legally is closed until January or February. But I have faith that we´ll continue to find people who are married legally or single. It´s going to be great :). One of our investigators is "married" and  has four childen, one died in a car accident a few months ago. When the sisters met her, she was completely depressed and just wanting to escape this life. I didn´t know her during that time, but from what she´s told me, she was absolutely miserable. You´d never be able to tell though. Today, she´s a woman of incredible faith. She´s at church every Sunday and, despite some difficulties that she´s going through, she recognizes the change that the gospel made in her life and has faith that everything will work out. I´ve never met someone with such desire to be baptized!  I´m excited for the day when she´ll enter those waters. I´m so grateful for what I´ve learned from her and so many other people we meet here every day. These people are truly incredible. Sorry the e-mail is short this week, but know that I love you all and appreciate all the love and support. Hope you have a wonderful week, full of thankfulness and turkey. Gratitude is something incredible. It can cure everything. Love you guys! Boa semana e feliz Dia da Ação de Graça!!!

Com amor,

Sister Ball

Off to Leadership Council for the first time together! 

 Got to see Sis. Barker for the first time in 8 months .. OH HAPPY DAY!

With all my 14 month old mission buddies 

Together again with some of my favorite sisters from Grageru 

Trying to take a picture in front of Feitosa and the Maceio lighthouse, but I don't think you can see anything!

With Sis. Custodio

With Sis Lopez and a letter that Elder Woodbury wrote for us ... we had to put our two letters together to understand what he wrote us!  Hahaha 

Happy 14 Months Sister Ball!

Cutting a coconut with style 

Drinking agua de coco 

Jesus + Work = Success

Christmas and Airplanes

2 months for Sis. Custodio and 3 for me!  Don't worry, we're still focused and loving the work :)