I'm Not Dead Yet

All the girls going to Paraguay

Our Latin roommates that left

Rich y Brons

The day we got here. Playing mud soccer with the old North Americans.

The Sister I am hugging is from Spain. I love her so much. I am going to miss her!

Man another week gone by, I can’t believe I have almost been gone a whole month!

So there are a few things I keep forgetting to say. First off, when the new North Americans arrived we told them that touching this Nephi statue in the girl’s dorms every time you pass it, gives you good luck. So pretty much we started a CCM tradition. We didn’t tell them we made it up. That’s random, I know, but I think it’s so cool that they believed us. I’m excited for Megan Gilchrist to get here and for her to tell me if it’s still going on. Second, before the new Americans came, we moved our room around so our bed would be by the window. Now every night when I lay in bed I can see the temple shinning thorough my window. I love it so much.

So Halloween!!! I totally forgot to say Happy Halloween last week sorry. I loved seeing all the pictures. I think some of you have the wrong idea about emailing. I can read your emails all week because I print them. So don’t hold back. Send as much as you can. I love pictures too. I can print them off too. So ya, I just usually respond to the week’s before emails this week if that makes sense. So keep them up. I wouldn’t send anything else through the pouch or by mail because I only have like 12 more days or maybe less here and stuff keeps coming for the old missionaries and I feel so bad because who knows when or if they will ever get it. So email is good enough for me for now.
 
Ok now to the good stuff. Halloween was way fun. Everyone dressed up like their comps. I was Rozsa. haha I got to wear her clothes and badge and sit in her desk. It was way funny other than that it was a normal day except our teacher also brought us cookies and we got some candy from president, so that was fun.

Saturday was PROSALETISMO again!!! Oh man, it was soooo cool. We were in the same area and it was really cold, it has been raining a lot this past week. It was so cold I was wearing my rain coat. Which is huge because usually it’s really, really hot. Anyway we were just taking random turns and just looking for someone, anyone to talk to us. Then we realized we hadn’t said a prayer so we just stopped and said one and literally a few min after that we saw the house of our golden family from last week, the Scarlots. Guess what, the mother had just stepped outside to put something in the trash and saw us and just opened the gate and let us in like it was normal. We went in their house and sat down and we talked to them for a good 5 min just about their week and how they were doing. They told us that no other missionaries had come by, which made us sad because we gave their info to them. We asked them if we could share a message. It was soooo cool. We taught them all about the restoration and El Libro de Mormon. They said they went to our church long ago and they loved the spirit there but then they moved and never went again. The mother was really interested because she said she was divorced and that they were married now. She asked how our church feels about that because when she was divorced the Catholic Church she went to basically said not to come back. I told her that my parents were divorced and the gospel is what helped our family get through it. I bore my testimony to her of the truthfulness of the gospel. Of course this is just whatI was getting. She could have been saying something else, this was all in Spanish. But it was lucky because her husband kind of spoke English and if we didn’t know something, he would help us. They agreed to take a Book of Mormon and some pamphlets. It was so so cool. We prayed with them and I felt the spirit so so strong. We told them we would make sure the missionaries came by this week. We left feeling soooo good. The rest of the day no one really talked to us but we felt so successful. The best part is when we got back to the CCM and told our teacher she talked to the head teacher and he let us call the sisters over that area and tell them about the family and gave them personally the info. I stared crying so hard. I couldn’t even talk, Rozsa had to. It all just felt so real. I could see that family in white and benefiting so much from the gospel. I fasted for them on Sunday. We are anxious to hear something about that, but we may never because this Saturday we will be given a new area.

Sunday my district decided to do a musical number, I Stand All Amazed, this was a huge deal because the boys really didn’t want to, but we convinced them. It was so spiritual. I felt such a deep love for all of them, as we sang of our combined love for the Savior. Sundays are always the best, so much inspiration. We talked about enduring to the end. I kept thinking that missions are so so different than I ever thought, or at least mine has been up to this point. The best part is Heavenly Father is with us every step.

It’s hard because I know the CCM is about obedience but for some reason some of the rules are so hard to keep, like no pictures and not eating outside the caf. But I am doing my best to be completely obedient and I have definitely improved this week. It’s just such a slow process and I feel like I am nowhere near ready to leave.
When the new North Americans came we found out that they got a Spanish for Missionaries book that we didn’t get because they ran out and we still haven’t gotten. But the book is so good, it has all these lessons and worksheets to study. We have two other books but that one is like real lessons. We basically just have phrases. For the longest time I was so mad that they were progressing so fast, it’s hard not to be mad because we still haven’t gotten the book. We have one for our whole class, but I guess the Lord is trying to teach me something.
Ok, I love you all so much. I wish I could say so much more. I love you all. I hope you all had successful fasts. I had my first real 24 hour fast, I think I have ever done. It’s easy because they just don’t have food. ha It was way hard but I had some really important things to fast for so it wasn’t hard.

I love you

xoxooxox

Hermana Ball

PS: Each elder here reminds me of one of my brothers. Elder Burgess especially reminds me of Dan soooo much, he is from Canada. Everything he says reminds me of Dan and makes me miss dan so much. We have one elder, Eastmond, who reminds me of Mar. He is so thoughtful and is always leaving me scriptures to read when he sees I am sad. Elder Droubay, our district leader, reminds me of Ster. He is so business-like and dignified. He is also caring, but has to keep us inline. No one really reminds me of Bran yet, probably cuz no one is quite like Bran. Elder Neil is like Ethan. He is my best friend here. He always makes me laugh really hard because of his laugh. But at the same time they all drive meeee nuts! All summer I wanted to hang out with boys and now I am with them all day, every day. I wish we could just have a district of Hermanas, haha. But they need us, really they do. This week they kept throwing paper airplanes everywhere. 5 hit Rozsa in the face. It made her so mad, hahah so ya we have to parent them a lot, but that’s ok. I still love them.