Another Week Down

So this week was filled with reading the scriptures, cleaning the house..... reading the scriptures..... watching The Restoration..... I did get to leave the house Wednesday, our Sister Leaders came! I was so grateful. I got to leave with one of my good friends, Hermana Richards! She is so great and we had a lot of good lessons. Thanks to this day we had three investigators at church Sunday! That was a huge miracle.

Also this week my head started to itch.... and itch and itch..... so one day my comp started to look in my hair and sure enough, I have lice.... but my loving companion sat for over an hour just picking out all the little lice eggs she found... I thought maybe I was going to get through the mission without having lice, but I guess not... It’s ok. I’m just learning to be humble and to really look to the Lord and to see what he would have me learn from all this.

Also our house was the cleanest it has ever been and I don’t know what happened but every bug in the world decided to invade. We had lizards, spiders, ants, and .... WORMS, that was the worst. We woke up Sunday to a floor full of white worms. I don’t know where they came from but when we got home from church they were gone, so that was a miracle.

Now my companion is all rested and we are ready to go! Today I start my last planner... that made me sad but I’m trying to not think about it. It’s weird. I know I only have 5 weeks left but I think I’m in denial. I just can’t accept it. I just feel like I’m going to go to a new area.

I love you all and I hope you have a great week.

xooxoxoxooxoxoox

Hermana Ball

I’m sorry this letter is lame. I promise it will be better this next week. 

Dengue Round 2

 It all started Monday, we were sitting with a family that has dengue, my comp started asking how they knew they had dengue, how they felt... (mom, it was like that one time when I sprayed you with bear spray and right when you read the part about it possibly making you go blind you said your eyes were burning) jajajajaj That’s how it was, as soon as they started saying symptoms they have.... my companion was like “I feel like that and that and that”.... I was like, what!!! You didn’t tell me you weren't feeling well. So we went to the clinic immediately, they did her blood work and well..... she has DENGUE! Despite my best efforts, she got it... I was so so sad. So, as of last Monday, I have just been in the house. It's given me a lot of time to think which isn't good when you only have 6 weeks left. Luckily we had interviews with president this week and he came to our house. He talked to us for a little bit and then he was about to leave to go give all the elders their interviews. I told him wait up I want my interview! haha So he took us each into the kitchen and we got to talk to him one on one. I really needed it. I told him I'm not upset this is happening again nor am I feeling like why me.... I just want to know what the Lord wants me to learn and what he would like me to be doing with this time in the house. President gave me a lot of advice. One of them was that maybe I am learning how to take care of sick children so I will be prepared for my kids... I didn't appreciate that comment. jaja But it is interesting that this time around it's my newbie that's sick and not me. I really have been taking care of her like a mom. It’s hard the first time you're sick in the mission field and I have had lots of opportunities to take care of her. I have also had lots of time to read. One day my comp slept literally 24 hours so I took the time to get through Alma. I literally read 150 pages in a day and a half. 

Even though we haven't been able to leave and work the Lord is blessing us. The familia Mercado have a daughter that's grown up and she has a son that has a lot of medical problems. We went to visit her but she told us that she won't ever be able to go to church. Then we got a call Sunday morning from her asking if someone could come for her because she wanted to go to church! That was a huge miracle that she was able to go to church!

I love you all so much and hope you have a great week. Pray that my comp can get better so I can get out and work again!!

LOVE YOU

Xooxoxooxox

Hermana Ball 

Pato! (duck)

So many things have been happening this week I just felt like I have been really applying what I have learned from my whole mission. Our branch is growing so much. When I got here the attendance was around 75 and yesterday we had 115!!!!!! Not only that, we had a lot of less actives and new converts and two investigators. Some days I feel like maybe I wasn’t able to give my all, mostly because we have to study 4 hours every day. That really is hard sometimes on the work, but then we get to Sunday and I see these people come to church and really want to be there and change their lives. I feel so humbled to be a part of the work. My hija (daughter) is helping me to apply things that maybe I have gotten lazy about - like looking for people to serve. The other day we were walking down the street and we saw an old woman, she told us later she is 95 years old. She was picking up these huge boards and moving them into her yard. My comp instantly goes over and we start helping her. It took like 45 min to get all the boards into the ladies yard. Here we are, two girls in dresses and a 95 year old and all her neighbors just sitting and watching. It was a cool experience and then she offered us some bread because that’s all she had to eat in her house. I left feeling very humbled. I wish I could say I didn’t grumble a little inside and think about the time we were wasting. But then when I saw the look on this woman’s face at the end it was all worth it. I love my comp!

 Wednesday we had splits with my best friend, Hermana Richards, who is now my Hermana Leader. Sadly I didn’t get to go with her. It was a cool experience because we wanted to find new people to teach and we really met our goal. We found like 7 new investigators that day.. so thank you Hermana Leaders.

 We have really been trying hard to ask for references. And this week everyone we asked gave us a reference!!!!! We still haven’t been able to contact them all! But one of them died the day after we received the reference. That was sad.

The family Mercado are doing great. Lorenzo is having some struggles, but we have kind of decided to stop focusing so much on him. There are lots of people in this house to teach. This week hna Martas’ nephew called her crying that he had nothing to eat. For a few days they had been starving. So she sent him money to come here and now he is living with her and he went to church on Sunday we have him on a date now. He is really sweet and I can tell he likes what we share. His name is Ismail. Hna Marta has started to love to cook for us. She makes us all kinds of crazy stuff that scares my comp, haha but I love it. I’m getting to the end of the mission and there are lots of things I still haven’t tried. This week we ate DUCK! I have never eaten duck before, but it was actually way good! They made me try the foot and the neck…. Not as good as the breast but that’s ok jaja. I love this family and they have all been getting really excited about sharing with their neighbors and people who come to visit them. This week we taught about tithing and we told them that they needed to start paying and that they would receive blessings. Well I guess I gave a little too good of a speech because President Vera told me that Sunday they paid a lot more then he thinks they needed to. They are just so willing to share and give all they have, even if they have nothing! We helped Marta wash the clothes in the river this week and I got up to get something and I feel hard on this big rock so now I have this big burse on the whole left side of my body… classic hna Ball……. It’s fine. I just can’t sleep on that side of my body.

 One last story. We contacted a reference we got the other day and it was a family named frutos spatteti. They are so so nice and have shared with the elders before. Basically they believe everything we believe they just don’t know about prophets yet and where is God’s church. I’m excited to start teaching them more.

 This week was truly filled with miracles, every night we come home just so tired and satisfied from a hard day’s work. I love Caaguazu. It reminds me of my training so much and I’m so glad that hna Gonzalez gets to start her mission like this. I love you all. Hope you have a great week.

Xooxxo

Hna Ball 

Baptism

It's been raining a lot.

Bautismo

Her first baptism.  I had to take a selfie . . .

This lady loves me because I look like her dead son's girlfriend
She gave me candy on Sunday, haha and didn't give my comp any.

This week was another week of miracles, the blessings of being with a new missionary. We taught Isabel last week. It was such a powerful lesson. She is so amazing, we taught with such unity and we really applied everything we have been studying. I was so happy with how it all went. She can’t meet us again until tonight so we really don’t know how she is doing. But this week she said we can start meeting more frequently. So I’m excited, but honestly I feel like she is going to be a huge miracle. 

In other news, two weeks ago there was a broadcast for all the missionaries in the world! Of course in Caaguazu the satellite wasn’t working so we didn’t see it then. But this last week we got to see it!!! It was so cool. They talked about if we want to baptize converts we need to teach more about repentance and speak more about Christ. I learned a lot.

Afterwards we had a retention lesson with a resent convert and we taught about tithing and it was so cool. We tried to apply all we have been studying and what we learned in the conference. It went soo good, think the district videos good! I’m so proud of mi hija (daughter) she is so quick at learning. But the bottom line is that we just feel like we have really been able to be instruments in the Lord’s hand. It’s cool when you leave a lesson and you just feel like you were able to be an effective instrument. I don’t always feel like that. 

In other news... EUGENIO got baptized!!!!! It was so amazing. We were scared he wouldn’t want to do it without his son, but he was chill. We even got his wife to sing a musical number with us. It went great. Marta is always inviting people to church. She brought one of the neighbor kids with her Sunday. I love them so much. I have seen our little branch grow so much these last two months here! This week we had 96 people at church, 1 investigator, 5 recent converts and are you ready.... 9 less actives!!! That’s the most of my whole mission!!!! It was such a tender mercy. 

I love Caaguazu!! I hope you all have a great week,

Xooxoxooxox

Hermana Ball

ROHAYHU

PS: ... people keep saying things like

cuando se va..... oh falta poco ya.     

Makes me want to cry.

(translation when do you leave...oh only a little bit left) I think that’s how you would say it in English, haha