Little taste of a singles ward

Hey Family! I hope you guys are doing wonderful. So some wild news for you, I am in Eugene now and will be there until I head home. I am serving for the last 10 days with the Eugene Zone Leaders: Elder Pututua (my #1 love) and Elder Thompson who was on my football team sophomore year at Davis. They cover the Eugene young single adult ward and I am very excited because I have really wanted a chance to serve in a singles ward. And now I get a little taste.

That is awesome that Ryan sent his papers in! It's going to be a great learning experience for him as it has been for me. I am going to make a soft guess that he will be going foreign but I can't put my finger on where. Ryan is a very unique boy, like myself but I think he will grow more in a different country. Maybe he will go to Japan...?

I have been reading the Book of Mormon lately, I stopped reading it for a while and just read church books like Jesus the Christ, but I missed that feeling that comes from reading the BOM so I decided to continue it again, I am in Alma.. I believe it is chapter 25 or so. I love Alma, he is my role model. Him and Shiz from Ether.... good stuff.  

The Church is true, God knows us personally and wants to help us if we but ask and try and help him to help us, he knows what each of us are going through and through our Elder brothers Atonement we can do anything we need to do!

I love you guys, I am excited to see you all and will see you next week!!

<3 Elder Ballif <3

Release letter from President Young

New Part Member Family

Hey, sorry that I could not reply to you earlier. Our Zone Leaders planned this all day event in Bend on Monday and it made it so we had hardly any time to do preparation or relaxing. I was joking about the whole 15th thing, I would be totally fine having it be on that day and definitely not on the 8th. Hopefully that doesn't screw up anything too badly that I am a little late with my message.

And, that would be fine to have a sleepover the night I get back with the boyos. I just hope that you guys have cleared time with the Stake President on the evening of the 5th to release me. That would not be fun to be home and not be able to do anything fun.

I am really excited that I will be back in a few weeks! Elder Mcmakin and I are having fun and working hard. We found a new part member family that just got married by our bishop and they are my age and they are pretty awesome. Ethan and Taylor. And Larry and Cheryl are still away in Salem with their Mother. We will try and call and see how they are doing this evening or tomorrow. Everything is going pretty well and we are excited for the ward.

I got Cameron's letter and to answer him I would love to have AT LEAST 5 sleepovers with you and Carsen. I am glad you love and think I am your best friend. I feel the same way. I love you buddy and I will see you soon!

The only thing I am curious about is the amount of money I will need to send stuff home early which I plan on doing on Saturday. I know I am going to need more money but I was just thinking what the best deal would be. I think I could just send everything in an empty bike box and I believe that costs about 45 dollars for a bike box sized package.. I will check into it but I think just to be save if you could put like 100 dollars in my account and whatever it doesn't take, you will be refunded.

Anyways I love you all and will see you in the same amount of days as the jersey number for META WORLD PEACE!

<3 Elder Ballif <3

The book is blue and the church is true

Hey Family, i love you all! hope you had a fantastic week.

thanks for the info about the flight and all that jazz. At least I know that "I will have plenty of time to pack". (I will be packed about 3 days before the day I leave) But its all good. 

Well we saw the Arnold's last week on Thursday with our ward mission leader and that went great! they are just great people and I will miss them when I leave. I really hope things can work out for them and they can get baptized before I go. I would love to baptize them. But I am just being patient and hoping it will work out no matter what! 

Elder Mcmakin and I are getting along great. He is a # 1 Stunner. We are having fun and working hard and we just hope and pray the Lord will bless us with some wonderful miracles like I know he can and already has with us. We have a lot of appointments set up with people in the next few days so next week should have a lot more information with our investigators but for now I don't have much to tell you other then we have been tracting and trying to contact less actives and part member families all week.. but things feel good here and I love the support we are getting from the ward and all the great people here in Redmond. 

One cool thing was we had interviews with the mission president yesterday and those went great. He told me that we have grown close these several months and he hopes that continues after this mission is over. (I dunno what that even means)

Anyways, 

the book is blue the church is true,

the Savior DOES live and God does answers heartfelt prayers.

Have a good week!

love, Elder Ballif