Happy Canada Day!!!!!! Today we celebrate 150 years of Canadian Independence!!!! Congrats Canada!!!! Also, Happy 4th of July!!! To celebrate the 4th I will be leaving the country!!!!!! I am SOOOO excited to get to Canada!!!! I have LOVED the MTC, but I am ready to get out into the real world of missionary work and help real investigators come to Christ!! My district has been so good, they are definitely some of my best friends now, especially my AWESOME companion Sister Larsen!!!! She has been so good and inspiring to me!! She definitely helped me stay distracted with the work when homesickness would've taken over!!!! My MTC stay has been so good, I have learned so much and know what I need to work on when I get out in the field, and know how to strengthen those areas of my life because of my amazing teachers!!!! Brother Croft, Anderson and Chappell all helped me so much to get to a point where I can confidently leave the country and teach the people of north western Canada!!!! Sister Larsen and I had 3 investigators while we were here at the MTC, and we love all of them!!! We are going to be really sad on Monday when we say goodbye to them!!! All of them have committed to baptism!!! Whoot Whoot!!! That would be even more awesome if they hadnt already been baptised and weren't already super strong in the church!!!!! While we were talking about the comfort the spirit brings to people one of our investigators asked us how you feel that comfort from the spirit all of the time. When told her that it was through Faith in Jesus Christ and being Baptised she basically asked us if she could be baptised!!!!! It is experiences like that, that make me so excited to get out the real mission world and bring that comfort and happiness and everything else that this gospel offeres us, to everyone.
This past week was the Mission President Training Seminar, so quorum of the 12 on campus for a good majority of the time. Even with that though, Sister Larsen and I never Saw any of them walking around, although some elders in our district talked to Elder Stevenson for a bit, before they ever realized that he was a member of the 12. They thought he was security!! LOL!!!! On tuesday, because most of the 12 was here, we had a closing devotional for the Mission Presidents going out, and 10 of the 12 were there!!! Everyone, but Hales and Nelson was seated on the stand to hear Elder Bednar and his wife, sister Bednar, speak!!!! It was such an amazing devotional about "the Word" and all that it means through out the scriptures, and how it applies to us. It was sooooooo good!!! And before the devotional started, the 2nd councilor of my branch presidency, brother Stucki, was walking to find his seat and he ran into Elder Oaks!!!Oaks was lost and didnt know how to get back to the stand, so brother Stucki helped him get back up there! LOL!!!!!
In other news... I am PRO at MTC 4 square now!!! Sister Larsen taught me, because I never played in elementary school, and now I dominate (sometimes) ;) My district has taken over 4 square!!! We are unstoppable!!!! And we LOVE it!!!! I also am able to run a lot farther than i used to be, and I can shoot a basket!! All thanks to Sister Larsen!!!!!
The Pilot Program that I was a part of was so good!! I dont know exactly what was different from a normal MTC stay, but I LOVED what i learned, and how i learned it!!! All of our classes were "unstructured" in the sense that our teachers would come to class with an idea of what we would do, but rarely did we ever do that!! We would start class by them asking us what we wanted to learn or work on, basically we drove the class and all of our learning!!! Our teachers would help us find the answers ourselves in the scriptures and give us tools and practices and other guidance to strengthen the skills we would find we needed to work on the most!!! Because of that I feel decently ready to get out into my field of labor!!!!!
I love you all!!!! Miss you bunches!!!!! <3/ Sister Ball <3<3<3
Last P-Day Sister Brock and I got to go to Jasper National Park!!! SO BEAUTIFUL!!!! This, like Jasper, are a testament of God and His love for His children!!!! Even with a ton of ash/snow in the air from the fires in BC, everything was absolutely awe inspiring!!!!! Every little bit of our trip to Jasper was amazing and was so fun!!!!! I will forever be grateful for the Valleyview sisters that invited Sister Brock and I along for the ride!!!!!! Also, we saw a bear!!!!!!!!!
