Elder Ballard in Brazil: 100 pages, transfers, and more miracles!

This week has been great!! I once again was taught an amazing lesson this week. One day I was just thinking a lot about gratitude and humility. I realized a really cool and interesting thing about human nature... For some reason, it's human nature to be angry/sad when things negative happen, but when positive things happen, we almost always just accept it as being "neutral". For example, we wake up and say, 'Dangit! I have a cough today how lame is that!' But the day before we didn't wake up and say, 'Hooray!! My throat is perfectly healthy today! What a blessing!' We always accept good things as just being neutral or what it 'should' be. As I realized this it opened up a whole new world of gratitude for me. We have countless things to be greatful for that we don't even realize until they're gone. For instance, all of us have control of both sides of our body. The recent convert here, Clovis, can only move his right side. I've never heard anyone ever say that they are grateful to be able to move both arms or both legs or whatever. But as I've thought about it more it's really helped better my attitude in all things out here. As I've looked at the "neutral" things I have and realized how positive they really are, it's totally began to crowd out the unpleasant or ungrateful thoughts. I think this is truly a way we can become more grateful and more positive in life, because with me, rather than saying "Man, I'm tired of not being able to understand everything people are saying..." I can say, "Man, it's so great that I had 2 months of spirit-led training in the MTC, a companion here that helps me all the time, scriptures to read in portuguese..." That list could go on and on and on. Such a great lesson I've learned with that!

Jonatan and Henrique!

This week has been great though, we continued to work with Douglas and Iony's family, with a son/brother named Henrique, and then also a neighbor of theirs named Jonatan. They are both super stoked about the church, and all went amazing and they were baptised last Sunday!! I can't believe how much the Lord is blessing this area, it truly is amazing. We're working with a sister in Douglas's family, as well as with Jonatan's sister, and it's amazing what families and connections with other members can do for people. So on monday we got a call from President saying that Elder Fernandes will be transferred!! AH! Holy intimidating! I've only been here for about 4 weeks and now I'm going to be teaching a new elder all about the people and area here! So this morning, we got on the bus, met up in Belo, and now I'm with my new companion, Elder Fife. That sure went fast didn't it :P So he's the senior companion obviously (he has a year a 5 months or so) but I'm still gunna have to pass the reins of Elder Fernandes onto him, and it's gunna be a crazy next few days! He's great though and I'm extremely excited. We're going to try and keep this pattern of baptisms up for as long as possible, and I'm sure these miracles will keep happening as we keep our faith strong, and continue to strive to work and be obedient. That's what I love about missions, even though everything is hard and crazy out here, it all comes down to those simple principles of work, faith and obedience. Thank you all for you emails, letters, prayers, and all that you do! I will keep striving to be the best missionary I can be for the Lord. This church is true, and God truly is our loving Heavenly Father. Always remember that and strive to truly believe that, and I know that He will bless you as one of His children.

Hurrah for Israel!!

-Elder Ballard

Oh btw, my title that said 100 pages was referring to that i hit page number 100 in my journal today! Haha, not important but kinda crazy.