¡Hola mis amigos!
On Monday we will have 3 weeks left in the MTC. Classes fill our entire day but when we get back to the residence the day seemed to go by so quick.
Coming to the MTC has definately been an adjustment but I love the lifestyle here now. With all of the other elders we just have a ball lol. Every night some of the guys prepare a poem or a rap and we go out to this couch area and just have poetry night, it goes so hard Haha. We’ve has topics of, rainy day, sentimental bars (of course ya boi snapped on those), and fortnight poems. It’s been so good to just die laughing with all the bros lol.
But more importantly I want to share an experience that happened this week that really was an unexpected tender mercy, here was my journal entry:
Today some of the district went to the back, hidden part of the MTC. There was some shade and a couple rocks grouped in a circle to sit on. There were trees plants bushes and a couple elders there. It was so peaceful. After about an hour of scripture study, I began to say a prayer. The prayer was so long in fact, I stood up and walked around for a little bit. I pray for all of my friends. I prayed for all of my family. I prayed for all of the missionaries. I prayed for the people of Bolivia as well as the gift of tongues. I prayed for the spirit to be with me. I prayed for those who have passed on to the spirit world to be with me, specifically my passed relatives. I prayed and thanked Jesus Christ for letting me be a representative of Him. After my prayer I found myself on the ground next to a rock. As I opened my eyes, almost immediately a leaf fell right in front of me. I looked up at the gigantic tree that was towering over me. I admired its elegance, structure, variety of leaves and its beauty. And then it was shown into me. Angel’s, the Godhead, and our passed family members are always with us if we are following the path of righteousness in our lives. Every single leaf on this huge tree represented an angel on our side in the spirit world. There seemed to be an innumorous amount of leaves, meaning a countless number of angels in heaven rooting for us. Then I payed a particular amount of attention to the trunk of the tree. This represented Jesus Christ. Through Jesus Christ’s plan of happiness we will be together with our families forever. They are always looking out for us. As we started walking back to our residence I was picking up trash along the way. As I was about to throw the trash away in my room, I noticed a little crumpled piece of paper I had picked up. I uncrumpled the paper which turned out to be 2 little notes folded together. They something along the lines of “God is our loving Heavenly father. He loves and cares for all of this children. Through the gospel of Jesus Christ our families are forever.” As I pondered by myself for a minute and was almost brought to tears. The next day at like 10:30 my district had a quick devotional and went over the day. After it was pretty late but I felt a distinct prompting to go tell another district about my tree story. I went into there residence and I just broke down explaining how families are forever and we have endless amounts of Angel’s on our side in heaven. After I was done everyone came up and hugged me, and I later found out that everyone in that room (everyone is usually super energetic and funny) was crying because they felt either homesick or felt alone. To add, one of the elders just found out his mom has cancer that is getting worse and worse.
You never know what acting on a prompting will bring. We need to strive to consistantly keep the commandments and have faith Jesus Christ daily. Christ is standing with open arms waiting to help and comfort all of his children.
I thank all of you for writing and praying for missionaries. It means so much.
Yo testifico que la inglesia de jesucristo es verdadaro. Yo sé que josé Smith fue primero profeta de la inglesia do jesucristo. Yo sé que dios es neustro padre celestial. Yo sé que a traves el expiacíon de jesucristo, puedo ser perdonado por mis pecados. Sé que a traves el evangelio mi familia es eterna. Yo amo nuestro amoroso padre celestial y su hijo, jesucristo y espiritú Santo. Yo digo estas cosas, en el hombre de jesucristo amen.
All love, elder Ballard.
Alright so this week we got some squad pics, some scriptures I liked in my studies, and finally here at the MTC you are given a language sticker (mine was Spanish obviously) to show people what language you speak but I started to trade with other people to see how many languages I could get, I had a bunch then it got boring so I started plugging other people, then I made my own with the AYO tag by mixing up Malay and Tongan lol
Elder Ballards Bolivia Mission 