Elder Ballard’s doing great in Yuma!

Hey everybody its been a little bit so I figured I would give an update

First and foremost, the work of the Lord continues! We feel so blessed right now to have the technology we do, to communicate with God’s children all over the world. We have expanded our teaching pool to people in 3 more countries! Throughout the last couple months, everyone has just been trying to survive & “get past” this faze of missionary work, but we are done with that, the Yuma Zone is going forward! Really, we are understanding God’s vision a little bit more as we do better to align our wills with His, each day as we try to be positive. Me and my companions have tried so hard throughout this transfer to through out any negative idea or thought about this “quarantine”. Within the zone we have had some struggling missionaries, saying how difficult this situation is, and we have been smacking down on it. What situation? This is the Lords work! If you are not happy and enthusiastic about the way missionary work is done, we feel it is a better direct connection about how you appreciate Jesus Christ, we signed up & told Him we would do HIS work for 2 years, He did not tell us how it would be done. The fact that we are able to continue the work of the Lord right now just testifies about how specific God’s plan is for His children.

Something we have been pushing in our zone is goal setting, we set stretching goals, and we are accountable to them. It has been so interesting to see how missionaries set such high goals, and then once they see they can’t reach them, they lose motivation. So all the calls & meetings we have had over the last little bit with our DL’s & STL’s have been focused on how we can praise missionaries for the work they do, but also to help them assess and adjust their goals, so they are more consistant, and attainable. 

So also we just got transfer news, I will be staying in Yuma & my good buddy Elder Noble, who I have spent 3 cambios with, is heading up to Casa Grande. I am so excited for this next transfer, we are going to have 30 missionaries down here now, and all of the missionaries in leadership positions will be there for the first time! It will be such a cool experience to be able to train & help these guys understand how special & crucial their new callings are. 

Props if you got this far on here, I promise I’ll keep the rest of this short. But the other day I was reading in my journal from some entrees back in March when this all started, and I wanted to share a little bit -> 

3/20/20 “First Real Day in the Can D1”

“Holy Fetch, I barely made it through today, there is no way I can do this for weeks…”

3/21/20 “Man, today was hard D2”

“Today was one of the saddest days of my mission. This is not missionary work. I feel so horrible. I am so sick of this.”

3/22/20 “Sad Thought”

“I’m done I’m sick of this here, I want to go home and climb…”

I have come to better understand the prophetic words of Nephi, “yea, and is it that ye have forgotten that the Lord is able to do all the things according to His will, for the children of men, if it so be that they exercise faith in Him? Wherefore, let us be faithful to Him.” (1 Nephi 7:12) & the counsel that “the Lord seethes fit to chasten his people; yeah he trieth their patience and their faith.” (Mosiah 23:21) 

Truly I have been humbled. The work of the Lord will go forward, and no one, no thing, and certainly no pandemic will be able to stop it. I know that God lives, that Jesus is the Christ, and we are just seeing the beginning, of the Restoration of His Church. 

Thank you for listening to today’s sermon, I love you guys, thank you for all your support we’ll talk to you soon. 

Elder Ballard