Email 6/24/13

Good Morning!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am so glad that everyone is home safe and sound, and that they had a good time. I miss her too. I hope that you are all enjoying your summer. Oh good I am glad that you got the package, and that you liked it. I wish you could have been there with me. You all would have loved it. It is just like home except with the ocean. I hope that they enjoy spirit lake. 

Ya we are getting to know our way around. It is hard to find people because they don't really want to listen to us. But we have found a few. And sister Embley found a Chinese person that she can talk to. So that is exciting. Who knows I may come home speaking Chinese ;) The ward is alright they are nice. Just not as unified as they could be. We have come up with a few ideas. We are going to have a Ward FHE. Something that they can invite their non member friends to. Hopefully it works. Oh I love stake conference. I am glad that Lexie went to the Adult session. I hope that she enjoyed it. They have a Youth session now. That is great. I am happy that they both went to that. I wish they had that when I was growing up!!!! I am sure that the youth sounded amazing!!!! I would have loved to hear that.

It is so hard not to hold the little ones here. They are so cute and precious. I am going to need to hold every baby I see when I come home;) Hehe.

Oh good I am glad that you are able to talk to her again. She is great. She has sent me so many pictures from her phone. I get to see them on Saturday when I go back to Rhyl for Karl's baptism. I am excited.

We get to go to the Temple on Wednesday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! OH my goodness I am so excited. I have really missed the Temple. I need it so much. I am starting to get a little discouraged with how slow things are going here. So I am excited to go to the temple to get a little more guidance. I really miss being able to go once a week. I have come to the decision that I am never going to live somewhere that you have to drive forever to get to the temple. I need it way to much in my life.

Oh just so you know President has told the missionaries that we can not chat with our families online. So I am really going to miss talking to you!!!!!

I love you so so so so so so so so much.

I hope you have a great week.

Love you tons!!!!!!!!!!!!

Love

Sister Ballantyne

Email 6/17/13

I hope you are doing well.

My new address is:

18 Melbourne

St. Helens

MERSYD

WA9 5QY

Sorry I realized after I got home on Thursday that I had forgotten to give you the address.

I am doing alright. We have a lot to tracking and street contacting that we do here. It is really good. A lot different from Chorley and Rhyl. The ward is really nice, but not very unified. That is something that we need to work on. I am excited. We are going to be planning a ward activity to see if that will help. There is a young women in this ward and she reminds me so much of Mady. It is crazy!!!! We went to their home for tea on Thursday. And she looks like Mady and acts like Mady. She even talks like Mady. It is unreal. I have a little piece of home here. Ya I am getting used to this area. I was able to find some of our tea appt. with out a map. Yes she was in Liverpool. The first time I went on exchange with her I went to Liverpool. But the second time she came to Chorley. There are only a few areas for Chinese speaking missionaries so they usually stay around them. She just came from Lancaster. That was when I was serving in Bolton those 2 weeks.

Oh I am so sorry. At least she got to finish her mission. She sounds like she was an amazing missionary!!!

I am glad that he liked the message. He really is my Hero. You are too. You have both been great examples to me. You have helped me become the person I am today and I will forever be grateful for that. I love you both so much and could never ask for better parents.  Thank you! I was so nervous. But I am glad that I did it.

Tell them all hi for me. Also will you tell Sister Brown that I have handed out both of her Book of Mormons that she sent. The people were really touched when they received them. Sister Clawson will be following up on them. Tell her thank you so much for them.

Tell me how that messages go in stake conference. I wish I could be there. That is so cute. Sister Embley and I were in Primary yesterday. Those kids are so cute.

I love you so much!!!!!

Love

Sister Ballantyne

Sorry it is so short this week. Not much to report.

Email 6/13/13

Mom I love you all so much!!!!!!!!!!

I love being able to hear from you!!!! I have been transferred to St. Helen's. It is in the Liverpool Zone. It was hard but I have had a feeling for 2 weeks that there was nothing else for me to do there. Sister Embley and I are whitewashing a brand new area. So we get to do a lot of finding!!! So we will see how it goes. She has been out almost a year. She is from Michigan. She was my first and third exchange on my mission. She is a Chinese speaking missionary. So this will be fun. Sister Embley and I are the only sisters that are not training except the Sister Leadership trainers. But they don't count because they are training us all. There were either 28 or 30 new missionaries from the MTC all together there were 13 sisters.

Rhyl was so good to me!!! After church on Sunday we had a meeting with the Ward Mission Leader. During that meeting people kept coming in and saying thank you for the work I did in that ward and that they were going to miss me. After the meeting the Ward Mission Leader and the bishop both said that they had never seen so many people interrupt a meeting to say good bye to a missionary before. I am really going to miss that ward. Barry Donaldson bought me flowers to say good bye and that it was not good bye for ever. Graham and Chez just kept buying me things I told them to stop but they wouldn't. I love them so much!!!!!! It was really hard on them to see me leave Graham started crying during the lesson he was giving in Gospel Principles on Sunday as he was telling me thank you for making the decision to come on my mission and to stay. It really made me grateful for the Power of prayer and the Temple. 

Sister Clawson is training this transfer. She is nervous but she is going to do great!!!!!!! I love her so much!!!! There are now 4 sisters in Rhyl. When the ward found out that there were going to be 4 sisters they kept saying that I was so good they had to bring in 3 sisters just to replace me. They are so funny. I do feel like a missionary though. It took me going to Rhyl to finally feel like one. And I will forever be grateful for that. It has a really soft spot in my heart!!!

It is so weird to me that they are home already!!!!!! It good to hear that it has had an impact on his life. I can see what he means. This mission has had a huge impact in my life. I love it so much!!!! He will love it there. Tell him to look of an Elder Morris and an Elder Williams from Wales. They probably won't know me but I have heard a lot about them from their families. They are great Elders. And I absolutely love their families!!!!!!!

Well here in St. Helen's we are starting from scratch. But we already have a few potential investigators and Elder Donaldson gave me a few referrals that might be in our area. And I just have a feeling that this is going to be a wonderful transfer!!!!!

 

I love you so much!!!!! Thank you for being such great examples to me!!!!

Love you mostest

Sister Ballantyne

Email 6/3/13

I hope you are all doing well!!!! I miss you all so much. I was so glad to hear that you were talking to chez.  She really likes talking to you. She is so funny. She reminds me a lot of you. Liverpool was alright. Every time I go there I mostly just sit around because I do not speak Chinese. But it was really good. I got to get to know Sister Merrill. She is really cute and sweet. I like her a lot. But I had a revelation while I was in Liverpool. Sister Merrill asked me why I came on my mission. I told her the whole story, but when I came to the part about the blessing and feeling that I needed to come to Wales to help a distant family member. Sister Clawson popped into my head. I don't know why I did not make that connection in my head the first day, but I have now and I am so humbled that even before my mission Heavenly Father already knew where I needed to be and who I needed to be with. What a wonderful thought to know that our Heavenly Father really does love and care about us!!!

 

Both Bishop Donaldson and his father Elder Donaldson have called President Preston and told him that they would like us to stay. As well as the rest of Elder Donaldsons brothers have told us that they do not want us to leave yet. It is crazy. We have been able to help Elder Donaldson's Brothers Barry and Glyn come back to the chuch. Last week in our lesson the spirit was so strong it sent Barry into tears and he told us that every time he thought about it that week he would start crying again. He even went to his brother Glyn's home and told him that he needed to get his act together and that he was going to pick them up and go to church. It has been so amazing to see the Holy Ghost work with this family. Barry has been a member for 40 years and has never had a testimony or desire to have one. Until he came to Rhyl. Glyn got up and bore his tesitmony yesterday. He said that we were magic. They keep asking us what we have done. We keep telling them that we have not done anything. We are just here to help them remember what they already know. The spirit in this area is just so strong. 

 

Sacrament meeting this week went from 98 to 131 people.

 

Oh I am so proud of both of them!!!!! They seem to be doing really good!!!! That is really good to hear. I love you all so much!!. Ya I am not too happy that he is still growing, but maybe now she can know how I felt when she passed me up. But now both of them have:( Can you do something to make them shrink before I get home???

 

Your Primary class sounds like a blast!!!!! Enjoy it!!!!!!!

 

I am doing alright just sad because I only have 11 months left. The time has flown by so fast.

 

Ben's baptism is on the 8th of June and then we should be having another one on the 29th of June. And I am praying and hoping that another one of our investigators will have a date soon. He knows it is true he says he just wants to know more.

 

Mom will you do me a favor??? I was reading this talk where she was talking about how mothers have insight to their childrens devine destiny. What would you say mine is???? What do you think I am destined to do???

 

I love you so much and I am so greatful for the wonderful examples you all are to me!!!!! Thank you for everything you have done and keep doing for me. Just so you know I am going on another exchange this week. I am going to Chester to go on excange with one of the Sister Leadership Trainers.

 

I love you to the Moon and Back

I win!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Love

 

Sister Ballantyne

Email received from Bishop in Ryhl Wales 6/2/13

Hi President Preston,

I wanted to thank you for sending such wonderful missionaries to the Rhyl ward. We have seen miracles happen in the last 3 months. We are beginning to see real growth in the ward both in numbers and spiritually.

Our average sacrament attendance last year was x98, we had an attendance of x131 today (02 June 2013). This has been down to our wonderful sister missionaries working with our ward missionaries and members to further the work. They regularly have members at investigator lessons. Many of these meetings take place in the members homes themselves. They have a sincere ability to love and testify with power and conviction.

The members trust them because they know them. Because of this, they are teaching many less active and non member friends. Their is not enough hours in the day for the missionaries and ward missionaries to see the people showing interest. For a period of time, I as bishop fulfilled the role as WML. We now have a WML, assistant WML and x2 ward missionaries. We are going to have to call many more to support the work.

When the time comes, we will welcome a second set of missionaries in the ward. There is much to do!

We have organised a table in the chapel foyer with church literature members have write testimonies. We have held missionary firesides and have planned ward FHE's and additional meetings were members can simply invite. We have family mission plans and utilised Elder Donaldson Of the seventy to support our firesides and his home is open to any investigators to be taught.

Many of these ideas have come from our missionaries, organised by our members. The ward has a spirit of missionary work now, and an increased desire to share their love of the gospel.

Warm regards

Bishop Donaldson 

 

Lee Donaldson