weekly update 8/30/2011

HALLO! WIE GEHT ES DIR? (Hello! how are you doing)

^Elder Schmid has been teaching me German! He also Taught me how to say "Bist du bereit?" and "Glaubst du on Gott?" I'm slowly learning but it's coming along.

So far it has been really great being a district leader. I was pretty stressed at first but so far it seems like I can handle it. It will still help me to stretch and progress. But it seems like it's nothing to stress so much about. So I'm looking forward for this transfer.

This Saturday, I had my first district leader council meeting. It was a great experience to see the input that the district leaders have in coming up with Transfer and weekly Focuses. At first I thought it was all up to the zone leaders but this meeting helped me see that it truly is a revelatory process.

Elder Schmid is doing great! He has a good balance of finding and member work. He is always speaking to people. Also he has been coming up with great ideas to build up the member work. He is a great missionary and will be a great strength to the mission.

As for the Preston area, It's going fine. We have been trying to find some new investigators to increase our teaching pool. Since it is August there have been a lot of university students coming back. So we have been trying to find near campus as much as we can. College students are always good because they are getting out an experiancing the world, trying new things, etc. We also had a great lesson with Fiona and Her daughter, Derika. We asked a few questions to find out their understanding of the plan of salvation, and Derika was answering them left and right. She is definitely taking in what's being taught. Fiona is understanding pretty well too.

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With Love,
Elder Ballantyne