weekly update 3/7/2011

> Panounda! (That's "Good afternoon" in Welsh I think It's probably not
> spelled right)
>
> This week was just full of miracles! We were really blessed this week!
>
> Jordana is doing amazing! She is excited for her baptism and she has
> invited friends already. She is already doing missionary work; she has
> 3 maybe 4 friends that are interested in learning more! Things are
> just exploding Rochdale!
>
> After church, we took Jordana home. And as we were heading to the bus
> station to head back to littleborough, Jordana called and said her
> friend was interested and asked if we could come and teach him. His
> name is Robert and he expressed that he was doing research about the
> church and he wanted to learn more. He accepted a baptismal date with
> no hesitation.
>
> In littleborough we found some new investigators as well. Melanie was
> found this Thursday afternoon, and said to come to her house later in
> the evening. So that's just what we did and it turned up Aaron, her
> husband, and Ryan, their friend, were both there and they were also
> interested. So blessings were poured out upon us on Thursday!

>
> Thanks for everything!
>
> Love,
> Elder Ballantyne

Email to parents

Hello!
We are so excited about Jordana's baptism this weekend! She has also asked me to baptize her! She is 20 and she has two kids name Eysack and Elsie. It is unfortunate about Caprise, She will be ready soon enough though.
I did buy a new photo album because I had too many to fit in the one brenda gave me so I am using the one Brenda gave me for pictures from my friends and The new one for pictures from family. It is no bueno about the camera i still can't find it anywhere. I will probably be buying one today.
The weather here has been really great! nice and sunny. I think it only rained once this week!
With the player from Byu I think it is actually World wide, because a member showed me an article about one of the players from Byu getting in big trouble. So it's in the papers here too believe it or not. I think it was a good idea to suspend him if he is not doing what he should be. If they didn't that would look bad for not only for Byu but for the church. Thanks for the sports update, Mom.
And now we'll go over to Kyle for an update on the drivers license. haha. How is driving, Kyle? That would be good to get Kyle working! It sounds like no fun trying to get a job though. I have a place a dick's Produce secure for me :) I probably won't jump on that though. It mostly depends on if I can get a job somewhere else or not.

Anyway i'm going to go Have a good week and I will email you a week from wednesday. because of transfers.

Love,
Elder Ballantyne

Can it really be

300 days

in the Mancherster,

England Mission!

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We will see you soon Elder Ballantyne

weekly update 2/28/2011

HELLO FAMILY!!!
>
> This week was great it has been such a blessing to teach Jordana.
> Unfortunately, her friend, Caprice, dropped us. But Jordana is doing
> amazing!
>
> The biggest help in Jordana's progress is the church websites. She
> likes to research about the church, and we told her the best sites to
> go to, i.e. church websites. By researching the sites she is able to
> Learn about what we will be teaching before we teach it. It makes it a
> lot easier to teach. We have been given 30min. every other week to
> just sit and navigate through the church websites. It has helped being
> able to research the sites ourselves.
>
> Along with the websites, baptismal calendars have been a great
> blessing in her teaching process. Because of the calendars she can
> remember her appointments better than we can.
>
> I just have to say vitamin C is great! I'm the only one in the
> district that didn't get ill this past week. I believe it was the
> vitamin C and Orange juice that kept me going.

>
> Thanks for everything!
>
> Love,
> Elder Ballantyne

weekly update 2/21/2011

> Hello Family, Friends, and Family Friends!!!!
>
> This week was probably the best week I have had so far in
> littleborough even though our finding was pretty low. We were able to
> teach Jordana and Caprice for the fist time on Monday, and they are
> great! We taught them again on Sat. and Jordana said she had received
> an answer that the Book of Mormon is true! We then took Jordana and
> Caprice to an investigator baptism in Rochdale. They enjoyed it, and
> the best part was after the baptism Jordana and caprice were both
> talking about their baptisms and asked if they could have theirs on
> the same day! We are seeing miracles!
>
> We had zone conference this week and it was Fantastic! President gave
> a training on prayer. It has really helped me to have much more
> meaningful prayers, I learned a lot! At this zone conference we also
> found out that President Preston is going to be the new mission
> president. He is from Ashton 2nd ward, so he lives within mission
> boundaries. It is very rare that Mission presidents get called to
> there home mission. He lives in the Ashton Stake and I am serving in
> the Ashton stake so I had the opportunity to meet him even before he
> was called to the EMM. He gave a training on using pass along cards.
> It was great I'm looking forward to serving with him.
>
> Elder Mecham is a great missionary! I'm grateful for the opportunity I
> have to serve with him and learn from him. It will be good to look
> back at all the miracles we have witnessed together.
>
> Thanks for everything!
>
> Love,
> Elder Ballantyne

Finally New Pictures from Kevin

Well its been 5 months since Elder Ballantyne sent home some pictures. So sorry there are a ton of them.

Next time you write to him tell him not to wait as long.
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The Beach

Elder Ballantyne's name tag in Welsh

Elder Ballantyne was able to take a tour of one of the Castles in Wales!

Fall in England This Picture of Kevin really make me miss him.
A really windy day! A really cold and wet day in England!
Pictures of the Elders!

Elder Knibbs

Elder Ballantyne and Elder Knibbs

Elder Ballantyne and Elder Mecham not companions at this time.
Elder Ballantyne and Elder Jolliffe

They do have Dr Pepper in England! Boys will be Boys,

even on there Missions!
Elder Ballantyne's hat he bought to stay warm!
The Elders Christmas!

There are a few more pictures on Elder Ballantyne's Mission site that I didn't put on his blog.

So go jump over there.

www.missionsite.net/elderkevinballantyne/main

weekly update 2/14/2011

> First of all I just want to say the ward mission leader is fantastic
> in the littleborough ward! He helps us with everything, even temporal.
> He has been helping a lot with washing our cloths since we don't have
> a washing machine. (hopefully we will get one this tues.) But more
> than anything he is really excited about missionary work, and he is
> very confident in his plans he has for missionary work in the
> littleborough ward.
>
> Elder Mecham is a really good missionary. The biggest strength I have
> seen in him is he is an exactly obedient missionary. That is just one
> of many great strengths.
>
> On Sunday Mark Simpson was at church again! It is really helping him
> with his challenges, and it's really good to see! Not only is he being
> blessed for coming but also he has expressed that he has been enjoying
> the last couple weeks. I'm really grateful to be able to be helping
> him.
>
> Thanks for everything!

weekly update 2/7/2011

>

> Hello Family and Friends!
>
> The rest of the week was great! We weren't doing so well for finding
> but on Friday we prayed specifically to have success in finding, that
> day we had doubled our QGCs and appointments. Prayer Works!
>
> In other news, we have been teaching a less active for a while now,
> and he finally made it to church this Sunday! Not only did he show up
> but also he bore his testimony in the testimony meeting! It was such a
> blessing to see him there!
>
> Sunday was just full of miracles. We had planned to go to a village
> called Wardle and tract, but seeing as we didn't have time to go to
> Wardle we changed plans and chose a street closer to us. On the street
> we weren't having any success, until we came to Steve and Sarah's
> door. Steve answered the door and saw that we were wet from the rain
> and invited us in! I love the rain! We asked if they had a few minutes
> that we could share the restoration with them. And the responded with,
> "We have all the time you need." So we shared the restoration with
> them. It was a great lesson with them. I think we were blessed with
> this miracle because we were trying to use our time wisely.
>
> Thank you! I love you all!

>
> Love,
> Elder Ballantyne

weekly update 2/3/2011

> HELLO EVERYBODY!
>
> This was a great week! We had an appointment with our a less active
> and we had arranged to see him at our ward mission leaders house. The
> appointment was great. After talking with the Ward mission leader, the
> less active said he would come back to church! I'm so excited to see
> him there. We have been teaching him for quite awhile, He never lost
> his testimony he just needed a push, and a reason to go.
>
> I'm still here in littleborough. Elder riera got transfered. so i got
> a new companion. He is from bountiful! I worked with him at Dick's
> Market! By now you've probably guessed that my new companion is Elder
> Chad Mecham! I'm so excited about the new transfer! Especially because
> I am serving with Elder Mecham! I can already tell that he is a great
> missionary, with the few hours that i have worked with him so far. I
> am also excited about this transfer because the are is on an uprise!
>
> Thank you all for all you do!
>
> Love,
> Elder Ballantyne

weekly update 1/24/2011

Hello Everybody

This week was a lot better weather wise. It was really sunny for most of the days. Then in the evening it would get really foggy, but it didn't rain on us that much at all this week which is a real blessing.

This was a pretty tough week, we felt like we worked hard but the numbers didn't support that. We discussed the reason why we weren't seeing success. We think it is because we were working hard but we weren't working smart. There are a time when we were street contacting and it just wasn't productive because not very many people were out on the streets, what we should have done is tried knocking doors, what we did was continued to speak with the few people that were on the street.

We received a specialized training on Tuesday and it was great! A new family/ individual mission plan tool was given to us. I have really enjoyed teaching it. We were teaching one of the members and we asked what experiences he had with sharing the gospel, it was so nice to hear the experiences he had. I hope he enjoyed being reminded of those experiences and will want to have more of them.

Thank you all for your support!
With Love,
Elder Ballantyne