Object disappearing when swapping from one motion path to another

If I could pick your brain on this same project (I can open a new discussion if that's more appropriate). 

Your suggestion worked perfectly, but now I've run into a different issue. When I attempt to add additional states to the oval, the associated motion paths and triggers aren't firing correctly, even though the other states aren't being called. I assume this has something to do with changing states acting like different objects but I'm not certain how to wrap my head around a fix.

Expected outcome: ability to change visual state when oval is moving up and when oval is moving down. 

Updated project attached. I've removed the triggers for changing the state to show that the issue occurs even when nothing calls the states. 

Edit: It seems to work as intended for the example you provided. Must have to do with using the variable as the controller. So you already solved this one, Emma!

Edit 2: I came back to this and replicated the same issue with your version, but determined the cause... a shape added behind the oval. If I place anything back behind the oval in the additional states, it breaks the triggers. Very odd behavior. This also happens if I try to hide the base objects by turning its transparency to 100% (that actually breaks the whole slide and nothing will load at all).