¡Feliz Año!

Shoot this was the longest week ever! Seems like forever that we talked, but so much good has been going on down here in Buenos Aires. We have been blessed with a glorious wave of heat and my new friend humidity!! Ha looking at your pictures, it is a completely different vista than what I´m used to. Sorry about the lack of snow.. that always makes things less than fun, I hope things start to change for you all! Hearing about your New Years and the last week of Christmas Break was so great! Sounds like you guys were able to get a lot done and mix some holiday fun in, ice skating.. not to bad! Seeing those pictures, all of you are looking so different. "Reppin" some new styles on us. New Years was awesome here, such a new and great experience with all the fuegos artificiales y cohuetes that everyone celebrates with down here! We passed the New Year with The Meneses family. I love this family so so much! They all are members and she is the one that washes our clothes and does so much to bless our lives as missionaries. We had dinner with them and were able to play around with the kids a lot that day! When we got back to the pinch we took care of our planning and went to bed... Happy New Year! :) It´s so funny to realize how different things are now, I think about "hanging out" past 10:30 now and just get a disgusting taste in my mouth, it´s so foreign.

This week we have really seen a change in the work. Before we´ve had tons of little rough edges that have put us behind of where we´d really like to be with reaching our goals and furthering the work here in Argentina. We´re starting to smoothen (is that a word?) out the edges and I know that as we´ve done that the Lord´s hand has come into our lives. The plan now is just to keep working on improving. The mission I´ve come to recognize this week is a process, so much we want things right now in our lives but that hinders the plan that Christ has for us. Each of us is loved more than we can imagine and because of that He knows what we are going to be, we don´t have any clue. As we all try and put on "the character of Christ" we gain a testimony that these things work. That´s great. But what does it profit us if only our mind is putting on that character? A lot of learning and growing has happened this week and I´m so excited to put into practice- over time -the things that I need to learn. I think that is something we´ve all been busy working on. Trusting our Savior more through our actions. I know when we do, WOO, things change so much for us.

We have been working with this couple named Gabriel y Cynthia the past couple weeks and had an amazing lesson with them last night. With our "smoothening" that we are doing we are working on becoming better teachers, last night wasn´t a good night-I thought- for us in teaching. Argentines LOVE TO TALK and they will talk forever about whatever, so you have to keep a leash on the lesson, well..last night "the bull got away from the cowboy" (enjoy the rodeo analogy) and I was a little frustrated. We taught the first vision, one of my favorite lessons to teach because of the changes that it brought and the changes that come into the investigators lives. I was able to tell them about Joseph Smith's experience, it was amazing and there was a different feeling. Cynthia apparently was filled with goosebumps and really understood that IF this was true then that would mean that all other churches aren´t the church of Christ. We invited her to pray and it was one of the best prayers that I´ve heard, so sincere and so hungry to know! I´m excited to follow up with them. I realized from this experience that we are 19 year old bad teachers, but it doesn´t matter, as we do what the Lord requires of us before then we will be blessed with the spirit! The spirit is so powerful and the best teacher! We had a lot of lessons this week where we were able to witness the spirit working in our teaching and it is the strongest testimony to me that the Lord is concerned, if we are perfect of not... not important. What are we doing to seguir adelante in Him? Trusting in Him and His miraculous Atonement brings all things into perspective and unbinds us from feelings of inadequacy or selfishness. It was the most selfless gift from our Heavenly Father and the most selfless act from our older brother, there is nothing like it!

I´m running short on time, but this was a great week and the Lord's hand is over all of us! I know it, and I can see it! He loves us so much and His comfort is only a prayer away. I love love love being a missionary for my Savior! I love you all so much and wish you a great 2012! ¡Les amo!

Elder Jolley