Hello Family!

How is everyone?! Glad to hear that you guys made it through this week without dad! I was really thinking about you all and hoping that everyone would be okay, and from the sounds of it we have yet another blessing from our Heavenly Father through neighbors and macho younger brothers! I hope that you all continue to do well and know that you are in my prayers! I am still so blessed by your example of obedience. :)

Alright so I have a confession to make.. I was getting myself prepared all week by writing more diligently every day in my journal about experiences and people that I could share with you all but I forgot it in the rush of cleaning up broken glass and fear of the Siesta falling of Longchamps. So I will do my best but my memory is.. a little more than parr! (I can´t remember how that phrase goes.. shoot proved my case!) but I promise that I will have more people and story experiences next week because I know I have been slacking on that. So I apologize for any boring emails I´ve sent.

Along with the broken class story though, Elder Rios and I were kicking the pelota around this morning in the pinch and it was just fine until we started to pick up the skill level of our kicks. We would juggle it a couple times then try and kick it, well I got the juggling and kicking down really well and like Messi I launched SUCH good tiro into a light bulb.. :) That game stopped. And with the Siesta, I don´t know if I have told you guys about it to much yet. Here in Argentina everything shuts down for 3 or so hours.. everything. And when it is right in the middle of the day it can get a little tricky if your not on top of your time. To me it is sometimes a pain, and usually the hardest time of the time when we experience the most "fodged" citas. As a culture, we (ha we´ll consider us as Argentines) eat SO much for lunch and hardly anything for breakfast and maybe nothing for dinner. So after lunch everyone experience a wave of "Fiaca" or just a wave of laziness come over them and everyone just wants to go to bed! This is terrible but something that is easily overcome as we come to desire to work our hardest for the Lord.

This week we had a lot of good lessons, I definitely feel like my understanding of the lessons is coming along but there is still so much to become familiar with as we strive to understand according the what preach my gospel teach THEN TEACH by the spirit according to what we have learned. We sometimes have a difficult time engineering our lessons to the people and it´s easy to get into a routine of saying the same thing. For me this also translates over to the language. If we are saying the same things then I´m getting no where with my castellano. Having 2 American Elders is hard for the reason. We struggle to speak castellano tons. So to answer your question mom, I am feeling more comfortable in my understanding but there is a funny thing about being comfortable, the Lord, in my opinion, never wants us to be to comfortable! This is something I am afraid of!! If we are comfortable, we are then stuck in a rut of non progression. This week I took the opportunity to do another "grito" in the train with an Elder Lem! We shared a message about the Book of Mormon. In the message my castellano was flowing great and the day after I felt like my speaking ability was incredible... The next day I became "uncomfortable." Nothing could come out of my mouth and it was tough.. just tough! But what a blessing to be humbled and to be reminded that we are ALWAYS being guided by a loving Heavenly Father!

Time is short today I´m very sorry, better news next week with Translados this week, I´ll let you know what happens. A VERY HAPPY BIRTHDAY to mama this Saturday! (Your letter will be about a week late.. I´m sorry! Mail here is a mess but it is on its way!)

Quiero expresar mi testimonio de nuestro Salvador Jesucristo y su amoroso expiacion que el hizo por nosotros. Que amor y que bendicion que tenemos a causa de este expreccion de nuestro hermano mayor. He tenido la oportunidad a estudiar las bendiciones de este sacrificio este semana y ¡Que tesoro que es! Les invito a buscar por algunos escrituras que encontré: D&C 45:4-5 y D&C 19:16. En estes escritures sé que podemos encontrar un amor y gratitud mejor por lo que el hizo. Me asombré al amor que el me ofresca en su expiacion. Testifico, sin duda, que hay poder cuando encontremos este gozo. ¡Les amo y les oro! Tengan una semana espectacular.

Elder Jolley