Hey Family!

How are you all?! So good to hear from you all and to hear about the different experiences and views that each of you have of your week. Sorry to hear about the bummer Ogden trip! I really hope that you all get the chance to head up today and there is a light at the end of the tunnel ya? Again I wish that I could be there to be helping you all out but I know and can see that you are being blessed by our Heavenly Father. His ability to help in times of secret is incredible to me. Right now especially I know that He is heavily involved in our work right now, just depends how much we are wide we are willing to open up our eyes. I need mine to get a little wider in order to FEEL His love more in my life. I pray that you all will be blessed with the ability to make it through.

Let's see my week.. well first of all I don´t think that I will ever read Elder Jolley´s emails before sending mine again because I just feel lazy right now! What a growth he has made and he sounds completely different. Busy guy, we´ll just pretend that "because of time" I won´t be able to tell about all my travel and transfer stress.. there has been a lot! ;) Haha.

No my week has been good and continues to teach me new things and requires a lot of new abilities that I don´t have all the way yet but there isn´t a better way to stretch. This morning I studied just a few of the "expectations" that we as missionaries are expected to do in our time here. Preach My Gospel is a dream and is such an inspired book for these type of questions. I was reading about the power of our setting apart. In that section it talks about how we need to: love those we serve, know the scriptures, be obedient, be worthy of the companionship of the spirit, honor the name of Jesus Christ, and do OUR best! Very simple expectations but like you all know I like to complicate things, just.. ya know.. because. Our mission focus is "Yo Creo" and I am learning (like all of us it seems) to believe in our Heavenly Father, that He knows what´s going on.

Elder Lewis is our District Leader and because of that he has had to do a lot of inter cambios (can´t remember what those are in English.. sorry) but that has given me a lot of opportunities to work with other missionaries in our zone and also to take charge of our area for a day. This week I went on one with our zone leader Elder Larsen. He has the same time as Ryan so it was kinda fun thinking that this is how Ryan would be if I was working with him. We got shut down pretty hard that day, nobody likes to be in their houses at the right times but we still found 4 new people that day. From Elder Larsen I learned a lot about time management and how effective we can be if we enter into a lesson with a better purpose. This was Tuesday.

Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday were all relatively similar. A lot of people not in the houses. More and more the Lord has been showing me the importance of weekly planning and planning in general. We should have a MEANINGFUL activity for every hour of the day and it all starts with planning. This has been a struggle that Elder Lewis and I have had, to make plans, but slowly we are improving and it was especially helpful these few days when we had to fall to our back up plans.

Saturday we had an amazing lesson a la capilla. The other day we were on the collectivo and I noticed some guy starring at my plaque and squinting to read it, I didn´t do anything about it. But while we were out walking later that day we passed by a house and I saw this same guy just sitting in their yard. We walked past and the memory of him starring flooded into my memory. Quickly I walked back and started to talk with him. His name is Eloy and he doesn´t have anywhere to live. The house we saw him at was his sisters and it was lucky that we found him. We set a return visit for Saturday. We taught him about the Restoration and the importance that the church of Christ is built upon his foundation. He took to it and really is a prepared man. I look back at that moment and see it as circumstance but I realize now how much we were led to find him again. As we were contacting we saw this "back street" (boys.. ha get it?) and we weren´t about to go down it but Elder Lewis and I decided to try it out.. not thinking that anything would come from it. But we found him and have a baptism date for the 29th with Eloy!! I am humbled at how simple the spirit works but how great the results are!

I´m out of time but I know that the best counsel to improve our desires in the gospel is to increase our understanding of the Atonement. Like Lehi, this gift is precious, is pure, and is available to others also. But not until we have partaken of it ourselves. The Atonement it incredible! We MUST use it in our lives. We MUST come to understand what power it has in our lives.

I love you all so very much!
Elder Jolley

PS I would love the emails from Elder Reiber if ya can! Love ya´ll.