Dear Family!

Glad to hear about your Easter and that you all had a wonderful time! I thought I´d take a minute to fill you in on a couple of things. First, going to look for a chip today so I should have that one figured out..all you guys are missing out on is bigger cheeks and squinty eyes...haha. Also for skype here in a month or so! (where did time go??) I talked with Pres. Stapely and he gave me the okay to do a 3 way skype and that I can work things out to make it work, if it is still something that you guys would like to do? Your call. Also I got word that a "huge" package came for me.. I should get it tomorrow. THANK YOU SO MUCH!! I will really try to get pictures to ya the next week... Ha ha got Mom and Megan in on the emails...

Alright on with the week. I don´t know if you heard on the news, but this week Buenos Aires got hit HARD by a powerful storm, we heard that there was tornado speed wind in some parts. Anyways, that hit pretty hard this last Wednesday (it was the 4th of April- please see Moroni 8:5 and remember that the first month would be April). I was on intercambios with our District Leader as the storm started to come in, luckily we had a cita as the lightening came in. The storm came in fast and hit really hard. In the house that we were in it blew open the doors, knocked the lights out and broke a window! It scared us pretty good, but luckily everyone was safe. We helped the family get settled in then started our walk back to the Pinch. When we walked out it looked like a scene from "The Testament", trees were knocked over, telephone poles had been cracked in half, wires were everywhere and the streets were full of water and debris. We got home safely at about 10:30 after we went to a couple houses of members to make sure they were alright, we were pretty worried for them. I had a great learning experience as we were walking, I felt the need to go to the house of an older lady. When we got there we learned that she had fallen. At that point I got pretty worried and started thinking of anything that we could do to help her, simply, however, she only asked for a priesthood blessing. What an opportunity that was to learn a little better about being part of Priesthood service, at any time and in any place. The light and water came back about 3 days later! -Gotta take you all through our thoughts, this Easter week there was a huge storm around the time that Christ died, we were without lights for 3 day sand 3 nights, and on Sunday morning the lights came back! Now I´m not saying that this is any biblical sign, but it was pretty interesting for us! Haha maybe it´s just a bunch of missionaries that don´t have anything better to do than relate biblical stories to any and everything! Needless to say, (Mom) all is well and nothing bad ever happened! :)

This week we have been working and praying really hard to find investigators who are willing to progress and will have the desires to be baptized. We have been listening more intently to hear the spirit in our work, as we walk and find people to talk to. It is patient work and it is very humbling to recognize our dependence on the spirit. On our intercambios, Elder Tantachuco and I went around trying something a little different with our contacts. As we clapped houses we we explain who we were and that we were walking around offering prayers for the people. Almost every house let us in! haha. We would fervently pray for the family and their safety then leave them with a message of some principle of the Gospel. We passed by the house of a 26 and 23 year old couple who had been having some difficult times recently andthe husband was really sick. We prayed and shared a message of Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. The spirit was very strong and you could see that this family had been touched greatly. We also had another lesson with them last night, I´ll tell you about that in a minute. :) Throughout the rest of the week we met with an inactive family that we are working on reactivating and also teaching the lessons to her nomember husband. We had a "candle-lit" lesson on Thursday night.. not really a romantic setting in this case, but a PERFECT time to talk about entering the way to eternal life. ;) This family had come with us to General Conference and later told us about how strong they had felt the spirit, the husband told us that while there he felt that he wanted to investigate this church more. This lesson was one of the most guided lessons I´ve had. All that we asked and testified about were the thoughts of the Spirit. It was a joyful experience and very humbling to notice an answered prayer!

Alright now for the best experience of my mission. Yesterday we had the wonderful blessing to fast. Though I´ve fasted my whole life I´ve never really understood it too much, only that it is a good thing.. so we go and do! I fasted for direction to find those who are preparedf or the ordinance of baptism. I told my Heavenly Father that I didn´t know much about fasting, but that I trusted in His will for us in Fiorito. We closed the fast and had a great day visiting and preaching the Gospel. We then had a cita with that couple, Daniel and Cornelia. They were very happy to see us and honestly thought that we wouldn´t come back! They loved what they heard and had a bunch of questions for us. For sakes of time I would like to take you through the comments that we received throughout the lesson...

"Your church is very very different, -We aren´t looking to change our religion, -We really love los Santos (Catholic statues), -again we really love our religion and aren´t looking to change." Elder Merritt and I were a little confused with these and weren´t sure where to go, with faith thought we went ahead and taught THE best lesson by the spirit. Here are their comments afterward. "We believe that God created all man and that we should worship Him, -Wow, it would be important to have prophets with actual authority, -We feel something different inside us, -How does someone enter into your church,-Yes we´ll get baptized on the 28 of April!!"

Wow, how can you deny the power of God after witnessing a complete change of heart like that?! I get teary eyed just thinking about it! I know without out a doubt that fasting works and if nothing else, it leads us to grow in faith of our Savior Jesus Christ! I was so thankful to be His representative in this moment and to preach the glad message of the Atonement! I loved reading in D&C 18:10-14 and learning about the importance of our souls to our Savior. Only upon Repentance can we be like Him. It is a powerful blessing given to us because we meant so much to Him.

I love my Savior and being a Missionary. I love you all so much!
Elder Jolley