Querido Familia!

HEY!! What a week and what an amazing start to summer that you guys had, from the pictures (in my head) that I´m seeing everything is beautiful and I´m excited for all the summer fun. Here in Argentina things have been rather warm? We haven´t had much cold weather hasta ahora but today the wind started to pick up and with the humidity it gets pretty cold. I bought a scarf! :) It's my first time with one and I´m just amazed at the variety of ways that you can tie these things!!

This week we had a special week with Zone Conferences and transfers. Elder Merritt and I have had a great run together, but he has been called to be a District Leader in my old zone.. Guernica! I´m super excited for him and the opportunity that he is going to have to take on more responsibility to the Lord and be a blessing to those Elders over there! We were together a fairly long time and became good friends. I know that I grew to be a better person and hope that I was able to help him also. As for me I get to stay in Fiorito!!! Wahoo! I have know idea who my companion is but I´ve been called TO TRAIN!! I will receive the new elder tomorrow! Wow! I´m overwhelmed and so excited for what the Lord has in store. This new Elder and I are going to work so hard to continue to grow the area of Fiorito! I feel confident that the Lord knows what He is doing.. with only 7 months, I don´t know if I know tons, but together we are going to learn and apply all that we need to become better. Today in transfer meetings President Stapley shared a thought with us that I thought was right on the money! We as people need to have integrity in all that we do, he said that it ultimately is "who we are." Being members of the Church we have a special privilege to know the eternal plan of our Heavenly Father and to ACT accordingly. By the application of gospel principles we will become more like Christ, and it will become who we are! Our integrity and the outcome of who we really are depends on the Application of what we are asked to do! I am thrilled to be able to apply with my new companion the principles of the gospel in order to become  more capable representatives of our Savior Jesus Christ, our integrity depends on it! I´m excited to take him through the first couple days of Argentina and can´t wait to fill you all in next week.

We were able to teach a couple really great lessons this week and find a lot of "hopefuls" that I´m excited to talk with more in the coming week. Fiorito has come such a long way and know that it will continue to grow. I feel the Lord asks from us our obedience and diligent service at certain levels in order to help us progress. As we succeed and gain faith that His commandments are possible, He asks us to jump up another level. Así es in Fiorito. There is a new expectation from us that I know we need to reach, one that I learned from our Zone Conferences. This transfer is was based upon "The Missionary Purpose." We had reference from a talk that Elder Christofferson gave that talked about missionaries that were focused on their purpose and those that weren´t. It talked about the difference in being a missionary that teaches lessons and a missionary that shares Salvation. There is a great difference he said. The missionaries we strive for this goal are focused in the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the pathway that it creates for the PERSONAL needs of each of God's children. They study harder and are more focused in the needs of the investigators, they realize the true need of missionary work and the divine calling that they are given! I know that as we become more focused in the needs of our Investigators and focus on what "Our Purpose" truly means, that we will reach that new level.

Unfortunately this week we were sad to not see Donene and Juana come to church which cancels the baptism for this coming week! NO! They have a lot of health problems and with the cold they were told to stay in bed for a couple days... This next week we´ll be going strong to help them keep up the fire for baptism and we´ll be putting the goal for the following week. We had a couple others lessons with them this week where we were able to introduce some members of the church to them. We brought with us an hermana name Juana Lobo to introduce her to this family. We were regretting the decision after about 45 of them conversando about the life in el campo! (not that it was a bad thing, it was such a blessing how well they got along- only that we weren´t able to stop them in order to teach the lesson.) After a couple times of trying to stop them we were offered a submarine (hot chocolate) and some bread! Haha I think that they wanted US to stop talking! :) It was a funny moment. Por Fin we were able to share with them about the Word of Wisdom. La hermana that we brought was super helpful and the spirit was strong as they came to understand our Heavenly Father's love in giving us a way to protect our bodies.

The Familia Martinez continues to be steady and great blessings in our lives! I´m not sure if I told you last week, but when we first met with this family one of the varones was having a really tough time with drugs and other tough problems, we have been working with them to help him change his course and work to stop these habits. We had been skeptic about his progress and had followed up a couple times. One visit that we had though, I had a minute to talk with him. He told me that he had completely stopped hanging out outside in order to not be around influences that would offer him any of these substances and that he had been clean for a week! What a blessing!! It was truly a testimony builder to me of the importance of our desires to our Heavenly Father. He knows what we want to do and how we want to change in our lives and will work accordingly with us in giving us the strength that we need to realize these changes in our life!

Time is short but I want you to know that I know that our Heavenly Father and His son Jesus Christ are two real beings who have a powerful influence in our lives. We must listen to them and rise to the levels that they want us to reach, not for their benefit, only for ours. Our integrity to our Heavenly Father is such a blessing. When He knows that we will apply what He asks us to do we will become who we are meant to be! I love them and this work. I love you all and thank you for your example and support and love. I feel it.

Elder Jolley