Familia!

Hey! Wow thanks so much for all your letters. I´m with a few Elders right now and we were all just talking about how these days are just an extension of Christmas! :) ...but then Christmas would be something else too because we all getta talk... It all works out so that it is good! First off another sweet shout out out to my boy Skyler! Hehe... these last 2 weeks have been so good. He completed the "Crimson Chin" this week!!

Well what a week it has been. I´ll start off by sharing something that I don´t know if I mentioned last week or not but came to have a strong testimony of Ether 12:6! It was a pretty tough week for us in Fiorito last week. Our Zone Leader was talking to me and helping get us excited and have passion for the work that we do. He shared this scripture with us. Elder Juarez and I this last week have really worked hard to "receive our testimonies" and the Lord has truly come through for us and I can´t explain how much love I have felt this week and how much His hand is involved in our work!! We worked hard and really worked to get the standards. I learned and important truth, that preparation is a key to our success! We have been working hard in the morning hours to improve our teaching abilities and to be more unified as a companionship and in return we´ve been able to feel a greater cantidad of the spirit in our lessons. Personally I´ve been able to have a greater focus on those that we teach and it´s been a real testimony to me that we can speak with "power and authority" so that these great people begin to strengthen their faith in Christ.

This week we were blessed to find 7 people who accepted the invitation to be baptized!! Wahoo! :) A couple of these people found were a huge blessing for us that came when I was on inter-cambios with one of our Zone Leaders (the photo: Elder Orellana de Chili). Doing inter-cambios with him was such a blessing for me and also to help us evaluate some things that we can be doing better. I´ll talk about it a little later though. Anyway the first is a great family that we found named Lorena, Santa y Maria. (combine those names and it´s the name of that one boat. Ha) They are a great family and we´re barely starting to get to know them so we´ll have more information for ya later. Also Elder Juarez and I found another family a little while ago but decided to pass by again on Saturday. Come to find out they had been waiting for us to make contact again and so from that we were very excited. They called all the family to listen and we had a great chat. They are SUPER CATHOLICS! They are "gonna stay catholic, die catholic and nothing is gonna get in the way of that!" That was at the first of the lesson. The spirit was there so strong as we got to know them and truly listened and sought to be a help. Something that I´ve always loved that I heard a while ago is that, as all of us are representatives of Christ, when it comes our time to share our testimonies or to teach His doctrine it is most affective when we teach Salvation and not just principles. If we go about it in this approach the Spirit helps us to see what it is that they are looking for and what it is that they need to do. We talked about Eternal Happiness and what it is that we must to in order to qualify for this great blessing. The last person we taught is José. He is a brother of a menos activo member. We are trying to work with both of them right now but felt really strongly to invite him to be baptized. In the beginning of the lesson with José he started asking a lot of great questions, Why are you guys in this church? What has this church done for you? -Really very interested in CHANGE. He has had a few struggles in his life that I think he is ready to be done with. All were lessons extremely guided by the spirit. I have come to realize how dependent we are, and how merciful the spirit is as a missionary! So with all of them we came to the invitation to church.. All accepted.. None came! UGH.. Que bajón- enserio la fiaca aca me mata! Pero segimos adelante y adjustamos nuestros planes para el domingo q viene. :) Por favor oren para que estas personas tengan el deseo a asistir e ir a la capilla!

Time is flying! To wrap up I´ll share a little bit about the inter-cambio that we had. I was really excited to go with Elder Orellana- He´s a capo and has a reputation of being a great teacher, something that I want to become as well. So I was all ears for him. We had a good time and ended up walking a lot, not many people were home. We took care of a few things and then headed home for the night. Comp study in the morning was GREAT! As district leader I´ve been slacking a little on inter-cambios in my district but from this came to see the need to have them. He was pretty direct with me when sharing, "Elder Jolley, you need to stop thinking so much! You seem lost in thought most of the time and now more than ever you need to be out of your mind." Boom.. really a blessing to have heard that. He continued to share with me Mosiah 4:9

9 Believe in God; believe that he is, and that he created all things, both in heaven and in earth; believe that he has all wisdom, and all power, both in heaven and in earth; believe that man doth not comprehend all the things which the Lord can comprehend.

Elder Orellana and Elder Jolley

When all is said and done this is what our lives come down to, this is the solution of our trials and how we come to reach our full potential! I was so grateful to refocus my thoughts on a loving Heavenly Father, i spent a while thinking about the love that Mom and Dad have for us as kids and then just imagining the love of a God. He is so tender in His reproof and so genuine in His support. I felt like I should fast the next day and was truly humbled as the trials and weaknesses that I had been facing disappeared! I am thankful and bear testimony of a loving Father in Heaven and of the power of fasting. We will grow closer to Him and He will unfold His matchless power in our lives. I love Him and know that He loves each and every one of us! I testify of the Savior and how far He is willing to go to help us realize what God "comprehends" for us- what we are meant to be.

Todo mi amor
Elder Jolley