¡Querida Familia!

Estoy tan feliz que ustedes pudieran tener una vacación tan lindo en Mexico! Tambien que pudieron disfrutar en la cultura Latina... es hermosa no? Tengo indecición si voy a volver a la cultura Americana. Gracias tanto por compartir su semana conmigo, agradecido que ustedes están en casa. Tequila me suena... haha Elder Juarez le gustó su descripción de Mexico. Me miró y dijo... "eh.. es cierto que te puedo decir?"  haha. Nosotros esta semana tuvimos muchas experiencas muy beneficiosas tanto por nosotros como Fiorito. HAHA me reí tanto despues de haber visto Escolíto!! Che flacito no te quemes, haha siempre hagas así. :)

What a week that it´s been for us! We´ve worked hard and even better we´ve been shown A LOT of weaknesses in ourselves and the area that right now we have the blessing to "rise to the occasion" and be able to fix! It´s been a little bit colder this week and we´ve had some rain, but for the most part we were able to, everyday, be out in the field serving the Lord. Ha I´ll share an experience with ya´ll that ugoes pretty good with your vacation that ya had! I don´t know if you saw down there, but Mexicans LOVE their chilies.. We were at the house of Juan Garnica (our convert) and were sharing a great lesson with them about the temple. Well his wife is the owner of a vegetable store... Verdulería? Elder Juarez asked her if they had anything spicy! Haha she brought out these HUGE chilies and he got a huge smile on his face and ended up buying about 30 of them. Entonces in our week we´ve been eating a lot of chili. Now I´ll do a little comparison for ya. Jalepiños... for babies. Locotos... for people without a lot of common sense. These BURN. When we were with Juan and the family, Elder Juarez downed one and started crying (he grew up with the stuff though) had a little prideful moment... I ate a lot of hot sauce packets at Taco Bell in my day, what´s a Locoto gonna do? I ate a little peace and chou.. me fuí. I was red, my lips were on fire and my stomach was all the above. Family: Taco Bell isn´t anything to base yourself off of! I ended up going back to the Pinch and just sitting down to try and get the burn off! It was a funny experience that we had together! Today as a Zone we all ate a Chili (picture) haha we had Elders throwing up and others just sitting down with fire coming outta their mouths! My lips and arms were tingling for like 20 minutes. Crazy crazy chili!

Well we also did spiritual things. This week we´ve been super focused on getting things ready and prepared for our temple trip THIS SATURDAY!! So excited to enter the temple again. A few Elders have gone already and say that it is the most beautiful thing they´ve seen. I´ll tell you all about it in the week to come! :) We´ve had to do a lot of the organizing, right now our Rama is passing through a huge trial! The members aren´t responding to their responsibilities and aren´t willing to communicate with each other.. It creates a tough situation for the Church to grow and for us as members to receive the blessing that we need. We´ve had to pass by and calm several members down and as well try to keep ourselves calm with A LOT of love in our work. I´ve seen a huge theme this week, Love is key in what we do. We had our 2nd SUPER SATURDAY this week :) We had a theme of Juegos Olimpicos and it turned out really really well. Members were able to bring investigators and we also, as a Rama, went and delivered flyers to every house in Fiorito. It was a HUGE success for us! :) but during our activity we had a couple struggles with the participants getting "animated" about the games and I had a super humbling experience as I fought off getting frustrated. There were times when I wanted to throw in the towel, "why in the world would we go to this much trouble when they're just fighting against us", that type of feeling. I gave myself a couple minutes to think about "what Jesus would do" and realized how many times we as people fight against Christ. So many times things are so clear, but we complicate the work of our Father in Heaven. Again a special learning experience of the Atonement. Never once would our Savior have thought, "why in the world am I going through so much trouble when all you do is fight against what I´m trying do?" I was very grateful in the end and grateful for this lesson that I was taught. Our Savior is so merciful and His love is never-ending! :) I know that we must love what we do and who we serve.

Mario and Miriam are doing great.. we keep crossing paths and haven´t been able to meet and have a good lesson in awhile, but we´ve talked and kept communication with them. It´s good, but better to talk! Ha. We´ve been blessed with several great references from members. One is a CAPO! His name is Fabian and has 22 years. He is a Remis driver (a taxi basically). We´ve met with him a couple times and are working to be able to talk with him more, his schedule is super complicated, but the other night we snuck (?) in and found him and his family working on building an extra part on their house. We dropped everything and helped em out for a while, it was a great service project that we were blessed and definitely guided to have. After we finished they were very grateful and let us talk a little bit. Their family is super! We shared with them about the Book of Mormon and it was a great lesson, they committed to read the book and we really felt like it was a heart felt commitment. I saw the power of service in opening the hearts of the people. Really we are able to share the love of Christ in a special way when we give all and a little bit more to help those around us.

Last night we found algunos antiguos investigadores. Walter y Silvia and their 4 chicos. We had talked with them a few months ago and they asked for time to think. Well with the temple open house and all the blessing we are seeing with this event we took them a special invitation and ended up teaching them about eternal families and what it is that Christ has asked us to do in order to receive this blessing. The spirit was SO strong and we really felt their interest and their need for what we were sharing. We started things back up with this family and are praying that they will come with us to the open house this Saturday! (feel free to join in :) ) They need to go. I know that if they do we will see some baptisms.

This week for us and for the District has been pretty... challenging. Lots of pruebas that we are facing. I´ve been fasting and praying to know how to be a better example and to help the other missionaries reach their full potential as missionaries. Our Zone Leader shared with me something that I loved. He referred to Ether 12:6. No testimony is received until after the trial of our faith. We have been tried and it has been a true battle for us. He explained that we must trust in this promise. He said, "Elder you have passed through a trial and now it is time for your success." What a great and motivating invitation. I´ve been thinking a lot about Magnifying my calling and the importance of going and doing... not waiting for a step system to say what we need to do- only do it! The faith that we have takes us to new heights and levels of what our Heavenly Father wants for us. I was given a new excitement and am working hard to magnify my calling. :) I invite all of us to do the same. Trust that trials will come, but don´t have to stay because the time must come that our testimonies will grow. It depends on us and our faith in the Savior as to when we give all we have to grow in testimony!

I love you all and am thankful for your example and your fun experience that put a smile on my face! :)

Con mucho amor

Elder Jolley

 

The Elders enjoying their Locotos