FELIZ NAVIDAD!!

This will be the last time that I write you guys before WE TALK!! Wahoo! Time is still something that I don´t like considering because it flies! Si, I had heard about my new release date.. not happy!! But what are ya gonna do? Cutting the mission a little shorter is a hard thought to process when I had been hoping to be here and with the people even for just a couple weeks longer. I am focused and enthusiastic about my time serving here and it´s hard to think of things differently! I´m very excited about the things that are happening right now in the mission! All the missionaries are really looking forward to these next couple weeks. Presidente Stapley has really been inspired to set up "a process of santification" that we have started during the holiday season. Right now we really want everyone to be able to have the "vision" of what we can accomplish as missionaries and to be able to have a strong strong personal desire to listen and follow the spirit in our lives! The best Christmas present that we received this last week was the news that on January 7th La Misión Buenos Aires Sur will be going to the Temple!! :) Presidente has organized a special endowment session for all the missionaries! I´m thrilled.. not sure how else to explain it!! There couldn´t be a better place to go to receive instruction and receive "power from on high!" It has been awhile since I´ve been to the Temple so I´ve kinda got cositas in my tummy to get back there! Ha. There is a super great spirit right now in the mission!

As for this last week, GENIAL! :) Villa Elvira finally has started to explode with new possibilities and success that I haven´t seen!! We had una semana re buena aquí. It was kinda complicada during the week but turned out fantastic!! This week I had a few great experiences with intercambios that we did. This week we ended up doing 3!! We did one with our District Leader, Elder Hogenson.. from Canada! Cool, eh? We enjoyed talking about Mr. Big bars and Hockey! Ha I thought he´d know something about Strange Brew but no luck. We had a great time together! He works hard and we had a great time learning from each other. One experience I loved with Elder Hogenson was in a contact that we didn´t expect. We were going to visit a member who wasn´t there in the end but next door a man salió de su casa and asked us to come inside and share something with him! We entered in and shared about the power of prayer! Daniel se llama hadn´t had communication with his family for a long time and so being able to express himself to his Heavenly Father I think helped him out a lot!

On Thursday Elder Villalba and I received a call from our Assistants who were down in La Plata and wanted to do an intercambio with us. It ended up being such a great experience! Elder Villalba and I have been doing everything how we need to but what we lacked was the "fire-cito" that they brought with them. I learned more than anything with Elder Reid that in our lives, when we know something is right and we feel the desire to help others, we gotta go for it and the spirit will help us and will show us miracles. That day we were able to invite 3 people to be baptized and 3 people accepted the invitation! :) I´ve been praying a lot the past few weeks to be able to find people who would be willing to accept this invitation and this week truly was a miracle and an answer to that prayer! In the end of the week we found 5 incredible people who are now listening to us and more and more things are opening up! To be honest I have no clue what changed exactly?? We changed the way we plan and started doing things junto with our ward and from there I know that the Lord put in His part. It was a great change that we saw!

The last intercambio that we were able to do was with the Elders that share our apartment. We decided to just do it for the afternoon and turned out to be a great success! I went with an Elder Williams and we were able to have a couple really great experiences. We found 2 families that were soo accepting of us and from what I have heard they are capos!! Also I was so grateful to learn from Elder Williams. He and his companion have gone through some rough times and were a little discouraged. While we walked we got talking about the power of our calling and of the covenants that we´ve be able to make in our lives. I really felt the spirit as we sat there talking for a minute. Before we got to finish, we entered into a house of a menos activo and got talking with her. She had been through some hard times and really didn´t have much of a testimony anymore. Again we started to talk about prayer and in the lesson Elder Williams shared a powerful testimony of how he came to love prayer in his life. WOW!! There was such power and authority in his testimony.. it put esa hermana in tears!! She quietly thought for a minute and said that she would pray that night (when at the beginning of the lesson she showed zero interest!) I was so grateful for that spiritual experience, realizing how special it is to realize what we are capable of- when we know who we are and what we´ve been given in our lives!

The spirit really has been such a blessing in my life this week. I´ve been a witness of his power and I´ve been touched by his peace on many occasions. What an incredible blessing that we have WHEN we know how to live worthy of His companionship and understand what the spirit can do for us! I loved a scripture in Jarom 1:4 (can´t download it.. if you will that´d be great mom!) Only when I decide to listen and when I decide to exercise faith can I be in perfect communion with our Father in Heaven!

 Jarom 1:4
And there are many among us who have many revelations, for they are not all stiffnecked. And as many as are not stiffnecked and have faith, have communion with the Holy Spirit, which maketh manifest unto the children of men, according to their faith.

I love you guys tons and can´t wait till next week! :) Hope that you all have a great week!

Mucho Love!
Elder Jolley