A New President

¡Buenas! Que viaje que tuvieron. Me alegre que hayan pasado bien la semana. ¡Que hermoso Lake Powell! No les voy a mentir- me dio un re gana para estar allà ahora en vez de congelandome. Verano para mi necesite ser durante los meses de Junio a Agosto.. ojo me parece a mi solamente.

Well we`ve had a good week! A kinda weird one pero a pesar de todo estamos felices. I`m feeling great. 10 puntos! I remain with a cough, but that`s normal and cleans out the lungs so as far as I know I`m progressing normally. Unfortunately Elder Jimenez woke up this morning with a fever and a headache.. where have we seen that before?? So we`re taking it easy and making sure that he takes care of himself. We don`t want to return to any clinic/hospital. We`ve been able to work normally and we`ve had a lot of success this week in helping our ward out in Bosques.Since the Work of Salvation meeting there has been a large emphasis placed on getting our wards organized and as missionaries being of extra help to them. Personally these last couple weeks I`ve really had a change of heart towards our ward. They are incredible and just amazing people here! They work so hard to do their calling and improve them... can`t ask for more. We heard a quote the other day that I love, "If we do our best and are motivated by love, the spirit will inspire us in our work and the Lord WILL NOT let us fail." I loved that. We`ve worked hard with our ward the whole time I`ve been here, but now as you add love to the mixture the Lord picks things up and is able to do great things. This week we`ve been trying to gain the confidence of our members and help them know that the missionaries are there to support them in their callings so we`ve gone out with a few of the presidents of the different organizations and helped them to reach their goals or we`ve gone out and visited families at their request and reported back- all has helped us greatly to be able to help the members have more enthusiasm for their work. It has been great!! On Saturday we were able to head out with the young women's president who took us by a couple houses, we got to know the area a little more and we were able to have a couple good visits. She then helped us to find a family! :) Julia and Karen are from Paraguay and great friends of this Hermana Franco. We talked to them for a little bit and explained who we are and shared with them a message of the Restored Gospel. We were grateful to have found more people to teach. And last night we made a little "plan" with our Elders Quorum President. He called a friend of his to come over to his house while we were there, he was a little afraid that his friend would take it bad so he sent us to visit a family real quick. (we were grateful for him sending us to this Family, familia Melo, we had a great lesson with this family and felt with them the spirit really strong as we talked about the Plan of Salvation) Then casually after the visit we returned to his house, that was the plan, and we just "happened" to show up! Haha when he opened the door he was like, "oh, elders! What a surprise, are you guys working in the area?" he repeated that like 2 or 3 times. We got away with the plan though and had a great lesson with this friend. Right now we`ve been inviting the majority of the people we are with to receive us again, we try and leave them with a short message an invitation to read and a return visit. It has been kinda hard to get people to commit to listening to us. Sometimes it just goes by as a nice message or something.

Monica, Maria and Andrea are all doing really well. Monica continues to struggle with her cigarettes. She is faithful in coming to church and everything like that but what a powerful addiction! The good thing with her and all the investigators that have problems like that is that they never get worse! They always just stay the same or just little baby steps. We have great reason to be happy for that. Time just isn`t ours and we just wait! Maria and Andrea, we had a great visit with them this week. We wanted to help them get a good understanding of Joseph Smith. We went with Hermano Moya (the guy you guys talked to when we skyped), he`s a stud teacher. They still had the doubt that there was a true church. The spirit really helped us to testify to them that they would know if there was this truth if they would search those things that Joseph Smith taught and the works which he did, especially we`re trying to help them read the Book of Mormon so truly those were the perfect words given to us! We hope that they have been reading this week!

Well, President Stapley I`m sure has arrived in Utah by now and President Thurgood and his wife have arrived to Buenos Aires! What a weird experience... We knew it was coming but when it got here, super strange! We had our last meeting with President and Sister Stapley on Wednesday and there we kinda said goodbye. It was really hard to just say "thanks" because it didn`t feel like enough. He really is an inspired man and an example of Christ! He really made such a difference in the mission! Also I had the chance to have, as if it were my exit interview with him on Wednesday too and we had a good talk and he gave me some great pointers for the next chapter of life. Make sure you send him a hello when you go to his homecoming! We are very excited for President Thurgood, I don`t know him. Hardly anyone does but they say he`s an amazing guy! I believe Tuesday will be the first time we`ll see him. I`ll let ya know next week!

I was reading the Book of Mormon today and wanted to share a couple cool scriptures I found. I`ve been trying to be better about having faith and I read about the Sons of Helaman having faith and it working for them as a principle FOR power.

46 For as I had ever called them my sons (for they were all of them very young) even so they said unto me: Father, behold our God is with us, and he will not suffer that we should fall; then let us go forth; we would not slay our brethren if they would let us alone; therefore let us go, lest they should overpower the army of Antipus.

47 Now they never had fought, yet they did not fear death; and they did think more upon the liberty of their fathers than they did upon their lives; yea, they had been taught by their mothers, that if they did not doubt, God would deliver them.

48 And they rehearsed unto me the words of their mothers, saying: We do not doubt our mothers knew it.

55 And now it came to pass that when they had surrendered themselves up unto us, behold, I numbered those young men who had fought with me, fearing lest there were many of them slain.

56 But behold, to my great joy, there had not one soul of them fallen to the earth; yea, and they had fought as if with the strength of God; yea, never were men known to have fought with such miraculous strength; and with such mighty power.

Their faith and confidence had become so strong in the Lord that they did not doubt what He was capable of doing for them and in the moment of need they were able through their faith call down the powers of Heaven and receive great blessings in their lives. I know that we need this in our lives. We have to have Heavenly Father's help in order to do the many difficult things that life requires! I also know that we need to work in order to become familiar with what the Lord can do for us- become so familiar with HIM that our confidence can wax strong in the moment when we call upon Him. It is something that is easier said than done, I`m trying to receive that faith and confidence, but as I do so I am coming to know my Father in Heaven more personally and the spirit of Christ truly comes into our lives and helps us have peace! I know that the spirit gives us these gifts.

I love ya guys! Have a great week and we`ll talk to ya next week.

Elder Jolley