Hey Family!

I loved hearing about your week! I've been refocusing my study this week to be more goal oriented then my own personal spiritual upliftment, especially to bless those who we teach and I've been really enjoying that!

Monday: I had a surprise package come in the mail, from my trainer Elder Amgalan. He bought me a camel hair beanie, but even better was the letter that came with it! I don't have time to share what he said, but I was grateful again for that time to be with him, and glad to be able to look back on that 1st half transfer without regret, and of course for that continued friendship. He shared with me D&C 15:4-6, it's great reminder of what our main goal is as missionaries. Sometimes we want to be really flowery in our approach, but simple is always more effective and I love seeing that throughout the scriptures and in the PMG lessons! I taught English today over at the Rokmon Building, they by far are my favorite class, their language skills make it that we can learn more of what they want to know and have fun with it. That took up my night and finished off my Preparation day.

Tuesday: a new companionship moved into my apartment! I'm not going to spell their Mongolian names out right now, but Elder Althansukh and Batsengeth now live with us! I was loving all the extra space, but I knew those 2 from before and they're really great Elders! I'm really trying to push more activity in the morning in our apartment, but now everything is settled down from the moving this week. Just in time for big transfer! This next Saturday is the end of my 1st legit, 12 week transfer, I don't know what will happen yet, but I'll fill you in next week. I've been in the same apartment and area for my time here, which recently is pretty impressive with all the moving around so we'll see what happens! I went with Elder Cardinal to teach English so his companion could sit in District meeting so today was a double dose of English class. After I joined back up with my district (which right now is just our companionship and the 2 training sisters) and we ate some tasty tsoivan at a members house. One of our wards' new members stopped by with a friend who had some questions about the Church. We left to go teach a lesson, but as we were leaving the Sisters began teaching the first lesson to her. It was a unique experience "watching" a lesson being taught from the "back seat" and I was again impressed with the simple power of the message that a missionary bears! It's something that most people believe themselves, but are just looking for a confirmation! I left there re-fired for our own work, what a great lunch! And that has been driving my study goals for this week.

Wednesday: We had FHE with a new member (Bat tsetseg), her son, and her parents (who are great members in our ward; her dad, Bat tumur is in the Bishopric). I shared with them 3 Nephi 13:33 and we talked about how we are blessed in our lives by following the Lord first. I love that scripture and we had a really good discussion about that. Not being able to street contact or tract brings the need for us to be creative in our finding and it very important that we ITS, or invite others to share with us people they know who would like to hear about the Gospel. We received the names of some less active members in our area that we had no idea about before, Elder Ganbolthd has been having me ask the ITS's and it's been a great conversation improvement opportunity. We left FHE later than we wanted, kinda stressed about getting home by 9:30, so we flagged down a bus and hopped on only to find out it was the wrong one! Thanks to a few prayers and a fast taxi we made it home on time. It's nothing huge, but I'm grateful for small blessings like that.

Thursday: We are meeting with a super active new member named Bayarsukh and we taught him about missionary work. He wants to serve a mission, but is worried he won't be an effective teacher of the Gospel. I wanted to throw in an "amen" to that one! I still feel that all the time when I'm teaching in Mongolian. We watched the "Called To Serve" video with him (it's a classic! Has to be from the 80's or so, I'd never seen it before), and even being a missionary I loved watching that! I loved that traditional missionary view it portrayed and I'm working to have more of that in our work (Dad I wanted to hear what you had to say about this from your mission.... let me know next week!). We have a lot of really strong new members in Sansar, most of them are great ward missionaries just a few months after their own baptism. I love seeing that desire that comes after they've accepted the Gospel message. Then we had English at the New West Hotel. These students are my "beginners" and we're working on accents and we learned about the "Th" sound. Dang we've got a long way to go there!

Friday: We had an interesting call from our AP's - government curfew! Because of the census Mongolia is doing right now everyone has to be home by 6 p.m. until this next Thursday. So I've been getting a lot of extra study time since then! I don't know how well its followed because there's still people out, but the plan is that census workers will go to every apartment before Thursday and do an accounting of the occupants. We still haven't had a visit yet though. That also means no English, which normally would be sweet to have that prime meeting time back! But, being in the apartment means no missionary work. That gave me some time to get creative cooking in last night, made doughnuts! They were just like the ones you make with the dutch oven. I got a bread recipe from one of the Senior couples and I'm going to try that out this week.

Saturday: Christmas came early on Saturday! I told you about the need for referrals Elder Ganbolthd and I have.. we received about 20 referrals for our area from the Ward and we went on to meet with 3 new investigators! We also were given the referral of an American man living in Mongolia, called him and am planning to meet with him on Saturday. I'm excited for the opportunity to teach an English lesson and I'm excited for the new opportunities those referrals will provide! Because of this curfew we were unable to set a baptismal interview for Narantsetseg (I wrote about her last week, our investigator who is preparing for baptism), but were able to meet with her again and she is all ready! The plan is for her to have her interview this Saturday and that's exciting. She has been waiting a long time for this to happen and it's exciting to see that desire in her.

Sunday: Our ward also had their primary program like our home ward, it was cool to find that out from your emails. They were a small group, but they're some of the first kids that have been born into the Gospel and that's really cool! We had a really slow day as far as the work after, all of our appointments fell through which was a big bummer. But nothing like a fresh week, new goals and new opportunities coming! I love the story of Aaron. You read in Alma about his first few "transfers" of his mission and he was rejected, cast out, and thrown into prison. But, here is what makes him a powerful missionary: he remembers something that I just read in a talk by Elder Oaks "Our faith is in Jesus Christ and not in outcomes." As soon as he is released from prison he resumes the work, and was obedient throughout this experience! I'm very impressed by his example and working to pattern my service after that, whether it's a great day, a slow day, to always remember the importance of being steady and patient! A couple of other things before I close, I would love some pen refills for a Zebra F-301 .07 pen, black and blue, my "ole reliable" MTC pens. Also, maybe a few family/other photos of stuff I can throw into my album. I really don't have any preferences on things other than that, just stuff from home is great! I'll look into the Skype stuff from my end and make sure I'm for sure able to do that, but sounds great to me! I love you guys and am always impressed by the examples you are in following the Lord and doing what's right, I see that in each of your emails!

Elder Jolley