Hey! To start off, the Thanksgiving package came... thanks you guys! You already heard about my "traditional" Thanksgiving dinner, but I was on the alert after your email last week, the package came on Friday and was, as always, an awesome way to end off the night! I don't know whether to eat the stuffing or frame it it's so beautiful!! It probably won't make it through the week.... more than the food though I loved all of your letters! Thank you for your testimonies, and thanks especially to Sky-guy and his camp out analogy. I've been studying the Plan of Salvation alot and it gave me a really cool perspective on what I had been studying! Because of time I'll forward as my spiritual thought the email I sent to Elder Mickelson, it's related towards missionary work, but applies to every task that the Lord gives us. Our Area President, Elder Carl B. Pratt of the Seventy, is here this week for a mission tour and we had an incredible Zone Conference with him and Sister Pratt. I wish I could scan my notes and send them with this email, pure revelation! I had the chance Saturday night to interview with him (my first interview on my mission) and that was the highlight of my week, a great spiritual experience!
This week Elder Мөнгөнцор and I, with English teaching, taught 26 lessons and I loved being busy just with teaching! We did very little finding this week keeping up with all the teaching appointments. We're also preparing 2 investigators to be baptized, one on the 17th, and another on the 31st of December and we meet with them often. One is a 9 year old girl named Урангоо. Her sister and brother are members, but the rest of her family is not and comes to Church every week and her older sister (an RM) is a really great example to her! Эрдэнэцэцэг is 18, has been investigating the Church for over 6 months, and has been passed around a ton with missionaries transferring to and from the area, but with all the change is still attending Church and just needs to have the lessons retaught, and then she's ready for baptism. I'm feeling the responsibility right now to really make sure we prepare these 2 the best we can to be strong members of the Church and it's really helped our lesson planning be more specific having taught everything ourselves and being able to gauge their understanding.
Now I want to share about Saturday, Zone Conference with Elder Pratt! Friday night our Zone Leaders called and said we had a "surprise" Zone Conference the next morning from 8 to 2 and then interviews with Elder Pratt that night. Sister Pratt is an incredibly enthusiastic speaker and she kept telling the translator off for not expressing enough feeling! Ha ha, I loved it. Most of her remarks are in the email I'll forward, but she shared an awesome talk based off Elder McConkie's "Gospel Teaching and Learning" talk from last Conference. Go read that again this week, an incredible talk! She shared one thing that I had never thought of before... we read the Scriptures to learn to recognize the VOICE of the Savior and how He and the Father work among the children of men. We read from Ether 2 where the Lord spake with the Brother of Jared for 3 hours. Sister Pratt then asked, "When was the last time you spoke with the Lord for that long?" She then related that we have 2 hours of study, personal and companionship, where if we will read from the Scriptures we can learn to recognize the voice of the Lord, a.k.a. speak with Him each day. I had never thought of scripture study in this way and I was excited to share that with you all- make sure, aside from your prayers, that you are taking the time to speak with the Lord, personally and especially as a family!! We all can better learn to recognize His voice. Elder Pratt's remarks were all focused on the great commandment to love one another. I left his notes at my apartment and don't want to botch his words trying to say them myself... so I'll share them later. But we read from John 13-17, the Saviors "Upper Room" address and I loved how much he taught from the scriptures rather than just speaking. Those would also be a great few chapters to read this week (hint hint).
About the Christmas call, I'm going to try and get the final "okay" on skype this week, I'm 90% sure it's fine, but for the final word I may have to wait until President Clark arrives. Speaking of which, the expected arrival time right now is the 17th of December!! Yeah!! I'm excited for him to be here. What you can do now though is set up a skype account for me, that would be all I think we would need to do. Then you can send me the password and I'll get on that way. If I can I'll get all the final details worked out and report back next week. Thanks you guys, I hope you're especially enjoying this Christmas season, it really is a time where everyone seems to be happier, forgive easier, and focus on what's really important. I think of you all the time and strive to serve as an example for the future Jolley missionaries and to live up to the great blessing of the family that I have!
Love, Elder Jolley
Ахлагч Жолий
Ахлагч Мөнгөнцор and Ахлагч Жолий
Elders in my district (also my roommates), my companion Elder Мөнгөнсор (glasses), Elder Нямбаяр (white shirt), and Elder Мягмардорж (green shirt), great Elders! (this was the missing pic from last week)Ахлагч Жолий
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