Hey Family!

It's been a crazy day after our call. We've had to get Elder Verdusco registered with the government and it's a pain and a half, but I can't tell you all how much this mornings call made my day! Here's the email I sent to President Clark that will give you a little look into last week. Take care, talk to you again soon ya?...

Hey President,

This last week has flown by and I can't believe that Elder Verdusco and I have been companions for almost a week! It's been a classic "whitewash" week here in Khailaast. A whitewash means that neither of the 2 Elders have ever served in a newly transferred area before. So Elder Verdusco and I have created an area book, received assignments for less active members from the Branch President and this week are ready to start some real work! You'll see in our numbers we did not teach any lessons, as we went out to teach the few appointments we had, they kept falling through, but through some diligence we were able to obtain lots of great potential investigators that want to meet this week! On 3 occasions we were stopped by people on the street saying they would like to meet with us.... now we will begin teaching those people starting on Tuesday! I am so grateful for the Lord's blessings and I love the first couple weeks of a new transfer when everything is in the rebuilding stage, Elder Verdusco and I will be able to look back on these first couple of weeks and see how the Lord was guiding us and laying the foundation of our work here. Khailaast is a great branch! We met with President Nasanbold on Sunday and will continue to work closely with him, especially after your email concerning the need for active Melchizedek Priesthood holders, we are going to work closely with him in this effort. We had 70 members attend Church last Sunday, a good start but not where we need to be, so I'll be reporting to you in the next few weeks how that improves, but 18 of those were Melchizedek Priesthood holders!

As we listened to the Sacrament meeting talks I had a confirmation of my testimony in the power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, that God gave us this Gospel to be able to experience His joy (according to our own desire) by having us live by the same principles that He does. We get these glimpses of that joy here in this life, what a blessing that is! Elder Verdusco is still a little starry-eyed about being here, but he has a mind to work and I look forward to seeing his progress. I will continue to inform you on this as time goes on. On a side note, I mentioned to you before that my brother was filling out his mission papers and I heard today that he will be turning them in next Sunday. Have a great week President!

Elder Jolley