Hey Family,

Happy Fathers Day Dad! Even though we won't be Skyping or anything like that this week, I can't tell you enough how grateful I am for all that you do! It's so easy to see the influence a righteous priesthood holder has on those around him, and your sons, your family are a testimony to that!

This week marks the end of my first transfer with Elder Verdusco, I can't believe how fast time is flying by! With the year mark coming up for being in Mongolia it's blowing my mind shuu dee. But to start off the new week we found a great family to teach and moved! I told you how Elder Verdusco and I's apartment was a bit of a "fixer upper," well with last Saturday being transfers we were able to move to an apartment in the 11th Xoroolol, closer to our area and our English classes, so we'll save some time by avoiding most of the city traffic. And it's way nice! We are blessed to have so much on our mission that we never hurt for anything, I never have any reason not to be grateful! I'm also very grateful for the power of fasting and I'll share an experience we had this week as a companionship.

As I have been studying this week I was especially impressed by the blessings that we receive that are predicated upon the combination of prayer and fasting. See Mosiah 4:26, Alma 5:45-46, Alma 6:6. They are specific, powerful blessings that can be received by our sincere fasts and offerings. And if you think about it, food and money are on the top of the list of physical wants, and by fasting we put off these desires that usually take up a good amount of our thoughts and we replace that gap with spiritual things. Elder Verdusco and I had been studying this, personally and as a companionship and this weekend we had the opportunity to apply the things we had learned!

I've talked before about our investigator Battugs. We have been meeting with him now for 5 weeks and is progressing in every area except for Church attendance! His family and even neighbors are against him meeting with us and he has been having his faith tried a lot these last few weeks. Especially about going to Church. Many churches here offer food, transportation, money, and other incentives at their meetings. But of course, members of the LDS Church do not give or receive any of that. And especially our area of Ulaanbaatar has a lot of poverty and a lot of people see Churches as almost a charity organization or a source for food. Battugs' family especially is having a hard time with money right now and his brother and dad refuse to attend a church that does not do these things... they believe that's what decides a good church. But from receiving a bite to eat, how great are the blessings that come freely to those who will attend Church, coming with a broken heart and a contrite spirit, renewing baptismal covenants, and feasting upon the word! Because of a lot of this pressure, Battugs has been struggling to decide for himself whether to come to Church. That has been the only commandment that he has struggled with in meeting with the missionaries and this has been a completely new experience for me. Usually we work with investigators in other aspects of the Gospel, but rarely have a problem with Church attendence. But as PMG says, investigators needs and beliefs vary shuu (I know you guys don't get the "shuu dee's" that I'm throwing in, but it seems weird without them so go with it!). Anyways, we met with Battugs on Friday and we again taught him about the Sabbath Day and he admitted that he wasn't able to promise if he would come to Church or not, because he did not fully believe himself. But you need to go to gain a testimony (see John 7:17.... "If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself..")! So we committed him to read 3 Nephi 18 and pray to have the faith to attend Church, regardless what his family or others may think. We also knew that it would take a little help from us and so we planned to go and get him before Sacrament Meeting and to fast that we would have the opportunity to help him get to Church.

Sunday morning rolls around and as we are heading up Battugs road we meet him on a joining street going the other way. We were surprised at first to see him, but joined up and began walking towards the meetinghouse, I knew something else was up. So I decided to ask! "Battugs, you weren't planning on going to Church with us today were you?" He replied with an honest "No," and went on to remark how when he ran into us he knew that meant he needed to be at Church, the timing was too perfect. When I commented on our more than chance meeting he said "You two are very lucky," but I knew that the Lord, in a very literal way had blessed Elder Verdusco and I through our fast! Sunday ended up being a very great day and though Battugs still will have to continue to work to increase his faith in this area, I know he felt the Spirit and was grateful to have both of our testimonies strengthened!

I also had a bunch of great pictures to send this week, of the new apartment (classy!) and others, but I forgot the cable, so tune in next week ya? Thanks for all of your emails and updates, and I'm excited to hear about your next week, give President Clark a "Sain uu" for me, it's crazy to me that you will get to see him. I always feel like I can't say "a hundreth part" of what happens or what I feel, but yax whe? Love you guys!

Elder Jolley