Sain Uu Ger Bul ee,

It's been an incredible week with lots of stuff going on and lots coming up! This last week two former mission presidents, President Clark (1999-2002) and President Anderson (2007-2010) came and it's been incredible to hear from them how Mongolia was in their time and how it has changed. There was a special fireside last night and we went with the Clarks, the Andersons, and the Clarks to Baganuur and attended sacrament meeting. Baganuur is a small city 2 hours outside of Ulaanbaatar. The area has been open now for just over 10 years (the former President Clark opened it) and has just received the approval to build a new chapel! I was especially grateful for the opportunity to partake of the sacrament yesterday, in a humble, rented branch meeting house and to meet the members there. There's a different spirit in these small meetings and I am impressed with the faith of the members as they are literally building Zion from the ground up here! After sacrament meeting we went with Branch President Gantigchuluun to the spot of the new branch building. I've sent a picture of Elder Tuvshinbayar and I with the 3 Presidents.

Elder Tuvshinbayar, President Anderson, President Clark (current),
President Clark and Elder Jolley

Being able to see these 3 mission presidents all together gave me a look into the different personalities and leadership styles of all 3. President Anderson gave a constant flow of spiritual insights, President Clark (the former one) was a great example of faith and diligence, and President Clark is all of that! I can see the blessings that have come because the Lord sent these men to Mongolia at certain times and I'm continually grateful for the opportunity to work with President Clark! There's still nothing better than going out and meeting with people. I love sharing the Gospel with people, and so I was worried that I'd be living a "double life" between office and missionary work. But in this last week I've come to realize that if I choose, these can be one and the same in purpose.

This next week marks 1 year in Mongolia. I'm getting deja vu of last year and it's been weird to try and think that I'm entering the "last" of everything. This year I want to be more goal oriented, to be better at aspiring, attaining, and measuring progress. Part of that is improving my ability to recognize and act upon spiritual guidance. If you will remember, I bought that cool Moleskin notebook before I left and haven't done anything with it this last year. But I finally found something to do with it! Starting this week I'll be using it to record spiritual insights, blessings received and other thoughts. I got this idea reading a talk from Elder Richard G. Hinckley that he gave in April 2006. Read this talk! I've noticed that as I have been more careful to write down these small promptings, they have come with more clarity and more powerfully!

Sorry, no time for more. I love you guys! Thanks for the pictures, and I hope you have a great week!

Elder Jolley

P.S. I thought you'd like to see Mongolia's newest grocery store, the "Well- Mart".

Sain baina uu

Za hey family! I'm glad you ran into the Mellors, cool eh? It's funny, every couple of months I run into people from Utah, wondering around Mongolia. They were super nice to pass those ties along- a great couple with a really interesting mission. Today, as always is crazy and so I hope to get enough time to write a couple of emails to the youngins after this email. If I don't guys, thanks for all the great emails I get from you each week! I included a couple of pictures in this weeks email from my last week in Khailaast... I got them from Elder and Sister Richardson and I thought I'd pass them along. Two are pictures with Ijil od and Ixer od (Which means twin star and pair star), our Khailaast new members. The other is me and the monstrous noith hole (noith means zero... or bathroom).

Elder Jolley with Ijil od, Ixer od, Elder Mellors and Elder Richardson

Elder Verdusco, Elder Jolley and the Mellors working on the monstrous noith hole

Elder Jolley and Elder Verdusco... last week in Khailaast

Mongolia's school calender starts from September the first and it will be nice to have people not running off to the countryside on us as fall begins, it should help our work out a lot. I sat in Sansar ward for the first time since coming here (no trips to other branches this week or next I think), and it felt like sitting in my home ward again! It was really cool for me to be greeted be so many familiar people, and the work here is good and going to be getting better! There's a couple people that Elder Zolbayar and I began meeting with back in the day and are ready for baptism, but the Assistants have been really busy so they will hopefully be baptized here real soon. Plus- we got new missionaries! We sent 14 Mongolian missionaries to the Philippines MTC and 2 missionaries and one senior missionary couple came from the United States. A crazy week shuu dee! Elder Wilson and Elder Huff have become trainers to Elder Titensor and Elder Woodward. I didn't get any pictures of us on Zaisan, but I'll have plenty of cool pictures to be showing you in the next couple of weeks. Just to let you guys know (I may have said this before...), Elder Gong (newly called to the Asia Area Presidency) and Elder Ochoa of the YM General Presidency are coming to Mongolia in the first week of September for a mission tour. It's going to be an amazing week! Now that I wrote that I'm getting deja vu... I think I've already written this before. But it's worth saying twice. We will be doing 3 zone conferences that week; 2 in the city and one out in Darkhan.

This week was a lot of office work with all these new missionaries coming in and out, but Saturday President Clark left for Darkhan and all the missionaries were back in their areas and so Elder Tuvshinbayar and I had 2 days of just missionary work. Being an assistant has really made me treasure every teaching appointment! And if we focus on them, the investigators needs become clear through the Holy Ghost. Sometimes we want to dig in and get deep with the solutions, but time and time again as we step back, and focus on listening (to the person and the Spirit), the way is revealed to us! I'm constantly grateful for that blessing from our Heavenly Father, no specific experiences but just a general appreciation for the Lord for that blessing!

Love, Elder Ryan Jolley

Sain Uu!

Hey family, thanks for the great emails and pictures! I can't believe it's approaching fall, I felt like we just did this, no? Anyways, it's been a great week here and I want to fill you in on a bit of what's been going on:

Monday and Tuesday were great last days in Khailaast. We visited with Nergui and his family to finish Tuesday night off and then moved out early Wednesday morning. Elder Verdusco is still in Khailaast, with my old Zone Leader Elder Mungunsukh. And ever since then it's been a rush!

Elder Verdusco and Elder Jolley with Nergui and his family

Being in Sansar now I have 2 lives, the office life and the work. The goal is to be able to manage both and then get more lessons taught than hours in the office, and so far we've done well. It's fun to see my new members here, to see lots of familiar faces and now to keep meeting with old and new investigators. My new companion is a complete stud of a missionary and I couldn't be more excited to be with him. He started his mission in may of last year and so we're similar that way, and has been an Assistant for almost 3 months. He's an intense basketball player so we hit up a couple hours of b-ball for Preparation Day today, just an all around great Elder! I am grateful that the Lord keeps blessing me with amazing companions and I'm excited to serve together.

Elder Tuvshinbayar and Elder Jolley in the Countryside

Plus, I went to the countryside! First time I've been out of Ulaanbaatar since coming last September and so I was pretty excited. We were in Zuun Kharaa, a little town north of UB, about a 3 hour car drive. Elder Tuvshinbayar (my new companion), President Clark, Sister Clark, and I sat in the Zuun Kharaa sacrament meeting, and we went as translators. Elder Tuvshinbayar translated for Sister Clark, and I translated for President Clark. Let's just say it worked but I'm anxious to improve! Also, I'm getting my Mongolian drivers license here in the next 10 days or so, with Elder Wilson gone and Elder Tuvshinbayar license-less we're taxing everyone around and it will be a great help to the work once that comes. We now live literally right next to the Bayanzurkh Building (which also means the mission office) in an apartment that the Sansar sisters used to live in- I sent pictures it's a beauty!

The new apartment in Sansar

The biggest difference this week has been again teaching with a Mongolian companion, I'm glad now to be the worst Mongolian speaker in the companionship!

We've got a lot of great things coming up in this next month that I'll be more prepared to fill you guys in on next week, but we're preparing for our new Asia Area Presidency Member, Elder Gerrit W. Gong, to come for a mission tour, as well as a few other trips to branches in the countryside. I also ran into (Elder) Brother Cardinal today, who's back in town for a 10 day visit- man time sure flies! I love you guys, hoped you liked my countryside pictures and such, talk to you next week!

Love, Elder Jolley

Few extra pictures:

The finishing up of the outhouse dig—a good 3 meters down!
Elder Verdusco and Elder Jolley

The open house at the Chingeltei Meetinghouse

Sain uu

Happy Monday Family (too bad you guys don't have a Preparation Day, it makes Monday's a lot cooler). Elder Verdusco and I have had a great day! Cleaned the house and started our packing preparations for this Wednesday. We've really loved this apartment so almost sad to be leaving it. But transfers! I'm going back to Sansar, and Elder Verdusco will be staying in Khailaast. Elder Verdusco's new companion is one of the Elders in our district, Elder Mungunsukh (he's our zone leader) and will now be covering the whole Khailaast area (instead of 4 Elders and 2 Sisters we're gaining 2 more Sisters and losing 2 Elders). But he's really excited and I'm excited that he'll still be able to keep working with our investigators. This time in Sansar will be different from my last 2 transfers there because I'll be serving as President's Assistant with Elder Tuvshinbayar. But going to Sansar feels like coming home and I'm excited to return! I'll be taking Elder Wilson's place (between him and I, one of us has been in Sansar since we came in last September) and he and Elder Huff will be training the 2 new American missionaries coming on Wednesday, Elder Titensor and Woodward. So lot's of big changes happening!

I found out by being invited last minute to the mission's zone counsel last Tuesday. At the time I had no idea what I was doing, I was just told to sit in- we spent the afternoon in the Mission President's home discussing the new training plan for missionaries (which is starting this month, Brayden's going to be able to get this training in the field). Anyways, after a spiritual feast, discussing the needs and upcoming events of our mission, I found out that I would be coming to Sansar again. Also, Elder Carl B. Pratt has just been released from our Area Presidency and Elder Gerrit W. Gong has been called to fill in, he will be coming for a mission tour in September! So I've known most of the last week, but the transfer call didn't come until Saturday so Elder Verdusco was plotting and guessing throughout the week what was happening! He's excited for his new companion and it will be good for him to really dive into the language 24/7 being with a Mongolian companion. I'm very excited for Elder Verdusco, to not only have seen his progress in the last few months together but now to see him take off! Ever since Tuesday I've been grateful for the trust that the Lord and President Clark have put in me and I'm excited now to learn the ropes. My new companion is awesome! He started his mission a month before me and I've worked with him a little bit on companion exchanges, just a good, solid Elder. He and I will have the opportunity to work with President Clark, as well as our responsibility over the Sansar ward. So I'll have a lot to fill in next week as I get my feet wet! This next transfer will bring a lot of changes, but I'm so grateful for the time I have to be a servant of the Lord in this part of the field! I've taken the initiative to re-read Preach My Gospel cover to cover this week and it's strengthened my testimony in the power of this book! With the Book of Mormon there's no other book that we should know more in order to be a instrument in the hand of the Lord (shout out to Dad and Brayden- start reading in cover to cover with me and we'll share spiritual insights!). To close I'll share a scripture:

By faith ^aAbel offered unto God a more excellent ^bsacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts: and by it he being dead yet speaketh.

By faith ^aEnoch was ^btranslated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him: for before his translation he had this ^ctestimony, that he pleased God.

But without ^afaith it is impossible to please him: for he that ^bcometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a ^crewarder of them that ^ddiligently ^eseek him.

Hebrews 11:4-6. We must have a knowledge that our path is pleasing before God in order to develop that faith of power! Joseph Smith once said that " a religion that doesn't require the sacrifice of all things never has the power necessary unto life and salvation"(paraphrasing, shuu dee). But it is through our own sacrifice that we gain a witness that we are on the Lord's path, and that confidence will bring increased faith in our lives and increased power to follow Him. So, choose something in your daily life that keeps you back from more fully feeling the Lord's love- and make that sacrifice and I promise that you will feel that your sacrifice is pleasing unto God by an increase of faith and His blessings!

Xairtai shuu ger bul min ee

Elder Ryan Jolley

P.S. The pictures that I sent need a little explaination. Remember that outhouse hole we started digging a while back? Well we finally finished it off this week, a good 3 meter dug out by the time we were done! The other is Brother Munkhbaatar and his daughter Enkhmunkh, a less active family Elder Verdusco and I have been working with these last few months.