Elder Ryan Jolley

Sain Uu,

Hey family! It has felt like a really really long time since I've spoken with you.... so first off a big apology from me for not writing last week. I was able to write a couple quick emails and then had a couple things come up and then before I know it we were on the road to Darkhan! But I won't let that happen again without at least giving a quick email reply. This has been an amazing week, 3 Zone Conferences and a mission tour! Elder Adrian Ochoa of the Young Men's General Presidency along with Elder Gerrit W. Gong of the Asia Area Presidency were both here last week, Elder Ochoa for training and District Conference and Elder Gong conducting the yearly mission tour. It was an incredible week! Lots and lots of great conferences, firesides and training. Here's a little run down of the week:

Monday we went to Darkhan at 3, arrived about 8 o'clock and went to dinner with the District Presidency, set up a few things for the upcoming Zone Conference at the church. Darkhan has a really cool atmosphere, if you think of UB as Utah County it felt being in St. George, but chilly. Fall is really setting in and I've almost forgot that Mongolia's cold most of the time! We then piled into the zone leaders apartment for the night with 3 other companionships, it was a full house shuu dee, but Elder Zolbayar was there and it was cool to spend a few minutes chatting with him again. Our theme for this months zone conference was the First Vision and 1 Minute Gospel Message. I thought of President Uchtdorf's words in the most recent First Presidency message:

"Prophets have always taught by repetition; it is a law of learning. You will hear repetition in themes and doctrines in general conference. Let me reassure you: this is not due to a lack of creativity or imagination. We continue to hear messages on similar issues because the Lord is teaching and impressing upon our minds and hearts certain foundational principles of great eternal importance that must be understood and acted upon before we can move on to other things. A wise builder first lays the foundation before erecting the walls and the roof."

This is certainly the foundation of everything that relates to missionary work- the message of the restoration is our unique message to the world! Elder Tuvshinbayar and I were doing a lot of behind-the-scenes work for these conferences and besides the sections that we lead the discussion we were doing a lot of running around. The focus was to help the missionaries teach more powerfully by using the exact words of the Prophet Joseph when teaching about the First Vision. There is a undeniable difference in the spirituality of lessons taught using the prophet's words and I received another confirmation of that this week. After Tuesday's conference was over it was back in the car and off to the city. We got home about 9:30 and prepped for the next day.

Wednesday was Bayanzurkh's zone conference, my favorite conference of the 3. After every zone conference we met with President Clark and Elder Gong to discuss what went well and what we would like to change for the following day. We especially wanted to apply the missionary training model (explain, demonstrate, practice, evaluate, repractice) to really help the missionaries understand and apply the principles being taught. To make our demonstration more effective and clear it was decided that Elder Tuvshinbayar and I would be demonstrating the end of the first lesson, using the exact words of the First Vision and the baptismal invitation found in PMG. This conference there wasn't as much running around and we took more of a teaching role this conference. The missionaries came up with great responses and insights and the training went really well, and our demonstration of the lesson fit well into the training. Even though it was only practice the Spirit bore a strong testimony that the things we were testifying were true and the whole conference in general was great.

Thursday was our third and last conference, the Songino zone finished things off. Each conference concluded about 1 or so and the following 4 hours was spent interviewing missionaries, 1 companionship at a time, with one companion meeting with President Clark and the other with Elder Gong. Our mission office secretary, Enkhjiguur (an RM Elder from Hawaii), did most of the translating and then I filled in with whatever he didn't do and everything went really great there. Then after zone conferences we held a trainers training meeting for the 13 new trainers in our mission. All the new missionaries were coming that night on a 10:10 flight from Seoul, so we held a training for them from 6-8 in the Mission President's home. Enkhjiguur and I did a live-translation of a PMG clip which made things interesting, but the training went well. I'm especially impressed with the younger missionaries in our mission! Lots of them recently became trainers and they are taking responsibility and faithfully filling out their callings. Our mission right now is lacking "old" or seasoned missionaries in general and so to fill in the gap these missionaries are stepping up. Then after training we headed to the airport and picked up all the new missionaries! Even though they were returning to their home city, they had the "MTC glow," a lot of these missionaries have been serving as mini missions or temporary companions to full time missionaries and are a great addition to our mission- 6 Elders and 7 Sisters (I'll get the picture that we took on top of Zaisan from Sister Clark and get it to you later). So we got home from the airport "aimar" late and hit the sack.

Friday was transfers! We started the morning with a combined meeting for the trainers and their new companions along with breakfast on the 5th floor (mission home), and then spent most of the rest of the day getting Elders and Sisters to their new areas. Because I've had to renew my visa I haven't been able to get a drivers license and it's been a big setback on days like transfer day. But with the help of a few of the senior couples we were able to get everyone out and on their way. Do you remember my old companion Elder Ganbold? He finished his mission! We were companions almost a year ago now.... time flies. Elder and Sister Gong had an early flight to Hong Kong and to finish the night we had a mission tour debrief up in the Presidents home. I'll tell you a little about Elder Gong. The first impression I had about him was that he had a perfect idea of everything that was going on around him. Very humble, quiet, and intelligent. The ideas that he would propose or the things he would say were well placed, well thought out, and always what was needed at the time. His wife is the same, both were very kind, and a great influence on the missionaries and the conferences in general. We also went out and taught 2 lessons with Elder Gong and President Clark. Both very cool experiences! One appointment was with a family that our Bayanzurkh Elders are meeting with and the other was a part-member family, the mother and father of Elder Bayarlkhavga, the Bayanzurkh District Leader. After the debrief it was late but Elder Gong took a few minutes to meet individually with Elder Tuvshinbayar and I. He started off by asking me a little bit about my family, and the basics but I was really impressed by one comment that he made. After asking me if I was worthy of my temple recommend he followed by saying, "Doesn't that feel good?" That question really struck me and I realized how good it did feel, and how important that was to me. Of all the questions that can be asked about life, accomplishments, and talents, none are as important as our standing before the Lord. That was something I really enjoyed from our interview and wanted to share with all of you!

Saturday and Sunday were a little more relaxed. Sunday we went with President and Sister Clark to the Khailaast branch (felt great to be back!), and sat in on a great fast and testimony meeting. Then we had a dinner up at the mission home for all the missionaries who finished their missions this transfer followed by a fireside where the new RM's bore their testimonies. Usually the Assistants translate through the headsets for couple missionaries, but I also had the opportunity to translate for President Clark and his talk. Nerve racking! I still feel that my language is just not there yet, especially in the last few weeks with language study opportunities at a minimum; but with a little help from up above it went really well and ended off an incredible week! I love this work and I am grateful for the opportunity to serve in this end of this corner of the vineyard. President and Sister Clark left this morning for Hong Kong to attend a Mission Presidents Training and so this week we're hitting the streets and getting lots of lessons taught! I'll let you know how it goes!

Love,

Elder Jolley

Pictures from the training and district conferences and mission tour: