Manaix aa

Sain uu? How's everyones week been? I'm a week behind on emailing so I'm going to be filling in a lot! First off a big shout out to Skyler. I had just a few minutes to read about last week and you've been in my prayers! The Lord is really looking out for our family and I was grateful for that knowledge this week. Don't pull anything too crazy from now until July ya? I need you off of bedrest by the time I get home bud!

Dad, happy birthday on Tuesday! I miss having the joint birthday parties! Can you believe you've hit 45 and I'm turning 21???? It feels like just yesterday that we were doing the 40/16 birthday celebration.... crazy. But I can't tell you how grateful I am for you,your example. Last Conference we heard a lot about our responsibility as priesthood holders and I was grateful to have seen those principles in action in our home! Have a great day! Let me know next week how the big day turns out!

This has been a really really fast paced week. I love these opportunities to share the Gospel! With the end of the month coming up Elder Tugsbaatar and I have been working to conducting companionship exchanges with all the district leaders in our zone before zone leaders council this Thursday. This last Wednesday we were up in Baganuur, then tonight we're going on exchanges with the sign language Elders in the city. These have been great experiences, I love working with these Elders! But I'll get on that in a minute....

Monday we had a big cool off in the city. Elder Tugsbaatar and I met up with Elders Wilson and Sugar, Nyambayar and Myagmardorj, rented a court out and played some basketball. My companion is completely addicted to basketball! And though he's smaller and older he plays incredibly well! Elder Tugsbaatar, Elder Sugar, and Elder Myagmardorj played against Elder Nyambayar, Elder Wilson, and I for a good 2 hours. Then we had a couple of problems come up before I taught English and that took up the rest of the day. Tuesday after having a great district meeting Elder Tugsbaatar and I hopped on the bus and headed to Baganuur. It's a good 2 hours out of UB and so I took this time to take apart the new April Liahona. The bus was loaded but I was able to have some of the best experiences receiving personal revelation that I've had on my mission! The whole two hours I was filling in the margins of my Liahona as fast as I could write it all down. I was studying a speech that Elder Bednar gave at BYU in 2001, I'll share a section of it with you:

May I suggest that the Book of Mormon is our handbook of instructions as we travel the pathway from bad to good to better and to have our hearts changed. If you have your scriptures with you this morning, please turn with me to Mosiah 3:19. In this verse King Benjamin teaches about the journey of mortality and about the role of the Atonement in successfully navigating that journey: "For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the HolySpirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord" (emphasis added).

I want to stop at this point and draw our attention to two specific phrases. First, consider "and putteth off the natural man." Let me suggest to you that President McKay was fundamentally talking about putting off the natural man when he said, "The purpose of the gospel is . . . to make bad men good." Now I do not believe the word bad in this statement by President McKay connotes only wicked, awful, horrible, or inherently evil. Rather, I think he was suggesting that the journey from bad to good is the process of putting off the natural man or the natural woman in each of us. In mortality we all are tempted by the flesh. The very elements out of which our bodies were created are by nature fallen and ever subject to the pull of sin, corruption, and death. And we can increase our capacity to overcome the desires of the flesh and temptations, as described in this verse,"through the atonement of Christ." When we make mistakes--as we transgress and sin--we are able to overcome such weakness through the redeeming and cleansing power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. As we frequently sing in preparation to partake of the emblems of the sacrament, "His precious blood he freely spilt; His life he freely gave, A sinless sacrifice for guilt, A dying world to save" ("How Great the Wisdom and the Love," Hymns, 1985, no. 195).

Now, please notice the next line in Mosiah 3:19: "and becometh a saint." May I suggest this phrase describes the continuation and second phase of life's journey as outlined by President McKay. "The purpose of the gospel is . . . to make bad men good"--or, in other words, put off the natural man--"and good men better"--or, in other words, become more like a saint. Brothers and sisters, I believe this second part of the journey--this process of going from good to better--is a topic about which we do not study or teach frequently enough nor understand adequately.

If I were to emphasize one overarching point this morning, it would be this: I suspect that you and I are much more familiar with the nature of the redeeming power of the Atonement than we are with the enabling power of the Atonement. It is one thing to know that Jesus Christ came to earth to die for us. That is fundamental and foundational to the doctrine of Christ. But we also need to appreciate that the Lord desires, through His Atonement and by the power of the Holy Ghost, to live in us--not only to direct us but also to empower us. I think most of us know that when we do things wrong, when we need help to overcome the effects of sin in our lives, the Savior has paid the price and made it possible for us to be made clean through His redeeming power. Most of us clearly understand that the Atonement is for sinners. I am not so sure, however, that we know and understand that the Atonement is also for saints--for good men and women who are obedient and worthy and conscientious and who are striving to become better and serve more faithfully. I frankly do not think many of us "get it" concerning this enabling and strengthening aspect of the Atonement, and I wonder if we mistakenly believe we must make the journey from good to better and become a saint all by ourselves through sheer grit, willpower, and discipline, and with our obviously limited capacities.

Brothers and sisters, the gospel of the Savior is not simply about avoiding bad in our lives; it also is essentially about doing and becoming good. And the Atonement provides help for us to overcome and avoid bad and to do and become good. There is help from the Savior for the entire journey of life--from bad to good to better and to change our very nature."

And another.... mai:

"As you and I come to understand and employ the enabling power of the Atonement in our personal lives, we will pray and seek for strength to change our circumstances rather than praying for our circumstances to be changed. We will become agents who "act" rather than objects that are "acted upon" (2 Nephi 2:14)."

The speech is entitled, "In the Strength of the Lord." by David A.Bednar. I encourage you to look it up later and study it. When I was reading this talk I then remembered that I would be viewing these devotionals live in a few months!

We arrived at about 7 and visited a potential pre-missionary with the Baganuur Elders. I would be working the next day with the district leader, Elder Amartuvshin, and my companion worked with Elder Anar, a temporary missionary who's now waiting to receive his call. Elder Amartuvshin is one of those Elders that I can see a lot of myself in, a hungry young missionary and it was a huge boost to work with him! He had a lot of questions about his new responsibilities as a district leader and so when we weren't teaching lessons we were usually going over his responsibilities. Needless to say it was a fast day. Then to make it even better, Baganuur Elders have bikes! I know that sounds weird, but I've never been able to bike around on my mission and so Tuesday was a blast! It always amazes me that even out in the countryside of Mongolia there are tons of people that have connections or past experiences with the Church. While we were biking around we helped a 10 year old boy get water back to his ger from the well (the cart he was using to lug the water barrels around broke), and so we put the jugs on our bikes and headed to his house. When we got there we started talking with his uncle who had been in Salt Lake City 10 years ago and he asked us about temples and some other things about the Church that had impressed him, but he had never found out more about. They were a really great family and I'm keeping in touch with the Elders in Baganuur and we'll see what comes of it! We met back up with our companions around 5 and then Elder Tugsbaatar and I caught a taxi back to the city.

Most of the rest of this week has been working with Sister Unenbat and Brother Amaraa. Sister Unenbat has a baptism interview tonight and is scheduled to be baptized this Friday. I can't think of a better way to spend my birthday! She is planning on being baptized as well as the 2 brothers, Bumbayar and Batbayar that Elder Quinton and I began teaching in Selbe. I'm really excited for this Friday!! Brother Amaraa is still struggling to keep the word of wisdom and so his baptism is still a little ways away. The cool thing is, I first contacted Brother Amaraa when he was working in Khailaast last June (when I was serving with Elder Verdusco). He had been coming to church for a few months and then one day moved. He came back from the countryside this last week and he commented that he remembered seeing me at the Khailaast church building before. He's been struggling lately with going to church and stuff and meeting with him again helped him remember the Spirit he first felt when he was going to Church and he's been doing considerably better this last week. These are just a couple small examples of the many ways we've seen the Lord preparing people to receive His gospel!

The last of the 3 pictures I included this week should have a few familiar faces. This last Friday Brother Purev and Sister Nyamsuren's youngest son, Enerel, was baptized! Now that he's been baptized they have set the goal to be at the temple in one year! Elder Neuberger and I were originally meeting with Enerel, but because of all of his training (he's a professional acrobat???) he wasn't able to be baptized with the rest of his family. It's great to see the gospel influence now working in the lives of those around them!

 

For Mothers Day. Let's plan for Sunday evening Tehuu? We've got a lot to catch up on! I'm still not sure where this last year went.... it hit me this week really hard. Where'd my "20th" year go?? Definitely don't feel old enough to be coming on 21 or to be near the end of my mission... so that's something I'm still in the "denial stage" on. I love you guys, I am grateful for the Savior and His atoning sacrifice in my life. This Gospel is the way to receive faith unto change in this life and salvation in the life to come!

Elder Ryan Jolley

Sending Birthday Wishes...

Next Friday, May 4th will be Elder Jolley's 21st Birthday!

We can hardly believe it!

For this coming Sunday's email that we will send him, we thought it would be fun to compile "Birthday Wishes" from family and friends and put them all into one email.

Just send your "Birthday wishes" in the comments. We can send them both this week and next.

Thank you all for your continued love and support to both Elder Jolley's. : )

Mom, Dad, Family,

Sorry... I wish I had a lot of time but it's been one of those days/weeks. I'll have to explain next week. Love you, I'm doing great and I love this work that I'm in.

Tell Skyler that he's in my prayers.

Elder Jolley

Dear Family,

I really enjoyed getting your letters this week- thanks for all the love and support you send through those emails! I loved the package, thanks for getting those last minute requests in there. My companion and I made the mistake of setting the candy on the study desk and so it didn't last long, but it was tasty!

Yesterday was my first Sunday in Enkhtaivan. It had been two weeks since I'd been to sacrament meeting because of conference and it was a great blessing to be there. I had made plans to do better at getting acquainted with the members of this new ward, but I ended up translating for a Bro. Leichty, who was giving a talk that day and spent time up on the podium. A blessing in disguise l daa, Bro. Leichty is an engineer working for Rio Tinto from Cedar Hills! His son was in my graduating class; and it was a cool opportunity to talk and hear from him about home.

Our work this week was really good! My English classes are kind of on and off right now so we were able to get a lot of good work done. The field truly is white! My companion is now on his first week of being a zone leader, and it's been a bit difficult for him, he feels the weight of the responsibility to be an example to others and truly does want to be that example. Having said that, the work and our companionship has been really great! He had a rough couple of days over the weekend, chatted with President Clark about it and now is feeling refreshed and ready to dive back in!

I've taken this last week with some ups and downs in our companionship- to really take a better look at and learn from the example of the Savior. I have the testimony that every experience that I've had on my mission is a God given opportunity to grow closer and become more like His Son and I am grateful for the growth opportunities!

Today has been a lot of basketball! My companion lives for basketball at the Bayanzurkh on Monday's and so after the interview this morning with President we played there for a few hours. I can't tell you how grateful I am for our mission president. I talked with him a little after my companion's interview and am always impressed by his ability to love and the fair way that he looks at everything. He gave me a lot of great advice, something I was really looking for!

Do we know when Mother's Day hits this year? Let me know in next weeks email and we'll all arrange a time from there. How does Mother's Day Evening sound? The way we've been doing it for the last little has worked out well.

So were at a 2-0 score for pictures, I'll make sure I get some pictures with my new companion and the new area for next weeks email!

Love, Elder Jolley

Hey Family,

So where's April going?? Conference/Easter Weekend flew by sooooo quick, but it was amazing! I received plenty of nudges by the Spirit on what I need to be better at and that's one of the reasons I'm so grateful for Conference. Then you add in all the inspired counsel and whala! I was impressed with way too many talks to narrow it down....but I noticed I received a lot of specific instruction on the work I'm now involved in and a lot of advice for the next adventure.

My new companion. We're going to have such a great next transfer! I lived with him for the 6 day run I had in Songino, and then he's been my district leader for the last 3 months and so we've already got to know each other really well! Elder Tugsbaatar is from Erdenet, he's 26years old, and has been on his mission since October 2010. I feel like the difference in age and assignments gives us the unique opportunity to learn lots from each other. Because of conference Elder Wilson and I were on splits for Saturday and Sunday (until the evening to view the conference sessions) so Elder Tugsbaatar and I haven't had a ton of time together as of yet. We differentiate in age as well as size- I've got a lot of height on him, but after we played basketball this afternoon there's no worries about me having the unfair advantage! We're both excited to take our responsibilities as zone leaders to the next level this transfer and there will be more to come on that. I don't think I ever told you guys this, but I've had a thing the last 2 years about wanting to serve in Enkhtaivan. Ever since I went on splits with Elder Cardinal and spent a day there I've loved the area and the feel it has (not to mention it has both city center and ger district)- so this last transfer showed me once again that God knows me too well and now I'm excited to dive in this week.

Don't have a ton of time today, but I want to share a couple of thoughts. The loving service we often show to others, in and out of the Church, often (as we think) goes unnoticed. That's terribly untrue. The service we do, the love we show to others, may take some time to sink in, but it will always have a profound effect when done under the guidance of the Spirit. We can see this in everything, from a missionary's service to the ministry of our Savior. I think of how Christ's mortal ministry, to the mortal eye, had such humble beginnings, but has effected the world for good ever since man has been on the earth; both to those who lived before His ministry and thousands of years after. Bi odoo yu xelex geed baigaa yum be gexleer. I saw just a small example of that in my mission this week. Way back when I was in Sansar with Elder Amgalan we began meeting with a Brother Dulguun and his family. Brother Dulguun served a mission in Utah, but a few years after his mission fell away into inactivity. I was a brand new missionary when we first met, but I remember the meeting we had with him distinctly. I was transferred shortly after, but we passed them along to the next missionaries so they could continue to meet with him, his wife, and two daughters. When I came back to Sansar the second time his wife was being baptized! But Dulguun was still not coming to Church. Then throughout all last year I've been meeting with Bro. Dulguun and Sister Delgermaa, have really really grown to love this family, and sometimes sad that they had not been able to yet take the step towards activity as a family. Yesterday Elder Wilson and I ran into Sister Delgermaa and Bro. Dulguun at General Conference! Sister Delgermaa (between Elder Wilson and I we taught her the lessons) was beaming, just looking happy as she told us that Bro. Dulguun was now going to Church. Keep working with, loving, and serving those around you who may be off the path. I gained a stronger witness that as we offer service, our love and time and efforts, and give those around us the opportunities to exercise their agency they will respond!

Next week I'll make sure to send pictures of the new area and my new companion!

Love, Elder Jolley

Dear Family,

Sain Uu? Happy April Fools. The only thing I had for a good prank wasto not write an email this week... but yax ve? No but really it's been an amazing week here and lots to write about!

This last Saturday transfers came out. Elder Quinton's off to my old stomping grounds of Khailaast, he'll be Elder Reeve's last companion (what???), as he is leaving a transfer before us. I'm heading to Enkhtaivan Ward! They meet in the same building I'm in now so it's not going to be too drastic of a change, but I really love the area and am excited to dive into the work there. It's got the Western half of the city center mixed in with a bunch of ger disctrict- ever since I
worked there on companionship exchanges with Elder Cardinal back inthe day I've been wanting to serve here, and now it'll probably be my last area. My companion is a Mongolian Elder from Erdenet named Elder Tugsbaatar (Elder Perfect Hero gesen ug). He's 26, an incredible artist and a great basketball player! On top of all that he's a really great teacher, I've always been really impressed for his passion in the work. He's been my district leader for the last little bit and I'm excited to now work with him. For the last little while the zone leaders and assistants have been going solo, but with this transfer there will be zone leader and assistant companionships again- so I will remain zone leader in Bayanzurkh Branch and Elder Tugsbaatar's coming in as zone leader as well. Most of all, I've got a native companion! Super excited. That means 24 hour Mongolian and I couldn't be more excited for that.

This week we did put out a lot of effort to find some of the lost sheep in the Selbe ward! We went to a lot of different places, and had some success in meeting and working with some of these brothers andsisters. Elder Quinton and I are especially looking for less active Melchizedek Priesthood holders. We found some living among the people we were already meeting with, but because of their work and etc. we didn't know they were there! These things require more than a quick stop in at their house, much of the time it requires a lot of love and patience but I'm glad that these efforts have been started again.

This week I had an interesting experience with prayer that I would like to share. I've mentioned to you before Will, our American investigator. He is swamped with work throughout the week and so we meet with him each Sunday afternoon. He takes a really sincere approach to learning about the Gospel and yesterday we followed up on the commitment we gave him to read Moroni's promise and pray about the Book of Mormon and the prophet Joseph Smith. He came back having read and prayed, but did not receive the answer that he was looking for. He was really impressed with what Moroni says concerning a sincere heart and real intent. He prayed, but didn't feel he had the sincerity and the intent he knew he needed and we had the opportunity to share with him more about prayer. I really like what the Bible Dictionary says concerning prayer:

"As soon as we learn the true relationship in which we stand toward God (namely, God is our Father, and we are his children), then at once prayer becomes natural and instinctive on our part (Matt. 7:7–11). Many of the so-called difficulties about prayer arise from forgetting this relationship. Prayer is the act by which the will of the Father and the will of the child are brought into correspondence with each other. The object of prayer is not to change the will of God, but to secure for ourselves and for others blessings that God is already willing to grant, but that are made conditional on our asking for them. Blessings require some work or effort on our part before we can obtain them. Prayer is a form of work, and is an appointed means for obtaining the highest of all blessings."

Growing up in a different church, we were able to share with him a lot on the purpose of prayer and the opportunity that it presents. It was a great lesson! As we understand truth and apply it in our lives the difference in results is like night and day. It was also a great opportunity to see Will's example of really looking at our prayers, realizing that we are speaking with our Heavenly Father, and then working to make our prayers sincere. It truly is an incredible gift that the Lord has given us and it does take work to do it right!

Love, Elder Jolley