Sain yy My Family!

It's been a great week here and as always tons to write about, I'm gonna especially try to tell you guys more about the people side of the work. First off... Ochir was baptized this Friday!!! I've mentioned him before, he's a 23 year old chef and has been meeting with us for the last 2 months or so and now is our great new member! The last few weeks before he was baptized we especially have been focusing on him reading and studying from the Book of Mormon and how much of a difference that has made in him. The Book of Mormon in Mongolian is hard even for Mongolians to read and at first he didn't get much of what was going on; but through a lot of reading, marking, and praying he's on his way to a career in Gospel Doctrine Study! We're reading together now and just finished the 18th Chapter of Nephi. We're now working towards him receiving the Aaronic Priesthood and attending Institute. That was a great way to end off this week! We also met and are meeting with lots of "golden investigators" and future Priesthood leaders, especially a 22 year old college student named Egii. He was born in Kazakistan, learned to speak Mongolian about 3 years ago, and is taking English by storm. We contacted him last week and have been meeting every few days since. He, along with Ochir, are very interested in Missionary work! To be an investigator/new member and already talking about a mission is amazing!

Speaking of which, I'm with a new mini missionary. Because there aren't any Elders coming in for a while I probably will be serving with mini missionaries for the next month or so and that will probably be until the next transfer (the 26th of March), so we'll see! But things change so who knows?! We're finishing a 5 or so month "mission purge" and so our numbers are a lot lower than usual, but it's all missionaries that want to do missionary work so that's better than numbers! By June we'll have around 60 missionaries, including the incoming missionaries and I'm really excited to see this rebirth that is taking place, but right now we only have 1 Elder companionship in each area and so mini missionaries are a necessity right now for me and 3 or so other Elders.

Anyways, about my companion, his name is Elder Bayarsux and he was baptized about the time I came to Mongolia. Seriously is one of the most dedicated companions I've had and is very enthusiastic about sharing the Gospel and I love the spirit he brings. He's a legit nomad, born and raised out in the Eastern part of Mongolia (Suxbaatar Province) as a herder. I love seeing the difference in the way we do things and I've been giving him plenty of new experiences this last week! For example, the first time eating chicken, jello, pancakes, cereal, and etc. Pretty much everything I cook he's never eaten before! He's incredibly selfless though and almost too service prone. When I get up, I have to make my bed immediately because if I leave the room he'll do it for me! That's a small exampl, but he does that in everything - very selfless. Elder Bayarsux is heading back to the countryside in the next week or so and we won't be companions for very long, but I have loved being his first companion on his first missionary experience. He's waiting until he hits the 1 year of Church membership mark and then will be starting his mission.

Mom and Dad you know Elder and Sister Powell, we ate at their house last night as a district and had a great meeting afterwords. As a district we shared the story of the 2000 Stripling warriors, some in Mongolian, some in English, and felt the strong spirit that always comes from reading the Book of Mormon. My camera has picked up some sort of virus and it won't let me upload pictures, so check out the Powell's blog, I'll bet Sister Powell will put some up. As of last week I'm back to nightly English class, so that's taken a big chunk of our missionary work with it. I hope that changes soon! We have been blessed with so many great investigators, but now very little time to meet with all of them! Normally we could grab mini missionaries and split, but that will have to wait until we have 2 full time missionaries in the area. There is strength that comes from living the Gospel, especially as a family and I feel that from all of you constantly. Sorry about no pictures, I'll hopefully have this figured out before next week because I've got some sweet shots to send your way. Love ya!

Elder Jolley