Hey Family,

Za sain uu? Xuu n uuchlaarai, uchigdur zakhia bichsengui.... I loved hearing about your week and I'm excited to tell you about this last week here in Mongolia. Somehow the 6 month date is upon us? I've been loving my time in Sansar and this week has been a rush! With October around the corner we have a lot of big things in the works! This week I've been learning to be more grateful for the work that I have the opportunity to do. Throughout my mission I've seen two different types of assistants- one begins to be worn out by work in the office, the coordination work, and the other day-to-day tasks that involve this assignment; and the other missionary is able to continue with seeming unweariness the tasks that come with the assignment. Sometimes missionaries feel like they have lost touch with the spirit of missionary work and so they begin to feel discouraged or get "trunky" to get out of the office and back out in the field. But even if the Lord has given a missionary a certain assignment- his calling as a missionary remains the same! I have been working to keep a missionary perspective on all that I do and to accept each assignment and task with gratitude and it's helped me to see that I can be the Lord's servant and a representative of Christ no matter what assignment I'm given. And then after all that we teach our investigators and it's icing on the cake! Not to mention the blessing of being able to work so close with my mission president- it's a blessing and a privilege that I'm grateful for every day. The scripture I really liked this week and want to share with you is Philippians 4:11-13.

11 Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be ^acontent.

12 I know both how to be ^aabased, and I know how to abound: every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need.

13 I can do all things through ^aChrist which ^bstrengtheneth me.

President Clark shared this in a meeting this last week. As I've been thinking about it's meaning- this is a characteristic of a true disciple of Christ and something that I have had the opportunity to learn throughout my mission. Regardless of what situation we are placed in- if we can remember that this is a God-given opportunity for our benefit, and then press forward (have faith), then we can do all things.

I can't believe we're getting so close to Brayden leaving. Since I'm a missionary right now I can't comprehend that all the way right now- I feel like he's coming rather then leaving. So come on Brayd! It's really a cool blessing to be able to soon be serving in the Lord's vineyard with him and to hear his experiences. These last few weeks have been a rush, but we've been able to keep meeting steadily with 2 investigators who have their baptisms set for the 7th of October! We have been blessed (as is Sansar) with so many prepared people to meet with and these to are incredible! One is a 22 year old young man named Bilguun and the other is one of the old Sansar Sister's investigator, a 19 year old Munkh-Orchlon. Both attend church faithfully and have gotten to know the ward, attend institute and one sings in the Stake Choir! So their baptisms will be on the weekend of General Conference in Mongolia- so they will have a great opportunity as new members to attend General Conference. I mentioned this to Andraya (I think?), but we're off to Murun this week! Murun is a small town in North Mongolia right next to the huge Lake Khuvskhult. We will be going there to host a Youth Conference that will train youth leaders to be able to do their own branch youth conferences in the future! So we leave this Thursday and return next Monday late. So my email may be a bit late next week, but I will include lots of pictures of the conference- it's going to be a great weekend! Lots of times I hear the family wanting to hear more about how I'm "doing" (I guess I'm not the best at that), but it's mostly because my mission is nothing but a blessing. I'm grateful for my time here and my time to serve the Lord.

Love,

Elder Jolley

Sain Uu,

Hey family, you guys all look b-e-a-utiful! I loved the pictures that you sent (are there a mother/father shot as well?), and I'm sending some pictures your way. You asked how cold it was... it's starting to get really chilly! A couple of towns got snow this week. We haven't had hot water in our apartment for the last week or so and so showers have been like Deer Creek water... so with that and a couple of cold nights I've gotten a bit of a cold. Then the hot water came in today.... it felt like a million dollars!

This last week the office was really quiet while President and Sister Clark went to Hong Kong for Area Mission President Training. So we had a great opportunity to do a little bit of catching up in the office and then lots of lessons from the afternoon on! It was a great week and I continue to love being in the Sansar ward. We have so many people that are ready to accept the Gospel, to follow Christ and have had a lot of success with part-member-families in the last couple of weeks. There is a returned missionary named Bayasgalan who ran into a relative that he hadn't seen in the last several years (Sodoo) and invited him to learn more about the Gospel and he agreed to meet with Elder Tuvshinbayar and I. We enjoyed a great discussion as we taught him the Restoration and then gave him a new Book of Mormon and committed him to read from Moroni 10. The next time we met I had to teach English and so my companion and I did splits with two ward missionaries. They met while me and my companion went to teach at the New West. Right before I left Sodoo came up to me and was excited to tell me that he had read the chapter, but that's all I was able to find out. Later as Elder Tuvshinbayar met with him he said that as he prayed he had received a confirmation that night that the Book of Mormon was true. Truly the Lord works by faith! We've been gone all weekend, but will hopefully meet with him tonight. I love Mongolia! There are so many people here that are ready to come unto Christ and this is a place and a people that have been prepared for the Gospel. We have 5 investigators that have been faithfully preparing for baptism and so I will be excited to let you know what happens in the next 2 weeks! My only regret is not having been to Sansar's sacrament in the last few weeks (the Sansar missionaries have become less active in their own ward) as we've been attending different sacrament meetings throughout Mongolia. Last week we were in Khailaast, this Sunday we were in Selenge, and we may be in Darkhan next weekend. But it's a great blessing to be able to go around and see all the areas of the Church in Mongolia. I'll take the rest of the email to talk about our trip:

President and Sister Clark flew in Saturday at 11, took a few minutes to re-pack, and then we loaded up and headed off to Darkhan. We took the 2 mission cars, the Clarks and my companion and I in one car, and the Fords and our mission secretary Jiguur and his wife in the other car. We arrived about 7 o'clock, grabbed a quick bite to eat, and then while President and Elder Ford met with the district presidency, Elder Tuvshinbayar and I headed off to meet with a new member of his in town. We weren't able to meet with Brother Raixan, but had a great chance to explore the city a little bit (see the picture I sent with the technicolor bridge)- Darkhan's a beautiful city!

Elder Tuvshinbayar and Elder Jolley in Darkhan

We then spent the night in the District Leader's apartment, in the un-used bedroom (with the bug bites to prove it!) with Elder Mungunsukh (who was my old zone leader) and his new companion Elder Bayartsogt. Sunday morning we got up early and went to Selenge! We were scheduled to be at Sacrament meeting by 12 noon and with the extra time we had President Clark take us up to the Russian border. 1 check off the bucket- list as I saw "Mother Russia" with some comrades (pardon the lame Russian jokes). But it was an area where 90 years before the Mongolian general Sukhbaatar fought the Chinese in the last battle for Mongolia's independance from China. The red wooden building that Elder Tuvshinbayar and I got a picture with was Sukhbaatars battle headquarters/office. But no one was home...

Sukhbaatars battle headquarters

Russian border

We had a great branch meeting with the saints in Selenge (I translated for the Ford's and then Jiguur translated for the Clarks), and meetings until late evening where we then headed back to Darkhan for the night. The Fords and the Clarks stayed at the classy Jasper Hotel and we spent the night with Elder Myagmardorj, the Darkhan zone leader. We then woke up this morning and headed back to UB.

I'm truly blessed to have the opportunity to work in this area and have this assignment. Besides a constant dose of humbling, I have been blessed from the Lord to help do the needed work and receive way too many blessings from Him. This morning as we drove back, speaking with President Clark, I counted it an incredible opportunity to be able to work so close with him and the list goes on and on! I love you all, I love this Gospel, and I am blessed to be counted worthy to do the Lord's work.

Elder 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:

Elder Tuvshinbayar, Elder Jolley and another Elder

Training

A Mongolian Family with Elder Jolley, a couple other Elders, Elder Gong and President Clark

Sister and Elder Gong, Elder Tuvshinbayar, Elder Jolley, President and Sister Clark

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.