This past week was crazy. President Miller called on thursday, Elder Murillo picked up the phone and I hear President ask for me. I got on the phone and the first thing I said was "Uh oh". He then told me that he wanted some advice on transfers. I went through the companionships with him and talked about each one. Then he asked me a few questions about missionaries in other zones and what he should do. Then he asked me one question "Elder Jolly how long do you have left in the mission" to which I responded "I don't know President, I am not keeping track." He then answered "Dayss you have dayssss left in the mission and this will be your dying assignment". He then told me of 2 missionaries that were prideful and said I needed to go humble them and let them know that the Nephite nation was destroyed because of their pride and the Lord would do likewise with them. It was not a fun assignment to complete but I did it.

Sunday I had my going home interview with President Miller. It was awesome to sit down and talk about the whole mission. It was cool to look back and see how we have both changed. He then asked me what to do with another Elder because the Elder is a big complainer. I told him to change him to the english assignment for a transfer and drop him to Junior Companion to put him in his place, then if he learns his lesson he can work his way back up. Tomorrow President Miller and the missionaries going home will go to the Salt Lake Temple, then we will have a luncheon. In the evening I am going to visit Carmen and Kenny. Carmen recently got her temple reccomend and is preparing to enter the temple soon.

It was 2 rewarding years, it was the best 2 years. I will never forget the people or the experiences. This chapter is coming to an end but the next is just beginning. I love you all! See you on thursday!

Love,

Elder Jolly

Sept 10,2012

This week was crazy and legit! We had a mission tour on wed all day which was fun but time consuming. To make this letter short I will just talk about 2 days, thursday and saturday. Thursday was Zone Leader Council, not normally a fun activity but this time it was legit and I will tell you why. Normally we sit in a gym at tables and council for about 7 hours, this time President Miller wanted to relax. We had to be at the mission office at 6:45 am, we all got into the mission van and the trucks and headed up to Park City. We met President Miller at a Burger King where he bought us all breakfast. Afterwards we all loaded up again and headed out to his brother's vacation home in Kamas (20 min east of Park City). Now saying it is a vacation home is an understatement, it is a mansion. We dropped off our stuff at the house and went hiking for about 2 hrs. We then came back, sat down and President Miller went through all the doctrine in 2 Nephi 2, deep stuff. Then did zone accountability for our numbers last month as a zone. Afterward we played ate lunch and played Rugby, others went fishing and did other games, it was pretty much do whatever you want for 3 hours. Then we counciled about mission business and problems for a few hours and then played around from 5pm until 9pm. President BBQ hamburgers for us while we all had some fun. Sad part though is that we got a call from an Elder in our zone saying his companion had had a seizure while riding his bike and had fallen. The Elder was ok but had to be taken to the hospital in an ambulance, he had 10 stiches in his chin and his shirt was covered in blood but he will be ok. Back to the Zone Leader Council. We then at 9pm took pictures and loaded up the cars and headed back to the valley about 10pm. I was in the big mission van which just so happened to be flying down the highway at about 95mph, scary experience would be an understatement but it was fun. All in all it was the best Zone Leader Council ever. Although it hit me on the way home that my time as a missionary was coming to a close and it almost brought me to tears.

Saturday, we get a call from the Assistants saying that they wanted to do exchanges that day. I was to go with Elder Mckinney to his area while Elder Armstrong would work with Elder Murillo in our area. Now Elder Mckinney is someone I have looked up to my whole mission. About 6 months ago I prayed that I would get the opportunity to spend a day with him to talk and see how he does missionary work and well I guess Heavenly Father has a sense of humor because I got that opportunity a week before going home. All day we talked about life and the scriptures and our testimonies and it was an incredible experience. The only bad part was dinner. We went to Spice Bistro, an indian restaurant, and man it was expensive, it ate up my last $20. Anyway the best part was seeing him teach. Whenever an investigator would ask a question he would not answer it with his own doctrinal knowledge but every single time he went to the scriptures. It was powerful because we were teaching a man who had fallen back into his meth habbits. Elder Mckinney shared a blunt scripture about being carefully dragged down to hell and then promised the man that if he didn't read the Book of Mormon he would be addicted to meth for the rest of his life. I can't go into detail on everything he told me or taught but it was an amazing day, one of my favorites on the mission. I learned the secrets of one of the best missionaries this mission has ever seen.

I also had a scary expeirence this past week. Lizzeth a recent convert was 9months pregnant and overdue, when on tuesday she was in a car accident and admitted into the hospital. I was more scared than I have been in awhile. Turned out everything was ok and that the baby's heartbeat was still strong. Sunday I got a call from her husband Eric and he told me they were in the hospital and that she was in labor. Around 5pm the baby boy was born, 8lbs 11oz , 21 inches, healthy and strong. My bday was pretty cool too. We ate dinner at the Espinoza's with some members of Olympic Park 3rd and some other missionaries.

Well this will be my last real email home unless something crazy happens this week. I look forward to seeing you all soon and to continuing to share this gospel with my friends back home. I love you all and am grateful for the support I have received. BTW the church is so true!

Love,

Elder Jolly

Sept 3, 2012

Ok this letter will be short.

This past week was full of meetings. On wednesday we (zone leaders) had a meeting with Elder Steven B. Allen, head of the missionary department. Man he is a spiritual guy but he does not play games when it come to missionary work. He beat us and left us battered at the end. He said the only way to get missionaries to change is to change ourself first. He hammered us on planning effectively and how to be real Preach My Gospel missionaries. He taught us of how to be percise and look for deviations in everything we do. It was about 5 hours of being torn apart by him but it was an amazing experience.

Thursday was the day that was hard. We had zone conference and it was werid to sit up on the stand next to President Miller. He constantly would lean over during the meeting and say jokes to me that reminded me of dads jokes, funny but dumb. Right before lunch I had to give a training on how to follow up on reading assignments left to investigators, it went well. Near the end of the conference though was the hard part. Since it was my last zone conference I had to give my departing testimony and President Miller made me go last which was unusual because it is normally alphabetical. When I stood at the pulpit it hit me how much the mission had changed me and how much the experience meant to me. I would be a liar if I told you I didn't cry because I did. They best and happiest part of my life is coming to an end and it hit me all in about the 3 min I was bearing my testimony. When I finished I walked off the stage and President Miller stood up and gave me a big hug and whipered in my ear "I love you". So much has changed in these 2 years. I used to dislike President Miller and now I love him as if he had been my father for these past 2 years. I love this work. I love my Lord and Savior. I know President Miller was called of God to be MY mission president. This is the Lord's church, of that there is no doubt.

Love,

Elder Jolly

Aug 20, 2012

OK so this week was tough but good. Our area is struggling with a small teaching pool so we have been out talking to everybody, knocking doors and working with ward councils (7 to be exact) to find people to teach. We have received several good leads but we are taking the approach of having the ward councils do all the inviting. The ward councils have received assignments on who they are to invite (people they know well) to be taught by us. This approach is more effective than us just knocking their door. They then report back to the ward council on how that went and then the Ward Mission Leader reports to us in our weekly correlation meeting. The process is slower but yields more results. We are in the waiting for the reporting stage so in the mean time we are doing our own finding work. We actually had an amazing experience finding the other day. So we were working in our spanish area and it was 8:36. All day we had been out working our tails off and nothing had happened. We got back into the car and I suggested to Elder Murillo that we say a prayer. We prayed and then sat for a minute thinking. Elder Murillo suggested that we go try and check up on a referral that we have received. We had checked that referral not 2 hours earlier but nobody was home. We decided to trust that it was a prompting. We drove to the referral and nobody was there. Elder Murillo then told me "We are here in this are for a reason, we need to find someone who lives around here". The time was 8:44. I looked and him and said "well we have 16 minutes, we will find someone, teach him and invite him to be baptized with a date before this day is over". Rules are that we finish working at 9pm unless we are in a lesson so we had 16 minutes to get into a lesson. We went and knocked a near by door, the lady was a member and told us her neighbor spoke spanish so we knocked that door, and nobody was home. We heard some music down the street. It was hispanic music coming from a party at a house about 3 blocks away. We started to walk towards the party and then stopped, wondering if it was a good idea. We decided to keep going towards the music. We got to where the party was and Elder Murillo noticed a house that was 2 houses from the party that he thought was hispanic so we decided to knock it. As we approached the door I noticed a truck in the driveway with a campaign election sticker and I told Elder Murillo "This house is definatley not hispanic, what hispanic has campaign election stickers on their cars. Lol right then I saw a hispanic guy get up to answer the door and whispered an apology to Elder Murillo. We did our door approach and the man let us in. It was 8:58! We taught the man a short version of the Restoration. The Spirit was strong. We invited him to be baptized Sept 20th and he agreed. As we left we were shocked how the Lord answered our prayer in the last 2 minutes of the day. The whole day seemed like it had been a waste but the Lord made all that work count for something, and blessed us in the last 2 minutes. It is when we give that last bit of effort that the Lord manifests His power.

Last night we had another tender moment. We had been working in this one neighborhood for about an hour and it was now 9pm when we got in the car to go home. As we started to drive away I noticed a house where I had seen an African lady sitting outside of when we arrived in the neighboorhood. As I drove past I looked in the window and saw the cupboards open and it seemed as if they were mostly empty of any food. I don't know what it was that made me turn around but I can testify that it was the Spirit. I turned around and parked the car. and told Elder Murillo that I felt as if we needed to knock that door. We walked up to the door and noticed that the lady (about 30yrs old) was laying on a mattress outside with her young baby. We asked her if she was alright and she said no. We began to talk to her and she told us of how on sat her family had called from Sudan Africa and informed her that her mother had died. She had taken it really hard. We testified to her of the power of the Atonement and of eternal famlies and that she would see her mother again. We then laid our hands upon her head and gave her a preisthood blessing. She began to cry and thanked us over and over again. Afterward we got in contact with the english missionaries who are going over tonight to meet her and help her. As we drove home the car was quiet after what had just happened and I found myself pondering on what had just happened. It was just this feeling that I had felt that I needed to knock that door and by following it, it helped a women feel peace with the passing of her mother. The church is true, and everything it teaches is true, it is all true and no inteligent person can deny that. If you sit down and really study it out in your mind and in your heart you will know that this is the Lord's church.

Love,

Elder Jolly

Aug 13, 2012

This week was crazy busy. Elder Vela spent most of monday-wed packing and being super trunky so that was not the most effective couple of days. I went with Elder Hirai and we worked his area on tuesday. Tuesday afternoon I got the new organizational roster for the mission and had to make the calls to everyone in the zone informing them of transfers and what would happen with them. My new companion is Elder Murillo. He was a district leader in our zone last transfer and a solid hard working missionary. He goes home 6 weeks after me. I am super glad about having him as my last companion because I know he will push me hard up until my last day.

Last night we were knocking doors in a trailer park and this one ladies son opened the door. There inside the trailer the lady was sitting on the floor. At first she didnt want to talk to us. Then when she finally decided to talk all she said was "I am Catholic and my husband is Catholic". We responded "Great well our message is for everyone whether they are Catholic, Mormon, Jew". After a little bit she let us in and we sat down and began to get to know her. Turns out she had met with missionaries about 2 years prior and went to church several times. She had liked what she learned and felt good about it. Her big question was "with so many churches how do I know which is the correct one?" We talked about prayer and asked her about any experiences she had had previously with prayer. She told us of how she went to a Pentecostal church and some other Christian churches and how the people sang, clapped and how the Pastor would hit them on the head and people would faint. She said she didnt feel good there but that she felt scared. She then told us of how the missionaries who had visited her 2 years ago had asked her to pray to know if the LDS church was the true church. She said she did and felt this feeling of peace and an assurance that it was and it brought her to tears, she had never felt that way before. Elder Murillo and I then testified of how what she felt was the Spirit and it was answering her prayer telling her that this is the true church. We invited her to be baptized and she accepted. After the lesson she was so happy and almost wouldnt let us leave. She even invited us over for dinner on tues. The Lord does prepare people and sometimes we do not recognize it at first.

On monday I had an experience that I will not soon be able to forget. The Crawfords (a service missionary couple in Olympic Park 3rd ward) has a small party for Elder Bowers and I to say goodbye. They invited the other service missionaries and all the people we taught that got baptized in that ward. We ate a lot of food and then afterwards they had Elder Bowers and myself bear our testimonies. I looked at these people I had taught and as I bore my testimony I began to tear up, I didnt full on cry, not yet at least. After that each person we taught got up and bore their testimony. Lizzeth Moran was the first to get up and speak. As she told us of how the gospel had changed her life and of all the things she now knows and of how much the Elder Bowers and I mean to her family I could not hold back the tears. I was overcome by the spirit. It was telling me that I had made a difference. Lizzeth is expecting her 3rd child this month and she is already telling me that I am his Tio (uncle). Her husband Eric followed and he told us of an experience he had a few weeks ago where there son Anothony (7yrs old) ran up to him and said "dad I want to get baptized when I turn 8 and I want Elder Jolly to baptize me." Eric talked about how amazing he felt as a father to see his child have the desire to follow Jesus Christ. Then he looked at me with tears in his eyes and said "Elder Jolly will you do me the honor of baptize my son when he turns 8 in Feb.?" My jaw was shaking and I could only nod my head and squeeze out a "of course". It hit me right there and then how much this gospel means to these people. How they have come to find a treasure in their lives. I was blessed enough to take part in that process in helping them change their lives. This is Christ's church, I know it! I pray I may live by that knowledge.

Love,

Elder Jolly

August 6, 2012

Short letter this week because well no good excuse. This week was amazing! Elder Vela and I had the confirmation of Jennifer, the baptism of Rachel and then I went back to Murray an hour after Rachel's baptism for the baptism of Martin, while at the baptism of Martin I found out that Maria had been baptized the week before. The mission president over the new mission didnt let the missionaries tell us of Maria's baptism so that irked me a little but life is life. All the baptisms and confirmations went amazing!

Tonight Olympic Park 3rd ward is throwing Elder Bowers and I a goodbye party. I love the parties and stuff but I still have 6 weeks left so it feel like I am not finishing. Elder Bowers well he finishes in 2 days so for him it really is goodbye. The work continues to push forward, the work is great. Transfers are this week so stay tuned.

Love,

Elder Jolly

July 30, 2012

This week was good. All week we were daily contacting Jennifer in preparation for her baptism. She was just so prepared. Only once in the month we have been teaching her did she cancel and appt. and that was because she was called in to work. Every single time we left a reading assignment she did it without fail, and she always came to church. Her baptism on Sunday was amazing! The branch came out in full support and filled the room. Afterwards we went over to her best friends house and ate with Jennifer and this family (Fam Favela). It just so happens Jennifer's best friends husband is not a member and is being taught by the missionaries in Olympic Park 3rd. He came to the baptism and really liked it and is praying to know if he should be baptized this Sunday.

On Tuesday my brown mom Sister Espinoza and other members in the Olympic Park 3rd ward threw a party for Elder Bowers and I because Elder Bowers finishes next week and I finish 6 weeks after him. There was some bomb food!

Soo about 5 weeks ago I tweaked my left knee and it has been really tender since then. I finally decided to go see the doctor. She asked me to lay on my stomach and she began to check each muscle in the back of my knee and ask if it hurt when she moved it. When she got to one muscle that I honestly have never heard of, the moment she touched it I screamed out in pain. She did a few more tests and told me that I had torn the muscle. So I have a torn muscle in the back of my knee. Thank goodness though that I was not a full tear so she said surgery is not needed. I have to rest it and I can't play sports for the next several weeks so that the muscle can heal.

There is some really sad news. We received a mission wide text message on Friday asking us to pray for Sister Johnson. Her family were traveling from Texas to Salt Lake City to pick her up since she finishes the mission next week when the family was involved in a serious car accident. Her 2 younger sisters, ages 12 and 14 died in the crash and her 3rd sister is in critical condition in the hospital. I know Sister Johnson very well and I cannot imagine the pain she is going through right now. President put her on a flight home as soon as he could so she could be with her family. Please pray for her and her family.

Love,

Elder Jolly