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