Howdie howdie,
Oh yea I totally forgot about stake conference. If the Stake Presidency gets changed let me know because I have to notify the mission president right away. I am glad to hear things are going well back home. Things have really really picked up in the past few days. We have contacted and set up appointments with about 8 new families and that is about a pool of 25 new investigators. We had 5 set appointments on monday alone. We have our first baptism coming up this sunday Dec 5th for B (12yrs). I will talk more about that one in a bit.
Wednesday night we took B shopping and bought him a white shirt, slacks, belt tie and then later that night E.H and I went to payless and I bought him some black dress shoes. We teach B 3 or 4 times a week. When we were walking home from payless that night we checked the temp outside and it was 12 degrees. It has been really cold here lately.
Thanksgiving day we went over to a members house R and A and read the scriptures with them. They are an elderly couple and cant see very well so we read with them occasionally. We read the story of Ammon and talked about the power of the Spirit. R and A live with their kids who all have kids, so we set up an appointment to teach one of her daughthers on monday. After about an hour a couples missionary came over to teach them english. At 3pm we taught B the Plan of Salvation. It was a great lesson and everybody was edifided, especially the mom who is coming back after being inactive for 13 years. We got the car back and it has been a nice blessing with the cold weather.
Friday, we had zone conference all morning and we got a new companion Elder C (E.C.) who is waiting on his visa to mexico, so we are now a trio. We visited less actives in the afternoon and knocked a few doors. Then we headed off to our 2 dinner appointments. Yes two! At the second one there were a lot of guests over and so being missionaries we made the rounds talking to everyone and getting to know them and we set up an appointment to teach a family of 5. Afterwards I was completely stuffed and tired but we still have more appointments to go to. It was a long hard fought day but we found 2 new families to teach and we retired to bed happy.
Saturday, E.H. was sick but we couldnt let that stop us so we went out and got to work. We taught Brian at 3pm and then tracted for a bit. At 5pm we had a really weird but cool experience. We had an appointment with a new investigator L and N. We get there and they have family over, turns out the family are members. L and N are Catholic. We had a very nice discusion for about an hour an answered the husbands questions and I left with my testimony about missionary work and the blessing the gospel is on families. AND we got a return appointment. We tracted for about an hour after and then returned home early because E.H. was pretty sick. Sometimes when teaching the gospel you have to be pretty blunt with people and I heard a quote by Jeffery R. Holland that puts things pretty simply. "We aren't BurgerKing, we are not going to do it (missionary work) your way, and we are not going to hold the pickles."
Sunday, we woke up to about a foot of snow on the ground and it was still snowing hard. We had ward correlation meeting at 10 and Branch council at 10:30am. I am still not used to driving in the snow but I am getting pretty good at it. I have learned how to pull of a fish tail and how to pull out of sliding when you lose traction going around a corner. Sometimes we practice in the parking lot. Only practice :) L and B came to church today and there was a lady and her son there that we didnt know so we introduced ourselves after sacrament meeting and it turns out she had heard about the church from a friend at work and really liked how it sounded so she came to check it out. We set up an appt to teach her and her son and we took her to Gospel Principles class with L. After church we taught B and L and talked about his baptism and started to set up the baptismal program. To my great surprise he asked me to baptize him, so this sunday not only will I be having my first baptism since I got out in the field 2 weeks ago but I will be doing the baptism. This surprised me because my spanish is still a work in progress and I thought he had a closer connection to E.H. but wow I was touched. We went home early again because E.H. was on his death bed and had a fever.
Monday, E.H. is doing better which is good because we had 5 appts. We taught R and A daughter at 11am and committed her to be baptized on Dec. 26th. We taught 5 other lessons today and the work stayed busy. All lessons we got return appts to teach more.
Tuesday, we had a good day. We found lots of new people and recieved 2 referals and have another list of referals to pick up at the mission office tomorrow with about 10 referals on it. We were supposed to teach B and L at 5pm but when they got to the church their car was smoking, so we popped the hood and did some work on it and filled up the coolant because it was empty and by the time we finished it was 6pm and we had another appt to go to. We also taught L and she is very interested and wants to come to church. We gave her a copy of the Book of Mormon and shared a brief message amd set a return appt. We have given out about 15 Book of Mormons this week and need to order more. We returned home at 9 exaughsted!!!! We have about 2 1/2 feet of snow in the back yard and our driveway is a tunnel from shoveling all the snow out of the way so we can get the car out. The main roads are dry but the back roads are completely covered in packed snow.
This week was great and Elder C adds excitement to the work and more energy. We are hoping to have 12 people on date by sunday and it looks very possible. I have come to love the people I teach and the culture. I am actually starting to love the spicy food although it still makes my lips and tounge burn for hours lol. I love you all and wish you all a merry Christmas! Oh and by the way, the Church is soooo true! Just take a look and you will see, how the church can bless you for eternity. Yep that rhymes. Love ya
Love,
Elder Jolly
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