October 26, 2012

Oí Família! Wow the play sounds like it´ll be pretty funny! The fact that Shantewa will a sugar plum made me laugh. haha The train ride looked like it was very cool. It reminded me of the fall weather. Unfortunately here, its getting hot again. :( I got one of your letters today. I can´t believe that Marissa is getting married! Its crazy how life continues without you there. So I think today I will buy a pumpkin to carve too. Will see what happens though because finding a pumpkin big enough to carve here is a challenge. So anyway this week was ok. We were blessed to find a family this week. A young couple that are legally married (that is always difficult to find). They accepted to be baptized this next month. So this is my last week with Elder A Santos. I don´t have any idea who will be my next companion, but I think I´ll find out today. Then comes the usual transfers next week. I´ll go to Porto Alegre with the dead and bring back the newbies. Then the usual trainings for the next 2 weeks. I´m wondering if I´ll stay here for another transfer after this one. I like the idea. This area is very good. Its just hard to find new investigators. Well tthat´s about it. Happy Anniversary! Have a great week! Love you guys Elder Jolstead the Older

October 18, 2012

Oí, How´s everyone doing? Have you guys decorated the house for Halloween yet? I think we´ll cut a Jack-ó-Lanturn this year. Last year I just ate a piece of candy haha So yeah Joshua sent me an email. Sounds like he´s having a great time. The MTC is awesome. He´ll love it there. Did he say anything about having a companion? It was pretty weird at the beginning having some one follow you around. haha That train ride sounds like it should be cool. So anyway, my week was pretty normal. We´ve been having a lot of success these days that I´ve almost forgotten how it feels when no one is progressing and you need to find new investigators,.... these last couple of days I´ve been starting to remember how that is. So yeah that´s what I´ve been doing these last couple of days: Searching for new investigators. Its good though, because if we always had success and never failure we´d never learn and never have to trust in the Lord for help. So its good that he´s testing us a little. Oh and we´re doing an activity in the ward: Night of the Theater. Every organization will present a short play or skit and we missionaries are doing a play of the First Vision. Its been pretty fun. It reminded me a lot of our Christmas plays. (especially when Elder Hormazbal, our director is trying to talk and everyone is just goofing around. haha) The practices we have here are almost exactly the same. One Elder will out of no where make a joke or do something funny and this the others will tell him to knock it off and then the next minute another missionary does another stupid joke or something. haha Its just like home in the Christmas plays. hahaha The activity is tomorrow night. It should be good and I hope that the members bring non-members, because if they don´t it will be a big waste of time. Anyway that´s all I did this week. I do have another thing to add for the whole family. Something that I don´t think to many members realize. When some one new comes to church its a big thing for them and they´re in a world completely different than they´re used to, that´s why we as members need to reach out to them and make friends with them. One of the most frustrating things as a missonary is working with members. Sometimes it seems that the members here drive away converts faster than we can baptize them. Its like we open the door to the church and they just leave through the back door. Sorry but it something that´s been frustrating me for along time. Members need to be a lot more aware of new converts and also willing to help them and be friends with them, if not the church will never grow the way the Lord wants it too. The members need to be involved in missionary work. Anyway, have a great week! love you guys! Elder Jolstead the Older

October 12, 2012

Oí Família! Well...I guess I´ll have to be Elder Jolstead the older now. I´m glad he left smiling because its so much worse when everyone is bawling. hahaha I loved conference! The announcement about the age of missionaries is awesome! They´ll be so many more missionaries now! I loved the talk by Elder Holland. That wasn´t the first time I heard that talk. He gave one similar to the missonaries in the MTC awhile ago. Its something very important because there´s so many fubeca returned missionaries. I don´t understand how so one who supposedly served an honorable mission could come back and act like nothing happened and that they served their missions and that´s the end, you´re finished and you can go back to who you were before. That talk was very powerful. I also liked Elder Bednar´s talk and President Monson´s talk in the Preisthood session. Unfortunately these days I´ve been very tired so some of the sessions I missed a little because I fell asleep. :( I was very put out afterwards. This week I had a great opportunity. I was able to go to Uruguaiana and see some of my converts there. I was able to talk to one family there and I have to say that was one of the happiest moments of my life. The mom has a calling in the relief society and is very strong in the church. Her daughter is also very strong and is attending seminary everyday. The whole family reads the Book of Mormon everyday and prays before every meal and before they go to bed. The difference that I saw in the mom was incredible. I remember that she was always stressed about some very terrible things that were happening in her life, but now she was so peaceful and happy. So anyway it was very awesome to see the change the gospel has made in their lives. I think the feeling that I felt is the feeling that only comes to those who have the priviledge to share the gospel with others and see the happiness that they feel. That is why it is so important that we share the gospel. For the salvation of others as well as our own happiness we need to share the gospel with others. Unfortunately I didn´t get to see the whole family because the kids were at school and the dad was at work. It was very cool to get to walk where I walked 6 months ago. The funny thing is that it was about a year ago when I was transfered there. Anyway, here in our area we are teaching this woman who is practically converted to the gospel already, can´t get baptised because her husband decided that now he doesn´t want to marry her. Now that they already have three kids. So this week we´ve been praying a lot for her and her family and this week we´ll fast especially for her and her husband. Last time our prayer and fast stopped a baby from coming, I´m certain the Lord will answer us again and soften the heart of her husband so that she can be baptized. Oh and today we got to eat at the President´s house at lunch. It was very cool. I always love talking to President and Sister Ribeiro. Anyway, that´s about it. Have a great week everyone!!! love you guys Elder Jolstead the Older

October 5, 2012

Oí Família!! Well I have to say that when I saw these pictures I couldn´t believe my eyes! Derek looks like they took Joshua, cut off his head and took dereks head and put on Joshua´s body! hahaha Don´t tell them that I said that, though. :) Looks like you guys had fun at Silverwood. Oh and I hadn´t realized that Krystine had come home to see Joshua go through the temple, that´s why I didn´t understand when you said that there were 5 Jolsteads there. Oh and mother you look a lot slimmer. Not that you weren´t slim before, but you look a lot slimmer. :) That is very sad about Kurtis. He´s fine though right? I mean with the sickness that he caught. That is one of the risks that we have here. But its not as bad as you think. And even more important is that even if the food could give us some disease the Lord won´t let that happen unless its suppose to and its for our good. The Lord wouldn´t have let Kurtis get sick if it wasn´t what was suppose to happen and what the Lord wanted to happen. It is sad though. I forgot to tell you that a missionary came home here in Santa Maria who knew Kurtis in the mission. An Elder Hammer I think. Anyway this week was very different. The President sent us both, me and my companion to work with 2 different companionships of Zone Leaders. So basically we left our area with no one working here for 2 days. Something interesting is that the President said that if we did this we shouldn´t worry about our area here because the Lord would bless us. So we left Tuesday. I stayed here in Santa Maria to help the ZL´s here. It was a pretty awesome experience. The first day it was raining a lot and they had the whole day planed. We prayed before left asking the Lord to help us find a family too. Then at one point after lunch one of the elders lost his planner and with it all the addresses of the people that we´d visit that day. So we were a little sad about that so we said a prayer and asked the Lord to help us find his planner. Then we searched for a long time and decided to just let it go for now and try to find new investigators. So we spent most of the afternoon doing that. Then at night we were walking and we saw a woman walking with her daughter with a ton of grocieres in the rain. So we went up to her and offered help and gave her our umbrella. So we walked with her to her house and we talked with her about her family. She has 8 children and she said that she going to a church but doesn´t like it anymore because of all the ridiculous rules that they have there and how she is looking for a church to join. Well you can guess how happy we were: 8 children, looking for a new church to join; we knew from the beginning that this family was prepared to hear the gospel. So we arrived at her house and we taught the Restoration and at the end we invited them to be baptized and they accepted and when we invited them come to church she looked at her husband and said, ´´I don´t know about you but I´m going this Sunday.`` So anyway if you think that this experience is cool guess what happened after we left their house...We found the planner that had been lost with all those addresses. Something that I realized after was that all this was so that we could find that family, because if that Elder hadn´t have lost his planner we would have gone to all these other plans and we never would have found that family and even cooler was the fact that the Lord answered both prayers: Find a family and find the planner. Everything worked out perfectly, just how the Lord wanted it. And even better was when we came back to our area to work yesterday, the Lord really did bless me and my companion like the president said. We found 3 people who were also prepared to hear the gospel and were able to teach more lessons then we usually can in one day. We taught them and they accepted to baptized as well. So anyway that was a cool experience. If we´re obedient and do our part the Lord will do his part and everything will work out, even when we aren´t able to see how it could work out as perfectly as it does. That´s what Moroni means when he talks about the trial of our faith. That´s crazy that Joshua is leaving this week. He shouldn´t worry though the MTC is awesome. He´d better learn to like it too because he´ll be there for 3 months haha. Anyway so I´m excited about conference. It´ll give me that extra boost. So anyway that´s about it. We should be having another baptism here soon. The problem is we need to marry her first and that´s proving to be a lot harder then it should be. It seems like there´s everything going against her and we haven´t been able to start the marriage process yet, but today we´ll try again. Have a great week. love you guys Elder Jolstead