Hola mis queridos! (every time you say hello to an old lady in Argentina, she will respond with *Hola mi amor* or *hola mi vida* or *hola mi querido.* its hilarious)

My week was great! We have a few new investigators, and we even got a baptismal date! woo! Her name is Ailyn Barragon. Ailyn is 10 yrs old. Her family is all baptized, but inactive. We have been visiting them a lot to try to reactivate them and try to get Ailyn baptized. She is the sweetest little girl and has so much faith, but she didn't want to get baptized when she was 8 because she didn't want to do it just because everyone wanted her to, she wanted it to be her own decision (also cause she has a little case of water phobia). I love that though. We have been teaching and visiting her, but she is already so smart in the gospel. She has the *Book of Mormon stories* book, and knows it almost cover to cover. It's awesome. She will be baptized on August 16. I´m not sure who will baptize her yet, but I´m really hoping to be able to do it...we´ll see! I´ll send pics.

Life is good. The mission (especially at the beginning) is such an emotional rollercoaster. With huge ups and huge downs haha. There are some days where I wake up and I´m like *This is the most glorious day, and everything that happens is wonderful!!* and then halfway through the day I´m like *Well...I haven´t converted Argentina yet...and Jesus hates me.* Ha I don´t actually think that... but wow, it's exhausting sometimes. We got a surprise visit from Presidente and Hermana Cifuentes last Tuesday during our district meeting. That was a blessing from the heavens. They´re the best, and talking with them helped bring me back to emotional equilibrium. We did interviews with President Cifuentes, and I told how I´ve been really stressed with trying to be exactly obedient, and feeling like I´m not doing all that I need to. He told me that obedience shouldn't be a stress, but a desire. That helped a lot and I´ve been trying to implement that into the work this last week. Not that it wasn´t my desire before, but I´m trying to go easy on myself and put more happiness and fun into the work... but at the same time I know I have to be diligent and focus...it's a hard balance haha.

My eating schedule was almost consistent last week...that was cool! haha I bought some oatmeal and fruit for myself, and now I have breakfast! Man it's so nice. We had lunch with members about 4 times last week. Almost everybody feeds us pizza, and by pizza I mean bread with cheese on top. Ha! It´s good and I´m always really grateful for it, but they make so much..sometimes it's like 2 full size pizzas per Elder. I can eat a lot of food, so usually it's fine, but everyone who is familiar with missions knows that when they offer more..you can't say no. So by the end of the meal, after all that bread and cheese, I´m in my chair like *SPASM...SPASM.* then the members are like *don't think about it, just look at that cow* and I´m like *ohhh..I just ate that cow!* ... only mom will understand that reference. haha! I was laughing so hard last week when you said *fester fester fester...rot rot rot.* ha! oh man... good movie.

You´d think I would gain weight after all the bread..but being a walking mission, I don't think it will be a problem. We seriously walk soo much. wow. I´m used to it though,  after walking 8-10 hours in Virginia last summer (finally one good reason to be grateful for Vivint haha).

I started reading Jesus the Christ this last week. Wow it's good. I don´t know a lot about James E. Talmage, but I can tell he´s a LOT smarter than I am. Holy moly! One chapter just about exceeds my mental capacity haha. It takes a lot of focus, but all jokes aside, I´m super excited to read it and learn more about the life and character of my Savior. So far I´ve loved it.

Everything is great in S. America. Hope all is well back in my beatiful home. S/O to the happy couple for finally getting things moving along haha! So happy for you guys. Refer to the SNL skit *surprise party* to get an idea of my reaction when I logged on to my email and saw the pics. *ohhhhh myyyyy gooooosh!* haha

Love you all. Look up the conference talk *Of Regrets and Resolutions* by Pres. Uchtdorf. It´s a good one.

Elder Jolley