Jay's letter 3-14-11

Wow. Pretty Good Week, here in the mission (: I hope everything is ok In Japan. We heard a ton about it in the news over here. How´s it looking?

Well, We are teaching this 16 year old kid who acts like Spider Man. He is a...special kid but he really does want to get baptized (: He is really funny. But yeah, really innocent kid. So, one time we went to go teach him the Word of Wisdom and asked him if he is living the Word. He said..uhm...no, yo fumo, como 20 cigarillos cada DIA! Yo estaba como....QUE?!? Usted es freakin joven con un monton de vida para vivir. I was dissapointed because we had to post pone his baptismal fecha.But thats ok. I realized that I was doing it for him and not for me to have a baptism this week.
We are also teaching this other girl named Joana who is having the hardest time not smoking. We made this huge goal chart that she can use. She is crazy! We made all these plans and we almost dropped her because she was not progressing. So, we went to go give her the charla. Then, I finally asked her...como se siente de nosotros pasando por la casa y ayundole dejar de fumar? Por fin, ella empezo a llorar y nos dijo...Me siento muy muy impressionada and tampoco no tengo la apoyo de mi familia. It was like a stab in the heart for me. i realized and learned a great lesson. that I need to ask people how the feel, really get to their heart and take care of their probelms and help them out. not just to teach and hope. i learned a ton this week about teaching and caring about the people. also, i learned how much smoking suck. don´t do it! its horrible (:

I gave a talk yesterday. I talked about teaching the gospel in the home. Alot of the member families here in Argentina live the gospel mas o menos. They are really pirdeful of themembership in the church but don´t live it all the way. I asked the bishop if it would be ok to talk about this and he said, por favor. I said really strongly that you have to have family scripture study, family prayer, noche de hogar, and your kids have to go to activities. I said, if you don´t do this, your family is just another family, and that is not what you want. I said, wake your kids up, prepare them to go on their mission and don´t be afraid to get strict about the church but as always, use love. I gave the example of us getting up at six to study scriptures and marie giving familyt home evening and dad staying out late visiting people. its true, you have to live the gospel. I was really firm and the people loved it. Good Sunday (:

HEY! I got the music package! Thanks. Mom, that song, brightly beams our fathers mercy is BRILLIANT. So gooood (: i love the girly speakers and the dolphin cd case. hahahaa, thanks mother. Everything came safe, and in one month too! Good timing. ç

I figured out the 8 dollar purchase. it bought shoes which were 30 pesos, wich comes out to be around 8 american dollars. so yeah, (: Card is safe.

Hope You have a great week you all! (:

Elder Valle