10-24-11

Hey! don´t have much time today. We have to go because we have a huge capacitation training thing with elder aidukatis from the seventy and i have a bunch of electronic baptismal forms to fill out.
we had a lot of baptism this week...of three boys! yeah! more priesthood. it´s pretty low here...the amount of preisthood holders is tough here...so they love it when we baptize guys. lol. facundo got baptized. he ahs been to church many times and lvoes the chruch and knows it´s true....but his parents didn´t let him get baptized. his grandparents are members. anyways....we talked to his family and helped them understand what baptism was. and that facundo already has a testimony. and they understood and got baptized! now the parents want us ti visit them all the time and the sisters are going to church....talk about sweet miracles right? we will see what happens (: but i loved the baptism. we also baptized two kids of nine years old whose families forgot to baptize their kids....(weird right?) but it always happens in argentina. they too...were like...already active...so you can imagine that the preparation was waaay easy. sometimes i´m greatful for those baptisms...but i feel bad for the kids! i don´t understand sometime what they parents were thinking...but whatever (:

sorry it´s a short letter today. i might get photos today. love you guys (: good luck dallan and miranda.

elder valle

Jay's letter 10-17-11

wow...this week to be honest has been pretty uneventful (: i honestly wish i had a lot to write to you guys but i am a little blank.

this week we had the baptism of rocio molina. her whole family are members except her. i really never figured out why she didnt get baptized, but she was gold. she has part of her personal progress done and where the young woman medallion everywhere. haha (: she was actually suipposed to get baptized about a month ago, but her father lives far away and cvould never come. she didn´t want to do it unless her father was there...but her father is a little lazy. she lives with her grandma...but anyways. i soon realized that her father was never going to come and that she still needed to get baptized. so i told her...if you father never comes, does that mean you never get baptized? no! it´s a commandment...so you have to do it. let´s do it this weekend and invite your father...if he doesn´t come we still do it. she liked the plan. and even though her father didn´t show up, she was super happy she did it. so we did it and she was way happy. her young woman friends were there and she was a super addition to the ward. believe it or not, she actually gave a talk in church the same day of her confirmation. and of course, at the end she gave her testimony. like i said...testimony of converts is the best thing ever (: anyways i will send you pictures of that.

i´m excited for my christmas present thanks for sending it (: ...i still have yet to recieve a box package on the mission. my missionary friends were making fun of me...hahaha. but i know you guys love me. haha. anyways...i will try to get those photos off to you guys. i am way excited for dallan to get married. i hope you all know i love you (:
elder valle
pray for ismael, facundo and leandro. three great guys who are listening.

10-10-11

Hello Family,

First off I wanted to express the hapiness I felt when I heard that James was able to give the baby blessing and the Chelsea went through the temple. I can´t express the hapiness that comes from our Heavenly Father when we follow in his way. That was the highlight of my week (: We too in San Juan are starting to see some miracles.

I thought I would share with you all some of the experiences we are having in San Juan with our investigators. All of these situations I guess seem pretty normal to me...but sometimes I forget that you guys arent missionaries too, and that these stories probably seem a lot more amazing coming from the "member" side.

We are teaching this one lady named Maria, whose testimony is super strong. She read The Book of Mormon and she also goes to church as well. We met her about a month ago, and now finally we are getting her documents ready so she can get married and then baptized...it has been a process but keep her in your prayers. We went to talk with her the other day in her house made of bamboo canes and mud and she gave us her testimony. She told us that..."When I heard I had to get married to get baptized...I wasn´t sad...because if it´s what the prophet says, it must be what god wants. So I just have to do it." She is amazing, so hopefully we can see some progress in that area. We are also teaching another girl, Fabiana...who we have been teaching who told about this crazy sweet dream she had. She had been praying about baptism and then that same night she had a dream that she was walking around and everyone was wearing white tunicas and half of the people had tunicas that were clean and white...and the other had stains and rips and they were tattered. She told us that she was confused until she looked at herself and found out that she too, was in a dirty tunica. She realized that she wasn´t happy and that her friends in clean tunicas were....and she wanted to be like them. It was incredible the dream, and even though she didn´t understand what it meant, we explained to her what it meant. She doesn´t come to church still, but hopefully we can see her testimony grow even bigger this week. Way nice lady. Another lady we are teaching, Patricia (Marias sister) started reading the book of mormon. She talking about one time when she was alone with her three kids and how they were crying and how she was having a bad day, and so she went to her bedroom by herself and found the book of mormon and began to read and she said she read only a few versus and she instantly felt good and so now, she carries her book of mormon everywhere so that whenever she feels bad, she opens toa random page and finds what she needs. I have learned too, so much about the book of mormon on my mission...how it strengthens us in any situation. The stories, tree of life, sons of Mosiah and so much more are so applicable to our lives and now, Patricia says it´s true and told us last week she wants to get baptized....she just now has to get married....oh man. But I still have faith (:
the church is doing something kinda different. they have given all the elders, each companionship a portable dvd player. as part of the new training, we have to watch dvds as part of comp study and so we now have a little dvd player in our apartment. it felt pretty weird to have one in the apartment but it was prettty cool. we don´t have the dvds still...so its just there. lol. i´ll send a picture of us watching the joseph smith movie.
i am a master at making chicken...oh man. i just buy a raw chicken and cook it. it´s amazing. i will have to make some for you guys when i get back. one learns a lot when the members can´t give you lunch and noodles become too common for lunch.

me and my comp went fishing with one of our investigators. he made a promise to get baptized if we went and fished with him for 15 minutes. i´ll send you pictures.
i had consejo this week in mendoza with pres. avila and everyone else. we actually had it, october sixth....the year mark. so all my buddies who came with me who are leaders as well, i got to see on our year mark. it was wicked fun, and we never stop laughing seeing eachother. they are right when they say this is the best time of your mission. pres. avila gave a killer talk about how to start teaching and showed us the goals for the mission. he is amazing.
the vineyards out here are getting super green and wine is soon to be made. it´s incredibly pretty...there are vineyards everywhere. i´m serious. we live next to one, the chapel is next to one...and where i am i can see on right now. it´s gorgeous but i´m starting to get used to it. haha. argentina.

anyways, i hope you all enjoyed the email. the work is going good. working hard like always. and people are reading the book of mormon!!!! best book ever. love you all,
elder valle

One Year Mark tradition in the mission: Burn a tie

10-3-11

Conference was the best thing EVER. Favorite parts (:

L. Whitney Clayton talked about how the church´s growth needed explanation and how it is caused by the message of Jesus Christ...how we are fulfilling prophecies and how only 85 years ago, the first members were baptized in South America. Wow. Look where we are now.

Jose L. Alonso....HUGE BOSS: Do the right thing at the right time without delay. there is no need for lenghty programs...the church has already done the part...just apply your effort and get it done.

Uchtdorf killed it again with his god loves you talks. We sometimes feel small, but in god´s eyes he loves us infinitely.
Bednar chose a very very unique tema...but it was a way cool topic. who would have thought about talking about that! he made family history sound like the most important thing ever...and if we don´t do it...we are sinning. that's how i felt. lol.
Neil L. Andersen...haha, make babies. That´s all.
D. Todd Christofferson...oh man that fuy is just way smart...he said...it is mocking god if we expect to receive the blessing of the atonement and do not put in our effort...SO TRUE. I see people who don´t do much and expect to be saved because they say the believe...that's all. crazy stuff.

My favorite talk of the whole conference was by Jeffery R. Holland in the priesthood session. He compared the gospel and work of the lord like a war. He made me feel the need to dedicate my entire life to God and missionary work. I LOVED IT. He spoke so boldy and so straight up and made me feel like i was in the locker room getting a pep talk from a coach. all the missionaries went nuts...it was the best talk ever. You guys have to look it up and watch it. hahha.
We had a pretty normal week. I am starting to exercise better and eat lots of bananas and milk. Idk why but I keep doing it. lol. This week my and my companion worked upser hard and got seven people to church! another big week for us...we are killing it. hopefully it turns into some baptisms.
I hope you guys have a great week. I don´t have much time to write today but i know that we will begin to see miracles here in my area. we already are fidning some amazing people. I felt the spirit so strong this week and the words of the apostles confirmed my testimony of this church. Thanks mom and dad for always rasing me right...so that when I watch general confrence I can think..."yeah...my parents already do that". hahaha. Love you,
Elder Valle