2/27/12

my letter might be a short one, seeing that i need to run to catch a bus to mendoza. angelita accepted a fecha for this weekend! be praying that she can have the faith to get baptized a member of the church. she is a great lady, and so we will be all over the place trying to get her baptized. we were super excited when she accepted fecha! it took us a while, but i have no doubt she will be a strong, active, temple endowed member, so getting her on her path is very important. i love what mom said in her letter this week, about keeping them active. this week, agustin (the last weeks baptism) walked all the way to church with a book of mormon in his hand, with his white shirt and tie, and the invited a friend and got up on time to be able to do it. i am amazed. amazing kids and you can definitly tell when the spirit is working with them to be obedient children of God. it was great to see him get to church and be able to keep his baptismal covenants. proud of that dude.

it was also cool because we had church in la punta this week and it was in the house. the stake president came and it was a pretty big deal, seeing that we are only 46 people strong. we are shooting for seventy and he came and talked to me and my comp and the priesthood leaders about setting goals for growth in la punta. he gave a great talk about i love the strong members down here. they are incredible.

well, last week i was talking about getting those three people baptized, and we got two baptized. i had to make a lot of calls to bishops and a few emergency divisions, but it was worth it and everyone is my district baptized. it was a good weekend. thanks for the prayer, sister pence! haha. that is super funny. i love you guys, wish me luck this week and pray for angelita. you guys are the best.

love elder valle.

2-20-12

mom. i loved the valentine letter. it was soo sincer and i don´t know if i have ever felt as close to my family in my mission as i did when i read that later. a flood of memories filled my mind and i felt like i was home. thanks (:

we had a baptism this week! ug! i was dying of thirst to baptize and it finally came. it was agustin sanchez. after long time and lots of family home evenings and trying to get the ward involved we had a very successfull baptism. all that work was definitly worth it. its such a gratifying work. so much work, frustration, and sweat for the salvation of others. it´s sooo worth it. it was good (: i already sent you guys pictures, so i hope you like them.

i have a lot of pressure on my back this week. we have a big baptismal goal this week and it´s divided up into zones...the numbers. our goal is in charge of baptizine 8 this months, si o si! we already got five in the water, but we need three more this saturday si o si. in my district, i have two areas that both have enough people to baptize this weekend...for a total of three. o sea....they have to get baptized. they all have their little problems and super small things that keep them from getting baptized. ug, so i have to spend this week out of my area trying to figure out how we are going to do this (: but i love it. i love doing this. sometimes i can get selfish and want to work in my area, but i know how much the other areas need it. so it shall be great (:

i´m still getting used the president changes. avila is making the mission very different, mature, but different. i just adapted so fast to lindahl style, and i´m still trying to get a hold of this. but i know it´s from the Lord, so i must do it.

we had a great guy come to chruch. his name is pablo. he love what we are sharing. he reminds me A LOT of dave. he is a latin DAVE (heidi and dave). He i super personable, fun. Pablo really just wants to do the right thing and doesn´t want to mess his life up. he went to church and loved it. he still has to get married and stuff before he can get baptized, but he really knows that he needs to get baptized. i love this guy. it will be a slow progress but worth it. his last name is Stay....haha. english word. ayways, we also have carnival this week in San Luis. so lots orf partying and no one working for 50 hours straight....i´m not so excited. CRAZY STUFF.

anyways, i will be working super hard this week. thanks for the wonderful letters and everything guys. i love you all!

elder valle.

2/13/12

hey, tomorrow is valentines day...so, i won´t try to get all mushy on you guys. hahaha. just kidding.

week was good and we worked pretty hard. i feel like i am gaining the trust better of my district. it´s hard to be a leader sometimes because if they don´t like you, they won´t follow you. gaining trust is hard to get and easy to loose. so, this whole last transfer i focused on obviously leading and baptizing but also trying to gain their trust. especially with the hermanas....whew! on of them is 33, so it´s hard to get them to follow a 20 year old boy. anyways....everything is going good. today i thought i would write you guys about some funny stuff that happens here in argentina.

1) mowing machines...don´t exist. weed eaters...yes, the do exist. if there is a huge park or a soccer field...they don´t have mowers to do it. they get seven to ten men and hook them up with weed eaters. then they each area assigned an area to chop and then seven or ten men are behind them with rakes. it´s insane. where i live we had to get our lawn cut...so we had to pay this one dude 30 pesos to cut our lawn with his big weed eater. super funny....i wish i could show them what they have been missing out on.

2) i can´t believe i havent´told you guys about this yet. okay, so here, toilet paper exist...but it´s not the most common thing either. so like next to the toilet they have this thing called the bede. it is like the other toilet but it shoots out this pressurized stream of water that cleans you off and then you fry off with a towel. it´s super weird. haha. but anyways, i am pretty used to it. it´s not my favorite but it´s definitly cheaper than toilet paper. sorry...weird comments.

i got your christmas letter! it was great. I was DYING of LAUGHTER when i saw the calendar. who drew the family on paint? that was suuuper funny (: i have it up on my desk. my comp though it was pretty funny. penny just looks like a little woman and there are only two colors....brown and black. hahaha.. oh man....what a great gift. good job on the christmas letter tooo....it was an exciting year.

looks like we have a baptism of agustin this weekend (oh man...after two transfers of trying)...and it should be good. be praying for him and his family.

the other day the jehovas witnesses knocked our door. it was soon made obvious that i was mormon....(white, bad accent, white shirt and tie) and they started talking to us about how we should only read the bible. i went and grabbed a BOM to give out, and read 2Nephi 29 with them ( io hope thats right) and we talked about that. I gave the the BOM and who knows if they will read it. The convo didn´t get heated but it was definitly a fun talk and might have gotten a little defensive. but, that´s okay (: the holy ghost is the best teacher.

i had an hermana sew all my socks back up. that was super nice (:

it was a good week i hope you guys are having a great week (: i am doing great. thanks for everythign (:

take care,
love,
elder valle

2-6-12

sixteen months. still feel young. hey family, how is everyone doing? this week has been great, i sent photos (:i hope you like them!first things first.

we had a great noche de hogar with the family snachez. they are inactive but there kid is not baptized, so we are working with them. they are super nice...but they have some crazy stuff going on in the life, so we are trying to help them. the relief society is amazing here, so we got them in on it too. it is doing good. for the family home evening, we had tons of fun. it was super super normal, but it was worht it. the kid shared a scripture 1 Nephi 3:7 and then we played tic tac toe. that game is super simple, but with the family it was the funnest ever (: idk why, but i just had tons of fun playing tic tac toe with them. we then made them american pancakes and maple syrup. they loved it! they wanted all the recipies. hahaha. but it was definitly a succesfell FHE. pray for them (: if you want. we also had the oppurtiunty to go to a different church sunday in the afternoon. our mission presdient encouraged missionaries to attend to other services to see how other people feel when they go to other churches and how to help them recognize the correct things in the true church. it was super interesting. me and three other missionaries, we went last evening to a church called "Jesucristo es El Señor". It was...weird. I wont´criticize but i will describe. it was like a stadium and the preacher dude was shouting in the microhphone and everyone had their hands up. they "letting go" of their marriage problems...or something. Then they sold roses to everyone....it´s apparently a way to recieve help from Jesus. Then they try to get people to dedicate their possesions. Its called the Iglesia Universal. Anyways....we were there for like ten mintues just watching and we weren´t participating obviously...so the security gaurds (yes, in the church) came and took us out because we weren´t participating we tried to stay for a little longer but they said we made the people and the pastor uncomfortable....interesting. So we left. The spirit wasn´t their, but i for sure recieved a huge testimony the Jesus Christ directs our church through modern revelation. My testimony grew in one way and realized how blessed i was to be where i am (:

angelita is doing great. we watch the restoration movie with her and she loved it. it was good (: she is progressing but she still isn´t sure about baptism. her whole life has been catholic, so it will be a big change. she knows she needs to get baptized...so we are good. my area is a big focus on the mission because there are two areas for this ward...but they are trying to split the ward. in my area we are already ready to be our own ward. but, in the other area they are not. it´s a pretty hot topic in the mission, but i can´t do anything, because the other area is not mine! you know what i mean? someties president asks me how the seperation is coming along...but, it is really out of my hands. so...yeah (: hahaha. anyways. that´s a funky situation.

there is a lot of change going on in the mission. all the zone leaders are super old and all the people training are old too. and know we must have 20 charlas with menos activos. HUGE change. before it was six. we are working super hard...and trying our best to establish the church and baptize(: i hope you all enjoyed the pictures! (: tell the whitings thanks for the package....great people. (:

love,
elder valle

1-30-12

well, we got transfers and it looks like a staying here another transfer. as long, as i am where the Lord wants me, i am happy (: you know? i just only want to do what the lord expects. this week we had a HUGE hail storm. it hailed golf balls and did damgae to a ton of motorcycles....everyone has motorcycles here instead of cars. anyways....so erveryone is pretty upset and a lot of people don´t get insurance becuase it is super expensive. lukily we were not outside tracting or anything....hahahaha. we were in the house of of a member doing a FHE with our investigator angelita. when angelita heard the hail, she started to cry because all of her plants that she takes care of, were outside as well. so being super sweet young men, we ran out to her house in the middle of the gold ball sized hail and we opened her door and started shuffling all the plants inside.

and then when we tried to close the door we couldn´t because in the short few minutes it was hailing, it had created ice blocks on all the hinges of her doors. so i grabbed the broom and broke all the ice off, and then had to shut it. anyways....that was super interesting. she was crying a little bit, because her plants are like her kids. seriously, even a couple days after the storm she told us she was going through a hard time...hahaha. cutest little old lady ever. anyways, she wants to get baptized, but she thinks she is taking it way to fast. she loves everything and she is just waiting to get baptized when she feels the need to do it. so, it´s interesting. pray that she makes the decision soon though. she needs the gift of the holy ghost. anyways. so, we are feeling pretty good. with the new transfer i hope for a lot of things. so we will see.
we worked a lot with members this week too. we had ten charlas with member, and every charla was with a different member. sick right? anyways, that was preatty cool. one of the guys we took out used to be a preacher but now he is a member. so the way he prays and teaches is a little preacher ish. but its all good...at least he teaches the right doctorine. other members didn´t really know what to do, so it was a little different. hahaha. we had to help them out. my lips are getting SUPER chapped but i bought chap stick so thats ok. anyways (: love you guys! take care.
elder valle.