6-25-12

Big Empanada

Hello Family and Friends,
This week has been great.
Personally I am doing great. I have never found so much joy in reading the scriptures as I do now, and I am so happy to get up every day and work...even though its 6:30, we havent had a working shower for the last 2 weeks, and we don´t have heating in the super cold tempatures. It´s still great. Regarding the work of the Lord, as much as we work and leave and talk to people, the results have been poco. We have been trying so hard to help the Elders be obedient and have fun baptizing. This month has been low on baptisms....our baptismal goal for July will be 7. That will be a good goal to push our zone to reach their potential.
We have been working witht the ward directory and finding kids that havent been baptized. Lots of times, inactive parents leave the kids to turn 9 without baptism and then it all the sudden becomes our responsibilty. So, it is super interesting finding these families. We have foundf ourboys in our area who could get baptized, but because their parents got offended in church años ago, we still have trouble helping them progress. It had been fun, but si o si, we have to baptize this month. Anyways, we are trying our best to baptize. I will go fix my teeth this week. I hate taking up work time to have to go to centro, but I will do it. Sorry....I can´t wait to see Dr. Widdison again. We have consejo this week...super excited to see all my buddies again.

Elder Sarasua who has the same eyes.  What are the chances?

anyways, love you guys, have a great week...gonna send you a photo if my computer works (:
love,
elder valle

"Just going to the local dairy store to buy baby pig heads."

6-18-12

Travel Group to San Rafael

hey guys,
i gotta try to keep it short.
this week has been alright. a lot of stuff seems to be slipping form my hands, as being zone leader always isnt the easiest. we had a baptism this week and we also had more planned. its tough when all the missionaries are really doing everything that they are supposed to be doing. we have a ton of stuff to do.

Eating at Hollywood Burger

be praying for eliza. she is facing lots of opposition from her family as she tries to join the church. it was tough, and the mission in itself isnt doing so hot. i wish i could say lots of stuff happened this week, but it was super hard trying to get the elders to work and i am working witha pretty disobeident zone. i dont have a lot of time because i have to meet upewith the elders in the stake center in ten mintues and then get back to my area to work. we have to be on top of a lot of things. anyways, my tooth is fine. i still havent gone in to try and fix it, just because i am super busy with zone stuff and its killing me knowing that i will have to sacrifice time from my area to visit a dentist. i promise i will though (: sorry for the short letter this week, but i sent a ton of photos.

Wine at Casa Bianchi Winery

Tour at Casa Bianchi Winery

the bodega we visited was super sick and i had lots of fun. we are trying our hardest to get most of the elders to be more obedient (: we will see how it goes. thanks for the prayers. it really does help, and i will keep working super hard for the Lord. Love you all,
love, elder valle (:

with companion, Elder Gonzales

6-11-12

Leaving my converts was tough. They gave me an asado and they gave me a couple gifts. However, Vanessa gave the most precious letter ever about her conversion story, the part of her conversion story that she hasn´t told anyone. It made me cry. As I leaving the house, I shook hands with Angela and she started crying and I told her to not cry, and she said "Como es que no puedo llorar cuando se me va un hijo mío?". Ug....I started crying too. Vanessa said bye and Walter walked me to the bus stop and after getting on the bus, through the windows and through his tears I waved him goodbye. It was tough, but now I need to get my heart in San Rafael, so I will talk about that later. First things first.

I was on the bus to San Rafael and I was chewing on soft candy and my tooth that that one dentist fixed broke again. ug. so frustrating. So mom, I will probably make a trip to the dentist again this week. I wish Dr. Widdison was down here in Argentina. Ug. Anyways....My new comp Elder Gonzalez is so great. We get along super well and I am super excited for everything that can happent hsi transfer. San Rafel is kinda known for not baptising a lot and it´s kinda known as a trouble zone. It kind reminds me of Dallan when he got sent to go fix the zone. on the first week of transfers (last week) , we already started having trouble with idisobeidence and had to talk to soem elders. so i can tell already, how muchi am going to learn frome this transfer. last month the zone baptized 5 and before that they baptized 2. Wow....and my area, a zone leaders area, hasnt baptized for a year now. !!!!. scary, i know. so, i am just going to be obedient and do the best i can to baptize and help the zone be better. I want to be a better missionary and a better person, so i hope this crazy sone will help me do that. I still have four months, that´s a good four months to be what the Lord wants me to be, and maybe to reach my baptismal goal. It will probably be likely that i will end here in San Rafael. Cool (:

I am working on a lot of things to make the zone to get everyone excited. In guaymallen, our slogan was

SI PODEMOS, EN GUAYMALLEN. It was actually a great slogan (not every sone has a slogan or anything, i just did it to get people excited). And now i gotta think of a better one for San Rafael. We might make a logo too...hahaha. who knows. We played a futbol game this morning to get everyone excited. I think it worked pretty well, and i Hope we can start getting missioanries excited about working! Thanks for everything guys, i cant sen d pictures this week because my computer is kinda junky. anyways, thanks a lot! pray for eliza and brunilda and the flia. quiroga.

love,

elder valle

6-4-12

Transfers: Elder Valle leaves to Zone San Rafael as Zone Leader to be companions with Elder Gonzalez. San Rafael is about 4 hours away from the mission offiices in Mendoza. Lejos! I am bittersweet. I definitly wanted to stay another transfer in Santa Ana....and be here in Guaymallén. Ug. I mainly love the members here...the bishop and especially the converts obviously. I am not looking forward to packing up, but i mean, it´s cool. Elder Gonzalez is a cool Elder. We were in the sam zone together when I was back in La Punta. Cool. I travel this Wednesday morning super early on a bus. Should be good. This week Walter recieved the priesthood. It was an amazing experience. The stake president was visiting our ward and so he was interviewed on Saturday to get it on Sunday. We were in the room with the bishop and Vanessa (walters wife) the ordenation was awesome. When he finished he got up and kissed his wife. I love how the gospel brings couples together. It´s amazing. They looked so happy...and whenever they feel the spirit and pray, they start holding hands. oh yeah! anyways, he shook the hands of president and bishopa and then came to me and hugged me, and right when i was going to let go of the hug, he kinda held on for a little bit. for a littl while, then he stepped back, looked at me through his tears and then did the same thing to my comp. it was super sick! oh man. super spiritual and amazing experience i was able to be a part of. I will always be in debt to my Heavenly Father for these experiences. We talked to them about temples this week and showed them on their laptop, a ton of pictures of the temple that were on the church website. they were like...wow!!! they are so funny. they said the were going to call pres.avila to make sure we both stayed. anyways, we are having dinner together tuesday, the night before i leave. should be a good despedida. love those guys too much. hna. cabrera also sent me photos of the family at the temple but it didn´t get through and it´s not working so, hopefully i can get them before i leave. you could probably find them on facebook some where. look up her name, claudia cabrera. anyways, i was really bummed and still am to leave my area, but i only want to go where the lord sends me. that will be the best area. san rafael is supposed to be really pretty too...so i am rather excited. i have to go buy new luggage...so heads up on the back account. haha. also, we met a new investigator named Salvador....haha, Savior. Cool name. he is old style bread maker and has little school filed trips come see his oven. its made of bricks and it´s huge! you could fit people in there! a little creepy! anyways...he has huge shovel things to take the bread out and heats it up with fire. he can cook over 700 empanadas at a time and cook 90 kilos of bread a day in the that thing. and one kilo is quite a bit! imagine that. he is a great guy, for sure to get close to baptism, but i have no idea what will happen. we also had a great meeting with you district leaders this sunday. we got them excited about trying to baptize 10 in one month this month and it worked great. i am starting to feel like an effective leader now. anwyays, it has been a great week. hey, mom....could you do a huge favor and send me velocity face cleaner? that would save my face. love you guys lots,

love elder valle