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

hey guys,
we had a killer week here in guaymallen this weekend. first things first.
we had the baptism of the flia. perez. thanks for the prayers. at the beginning of the week, me and my comp had a meeting with are seventy, pres. avila and stake pres. it was way good! nothing intense, but i learned a lot from it. it was only thirty minutes (: not a big deal. then, pres. came with us to perez home, they still hadnt taken the decision to get baptized. but we didnt want to take president with us to make hime look like a problem solver, so we just went in and shared our testimonies (: it was amazing. we were out kinda late with pres, but it was worth it. he took us home in his car. we talked about politics...he started it. haha. amazing guy. then next day, i went with my comp, and we were racking our brains for way to figure out how to get these people baptized without being obligators or anything. anyways, we went over there and they looked pretty normal. and we sat down and they started to hold hands and sit closer to each other, and walter started talking, "well, chicos, we´ve been thinking about it and we actually prayed last night about it too and..." by this time i was getting super nervous...getting ready to come up with a magic solution to this situation. "we want to get baptized". boom, fireworks, angels regoicing, happy missionaries, and water already filling up the font. easy. the spirit totally did that one. what a great conversion. they all come to church with modest clothing and shirts and ties and they want to do everything in the church. especially vanessa, she goes to activites at the church just to clean up and she has an interview with bishop this weekend to set up with her plan to get to the temple. she wants the gospel principles books and just wants to go all out. she is for sure a strong convert (: i am so happy! yay. thanks for your prayers. walter asked us how to get a temple reccomends and what he has to do to get the priesthood. haha. so good. love these people
we had 25 de Mayo this months. Its like indepence day. we have locro and chori pan and everyone gets the day off. we dance folkloric. the whole ward, young and old started doing fold dance (i kinda wish the USA would get into this kinda stuff) it looked so fun!, i cant because im a missionary. ug....it sucked. it was a great activity and we had seven new investigators there! super cool. love argentina culture.
then yesterday and this morning we had consejo. of course, it was super fun. my zone did good! our goal was 8 and we got 7. other zones got 1, 2 and....0 yeah. its tough out here right now. but, they were super disappointed with the baptisms. i spent this morning with aps doing stuff for the mission and they said my zone, mendoza zone, and chimbas (one of my old zones) were the best ones. so that made me feel good. pres. avila wants to visit the flia. perez again and we spent alot of time at his house.we had tacos...oh man!!! super good! and then, we sat around presidents house giving testimonies, and elder jacobs played songs on the guitar while we sang a bunch of songs.

 it was super fun. then this morning we had a little meeting and alot of people left, but i played basketball with ap´s, elder roche his comp and the office elders. i couldnt believe how good i was! people actually passed me the ball and i almost made a three pointer (: yay (:haha. so you could say my physical ablities have improved. hanging out with all the other elders is super fun. than we got permission to go the new burger king that just opened up in mendoza....have it your way! it was yummy whopper time for me. yum yum yum. anyways, that was my week (: hope you guys enjoyed the photos (: haha.
love you guys, elder valle

 

5-21-12

this week has been great! quite stressfull, but always worth. lets start off with great news! my comp from la punta, elder stearns called me last night to update me on my converts. angelita is super strong and is well on her way to the temple. she loves it and almost might get a calling....exciting! my convert fernando, is just on fire! he has the best record for home teaching and takes the elders out to teach twice a week and after he gets the melkesidek priesthood, he will also get a calling. he said the closing prayer at ward conference and at that ward coference they announced that la punta was going to be it´s own ward!!! WOOO!!!! i never thought i would go back to visit those guys, but now i have too. we will see what we can do (:i was just crazy happy...oh, and agustin is good, is mom who was inactive just got a calling. i can´t believe how much my work had paid off. in la punta, i felt helpless only having baptized 4 people and thinking that my work wsa mediocre. hearing that news was one of the highlights of the mission. i felt great (: yay.

this week we had a meeting for zone leaders and president talked about working with members. it was cool. we were only there for a little bit, but it was still fun. and then tomorrow me and my comp have a meeting with pres.avila, our stake president (which is a big deal, because stakes are more wide spread down here), and the are seventy. we have to present a bunch of stats about the zone and lots of averages for the last couple weeks. you can tell they are serious about getting a temple down here soon, so they are doing some super analyzing and stuff. im a little nervous, but it should be good. im getting super prepared for it. we are excited and it should help us to get better at working with the members. then me and pres. avila are doing intercambios for an hour an we are going to go visit the flia.perez. i invited him and even though i might be self concious of my teaching, it should be fun. (: i am way stoked. i didn´t think he would accept the invitation but he did! so we are going right after the meeting. i need you guys to pray so much for this family! they are so close to baptism! and they need it this weekend. hopefully pres.avila takes all his guns out and helps us out. hahaha. pray for them and yeah...haha, we will be going crazy this week seeing if they can make it. they are soo ready. we need it so bad! haha (: thanks guys. i am stressing again for the zone goal and hoping that the missionaries can step up their game. i don´t know how to get missionaries to understand the importance of somethings, sometimes. i am working on it. haha (: should be a good week, just pray for us (: anyways, glad to see you had a good week (:

love elder valle

5-14-12

loved talking with you guys. not gonna write a lot, because i already talked to you guys. it was super fun. i will get the alpargatas when you guys send me the info. happy mothers day! love you all. enjoy the photos (:
elder jay valle

Jay said him and the cat have twin eyes

5-7-12

Familia Valle,

beanies from the package we sent for upcoming winter

Crazy day today. We have so much to do todfay. I will try to keep this email un random and in order (:
I am so excited to talk to you guys this sunday at six o clock in the tarde my time and listen to your voices. It shall be fun (: I sent mom all the information and Grandma Etelvina. I hope she remembers who I am. This week we had meetings and more meetings. The first meeting was for zone leaders. We didn´t reach our baptismal goal. Bummer. We have lots of people for this month and we should easily get the goal, and that makes me happy. But I feel like its better to be constant and tru to the goal instead of one months baptize a lot and another month baptize little. It´s just not the best way. I am trying to install that in the missionaries this transfer. I am also trying to install more animo and get them excited to do the work (: Sometimes, I feel too hard on them, like I might be pressuring too much...but I try to not let that get to me. Afterall...it is part of my calling. Haha...but I do it with love. No fear. We had consejo and President Avila is sure warming up to being funny with us. At the beginning of his presidency, He was a little strict, and thats cool, but now he knows how to make the mission work fun. He showed us clips of the Argentine football team and of Messi and all the sick goals that they made in history. He related the soccer team to a zone and district leaders. It was super awesome. He also showed some Michael Jordan clips for us gringos. It was sick! We learned a lot and my zone is doing very good. We have good new Elderes. We will be working hard for that. At the end of consejo, we went to Presidents house for lunch (super fun) I played paino for one mini zone leader talent show. I have gotten a lot better on the mission. They liked it. And then, we went to the stake center and played dodgeball! oh man...talk about sweet reward for being a zone leader. I didn´t realize how out of shape i was. i need to start up again. haha. anyways, the next day we had another meeting with all the zone leaders and district leaders. it was a lot bigger, not as personal, but it was still fun to see all my buddies and see how stuff was going in their areas and talk about my old areas with them (. super fun. We also had a meeting this sunday with the ap´s and my disrtict leaders and us. it was fun, idk what the point of it was, but it was fun (: we also have to fill out a bunch of informes and registros and stuff. it is quite the load, but it is hard to get all the elders to do things for the work and not just because i told them too (: haha. i am working on it. I realized that one of my weaknesses, is trusting other elders to get stuff done. my work would be so much easier if i could delegate people to do it. I have a hard time trusting people and letting them do important stuff, because i can usually trust myself (: anyways, i am working on it. I am excited to talk on sunday with you guys! come with questions...i have a hard time starting a conversation in english. spanish is easy so it sounds like etelvina and grandpa get an advantage. haha. crazy. i will try to send you guys pictures and stuff. hope that i can do it! thanks for everything guys.

Love Elder Valle

p.s. got four people to church on sunday! whoo!!