8-20-12

this week has been good. not a lot has happened, but alot has. this week i got my new comp.yeah, i was with another elder named elder zanabria from spain. his comp had also gone home, so we stuck together for a couple days til our companions got up to san rafael.

Elder Wixom

 my new comp is elder wixom from st. george utah. and to be honest we get along incredibly well. i would name off all the reason for why we are and how well we get along, but i will just name a few. we love the same kind of music (michael buble, norah jones, indie stuff) and we both love graphic design. his dad actually does it for a living. also, we bothe want to do advertising after the mission and we both have the same dream job...haha, church advertising. uhmmm.what else. we both play piano by ear, we actually wrote a way sick song on pday i will have to send to you. it was pretty sick. also, we just both are simple obedient, so there is no weird awkwardness of fights about being obeident. we just do it. and we both know when to laugh and when not to it has been great. also, we have found lots of the same ideas, and we are just on thesame pagea s far as leadership and doing missionary work. we are trying to focus alot on changing san rafael. and it´s changed a lot, and its getting better. he just barely went up as zone leader, so i am doing zone leader training again. he went up at 16 months just like i did, so we both have the same feel about the mission and stuff. it has been a good week. we have been going to other areas securing baptisms and trying to make a lot fthings happen. last night, me and my comp did this thing in the zone called a white strom. its where all the missionaries in the whole zone get together to go out and work in onew area for just 3 hours on pday. almost the whole zone. this area we went to was called caudro nacional. we went out for alittle bit, and all came back to see how we did. in total we found 28 new investigators just for that one area! hahaha. so we are going to do it next week in a different area...normally for the struggling areas (: we are super excited. we should also be getting our baptismal goal this month which is super exciting. next week i start my last transfer and i just gotta work my hardest. it shall be good. i´m gonna send you guys some pictures too

I was walking in our area when I heard drums. so i knocked the door and asked if i could play.
man...i am sooo rusty. it´s been forever. i still did good though

 

(: thanks for everything (: we had meeting yesterday so i coudlnt write yesterday (: love you guys!
elder valle

8-13-12

Baptism of Matias. 

This week was great.

So on my birthday, one of our investigators chose me to baptize him. It was a great little present and it was great day. I din´t tell anyone about my birthday, because as mom knows, i don´t really like my own birthday. So, it was good because we did intercambios with my good buddy Elder Falcon, and we went to go preach. I hadn´t told anyone except for one of my pench comps. So we were walking in the street when we saw an older couple from the church, and they had stopped to talk with us for a second and then they just asked the craziest and most coincidental question: " elder, cuando cumple los 21?"....uhm....wow...."hoy de hecho.....como sabía?. " "en serio, ni sabíamos....feliz cumple". then that went around the ward as fast as a rumor. it was great (: hahaha. anyways, when i got home, we had walked in and there was cake, baloons and sprite for us.

from the elder who i had told. i feel super bad because i think the cake was expensive....hahaha. ug. anwyays, it was good. i didn´t want to celebrate anything big, i really just wanted to work super hard, because this will be my last birthday in the mission. anyways, that was fun,

 this morning we went to a big cool place called valle grande. you can imagine how many jokes i got about that....
"but, valle is small....hahahaha"
"this is valle grande and your valle pequeña....hahaha" the list goes on.

 it was a beautiful place with mountains and a huge lake.
we also baptized the son of jaqueline. she is waaay converted and so we are super excited about that, she is working with us alot to baptize more people and we are also starting to baptize her sons.

 its great.

 san rafael is changing and now i realize a little bit why president put me here (:

anyways, love you guys!

 hey, i just sent you guys a ton of photos. i hope that makes up for all the writing i wasnt able to do. the bus back from valle grande was late....but, i will try to write with more detail next week. we had a baptism and the zone is doing super good. i am the only zone leader for a little bit. a little daunting the tasks is, but we shall see.

hahaha. i love you guys! have a great week (:
elder valle

8-6-12

Investigators:  Jaqueline and Matias

Family,

Its my birthday this week.

We had a great week over her in San Rafael! We got 19 people to church this weekend. Thats a record for the zone, so we are doing just great. I love when my plan (to baptize) starts working and the whole zone all the sudden decides that they want to baptize and we all the sudden see all these crazy miracles. It has been going great.
We should see some baptisms in the zone this weekend and next weeken. I love it. This week President came up for a special training and talked about working with the members. It was great, and then he left with me and my comp to come and work with us! At first, I was obviously a litte intimidaded, but in the end, it was super fun. He is such a capo. We worked with two families and it was a great day of work. I love it! We also got people to church. Speaking of getting people to chruch...remember Eliza, that lady that we had baptized the other week. So she has a super hard time walking so she usually rolls around in her little wheel chair. Me and my comp were walking on our way to church, and about half way i see froma distance a little old lady going like, 5 inches an hour, with a walker. as we quickly got close, we realized it was Eliza!!! She was walking to church on her own. None of her grandkids would roll her to church in the chair, because they all stayed in sleeping. It was sad, but she just made a huge sacrifice to go to church! Amazing! Anyways....that was great. This week is my comps last week of the mission....so I hope we are able to work super hard like we would any other week. crazy stuff yeah...and i´m feeling a little old in the mission now. I love being a missioanry! I kinda dont want to stop, but at the same time, it will be nice to study and stuff too. So we shall see (: I´m 21 this week. Adult and still four feet tall....well, it happens i guess. I will try to send you guys pictures. Today me the zone had a great asado! oh man....best meat ever! I will miss argentine meat. it was just gggrrreeeaatt (: (: have a great week! guys!
Elder Valle

Political Campaign Signs in San Rafael

7-31-12

Baptism of Eliza

I shall try to attempt to write short, to the point and effectively of all important occurances of this last week.

1) Baptism of Eliza. It was great....poor lady had the hardest time getting in and out of the pool, but she did it! She did a great job and she said she felt so relieved to get baptized because she had been wanting to for a long time. She always complains, that when you are a little kid, you dont have sins...so she loved getting baptized and she loved the book of mormon. She might look super old in her picture...but she is actually super active and super funny. Grandma Etelvina thing....she wanted to have a dance after the baptism. it was hilarious. Love that lady.

At Zone Leader Conference with Elder Gonzalez

2) Zona San Rafael. lots of thigns are changing. I finally feel that i am getting a hold of things in San rafael. I love being Senior Zone leader of a zone. I finally feel like things are getting better, and I don´t even want to think of what it will have to be like to stop being a missionary. anyways....we had a great meeting with the zone this morning and i have been using this new idea i came up with of every investigator has a calendar....and that the missioanries have to plan everything with the details of how they are going to baptize every person they want to in agosto. i am pumped. and also...last week only two areas had people at church...out of nine. but this week we got 8 out of nine....thats incredible! i love seeing the fruits of my work and especially when i can feel the trust of the Lord in the work. Everyone left the meeting this morning, rather excited. I think President is coming down to work with us this week....a little intimidating but i am excited! hahaha. Things are getting better in San Rafael.

Zona San Rafael

 

3) I got your pacakge! thanks soooo much! i made the chocolate chip cookies this morning and the zone loved it. i only got one cookie, but i decided that the latinos and gringos would probably enojy some. everyone loved them and wanted the recipie....hahaha....uhm....(: super funny. i also looooove the william joseph cd. jesus once of humble birth is just genius. love it! you guys know me to well. i will see if i can find a muffin tin to make the blueberry muffins...muffin tins don´t really exist...neither do muffins, but i will find a way to do so. haha (: i also gave the popping candy to the bishops family...they loved it....they kinda got scared it was funny, but they loved it! you guys are the best (: thanks (: (: (:

 

I love being a missionary...and I don´t want to stop...so it shall be good. Just wanna baptize baptize baptize.

 

Walter, a convert that Jay baptized in his last area, now baptizing his own mother. 
They sent Jay pictures of the special day.

Love you guys...thanks for everything you teach me.

Love, Elder Valle

7/9/12

Cabrera Family
Jay baptized this family last year and they continue to stay in touch with him.
They traveled to Santiago, Chile recently to be sealed in the temple.

fourth of july.
being a zone leader.
finding people.
people coming to church.
snow.

in that order i shal write (:

fourth of july in argentina in the freezing cold and we decided to try to make hambuyrgers over the grill. bad idea. two of them fell through the grill and they were kinda raw. we made french fries and burgers and tried to have a normal american dinner but it wasn´t the same. i think iwill stick with empanadas and asados til i have to go back home. we sang the national anthem, and even though wehave a chilean living with us in the pench, he was super cool about it. it was a good day. elder lounsbury bought some bbq sauce from super vea from the imported section and may or may not have spent too much money (: haha.

this week we had some seirous disobedience going down in the zone. oh pucha. so we wasted our wednesday going to other areas, talking with bishops, doing interviews one on one, calling president and we couldnt work in our are that whole day. it sucks when things get in the way of the work of the lord. ug. but thats what being a leader is about. i realized that one of my many wekanesses is telling people (when they don´t like it) what they need to do and must do, without coming off as a complete ignorante. anyways. that was a tough deal...we fixed some things, but president is coming to san rafael this wednesday. he will probably help a lot of things out. (: yay. thanks for an awesome mission president.

we found some great people this wek. we found a family of this (rich) well off family. the mom, jackie and her kids are the ones looking for the right church. the dad doesnt believe in god, but that isnt the problem. it´s that he own some insurance companies and he is always outside of the house. anyways...they have four cars and two companies (whew!). its super different teachign them. obviously the message is the same, but being humble has a big key in the influence of the holy ghost in peoples lives. they are great! and she came to church too.

jacki came to church and so did eric sosa, this kid that never came to church. when we invited them on thursday, the committment wasn´t very assuring, but they actually came. me and my comp high fived eachother and hugged when we saw them, from the glass windows, walking to enter the church building. good moment!

there was a little bit of snow down here this week. it is freaking cold and i made some more gravy this week to eat with the french fries. haha so thanks. this week we have zone conference and i shall be one busy bee. love you guys, hope you have a great week! (:
love, elder valle.

7-2-12

With Elder Burns who returns to Idaho in 2 weeks

first things first.

got my tooth fixed. yay! it was 120 pesos and she did it super fast and we also got super great service. she explained to me why it was all wrong and beagn to drill and fix it right away. it was super sick. my tooth is doing sooo much better (:

we had consejo this week with elder resek from the area seventy. it was great! he gave us a lot of great insight. we didn´t baptize alot and the whole mission as a whole also did kinda bad and so it was a bummer month and we went to consejo and ate at presidents house. we had tacos and at ice cream.

melissa sent me a great birthday package with sixlets, everything i need for a birthday party and a great new tie (: good package!

i saw elder burns for the last time before he goes back to nampa. he is an ap viajante, which means he goes around the mission visiting companionships who need help and ehlps them baptize. so if i´m lucky, he might get sent to san rafael one more time before he goes back to nampa. you guys should go to his homecoming or something. great guy. two weeks left for him.

the bus ride was crazy long but our seats were right in front of the tv where they played a new movie called the tourist with johnny deppan and it was pretty good. president told us to watch it if it was appropriate. and it was, i believe. it felt kinda weird wathcing it though...i didn´t really enjoy watching a movie. so whatever. melissa wrote me a letter saying i have 96 days left....freaking weird. this month i hit 21 months. WEIRD! just trying to do all i can to get a lot done before i go. anyways (: we had an okay week. the beginning of the month is usually super tranquilo. we are just busting our butts off trying to get people to be more obedient. (elder with sisters and people staying up suuuper late). its super annoying but its pruebas no mas. anyways. i hope you guys have a great week this week and hope that i can write better next time (: love you guys!

elder jay valle

 

 

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."