Manly Scriptures

Demke and I checked up all the manliest scriptures we could find. my favorite is Job 40:7. I loved that whole chapture. anyway hope this tells you how much Demke and I get along. We´re just having a blast. the Napolean Dynamite fact of this week is that Demke missed his brother´s wedding cuz he was in the house playing X box! so they thought they´d have Napolean miss his brother´s wedding. Yeah these little facts will be useful someday but they´re way fun. Tomorrow is combios. Demke and Corliss are leaving me . Its read sad but i´m way excited for my new comp. his name is Elder Laurito and he was in my zone last combio. so we already love eachother and are buds. we´ve spent a few p day´s together already and make each other laugh. He´s from Uraguay and reminds me alot of Taylor Stephenson. So it should be a fun combio. we also have a few baptisms lind up right off the back. in fact i just got back from a wedding of my investigator! it was so cool! I can´t even imagine a wedding in the temple! yeah so she and her daughter are getting baptized this sunday! SKIYA! Everyone love your parents tons, they just want the best for you. but o my goodness they are so annoying sometimes!!!! We have four seperate investigators that want to be baptized but are under eighteen, and the parents just won´t let us baptize them. Ugh its so stressful. we´re so close but the parents just won´t alow it. All these guys want to be baptized because of their testimonies of the Book of Mormon. This book is so so important. please everyone back home eat this up. check up cross referances, figure out why that verse is there. there´s no way way way that this book isn´t straight from God. It is or it isn´t. If your having a hard time, or a doubt, just read the Book. and go back to basic that that Book is from God. I love this Book and I love the church. People are changing their lives down here for this gosple! It´s so so perfect in everyway! don´t take it for granted (is that how you spell it?) Love and miss you tons.

Elder Valdez

Tree Farms

Yeah so i found out that Chile makes alot of their money from selling wood. We went to a volcano today (no big deal) anyway yeah we drove for almost two hours through these tree farms!! they went on forever! I honestly tought they extended all the way around the world. you try to see the end but nope there wasn´t one. Yup we went to a volcano. it was so freakin cold at the begining. but then we hiked up far enough to wear the wind stopped. we couldn´t hike all the way to the top so we just hiked to a lake below it. it was so so cool!!! I got Mrs Dent a rock from a Chilean Volcano. pretty sick huh? across the lake and over some mountains was Argentina. so we were pretty close to the border but i just couldn´t see Argentina. really wanted to. anyway so after having the perfect day of hiking a volcano and playing in the snow (in the middle of Augost!) the sad part comes. i forgot a battery for my camera. so Elder Demke and I took a bunch of sweet sweet pics. but then when we were headed back he lost his camera!!! we have no proof that we were actually there :( we ran up the entire trail looking for it with no success. bummer. o well. our investigadors are doin well. The investigador with the experiance last week didn´t come :( but i´ll get on that. k so we taught this fifteen year old girl and we gave her the book of mormon and a pamphlet of the first lesson ( the Restauracion) yeah when we went back to teach it she taught us the first lesson!! it was so sick! we gave her the goal of getting baptized on the fourth! so we´ll see how that goes. she knows the book is true. the book of mormon is everything! it proves everything!

Elder Valdez

In the Fish-Eye Club!

Baraja´s just left. I´m way way sad. he was such a stud and taught me how to laugh and have fun on the mission. we walked all day and talked the whole time. about a whole bunch of  random questions. the official combio doesn´t happen until the 29th. so I was put into a trio with my tios (Elder Demke y Corliss) So I still haven´t finished my training and I was suppose to do that just with Elder Cortés. but instead I´ve had Elder Cortés (mi padre), Elder Barajas (mi madre, or stepfather) and now I got Elder Demke (which we decided to name my godfather). fun facts. The lead singer of Killers is now active again and is the activity guy for the elders quorm. I got to see the video Jack Black sent to Demke its so legit to hear Jack Black ask about how the mission and the people in Chile are. I´m now in the fish eye club! ate two of them the other day. we eat alot of fish. lots of different kind. its weird how the meat tastes so different. I hated fish before but i think the ocean fish just taste so much better.
One of my investigators that came yesterday brought her kids. I was taking care of one and she was trying to take care of her baby. the baby towards the end started to cry a bit and some sister i´d never seen before just decided she could help. she came over and grabbed the baby out of my investigators hands and walked out of the chaple without saying a word to the mom!!! ugh she ran after her and was shouting out her. I ran out with them and i got them to calm down a bit. the sister finally gave the baby back and just kept saying. "Elder you need to bless this baby right now. the baby´s sick." haha it just all went so south so fast. My investigador grabbed her kids and left. I tried to apoligize in my broken spanish and was trying to comfort her. UGH Idk i guess we´ll go visit her this week and see what effect it caused. but yeah it was crazy.
So having a huge blast now with everything promise. Language has slown down quite a bit with a house full of greengos. but I know how to get around and what there is to do. how to work money and how to have some fun during the day ( thanks to barajas ) Love and miss you all. two years is going to be a very long time but i´m starting to have the time of my life.

Elder Valdez

Bronchitis

My whole house has been sick with bronkitis. yeah hope you guys know what that says. This week we really just were all being sick. Not a whole success at all but what do ya do? haha we´re all much better now and gonna rock it this week. We´re just having way too much fun out here. I just love the culture and the people. I just love the members and I have a lot of best friends. you never really know until something happens to make you realize how many people love you. so the thing for this week is everyone look for those people that just love you and will be there when times get crazy. It was cool here cuz i´m so new and i can´t speak the language that i didn´t realize how many people loved me but i´ve got some great friends and second mom´s down here. o haha I was trying to teach President about the word "getting". It doesn´t exist in spanish and probably shouldn´t exist in english. but my dang north utahn accent got in the way and I kept pronouncing it "getin´" I laughed when i realize it was probably just like when I was teaching Josh his "eth´s" (s´s). Haha sure hope I make sense. Emails are just always so on the run and music is blaring and its always just so hard to concentrate. haha. We had a 4.6 earthquake this week. so that was pretty fun to feel. Elder Demke keeps me alive. he´s so hilarious and i´ve learned so much of Nacho Libre and Napolean Dynamite. Did you know Napolean Dynamiate was a street contact? Yeah Jared Hess wrote in his journal that night that he just contacted the guy with the coolest name he´s ever heard. Also Demke´s brother once called his sister asking for chapstick and also saw a cow shot in the face on the way to school one day. haha so yeah it´s just a movie of all the random experiences that Demke´s family and the Hess family have had. Yeah just wanna write all my million facts about Napolean Dynamite but that´d be a pretty lame email. Next week I´ll talk alot more about the culture and our investigators but this week... we were all sick. haha love and miss you all tons. O Kaleb (and fam) we were playing scrabble this morning and I spelled GALAXIES. 102 point word. WHAT!!!!

ELDER VALDEZ

Life Rocks!

Sorry about last week that was so so lame. I guess myldsmail kicks you off when you´ve been sending too many emails. so i´ll try to cut the pictures down. well this is just fun now. having full conversations now. The Chile people love chistes (jokes) so they tell one and i´m the only one fake laughing so they explain it to me. In spanish! it´s like no I´ll get the joke if it were in english. there´s just a language barrior here! Well me and Barajas have so much fun. I knew he was gonna be a great friend when we were just sitting there and then he just bit me! haha yeah he´s one of those random guys. So me and Demke were flipping through a bunch of Liahona and he was like "hey Valdez do you know a Mckenzie from Chiuaua?" Sure enough Mckenzie Call was in the Liahona. Haha crazy stuff. I miss Mexico days so much. It prepared me so much for this time.  So did anyone find anything about Ben? Chile is finally home. When i get home after work you have the feeling "Oh its good to be home" The first time this hit me was last P day. I was like O my gosh i love this place. The ward and i have a excellent relationship now. I´m bak to my hugging self (clearly only hermanos) and i just love everyone! the other night for once this family fed us all this sea food. it was so so good. except for the inside inside of a crab. what´s with that!? I´ll send pics cuz it was definetly one of the funnest nights of my mission. Man Great Grandma I love you so so much! thank you for excepting this gosple! I should of called or visited you before i left. Everyone on the street I just picture my great grandma ( especially the ones that think we´re just annoying people.:) ) so Love you tons grandma. The humility of the poor just amazes me. We contacted the one room houses the other day. just about all of them let us in. We just don´t get it. I just love this gosple and I´ve gotten such a huge relationship with Christ. You need the Lord in your life. there´s no doubt. Learn to trust Him. And learn to vent on Him through prayer. Ugh this is so annoying cuz im typing words that we´ve all heard over and over again so i´m so worried you guys are just gonna brush it off as just another missionary. but no you don´t get it!? gosh please just understand and pray so much more. Love you all so much. I hope i´m not getting boring its just life is getting normal.

Elder Valdez

Permiso...

So really weird this cambio. I was suppose to be with my comp for two but he´s moving. My new comp is Elder Barajas. Haven´t met him yet but everytime I tell people who i got they go tell me how lucky I am and then go off about how much they love that guy. so I´m real excited. He goes home after this campio so we say that I´m killing him. which also means lost likely i´ll be in this sector for at least four months. K does anybody got any breakfast ideas? that´s pretty much my only meal i gotta worry about. Alyssa and Mom remember that earth quake we felt? "someone just probably broke the sound barior or something" haha yeah that one. anyway yeah those happen all the time. I´m sure it happens more then I realize but the only ones i notice are while I´m studying my scriptures. It´s pretty sweet and is just a little reminder Who´s in charge :) Chile finally lost last night so that helps us work a little more. so keep in mind when your favorite sport team looses that it could of just been a prayer from a missionary for a certain investigator :)  in my case it´s the whole country. which come on Shelb how the heck are you suppose to know if someone´s hurt in soccer. everytime the ball seems to move someone falls down crying grabbing their ankle :) haha jk it is becoming a sweeter and sweeter sport. K spiritual. I love love the scriptures! I want to know just all of them! so Josh Shelby and everyone else of course. start loving them! Study Study the Book of mormon. with colors, cross references, other books, and of course a journal for impressions. When you do this you´ll want to study all the other scriptures too so get started.  So get on that :) Love you all so so much and miss you all tons.

Elder Valdez

Family- K didn´t think this would be apropriate but what ever you think.
K so permiso is the magic word. You can get away with about anything as long as you say permiso. you say it before you enter a gate, house, or bathroom. you say before you give a public prayer. you also say it when you do rude things and the word makes in fine. from drinking out of your bowl or reaching across someone to get someting, to eating food off of someone else´s plate. well we were in the craziest lesson ever. we had no idea what we were teaching. we were bouncing around everywhere. My spanish was having an off day and this family couldn´t understand me. There were two kids crying and two other kids playing tag. the mom was trying to fight with us and it was just out of control. I couldn´t believe it could get any worse until half way in a sentence the mom says "Permiso" grabs one of the crying kids, just lifts up her shirt and starts nursing. yeah.