La Oficina

yeah i forgot to tell all you guys that my pday is now on saturday. it´s been a whole different experiance. i feel like i fly all day and then at the end of the day i feel like i did nothing. it´s hard for me. the first half of the week we weren´t getting to bed tell one with all the combios and things that happen there. haha one thing after the other. but that´s cambios. it´s starting to slow down and i´m catching how everything goes. they tell me i´ll at the very least be here for two cambios but its almost unheard of. everyone here has three cambios here at least. whelp my comps great. he´s so cool. Elder Walker from Colorado. he´s the secratary here. poor kid works so hard. he´s in charge of all the legal stuff that goes on. we´ve had some many things happen all at once and Elder Walker had to take care of them all. he´s a stud. and he too feels weird bein in the office so we talk and he´s helping me out alot. we finally got out to working the other night. man every contact meant so much more. it was a breath of fresh air gettting out in the field a bit. we found our first investigador. his name´s gaston. he´s so cool. dad you´d absolutely love his story. he went from dirt dirt dirt poor to super rich! he lost his left arm when he was sixteen. i´ll tell ya we could make a movie out of his life. o yeah that´s the other thing. I went from one of the poorest sectors to one of the richest. its quiet a shock. so yeah. so i live in a five story apartment building. work in an eight story office down town conce. it´s nothing but the city life. with the school thing there´s alot of protests down our main street. the last one had a group of ten streekers. interesting. and they just walked! and people just walked around them! hahah everyone was so chill about it. it was weird. anyway yeah that´s what has been happening and that´s my new life now. I´m sure it´s gonna be a blast but right now it´s pretty crazy. love you and miss you all.

ElderValdez

Decide what kind of day you are going to have!

so yeah i said this a few months ago but it´s so true. you can really decide what kind of day your going to have. it´s amazing! i´m so happy right now and just lovin this work. even though no body seems to want to go to church and read so that they can find out this is true, so that they can have something as huge as salvation! yeah but whateve. really we´re just doin´ the best we know how. an Apostle´s going to come this thursday so that´s going to be awesome! This week i was studying on pride and me and Elder Wilkin´s were talking and we found out every bad thing that has happened comes from pride. and President Benson has excellent talk about it. but anyway yeah our discussion found its way to star wars and how anikan skywalker turned into darth vader. which comes now the saying "don´t jump Obi-one" haha yeah so whenever someone´s says a prideful statement in the house we just say that. cool thing passed this week. The two senior comps in our house are district leaders and they had an important meeting all day one day. so elder Wray and i had to work that whole day by ourselves with our wonderful knowledge of spanish. we were deciding where we should trak and we had this idea. we both grabbed a map of the sector and seperated into different rooms and prayed where we should go. we met back with our fingers on where we felt we should go. when we revealed them to each other we of course were pointing to the same place! for how big our sector is it is very much a testimoney builder for me. no one at home better call that coincidence. um yeah that´s the end of the story though nothing amazing happened when we traked but hey!!. it was awesome!!. k last thing. we knoked a house the other day and this lady came out. it´s amazing when you contact like a catholic or evangelic that have never gone to church they tell you they are catholic or evangelic. when you contact a mormon that hasn´t gone for years they always say they were mormon not that they are. what they don´t know is they´re still on the team and still responsible. but yeah this lady gave us a pathetic excuse why she left the Church of Jesus Christ. we then talked of the Book of Mormon. she said that an intelligent intelligent man wrote it. that he was a genius. i told her it´s either of God or of the devil. she was convinced it was in the middle that it was a very good written story. pathetic right. you can confuse me in deep doctrine or something like that but you can never never never never never never never convince me that the Book of Mormon isn´t from God himself. I know its true and i know it invites all men closer to God. It´s of God or of the devil. if its of God this Church is true.

Elder Valdez

Happy Halloween! November 1

Happy Halloween! um so i saw two costums yesterday. other then that no one celebrates it down here. it really scares them they said. they really don´t like it and think we´re devil worshipers for celebrating it in the states. can´t argue it´s a pretty creepy holiday. and today´s day of the dead so everyone´s going to go to the cemetaries. yup. well i couldn´t write yesterday cuz we had a huge mision P day. it was sweet. we went to a nice soccer field and just did a  whole bunch of fun games. one went terribly wrong. we put all our shoes in the middle of the field adn the zone to get all their shoes back on wins. yeah when i saw how big the pile was and how many missionaries were all surrounding it I knew it was going to be a bad idea. nobody got hurt to bad. o yeah about getting a little banged up. there were these two missionaries doing tricks and stuff and i realy wanted to learn one so i had them teach me how to do a backflip on the ground. yeah how sweet is that! I landed on my face though. so yeah mom i think i´ll just save all those talents tell after the mission. but it was sweet. O small world time. there´s an Elder Mendonhall from Sky View here. and also an Elder Poulsen who´s an excellent friend of Whitney Reed´s from Virginia. how sweet is that? yeah it was fun to meet up with everyone and play a bit. Everyone´s telling me i´m an oldy in the mission now but i totally don´t feel like it. Spanish is really hard. the kids under me are starting to get it down and it makes me feel pretty slow. older guys are starting to wonder why i dont got it yet. so that kinda sucks but whatev. i can teach in the language i just can´t crake the jokes that i want to. It´s hard to use spanish when we have a house full of greengo´s. been a hard cambio but i´m loving it. glad i´m still in centinela and have support from all the friends i´ve made here. this week i´ll keep better attention of what´s going on so i can write more but this week was pretty much just this. we´ve been knocking alot to find some new investigators. not much luck but we talked today and have some great ideas. love you all and miss you tons.

Elder Valdez

Fastest Week of my Mission! OCT 24

That went so rediculously fast. still trying to figure out what happened. we did alot of contacts. door after door. it was good. we found alot of news by it. one time i used talking about their garden to get to know them. and we talked about this flower called a Camila. they´re all over in Chile. you should google them cuz they´re a beautiful white flower. they´re way cool looking and i told the contact this and she was like "O do you want some?" and she gave me a little boquet of them. haha so the rest of the day i was stuck with carrying this boquet as we contacted more people. i bet it looked pretty funny but they´re sweet flowers. anyway another mess up with the language i forgot to say. this happened like three weeks ago but i was on a bus with Laurito and i was asking someone if they wanted to sit down where i was sitting. in my defence the words are really simular. there is "sentarse" and "sentirse". one means to sit and the other means to feel. yeah he just gave me a weird look and Laurito was chuckeling pretty bad. K so the Spiritual part of the letter. my bestfriends in Chile are my converts Perla and Pedro. they´re are the coolest. I love them so much. One night i got a call from Pedro and he was asking me for a scripture for animo. I gave him DyC 58:2-6. He loved it. I felt so needed. It´s like this guy turned to me and thought of me for animo. I felt like "wow i really made a difference here somewhere in Centinela" Pedro´s the man. He stopped pornography, alcohol, and (his favorite) smoking all for the Gosple. O yeah and he married Perla for the Gosple. Can you get any cooler!? The other thing of spiritual stuff is i fell asleep the other night smiling. I had the coolest feeling. it was the same feeling when you like solve a really complicated math problem and your looking over your work and your like "O my goodness this is the answer! i did it! and i know without a doubt this is the answer." the teacher hasn´t told you the answer yet but you know it´s the answer cuz it just all worked out so perfectly. Yeah hope that made any sense. O and instead of the math problem it´s the Gosple. that´s important to know. yeah anyway that´s how i felt. Love you guys all a ton. and miss you all tons. until next week.

Elder Valdez

I love life and I love loving life!

My goodness i just love life. and i love to love life. we´re just having a party over here! Spanish is coming along very nicely. When it get´s rough i just gotta step back and go "wow remember your first day in this country?" Members help me with that too. They´re always commenting about how much better the spanish is. yeah. anyway the new comp´s name is Elder McConnell. It´s way hard to follow a comp like Elder Laurito but he´s doing a good job. McConnell from this no name spot in Utah. never ever heard of it. and never heard of the closest city either. so yeah he´s just from Utah. He´s very obediant. which is good. we work really hard. I´ve never felt more satisfied in my whole mission. I can lay down in bed and say "Wow i really worked hard today and didn´t waist a single minute of the Lord´s time." (wow i always start my thoughts with the word wow.) K so the sweet story of the week. I was showing the sector to McConnell showing him where everything was and what not. anyway we were headed to our mamita´s house and we passed an investigators house to get there.The Spirit imediatly brought that investigator into my thoughts and i was like"Hey Elder this is one of our investigadors we should really drop by and introduce you" so we walked in and she was so happy to see us! Her name´s maria. and she told us she was just thinking about us. when we entered the house the Book of Mormon was open and also the pamphlet of lesson one. she said it was a miracle we stopped by at such a perfect time. the night before she had had a dream. Maria´s arm is broken so it was really giving her problems one night and she started praying. It´s pretty Spiritual to her what happened so i´m just going to say that she got her answer that the Church was true! she was excited and kept asking us when her baptism could be. haha sweet huh? Love you all and miss you all. The Church is true and miracles exist acording to your faith. until next week!

Elder Valdez

Cambios

So cambios are tomorrow. sadly i don´t know my comps name. haha but he´s from Utah so i think we´ll get along. I´m still in Centinela. after this cambio i´ll  have six months in the same sector. it´s not un heard of but everyone expected that i´d be leaving. I don´t mind it. I love Centinela. every where you go there´s just an amesome view. and the people here are so great. I was working with this lady and her daughter in my first cambio and they lost intrest. i was really confused and wondered what went wrong. Laurito and i visited them again and they´re excited about the Gosple again! so hopefuly i get to see their baptism! they´ve got a date for the 29th. they didn´t come this week to church so we´ll see what happened. gonna miss Laurito a ton. we had such a blast. He´s going far south. it´s a seven hour drive to the bottom of our mission and that´s where he´s serving. i didn´t realize how big our mission is. it´s huge. everyone says the south is so much prettier then here. so i hope eventually i´ll work down there. Im happy that Wray and Wilkins are staying in Centinela too. they´re so cool. so we´ll have another cambio of some fun. They´ve found ways to abuse my love for bananas. we have bananas probably 40% of the time for dessert. so they will be like "Valdez i´ll let you have my banana if you give me the rest of your meat." we both win in the end but yeah they definetly understand how much i love them! so yeah that was this week. just combios and stuff. this week i´ll find a story to tell or something. haha it´s weird. this is feeling more like home and you guys are feeling further and further away. its a good thing right? I know this church is true. i base alot of my testimoney on the book of mormon. i know that that book is true. it didn´t just show up. it had to come from somewhere and i know it came from God. hope all is well. love you all so much.

Elder Valdez