Monday, November 14, 2016

Letter 3 Gila Bend, AZ November 14, 2016

Mother!

It is great to read your email. I appreciate them more than you know.

I am glad you got that picture! I looked pretty rough in it, but está bien. The lady who sent it is in the ward in Ajo! She is super sweet, and has her own daughter on a mission in Florida.

This week has been a game changer, for sure. 
Adjusting to missionary life is a pretty hard thing, and I was definitely feeling the effects of it. I was feeling pretty discouraged, and feeling like maybe I had made a mistake coming out here. But then, we had a member of the 70 come and speak to our mission on Friday. His name is Elder Pearson (he actually spoke in General Conference a few sessions ago! His talk is called Stay by the Tree... you should definitely listen to it!) (I remember this talk that was given in October 2015 General Conference!)

Elder Pearson's training on Friday was tailored completely to me, it was crazy! He explained that the first month is always the hardest, but don't take that one month and multiply it by 18. He promised that this will be the best 18 months/2 years of our lives, IF we let it. The Lord wants to bless us so much, but sometimes we get in the way of that. 

During a break in the training, the AP (assistant to the mission president) came up to me and gave me a slip of paper. The paper said that Elder Pearson wanted to have a one-on-one personal interview with me. I was 1 of 4 missionaries to be chosen from the whole mission. 

In my personal interview, Elder Pearson and I connected on a personal level. We cried together, and he gave me some beautiful advice that I will forever hold near to my heart. He reiterated some of the points from the training. He told me that he knows that the reason he came here to the Tempe AZ Mission to speak was because he needed to meet me. He said I reminded him of his daughter, and that all he advice he gave to me was the advice he would give his own daughter. (yes, my heart was melting and my eyes were leaking!)

At the end, he said that he felt impressed that I am very close with my dad, and he said that if my dad were there, he would give me a hug. So, he gave me a long hug, and kissed me on the top of my head, and promised that everything would be okay, and the Lord is watching over me. It was an experience I will never forget.

We met a lady yesterday, and I taught her the Restoration, and extended the invitation to be baptized, and she ACCEPTED! She even cried!! She is the first person who has accepted the invitation right off the bat! I cant wait to see how she progresses!

Thank you for all of the prayers. They are definitely felt.

I love you all!

Hermana Valenta 

 We were on exchanges with the Sister training leaders!


This is this weird soup we ate. It is cow soup..... it had cow pieces in it, and chunks of bone the size of my fist! It was... interesting haha!

Questions From Mom

Any news on when you get your cast off and do physical therapy?
I go to the doctor on Nov. 22nd, in a town called Casa Grande and hopefully I'll get it off that day!! And then I have to drive an hour to Casa Grande for physical therapy probably once a week!

Do you have some place that you can go to replace your stolen skirt and your jewelry? That is sooo lousy to have your things stolen. :(
 We have to drive an hour to a Walmart, but that's about it haha.. but I'll look and see if they have anything there

What do you typically do on your P-Days?
 We play sports with our zone and district! Last week, we went bowling haha! Try doing that left handed!!

Do you have a lot of members inviting you to dinner through the week?
Más o menos (more or less)... we have about 3 nights each week where we have members signed up to feed us

Are you cooking anything fantastic on your mission? :) Are you cooking at all? :)
Noooope... we don't have any time to cook anything, and all the food we have is food that members made for us, and drop off to us!

This week I was most blessed by…………… 
The training by Elder Pearson!

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