Adversity

Well greetings once again! This past week was an ok week. Nothing spectacular. We had a lot of lessons fall through. But that is just missionary work I suppose. If there wasn't any adversity there would not be any kind of growth. So I guess I cannot really complain. 

I have been teaching my companion to say Y'all though. :) I don't know if President Center would be unhappy about that, but I have to leave him with at least some kind of influence :) So it is funny. He has been saying y'all to people and they are like oh I wonder where he learned that... Guilty. It is funny. But anyways the highlight of the week was going over to Beaver yesterday for the Thai family home evening they had over there. We had more people show up then have to one before. Plus there were some people that came that have never been to one. So they are really softening up. It is amazing to see. And it is all because Elder Sae-dan is here to teach them I am convinced. It is amazing how the Lord is aware of everyone and everything. He sent Elder Sae-dan to this specific area at this specific time to help specific people. And though it is obvious to me that is the case, the same applies to every missionary. Regardless of how obvious it is to outside or internal observation. The Lord sends us all to where we need to be, and where he needs us, when we need to be there and when he needs us to be there. At any point in your life. The Lord is aware of us all individually. It is remarkable. 

But I hope you all have a great week!

I love you all!

-Elder Valentine

Week 50

Well greetings to everyone once more. It has been quite a good week this past week and it was quite the transfer as well. Seeing as another transfer has come and gone... So that was transfer number 8 for me. But as far as transfer news Elder Sae-dan and I are staying together, so I will get to finish training him! So we are one of the few companionships that is staying together. A lot of areas got white-washed (which is where both missionaries are replaced and 2 new ones come into the area) and our mission just got Mesquite Nevada added to it. So we just got a little bit bigger. But there was a lot of shake up in the mission. 

This past week we had another good week. There is not like a huge abundance of work here, but there is work and we stay busy enough. So I am loving it here in Panguitch. We have been working on improving our finding and taking care of the investigators we do have. Also Jay and Jad got baptized on Saturday. So the work continues!

I hope you all have a great week, don't get blown away by all those hurricanes! 

I love you all!

-Elder Valentine

Change of address

THE MISSION IS CHANGING THE OFFICE ADDRESS!!!!!!

DON"T SEND ANY MAIL BETWEEN JULY 13TH AND THE 17TH!!!!

NEW ADDRESS IS:

881 South River Road, St. George, UT 84790

Thank you!

Hot Air Balloons

So this past week has been a busy one. Well if you look at my planner it looked busy. Mostly because we make appointments and then people don't keep them and want to reschedule for the next day and then don't keep that... But no it actually was pretty busy. We went over to Beaver and taught a Thai family and by we I mean I sat there again and Elder Sae-dan taught. But it was super good. Hopefully we can help them. Then we had district meeting over in Tropic which I thought went well. But The highlight of the week was Saturday during the Panguitch Valley Balloon Rally.

It was an invasion of hot air balloons!! Seriously. They were every where. There were about 35 of them. So it was awesome. The last picture is when they started landing. But the first one is a hot air balloon eclipse, give me a few days and I could come up with some kind of pun for it. I am sure...

But anyways we had a pretty good week. We got some solid referrals and were able to set up an appointment with a couple (the wife came to church by herself the last two sundays in row!) for next week. But that was super cool!! 

Anywho I hope you all have a good week. I love you all!

-Elder Valentine

Weekly update

So last week was pretty busy. Because it flew by a little faster then most other weeks... I don't know if that is because it was busy or what...

Anywho though, we were able to pick up 4 new investigators over to Beaver. They are a Thai family so naturally my companion is in his element. He may be fairly new but he is a solid missionary. And since the lessons are in Thai he has to take the lead  in teaching. That is super good for him. Because the training program is centered around the new missionary taking the lead from the trainer over the 12 week period. So the idea is by the time they are done being trained they should be able to train a new missionary. That is the idea at least. But we started teaching them and also we have some appointments this Thursday with another Thai family and hopefully we can get a few others with some of the other thai people in the community. But it was busy between going over to Bryce Canyon city twice and Beaver twice and teaching and trying to find new people to teach in our actual area. So we are trying to get the ball rolling in a couple of different spots. 

But anyways things are going well. I hope that you are all doing well. I love you all, have a great week!!

-Elder Valentine

Another week

Hello everybody once again. Another week has come and I have no clue to where it has gone...

But that is usually the case. Anywho, this past week was a good week. We had Zone conference, got to see a few people from my last area. Got a surprise or two (at least two actually), and some other interesting stuff.

So to start off with last Monday we were walking to contact a few people, and on main street there are always people so we talk to them too, but we were walking by an RV park and there was a man sitting outside his RV so we went over and started talking to him. He asked where we were from and we told him and when he heard I was from North Carolina he stopped and asked which part. So I told him Raleigh and he replied that he is from Fayetteville. Born and raised. So we talked for a little bit. Talked about fiddlers grove back home and good ole North Carolina BBQ. But he is an inactive member but we hit it off, so we have stopped by two more times since monday. So hopefully we can help him. Then on Wednesday Panguitch had their Chocolate fest. So the whole town goes there and they have just tons and tons of home made chocolate everything. It was crazy. So I ate a Banana, just plain, but my companion loaded up on chocolate. so it was good. We talked to a lot of people there. So we found one person we may be able to start teaching there. So then on Thursday we had Zone conference over to Richfield. So we left Panguitch at 7:00 to get up there before 9:00 and had the conference until 3:00 so at the end of the conference President called me over with my zone leader and district leader and called me as a district leader. They split the district in the middle of the transfer. That was kind of odd. We all expected it, but not until next transfer. So anywho that was interesting. Then Saturday they had a Tractor parade so we went and "tract"ed that  :) horrible pun, I know, but I had to. So they had a tractor pull after that. We didn't stick around for the pull. Pretty much everyone we talked to were active members or less active members. I think we talked to 2 non-members. But as we were walking back to the apartment (about 2 miles) one of my recent converts ran out of a restaurant here in Panguitch, so I got to see Cobe again and talk to him, it was awesome to see him and the Sorensons were with him. So I saw a couple of different people from my last area because Panguitch had their Quilt Walk Festival this weekend. So we had a very interesting week. It was awesome.

Well I hope you all have a great week! I love you all!

-Elder Valentine

P.S. I believe this is a 1937 Cord with a "C" but It is a sweet car! and Bro. Talbot 

Baptism

Another week down and another email to everyone! Greetings all, I hope your week was fantastic!

So this past week was a pretty good week. We taught a lot, put some investigators on-date, and contacted some promising leads. So it was pretty busy. Yet not as busy as I would have liked. I don't feel like we have been able to get as much done as we normally would have. But we lose about 10 hours of time a week because of the training program. So not really much we can do there. But if you figure 10 hours a week for 12 weeks that is 120 hours... That is 5 days of time gone. But that is ok. Training is super important. So it is also helping me to be able to go back to the basics and relearn and re-apply the fundamentals taught in the 12 week program. Really all it can do is help me. But anyways yeah, it was a pretty good week. We were able to teach Jay and Jad twice. We finished the Plan of Salvation with them and then started teaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I don't remember which lesson, but we put them on date for the 28th of June. Which is pretty much the earliest we can do with 9 year olds because they have to attend church a few times. But they are super smart. They have been going to Primary for a long time and know pretty much everything. Teaching kids is either the best experience or the worst. But with them it is great. We also met with the Pendley family. The wife and son are members, but the father is not. He has something holding him back, but Elder Sae-dan was super bold (I love it) and asked him to pray about it and if he got an answer if he would be baptized. Glen (the father/husband) responded yes. So now we just need to follow up with him and make sure that he prayed. But I was super impressed with Elder Sae-dan, he is a stellar missionary. So I am glad to be serving with him. So we also went out to Bryce Canyon City, which is where Ruby's inn is, and tried to contact some of the Thai people that work out there. We were only able to contact one person that was actually Thai. The rest of them were all working. But apparently they only come out for about 3 months and work here for that long and then go back to Thailand. So they leave in 2 weeks.... That was a little disappointing. But there is a new group of about 60 coming in towards the end of the month. So we will be following up there in a few weeks. So it should be good. Also we have been working on meeting with the Thai families that live over to beaver. It is hard to find time when we can meet with them and they can meet with us, but we will find a time. 

So also last week we had Zone training meeting, and then on Saturday Adrian and Andrew were baptized!!! That was on Saturday, and then on Sunday they showed up to Sacrament about 30 minutes late.... Talk about sweating it... I was like "where are they???" So they showed up and the member of the bishopric conducting handled it excellently and just did the confirmation after the first speaker finished. So that was by the skin of our teeth. But anyways, that was our week, I will try to include a picture of the baptism.

I love you all! I hope you have a great week!

-Elder Valentine