Hey dad!
Since I sent you mom's letter too, you'll see this twice, but it's funny because one of my responsibilities in the office is to coordinate returning missionary travel, and so I had to make the request for my group to go home! It was super weird because the first time I did it it was for missionaries who seemed way older than me in the mission who have been home for a while, and I just went through the process for myself! I do this "itinerary call" to ask missionaries a few questions (what their stake is, what airport they will be going to, parents emails, etc.) and it became known in the mission as the "trunky call" (because it's a trunky call, duh), and it's a big deal. Like sister missionaries cry when I call them to ask them those questions and even the Junior comp of a trunky call victim will be like "oooh you just got your trunky call! You're so old" and stuff like that (I don't call it the trunky call, President Amorim banned it haha but that's basically what it's known by), so anyway; doing it for myself was pretty anticlimactic. "Hello Elder Valentine, I have a few questions for you. Oh wait, I already know the answers. See ya." Haha! But yeah I'm pretty happy about the arrival time!
I also enjoyed Elder Sabin's talk. He used a quote that I liked . "my strength is as the strength of ten (men?) because my heart is pure." It made me think about how being 100% in the gospel and not 98% is not only easier, but brings that power of total conversion! I also liked Elder Ballards talk on goals. It was something I needed to hear both for my mission and as something that I want to apply after. I also really enjoyed Elder Renlund's talk. There is just something really special about the sacred Apostolic calling, and it was so evident to me in Elder Renlund's talk, as well as Elder Rasbands and Elder Stevenson's. They all gave great talks and my testimony was strengthened that all three of them are really called to be the Lord's Apostles. Elder Renlund talked about the difference God sees between the sinner and the sin, and that God gave is Son to clean the sin, which cannot be tolerated, but emphasized that He did it out of love for the sinner. Elder Christofferson's talkd was good; I like that he put a twist on "practice what you preach" by saying "preach what you practice!" that's totally applicable to all members! And President Uchtdorf's talk on fear was great as well. I felt like a major theme of this General Conference was coming to know God, Christ, and the Holy Ghost, and becoming more like the Savior. What a great General Conference! I explained a bit in mom's email how we watched it, but for the one's that were too late at night, we watched them here in the office, and the others we watched at the chapel. We had plans to bring a lot of investigators, but the only ones who showed up were this new little portuguese family we found, kind of like Bruno and Liliana. They loved it! It was awesome.
I had read on LDS.org beforehand about President Nelson's challenge, and I want to to it so bad! I just don't know if I can do it on the mission... if I don't do so now I'll definitely do it right as soon as I leave.
Did I say that there is a new senior couple in the office too? I am currently distributing my tasks to Elder Peterson, Sister Hunt, and Elder Trindade. It takes 3 to do my job! ;)
Did I also tell you that my camera has some silly issues? I'll fix it soon.
Anyway, I'll have to look at that college email you sent me. :( talk to you later! Love you dad!
Love, Elder Valentine!
Hey, Elder Spencer! I’m in your same time zone! It’s 8:16 AM as I’m writing this. I’m in my hotel room downtown London. I got into London yesterday about 2. I’ll be in London until Wednesday then we go up to Birmingham for some meetings with archives and to attend two days of a family history conference. I fly back on Saturday! You asked me about how many times to London recently. This is my fourth time in about 18 months, and I’ll be coming back again in October. Then me and Mom are planning to come over next year in the spring. I seriously know London better than most US cities! I really love it here.
General Conference was awesome! How did you watch it? At the mission home or at a ward building? Or with members? What was your favorite talk? Elder Holland was awesome, as always. I loved Elder Oaks. President Eyring’s talk about “gathering our families” was the perfect family history and temple talk!! I got a million texts from my team during the talk because we were all so excited about it. But I think my favorite might be Elder Sabin’s talk. He reminded me so much of Elder Maxwell. I loved his analogies!
We are gearing up to do the Joseph Smith activity again in 2 weeks. Remember how awesome that was? I’m really excited to put it on again. My ward has changed so much that many people and youth have not seen it. Plus I’ve made some tweaks to make it even better this time!
Mom will probably (or has already probably) told you this, but it was pretty cool to get the email confirming your flight schedule home. We were driving to Salt Lake to go see “Seven Brides for Seven Husbands” at the Hale Center theatre. When Mom read that aloud I started crying. What’s super cool is that you’ll get home in time to go to the fireworks! My plan is to take you to get a big, fat, juicy American hamburger, then to see the fireworks! Sorry…that’s not nice of me to make you feel all trunks!! Focus, Elder Valentine!
I’d love to hear what message from General Conference really resonated with you. There were lots of talks that seemed geared to bishops! One thing for sure I took away is I need to spend more time with my priests and laurels. Oh, you know that challenge President Nelson issued about marking all the scriptures on Christ in the topical guide? I’ve been doing that for a couple weeks now. It’s really cool. It takes a long time to really do it right. I print of each page of the topical guide and look up the scriptures in my paper scriptures. I mark the scripture then write a little summary of my own on the topical guide print off. It’s been really helpful to improve my scripture study. I highly recommend it!
Hope your P day is great and relaxing! It’s always the highlight of the week to hear from you! Pictures are always welcomed!!
Love,
Dad
Hi mom! Haha you know what's funny? I made the request for my own flight home! That's part of what I do in the office; make the return flight requests. So it was kind of a strange experience doing the whole process for myself haha! I'm pretty happy about the arrival time - sometimes missionaries don't get home until like 10 PM and I was going to be sad if that was the case on the 4th of July, so it worked out well!
Sounds like you had a good week! I'm sure Ethan had a really fun birthday. Laser tag wins the heart of any boy hands down. :) What song did you sing for your broadway concert?
Yeah I got to see all of the session of general conference! Because of the time change, we watched the morning sessions at the chapel at 5 PM, the priesthood session on Sunday morning at the chapel, and the afternoon sessions at 9 PM here in the office. Haha it was nice to have these good computers to watch conference on. President Amorim has tried to make it so that us office elders have not had "more" than the rest of the mission (hence not having a smart phone and also not having a car like most mission offices), but we still get to have little nice things like having enough computers for all of us to write on Pday (which is a problem almost anywhere outside of the office) and stuff like that. Oh also! President Amorim talked to us in the office this last week, and he told me that I will be transferred out. Elder Peterson is (a previous zone leader) is going to replace me. He got here yesterday, and I'll train him this week and then stay in the office for the first week of the next transfer to give Elder Peterson 2 weeks to learn everything, and then leave. President didn't tell me where I'm going - this next weekend is transfers so I'll know by the time next Pday comes around.
This week was pretty good - we're hitting some walls in some our investigators progression, and we are trying to help them overcome their problems. I'm learning day by day how important it is to have the spirit in our planning, studies and practices, and lessons, because without the spirit we won't be able to really help our investigators. So it's been a good experience!
I got your package this week! I haven't had a chance to take pictures yet (my camera is still with problems but I'll figure it out soon) but I loved it! Haha I like the stickers. I saw them before I read the letter and I was really confused at why you sent them. The socks are crazy! They're awesome! Also with the card - will it work for Portugal already? I'll have to call because there are no chase banks here. I just haven't done it yet because I am not sure how everything will work.
I'm actually back in an apartment that I was in when I first came to the office - it's super small but a lot nicer and better insulated than the other one. We are currently 5 in the house because of Elder Peterson and the whole quadrupla companionship thing, so it's super cramped but definitely better than the other house haha! We have a washing machine but no dryer, which is typical for missionary houses. We just have drying racks to hang our clothes up. It's on the third floor - whenever I get my camera in order I'll take a picture of it. I don't know how it is in biggish cities in the US, but a lot of times you will have houses/apartments that are a part of a huge long strip of buildings, so they are long but skinny. If that makes any sense. Or you could just look up my address and see what it looks like if you want - the address is Avenida Fernão de Magalhães 497, Porto. The view looks out onto another strip of buildings haha! It's not great but during a morning run we can get to the top of a hill that has a pretty sweet view of the outskirts of Porto with lots of hills and stuff. Here's a funny thing - NO ONE knows their neighbors in Portugal. No one. Partly because everyone lives in apartments and so it's not like there is a yard to take care of or a front porch to relax on, so you never know who lives where unless you're inside the house. And we aren't supposed to proselyte in the buildings we live in (something about making landlords angry because of complaining clients), and we are the only ones on our floor of the building (it has a super tiny little landing outside the door so there's not even room for another apartment), so I don't really know the neighbors unfortunately. The furniture is pretty sparse in this apartment. Others have more, I think it's just because of the size for ours. We have two study tables and a little square table that we use for all 5 of us to study, 2 bunk beds (elder peterson is currently on a mattress on the ground), a fridge, an oven, one bookshelf, and 4 clothes racks (basically a bar to hold hangers) and that's literally it besides chairs! Well there is this super tiny table thing in the kitchen that barely sits 2 people too. Haha I'll take a video and some pictures to show you!
Today we went to a mini golf place which was fun! It was super chill and relaxing which was much needed. I tied with Elder Judd for first place of the 5 of us.
I'll write a letter to dad real quick. Love you mom! :)
Love, Elder Valentine!
Hello, Elder! Guess what!! We got an email on Thursday from the Church travel department! It had all of your flight info and you are coming in at 7:30 pm on the Fourth of July! So we'll have time to get a hamburger and watch fireworks to celebrate you coming home! It was just exciting to see it officially in an email to us. 😊 You probably already knew, or Dad already wrote about it, but that's ok cuz it was very exciting!
This week was a good week for me. Not super busy or stressful! First time in a LONG time! I cleaned my room this weekend (seriously I hadn't deep cleaned it since before Christmas even though I really wanted to!), I got enough sleep, performed in my choir concert, did my visiting teaching on the first day of the month, went for a walk with Dad, and best of all, watched Conference! 😄 It was really good.
Last Tuesday evening we celebrated Ethan's birthday at Boondocks. We did bowling, laser tag (my very first time ever), and played some arcade games. We ate dinner at Chick-fi-la. We had lots of fun, and I had the highest score in bowling and the lowest score in laser tag, ha ha!
Thursday Was Ethan's actual birthday so I picked him up from school on his lunch and took him out to eat. We went to Kneaders. One reason we celebrated his birthday on Tuesday is because Dad's friend Star Hall got us tickets to go with them to see "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" at the Hale Center Theater and he got mixed up on the dates. So we asked Ethan if we could celebrate on a different day and he was a really good sport. So while we were gone, Amanda took him to Cafe Rio for a birthday dinner. He got an iPod for his birthday that he partly paid for himself. He seemed like he had a good birthday.
Friday night was my "Broadway Bingo" concert for choir. I sang a little solo and it was really fun. 😊
Did you get to watch all of Conference? It was so good!
The kiddos are on Spring Break this week but Dad is in London so we're not really doing anything... and I have to work except Tuesday I have off. Yay!
Spring is in full force here, we've had some rainy days, but lots of sunny days too so the tulips are blooming, the leaves on the trees are coming back, and the grass is starting to green up. I love it!
I think you have a few more questions from last time that you didn't have time to answer, so I won't ask any new ones just yet. Tell me about your week, how the investigators are doing, anything new or different that happened this week, etc.
Love you so much!! Can't wait to hear from you! 😊
Love, Mom
