Santa Rosa Week #2 - Group Email

Hi everyone!

This has been a pretty sweet week! One of the main things that we do out here in California is service projects. On Wednesday, we helped this lady move some stuff out of her house... and it was SO gross. The whole house was covered in spiderwebs and beetles and lots of fun stuff! I got bit like 4 or 5 times by spiders. Pretty sweet! We probably do two or three service assignments a week, either with members, or investigators, or the food bank, or whatever! 

Because Elder Adamson and I are over a YSA ward out here, the work is quite different. We try and find less actives or potential investigators given to us as referrals, and we just drive around all day trying to find people and hope they will even open their doors! We have found a couple of potential investigators, but they were both married, so we had to hand them over to some other elders. We are ONLY allowed to teach people who are unmarried and between the ages of 18 and 30. Haha it makes tracting not very effective! "Hi! We are missionaries, and we have a message about the gospel that can bring you eternal happiness, but we will only share it if you don't have a spouse and meet our age qualifications!" Hahaha! So we don't do that very much. :)

Although, I did get to go on an exchange with an Elder Achal, and I taught my first lesson with him! I know; "Elder Valentine, you've been out for like two weeks and you have only taught one lesson??" But like I said, the YSA work is very different. Anyway, we taught the plan of salvation to this girl Sasha, and she took it all very well, and wants to get baptized! It's so cool! I love feeling the spirit testify of truth and make people happy! It is SO gratifying as a missionary to see people happy because of the gospel. We also found this guy Willy while we were tracting, and he was interested in talking about what we believe; we found him because I had a prompting to knock on a random house! The spirit totally found him for us! 

Speaking of the spirit, that's what I have been studying recently; learning to recognize and act on the promptings of the spirit. It has been very interesting and a huge blessing for me. I wanted to know how I could always act on promptings to be doing the right thing, but something that I learned is that God (Christ) doesn't need to guide us in every action we take; He trusts us to make good decisions and do what we think is right, and as long as we are trying to follow His example, He will make sure that we are successful. This is something I have always known but not needed to apply as strongly as right now. I mean, I just want to do everything right so that I can be the best missionary! But that doesn't mean that I need to be led by the hand every step of the way. My faith, testimony, and knowledge of the gospel and the truth of what I have to share will be enough to get me going and to do good work. This applies to all of us! If you ever feel like God isn't answering all of your prayers while you are struggling, remember that the teacher is quiet during the test. Heavenly Father and Christ want us to grow, which we can only do if we ACT for ourselves! When you make good choices, especially when they are hard, you are blessed more than you can imagine. I testify of that, and that Christ loves us. He will guide us when we are trying to follow His example. 

Okay! Well, that's all I have for the week; I try not to leave important stuff out, but just let me know if there are things anyone would like to hear about. Bye everyone! The church is true! God loves us! We are blessed as the children of Heavenly Father! Don't ever forget it!

-Elder Valentine!

Airport Phone Call with Spencer -- Awesome and Tearful and Inspiring!

Note: this post is a bit out of chronological order:
On Tuesday morning, September 1st--after a long night of fretting and fearing I'd sleep through the call and miss my chance to talk to Elder Valentine--we were able to finally hear from Spencer! He called us at 8:00. Linda and I were driving to Salt Lake together. She took me to the office so I wouldn't miss his call. He called at 8:00 and talked to us until nearly 9:00. We had an entire hour with him! It was really such an amazing experience. We were both overwhelmed with the Spirit and emotion and righteous pride all through the call. Here's a few highlights of what we talked about:

• He bought himself a 500 minute phone card so he had plenty of time to talk!!
• Linda asked him if he knew any of the missionaries he was traveling with and how many. He said he didn't know them, there were 12-15 of them, and that somehow he ended up being their "travel leader" for the group! Pretty funny!
• We asked if he was the only one who didn't get his VISA and he said it was just him and one of the Sisters. Bummer for Spencer!
• We asked him about the food--it was a very funny response. He said that he had gained NINE POUNDS over the past six weeks!! He kept saying: "It's gross! My stomach is all squishy!" He said the food was better than on our cruise! Tons of cookies, chocolate milk . . .plus then sitting around in all the classes. No wonder he got fattened up!
• We asked him if he had been healthy the whole time at the MTC. Elder Valentine said that he had gotten a cold early on, but just a for a few days and then he's been great ever since. He said that reminded him that there was a sister missionary in his district that had a cough and it never went away the whole time! In every meeting it was always a pattern: 6 coughs in sets of 2. In one meeting he counted and she coughed 250 times!!
• When talking about exercise at the MTC, he said they played a lot of volleyball because there was an Elder who was going to play volleyball in college so he always wanted to play it. When he and Elder Meza (his companion) were on opposing teams they both went up to spike the ball at the same time and coming down Spencer landed on him and his knee slammed into Elder Meza's leg, injuring him severely! Elder Meza was on crutches and had an MRI and everything! At first the doctor thought Elder Meza may be delayed on leaving for his mission! Spencer carried his book bag and opened doors for him and helped him out, but also teased him about being a crippled missionary (ha ha ha!)
• We asked him about his responsibilities as a Zone Leader -- he talked about the prank that occurred on his first day as being a ZL and how he had to talk with those involved about obedience. Spencer told them that the MTC is a dedicated building just like the temple and that they were now on the Lord's time. He has a hard time understanding how any missionary would not want to be perfectly obedient and follow the rules. Spencer is just so good!
• Linda and I asked him how he's feeling about going to California. He said he's really excited! He knows that's where he is supposed to be and he's just excited to be out there doing missionary work. He even had set a goal to place his first Book of Mormon while at the airort, but we talked to him so long he probably didn't end up doing that . . . 
• When we were wrapping up he said he would like to tell us something in Portuguese. He bore his testimony and he sounded like a missionary coming HOME instead of one just going out! His pronunciation was amazing and he just sounded so good. Linda could understand everything he said! Linda couldn't remember it all now--we should have written it down sooner, but here are some things she remembers him saying in Portuguese: "I know that Jesus Christ is our Savior and Redeemer and that he can save us from our sins. Even when things go wrong we can be happy. Heavenly Father has a plan for his children.

We had a really cool experience with the call. We knew his call would come between 6-9 AM because his flight was at 9:50. we wanted to be together when he called so we could both hear and talk with him together. Linda canceled her walking and I went into work late. Even Anna and Ethan were hoping he'd call before they went to school. Sadly that didn't happen. I came up with a plan that would ensure that me and Linda would be together at lest. I needed to be at work by 9:15 to join a meeting, so Linda drove me to work. That way we'd be in the car together for the call. We dropped Ethan off at 8 and started driving. As we got on the freeway, Spencer called! We started talking to him and listening to him (it was SO cool to hear his voice!) and not long after we got on the road, traffic came to almost a complete stop. But we didn't care! It actually made it easier to focus on the conversation since Linda didn't have to do a lot of driving and maneuvering.  

About half way through the call, Linda had the thought: "Traffic will clear  as soon as our call is done." After about 20 more minutes of bad traffic, I was starting to worry about getting to my meeting. But w were enjoying the conversation with Spencer so much! But literally, as soon as we said goodbye (and we both got very emotional!) traffic cleared up! The moment we hung up the traffic just cleared like the Red Sea and I got to work on time! What an amazing experience!

First Photos from Santa Rosa Mission!

We received one of the great blessings from his temporary assignment in the Santa Rosa Mission . . . pictures from one of the members! Linda received several texts from a member in his area. She gave us some information on how he is doing, and these great pictures!

Santa Rosa Mission Week #1 Family

Here is Spencer's family email for the first week in Santa Rosa mission:

Hi family! 

Um, I don't have a lot of specifics for the fam, but I wanted to say that I love you all! 

Amanda: CONGRATULATIONS!!!! Your baby is sooo cute! I'm so jealous that you all get to see her and I don't! How are you feeling? How's the baby?? Tell me all about it!

Mom: I hope you liked the pictures and videos! Sister Petersen is super cool! We have met with them a couple of times and they LOVE missionaries! She gave me this tie that you can only get in a gift shop on the OTHER side of the Golden Gate Bridge (which I can see from here!!!), which is outside of our mission, and it is the only place in the whole world you can get it! It's basically coveted by everyone in the mission because no one can go get it, but I got one. No big deal. Pretty sweet! How is your time off going? What kinds of stuff have you been able to do? How is the Powells baby? DID YOU GUYS INVITE THEM FOR FHE??? I was seriously inspired when I thought of that. It needs to happen!!!!! Sorry. Not trying to be pushy or anything. Just sayin. :)

Ethan and Anna: Tell me all about school! What rocks? what socks? I hope you guys have been doing a lot of study of the scriptures; I have only just started to realize how important it is for our lives. You two will be seriously blessed in every aspect of your lives if you study every day. 

Kimber and Kevin: Lincoln looks way cute in his bed! How's your family? How's Kevin's work? What's been going on for the last 2 months? 

Dad: How's your back feeling? How is, like, your life? For the whole family? I feel like I don't hear from everyone as often as I did in the MTC! If nothing exciting happens, I totally get it, but yeah. I just like to hear from you guys!

Sorry this was so late: we got done with a late lunch with some other elders and a really nice sister we call Mama because she is seriously like the mom of missionaries here. She LOVES missionaries. Also! I have an Ipad! that's cool! I can read your emails at anytime during the week, I just have to wait until monday to respond, so if you feel like sending something early I'll be able to get it!

Okay! I think that's all! I love you guys! Have a fantastic week! Ask me questions! Love ya!

Love, Elder Valentine!

Santa Rosa Mission - Week #1

Elder Valentine arrived safely in the Santa Rosa mission on Tuesday, September 1. We didn't get to hear anything from him for nearly a week! Finally we received this message from him:

Hi Everyone! 

Wow. This has been the longest week of probably my entire life. It has been crazy!

So I woke up at 3 AM last Tuesday to go to the airport, called family, etc. etc. and got to California at like 11 AM. We were picked up by the mission president- President Wright- his wife, and the AP's. We had lots of in field training and a couple of devotionals and slept in the most comfortable bed ever at a hotel and... It was all just so rushed! Unfortunately I don't have my journal with me right now, so I will try and remember the important things of the last week. My trainer's name is Elder Adamson- he likes sports and hunting, is like 6'3", and is a pretty good guy! I am in the Fairfield area of the California Santa Rosa mission, and we serve in the Rockville YSA ward. Haha oh man. The work is rough! Because we are in the YSA ward we can't teach anyone who isn't between ages 18-30 or married, which is like 1% of everyone here! So finding people to teach is a bit difficult, and the ward doesn't help the missionaries a ton because they are all, like, single adults between 18-30... haha it is just so funny to me! I love serving here! I feel like there are a lot of opportunities to improve and ways to help; I just need to find them! We taught Thomas Day, a less active guy who has this disease which makes the nerves on his body always receive pain signals, so I guess he is always in pain, but he has medication for it which gives some negative side effects like rashes and tiredness... It was really interesting to meet him, to say the least! We read from the Book of Mormon with him and asked if we could help him, but he wasn't super responsive or anything. Haha it is an interesting situation! 

Oh yeah! something super cool- we got done shopping for food (which I have NO IDEA how to do!!! Haha! Oh, man. It's gonna be rough!), and as we were putting stuff into the car this guy pulled up to us and started speaking in spanish to us, and I could totally understand what he was saying! He wanted to know where our "Mormon church" was and wanted to have some missionaries talk to him, so I was able to tell him where to go, talk about the bible for a little bit, and give him the Spanish elders number! It was super cool! I got to use my portuguese in Cali!!! 

We have a lot of service opportunities like moving people and helping at a food bank and such, and, oddly, it reminded me of a "parable" I heard from a conference talk in 1990 by Elder Lybbert. He said“An enterprising turkey gathered the flock together and, following instructions and demonstrations, taught them how to fly. All afternoon they enjoyed soaring and flying and the thrill of seeing new vistas. After the meeting, all of the turkeys walked home.” 

I thought this was cool because we can learn all we want, and have the knowledge, but what good does it all do us if we don't act? My favorite chapter in the Book of Mormon is 2 Nephi 31, which describes in great but very simple detail the doctrine of Christ. Faith, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end. How often have YOU applied these principles in your life? What does it REALLY mean to have faith? Do you partake of the Atonement daily, relieving yourself of sin and striving to be better through our Savior? Do you remember the covenants we make at baptism, outlined in Mosiah 18? Do you know what enduring to the end means? For me, enduring to the end is not just "living" life. It is overcoming the trials we all have, with faith that Christ is there for us, to improve ourselves through learning and experiencing all that we have here on Earth! We are here to progress, and become more like our Savior Jesus Christ. We can't do that if we don't act on what we know! Following the parable in Matthew 7, "Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them!" So I would encourage you to seek to improve yourselves based on the testimony and knowledge of the gospel you have. As you do this, and do it with a sincere desire to better yourselves, through faith, repentance, prayer, heart, might, mind, and strength, I promise you that you will see a change for the better. I promise that Christ will be there with you in every step you take. If you reach out to Him, He will do as He did for Peter in Matthew 14:31: "And IMMEDIATELY Jesus stretched forth His hand, and caught him." Christ will carry you. I know He will! I love our Savior, I love this gospel, and I love serving! Thanks again for supporting me in my calling as a missionary! I will talk to you all next week! 

-Elder Valentine!

Family Message - Last Night in MTC

Hi family! I love ya! This email is gonna be really short because I honestly don't have a lot to talk about before I talk to you tomorrow! But mom, I totally kind of left one of the letters you sent in the package on my food tray and it got thrown away... it wasn't from you and it wasn't from dad or his blessing, so whichever one is not that one, could you send it to me on an email? I would love it! Haha I'm sorry I lost it!

Well, I'm so excited to talk to you tomorrow! I love ya! Be expecting my call anywhere from like 6 to... sometime... I don't know how it works. I hope it's not earlier because you need to sleep, but I'll just call mom whenever I can! 

Okay! Talk to you tomorrow!!!

Love,

Elder Valentine!

Going to Cali!! - Spencer Announces His Reassignment

Here's the email Spencer sent to his friends announcing the temporary reassignment to the Santa Rosa California Mission:

Hi everyone!

If you haven't heard yet from me, I'm going to the Santa Rosa California mission for a while because my VISA hasn't gone through yet. It was hard to accept at first, but I absolutely know that the Lord made my new assignment because there are people I can help and opportunities to grow in California. I am so grateful for my opportunity to serve more people! I love the gospel and am so excited to teach it wherever the Lord sends me!

Speaking of which, I leave for California tomorrow! I am going to arrive around 11 in the morning, so I will have all day to preach to the people of Santa Rosa! I am going to try and place a Book of Mormon in the airport or on the plane and get my first contact!

So this last week has been so good! Well, one thing kind of stunk. I totally hurt Elder Meza in gym; we were playing volleyball (the lamest sport to get hurt in), and we both went up for the ball, and I landed my knee into the side of his leg, and he totally collapsed. He had to go to the doctor like three times and got an MRI, but luckily it wasn't anything super major; he just had some tissue damage and an effusion. I was worried that he wasn't going to be able to go to Portugal but he will be okay! He's been on crutches and I've had to carry is stuff around; I also make fun of him for being so slow because he hates it. :)

I had my last time at the temple for two years on Tuesday! I seriously LOVE the temple. I'm kind of bummed about it, but hey! I think missionary work is a pretty good trade off! We also had in-field orientation and an ending devotional, which were very long and boring, and we have finished our classes, and everything! I can't believe I'm leaving the MTC! I finally get to go preach the gospel!!!

I had a really cool experience while I was interviewing one of the district leaders in my zone. We were talking about how we could be better leaders, and the DL apologized for his inability to serve the calling well. I told him that he was looking at this experience all wrong! None of us are perfect, and we always judge ourselves and our abilities, especially when compared to those of others. But the thing is, we are completely different people. We have different ways of leading and showing our love for those we serve. So comparing ourselves to others is basically pointless. The only person who knows us and knows how we can truly improve is Jesus Christ. He paid the ultimate price so that we could be forgiven, and so that He could help us whenever He knows we need it. How amazing is that? One of the two most powerful beings in all eternity knows us so perfectly, and loves us so much, that He helps us in the exact best way that He can. I told the district leader that I am weak. I told him that one of the things I struggle most with is talking to people and expressing the words that I want to say, which is a big problem when the next two years are all about talking to people. I have a very real struggle with this. But I told him that through Christ, my weaknesses are swallowed up. He makes me strong. He constantly gives me the ability to do His work because I am worthy of it and have the desire to be better than I am. I could not do this work without His help. But I have His help, so I had better use it!

Anyway, it was super super cool. I was bawling like a baby because I felt the Spirit so strongly. I loved it! And I am SO excited to go serve the people in Santa Rosa. I know I am called to where the Lord needs me. His gospel is the only way we can receive salvation, and I get to go share that with people! The Book of Mormon is the very literal word of God. We can learn everything we need to know from that book. Prophets are men called of God to help Him lead His church and help us all return to our Father in Heaven. This Gospel is SO true, and I love that I am a part of sharing it. The next time I talk to you all, I'll hopefully have some sweet stories to tell about preaching! But until then, I love you all, and I'll talk to you next week! Tchau!

-Elder Valentine!