December 12 "Untitled" Email

Dear Everyone,

It's been a crazy few weeks! The office is great but it takes up a lot of email time so you can all forgive me and it'll be great. :)

Transfers happened, and I'll be with Elder Judd! He's one of the missionaries that came into the country with me a whole year and a while ago, so he's just one transfer younger than me since I served in California for my first transfer. He's a hard working missionary and is not excited to be in the office, haha but I'll convince him it's a good thing! He's going to be another finance secretary, so I shall continue my work as the lonely executive!

We've had some great opportunities to teach lately, and we will just have to keep teaching and practicing and following the Spirit until the end!

I had an cool realization whilst reading the Book of Mormon; I just got done reading the Isaiah chapters of 2 Nephi in Portuguese, and I laughed when, in chapter 25, Nephi says that he delights in the plainess of the words of Isaiah. I mean, lets be honest, it's a struggle in English, let alone a second language. But then Nephi says the following:

" 4 Wherefore, hearken, O my people, which are of thehouse of Israel, and give ear unto my words; for because the words of Isaiah are not plain unto you, nevertheless they are plain unto all those that are filled with the spirit of prophecy. But I give unto you a prophecy, according to thespirit which is in me; wherefore I shall prophesy accordingto the plainness which hath been with me from the time that I came out from Jerusalem with my father; for behold,my soul delighteth in plainness unto my people, that they may learn."

This scripture applies to my mission because investigators won't understand God's doctrine the same way I will struggle to understand Isaiah, unless we have a spirit of prophecy, which to me means that we have to be open for the Spirit to "prophecy" to us, and that as a teacher I need to be worthy of teaching with the Spirit to allow that process to take place. Nephi later says, in the same chapter, that the purpose of his writings is to prophecy of and rejoice in Christ, that his children might know to what source they might look for a remission of their sins. In all honesty, my good friends, what good will all of the school books and classic novels and interesting reads to for us if we don't know where to look for a remission of our sins? Or, in other words, what is more important; our worries about life and the world, or Christ? I understand here more than ever that people really do struggle with hard problems, many of them people that I know personally. I am sorry for all who have these times - but they are not forever, and Christ is our source for true happiness! The moment that you go through a hard time, do something for Christ. Serve someone, read a scripture, say a prayer, whatever. But look to Christ. Because without Him, we have nothing, and with Him, we have it all! 

Oh I thought I would pitch in my two cents on the #lighttheworld campaign - do it! It's so amazing and inspired! I'm loving inviting people to follow Christ this Christmas and you should too! Anyway, y'all have a great week!

- Elder Valentine!

December 5 Email (Spencer and Dad)

Hey you big fart!

I hope you don't open this next to Elder Christofferson... that would be awkward for him to see.

That sounds like a way cool trip! It kind of seems like you are doing biweekly trips to places, is that right? So, this is not like a trunky question or anything, but will we be able to go to the Smithsonian on our trip? If not, tudo bem, but if yes, that would be super cool!

What a fun party!

I can't really lie, I don't remember Bonnie Alison super well. :( Could you send me a picture? But that sounds like a really awesome spiritual experience that you had with her. I think I'll want to visit people in whatever ward I'm in for the rest of my life, because I have visited so many people here on the mission and it's the best feeling to help people feel the Spirit and help them progress.

Oh duh! So this week transfers came out on Sunday night and not Monday, so that's why I have a bit of time to write. So I did all of the travel plans yesterday, I did SEF (residency stuff) today, and once I got here there was a bunch of other stuff to do... work never ends! What a depressing thought haha! But one of the office elders, Elder Moeller, is finishing his mission tomorrow, so we will get a new office elder here. Elder Yoder, who has been my comp for the last 3 transfers, will be with Elder Wait, who came in last transfer, and Elder Judd will be my new comp! He is one of the elders that came in with me to Portugal (not the MTC because of California) and he is super awesome. Transfers won't officially happen until tomorrow, so I'll be with Elder Yoder and Elder Wait tonight, but I'm pretty excited. Elder Judd was a zone leader on Madeira island, and is super hard working and we are already really good friends just from coming in together and stuff. But he'll be a new finance secretary - I'm still alone as executive! Haha it's not necessarily bad, but it means that I'll be in the office for at least 5 transfers, because this is my 4th, and I still haven't been able to train anyone, so that's a problem. It has been a super insane last two days and will be a still insane next couple of days. I have never had to think about so many things at the same time in my life. Last night I literally was just trying to leave the office but everytime I got up to leave, I thought of one more thing I needed to get done! Haha it's been pretty funny.

Sister Roque, the Brazilian Senior Sister here, said that her son was an office secretary in his mission as well, and that he liked it so much that he followed a financial secretary office job for his career and is now very successful because of it! Haha but it's really funny that you say that because it's exactly what I was thinking... 

I'll be waiting for those trump pictures! Love you dad! 

Love, Elder Valentine!

On Mon, Dec 5, 2016 at 5:42 AM, Stephen Valentine <ValentineSJ@familysearch.org> wrote:

Elder Valentine,

Hi! I didn’t get a chance to email you last week. Now you aren’t having your P Day tomorrow so you likely won’t get a letter from me this week either! Bummer for me! 

I’m headed to Washington DC in the morning. The Smithsonian just opened a new National Museum for African American History. FamilySearch created an index of freed blacks after the Civil War and we are presenting it to the Smithsonian tomorrow among much ceremony. Elder Christofferson of the Quorum of 12 is traveling with us. I’ll be with him, my boss, and the Managing Director of Church Public Affairs tomorrow and Tuesday. Sounds fun, but also a bit stressful! I’ll send you some pictures of me and Donald Trump!!

What a busy week! Mom will probably send you pictures of our epic ward party. It was so much fun! The ward member seemed to really love it. I love doing “big” things for our ward, because I think it draws us closer together. The next big thing will be our Valetines Social. You will be home in time for our summer party! Hooray for that! 

I had a ton of things going on at work this week, but probably the highlight of the week for me, even more so than the ward party, was taking Bonnie Alison to the temple on Saturday morning to do sealings. You remember her? She’s nearly 80, a really sweet old sister. You home taught her with me. Her husband recently passed away. She has never done sealings before, so Mom and I took her with us on Saturday to do sealings for my family and a couple of Mom’s. The truth is, I wouldn’t have gone at all because we’ve been so busy, but I wanted to take Sister Alison to the temple. The Spirit was so strong! She really enjoyed it, and I could tell that she felt the Spirit. We are going to help her do the baptisms for her family. It’s so awesome! On Monday we had the Brough family over to our house and I helped them find family names. It’s so much fun! 

Your little brother was pretty awesome in the Shakespeare play. I didn’t get to see it, but Mom showed me the video. I went with GP and GMA Valentine on Saturday (after the sealings) to see Amanda receive her Associates Degree at the Air Force. I got to see her plane. It was cool. 

I’ve been doing tithing settlement the past three weeks. I was at the church until about 6:40 tonight with tithing settlement. I love it because I get to talk to so many ward members. It’s fun!

I’m eager to hear about the transfers, and to learn if anything changed for you. I hope you’re still having a good experience in the office. Remember how your Patriarchal blessing said you would learn about your career decision while on your mission. What have you learned? That you don’t want to work in an office??

Well, for a short letter this was kind of long. I’ll write you about my DC experience with President Obama and President-Elect Trump. I think we’re going to hang out Monday night. 

Love ya, son!

Dad 

December 5 Emails (Mom)

Elder Valentine and His Mom:

Hi mom! 

Well, one more p-day where I don't have a lot of time. I've got about 30 minutes. Next week will be transfers so I won't have p-day next week... whew! I'm going to grow gray hairs here! 

I'll definitely pray for dad! His life is way more stressful than mine probably haha so I've got no room to complain. 

Thanksgiving sounds like lots of fun! We had a zone conference that was accidentally scheduled for this last Thursday, and some missionary reminded President Amorim about it, so we (kind of) had a thanksgiving dinner! I say kind of because I didn't even get to stay for lunch because I had to take two Sisters to get their residency that day, because they always mark the appointments at the same time as EVERY meeting I should be attending, and then we waited for 2 1/2 hours for the appointments just for me to get into the room and have the ladies there tell me there system went down that day, and so we had to come back for the same appointments in like 3 weeks. Ridiculous!!! Ooooh, I was (and still am) SOO frustrated with SEF!!!!! (which is the organization that does the residency stuff)!!!! We had to skip the whole conference for nothing because SEF didn't inform us. So lame. I ended up getting to eat it later that day because Elder and Sister Roque (that brazilian couple here in the office) were super nice and saved us some. There was turkey and potatoes and stuffing and a portuguese version of pumpkin pie! So that was nice!

But anyway, it sounds like a lot of fun! Haha Abbie wrote me a letter saying she went up with you guys and had to take a train by herself to Layton! How was that? Where was Zach? 

It's been raining about every day super hard with lots of rain and it's been really cold! Can I buy a scarf next week? 

Wait jk I don't have pday next week. The next then? I have gloves and a hat but not a scarf. It would be nice because it's cold! Except suddenly yesterday and today felt like early fall again. We went to a beach and played volley ball because it was such nice weather! It was pretty fun!

I've been pretty excited to talk to Kevin in Portuguese. It's going to be fun to have someone to keep practicing with! The first councilor in our ward is from venezuela, he is only like 24 and he got here earlier this year and speaks portuguese really well already, but he went back to Venezuela a couple weeks ago to go get married to this 20 year old venezuelan girl, and then he brought her here, and now they live here and she doesn't speak ANY portuguese, just Spanish. So we talk to her in broken Spanish! It's so fun! I want to learn Spanish so bad after the mission! It's fun to listen to spanish because I can understand some of it, especially if it's slow. That was one of my random facts. :)

Haha I only heard that Hailey was getting baptized like 2 weeks ago! She kind of forgot to tell me haha! But I'm way excited for her. I thought for a while that it would take a while longer for her to get there but she's already decided! I'm so happy for real. 

Some places in Portugal get snow, but it's only far up north or inland or on the mountains, which doesn't include a lot of Portugal. There are probably just like 3 or 4 areas that actually get it. I miss snow! It's so much better than rain haha! That's pretty funny about sacrament meeting. Dad does well as Bishop!

Thanks for those scriptures! I think about the scripture missionaries sometimes, and laugh at myself because they (the sons of mosiah) served for 14 years and I am only serving for two, and they had so many different difficult experiences, and they are just such great examples of faith in the face of hard times. So thanks mom! :)

Okay so I gotta run, but I love you lots! Send me a quick message if you're on! Love you! :)

Love, Elder Valentine!

On Mon, Nov 28, 2016 at 7:00 AM, Linda Valentine <lindacmemail@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi, Elder Valentine!

How are you doing? How was your week? Did you cook any 'Merican food for your Thanksgiving? Did you get invited to any Thanksgiving dinners? How is it going teaching the two new families you started with? I can't wait to hear!

I had the whole week off from work last week, so the first two days, Monday and Tuesday I spent putting up the Christmas tree and getting ready for the trip to Denver. I don't think I've ever put up a Christmas tree BEFORE Thanksgiving before! But I really wanted to get a head start on the decorating since we were going to be gone the rest of the week for Thanksgiving and would not have had time until the next week if I didn't! So the tree is up! I still need to do the rest of the decorations around the house, but the tree is up. :) I can't believe it is the Christmas season already!

The trip to Denver was pretty good! We left early on Wednesday morning and it's a good thing we left as early as we did, because a snow storm came in just a couple of hours after we left and they closed the freeway in Wyoming after we had already gone through! But we had perfect weather and were ahead of the storm. Good timing! We had a nice visit. I was a little worried, because sometimes my side of the family can have drama, but everyone got along and it was fun to be there for Thanksgiving. We played games, watched movies, Dad and Anna did a little bit of Black Friday shopping, and later on Friday we all went to the Denver Arts Museum because they were having a special exhibit of Star Wars costumes! It was super awesome! They had all the original costumes on display from all of the movies. It was super cool! We learned all about how they designed them and made them, and why. It really is an art form! I wish I could tell you more, but I don't think either of us have time for too many details. But I hope you liked the pictures! We left for our drive home right from the museum. We left at 5:30pm and got home at 2:00 in the morning.

I had to be in Salt Lake at 3:00pm Saturday afternoon for my choir rehearsal and performance. It was so amazing! I loved singing in the Tabernacle. We had a full audience and we got a standing ovation at the end. After the concert we walked around Temple Square to see the lights, and went to the Visitors Center and watched a movie (The Nativity) and talked to the missionaries that were all around. Kevin found one from Brazil! It was fun to hear him speak in Portuguese. It will be fun when you get home for you and Kevin to talk to each other.

Oh! I almost forgot! While we were eating dinner on Thanksgiving, I got a text on my phone from Hailey. She was telling us that she is thankful for our family and then she told us that she probably is getting baptized on December 31st!! Isn't that the coolest?? Maybe you already know because I'm sure she writes to you, but we were so happy that she wanted to tell us. We want to be there so we might have to leave a little bit early from our California trip we are taking after Christmas in order to get to her baptism. So you know, even if you don't get to baptize a lot of people in Portugal, you should be so happy to know that someone you helped teach the gospel before your mission is going to get baptized! You are a successful missionary!! :)

This morning I was listening to my scriptures and I am in Alma right now. I think the first part of Alma is so good, because I love the story of Ammon and the other sons of Mosiah and their missionary work. Here's the best missionary scriptures ever:

Alma 26:12 - "Yea, I know that I am nothing; as to my strength I am weak; therefore I will not boast of myself, but I will boast of my God, for in his strength I can do all things; yea, behold, many mighty miracles we have wrought in this land, for which we will praise his name forever.

13- "Behold, how many thousands of our brethren has he loosed from the pains of hell; and they are brought to sing redeeming love, and this because of the power of his word which is in us, therefore have we not great reason to rejoice?

15 - "Yea, they were encircled about with everlasting darkness and destruction; but behold, he has brought them into his everlasting light, yea, into everlasting salvation, and they are encircled about with the matchless bounty of his love; yea, and we have been instruments in his hands of doing this great and marvelous work.

I love how happy and hopeful those scriptures are. You are working hard, and I know it's not always easy, but I hope you still feel the joy and excitement of being a missionary every day. It's such a happy time of your life! I love you for being a missionary. :)

Random Fact: We have already had two snow storms this season! Tomorrow is supposed to snow a lot too! Do they ever get snow in Portugal? More random fact: We have had two or three more houses in the neighborhood finish so we had two new families in church today. You cannot believe how our ward is growing! Even more random fact: Today we didn't have speakers for sacrament meeting because, oops!! The bishopric member who was supposed to ask a certain couple to speak forgot to ask them! So poor Brother and Sister Petersen showed up to see their names on the program and they didn't even know they were supposed to speak! haha! So Dad/Bishop had them just bare their testimonies, and then he called up four people to give testimonies, and then Dad spoke a bit, and then President Hart spoke. It turned out really good for an "on-the-fly" sacrament meeting!

Dad is super stressed and busy tonight - he has a big presentation at work and he is also having a health issue right now, so he's not feeling super well. So he might not get a chance to write to you this time. He told me to tell you hello for him in case he doesn't get a letter written to you in the morning. Say a little prayer for him. About the time you get this he will be at work starting his presentation, so he could use some prayer.

December will be here in a few days and it's going to be busy-busy-busy! All good, but busy! Our ward party is this Friday so we'll be able to send photos of that and tell you all about it next time. It's going to be neat! 

Ok! Well, that's all for now I guess! Love you tons! I always look forward to Monday morning! :)

Love, Mom

November 28 Email - Spencer and Mom

Hi mom! 

Well, one more p-day where I don't have a lot of time. I've got about 30 minutes. Next week will be transfers so I won't have p-day next week... whew! I'm going to grow gray hairs here! 

I'll definitely pray for dad! His life is way more stressful than mine probably haha so I've got no room to complain. 

Thanksgiving sounds like lots of fun! We had a zone conference that was accidentally scheduled for this last Thursday, and some missionary reminded President Amorim about it, so we (kind of) had a thanksgiving dinner! I say kind of because I didn't even get to stay for lunch because I had to take two Sisters to get their residency that day, because they always mark the appointments at the same time as EVERY meeting I should be attending, and then we waited for 2 1/2 hours for the appointments just for me to get into the room and have the ladies there tell me there system went down that day, and so we had to come back for the same appointments in like 3 weeks. Ridiculous!!! Ooooh, I was (and still am) SOO frustrated with SEF!!!!! (which is the organization that does the residency stuff)!!!! We had to skip the whole conference for nothing because SEF didn't inform us. So lame. I ended up getting to eat it later that day because Elder and Sister Roque (that brazilian couple here in the office) were super nice and saved us some. There was turkey and potatoes and stuffing and a portuguese version of pumpkin pie! So that was nice!

But anyway, it sounds like a lot of fun! Haha Abbie wrote me a letter saying she went up with you guys and had to take a train by herself to Layton! How was that? Where was Zach? 

It's been raining about every day super hard with lots of rain and it's been really cold! Can I buy a scarf next week? 

Wait jk I don't have pday next week. The next then? I have gloves and a hat but not a scarf. It would be nice because it's cold! Except suddenly yesterday and today felt like early fall again. We went to a beach and played volley ball because it was such nice weather! It was pretty fun!

I've been pretty excited to talk to Kevin in Portuguese. It's going to be fun to have someone to keep practicing with! The first councilor in our ward is from venezuela, he is only like 24 and he got here earlier this year and speaks portuguese really well already, but he went back to Venezuela a couple weeks ago to go get married to this 20 year old venezuelan girl, and then he brought her here, and now they live here and she doesn't speak ANY portuguese, just Spanish. So we talk to her in broken Spanish! It's so fun! I want to learn Spanish so bad after the mission! It's fun to listen to spanish because I can understand some of it, especially if it's slow. That was one of my random facts. :)

Haha I only heard that Hailey was getting baptized like 2 weeks ago! She kind of forgot to tell me haha! But I'm way excited for her. I thought for a while that it would take a while longer for her to get there but she's already decided! I'm so happy for real. 

Some places in Portugal get snow, but it's only far up north or inland or on the mountains, which doesn't include a lot of Portugal. There are probably just like 3 or 4 areas that actually get it. I miss snow! It's so much better than rain haha! That's pretty funny about sacrament meeting. Dad does well as Bishop!

Thanks for those scriptures! I think about the scripture missionaries sometimes, and laugh at myself because they (the sons of mosiah) served for 14 years and I am only serving for two, and they had so many different difficult experiences, and they are just such great examples of faith in the face of hard times. So thanks mom! :)

Okay so I gotta run, but I love you lots! Send me a quick message if you're on! Love you! :)

Love, Elder Valentine!

On Mon, Nov 28, 2016 at 7:00 AM, Linda Valentine <lindacmemail@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi, Elder Valentine!

How are you doing? How was your week? Did you cook any 'Merican food for your Thanksgiving? Did you get invited to any Thanksgiving dinners? How is it going teaching the two new families you started with? I can't wait to hear!

I had the whole week off from work last week, so the first two days, Monday and Tuesday I spent putting up the Christmas tree and getting ready for the trip to Denver. I don't think I've ever put up a Christmas tree BEFORE Thanksgiving before! But I really wanted to get a head start on the decorating since we were going to be gone the rest of the week for Thanksgiving and would not have had time until the next week if I didn't! So the tree is up! I still need to do the rest of the decorations around the house, but the tree is up. :) I can't believe it is the Christmas season already!

The trip to Denver was pretty good! We left early on Wednesday morning and it's a good thing we left as early as we did, because a snow storm came in just a couple of hours after we left and they closed the freeway in Wyoming after we had already gone through! But we had perfect weather and were ahead of the storm. Good timing! We had a nice visit. I was a little worried, because sometimes my side of the family can have drama, but everyone got along and it was fun to be there for Thanksgiving. We played games, watched movies, Dad and Anna did a little bit of Black Friday shopping, and later on Friday we all went to the Denver Arts Museum because they were having a special exhibit of Star Wars costumes! It was super awesome! They had all the original costumes on display from all of the movies. It was super cool! We learned all about how they designed them and made them, and why. It really is an art form! I wish I could tell you more, but I don't think either of us have time for too many details. But I hope you liked the pictures! We left for our drive home right from the museum. We left at 5:30pm and got home at 2:00 in the morning.

I had to be in Salt Lake at 3:00pm Saturday afternoon for my choir rehearsal and performance. It was so amazing! I loved singing in the Tabernacle. We had a full audience and we got a standing ovation at the end. After the concert we walked around Temple Square to see the lights, and went to the Visitors Center and watched a movie (The Nativity) and talked to the missionaries that were all around. Kevin found one from Brazil! It was fun to hear him speak in Portuguese. It will be fun when you get home for you and Kevin to talk to each other.

Oh! I almost forgot! While we were eating dinner on Thanksgiving, I got a text on my phone from Hailey. She was telling us that she is thankful for our family and then she told us that she probably is getting baptized on December 31st!! Isn't that the coolest?? Maybe you already know because I'm sure she writes to you, but we were so happy that she wanted to tell us. We want to be there so we might have to leave a little bit early from our California trip we are taking after Christmas in order to get to her baptism. So you know, even if you don't get to baptize a lot of people in Portugal, you should be so happy to know that someone you helped teach the gospel before your mission is going to get baptized! You are a successful missionary!! :)

This morning I was listening to my scriptures and I am in Alma right now. I think the first part of Alma is so good, because I love the story of Ammon and the other sons of Mosiah and their missionary work. Here's the best missionary scriptures ever:

Alma 26:12 - "Yea, I know that I am nothing; as to my strength I am weak; therefore I will not boast of myself, but I will boast of my God, for in his strength I can do all things; yea, behold, many mighty miracles we have wrought in this land, for which we will praise his name forever.

13- "Behold, how many thousands of our brethren has he loosed from the pains of hell; and they are brought to sing redeeming love, and this because of the power of his word which is in us, therefore have we not great reason to rejoice?

15 - "Yea, they were encircled about with everlasting darkness and destruction; but behold, he has brought them into his everlasting light, yea, into everlasting salvation, and they are encircled about with the matchless bounty of his love; yea, and we have been instruments in his hands of doing this great and marvelous work.

I love how happy and hopeful those scriptures are. You are working hard, and I know it's not always easy, but I hope you still feel the joy and excitement of being a missionary every day. It's such a happy time of your life! I love you for being a missionary. :)

Random Fact: We have already had two snow storms this season! Tomorrow is supposed to snow a lot too! Do they ever get snow in Portugal? More random fact: We have had two or three more houses in the neighborhood finish so we had two new families in church today. You cannot believe how our ward is growing! Even more random fact: Today we didn't have speakers for sacrament meeting because, oops!! The bishopric member who was supposed to ask a certain couple to speak forgot to ask them! So poor Brother and Sister Petersen showed up to see their names on the program and they didn't even know they were supposed to speak! haha! So Dad/Bishop had them just bare their testimonies, and then he called up four people to give testimonies, and then Dad spoke a bit, and then President Hart spoke. It turned out really good for an "on-the-fly" sacrament meeting!

Dad is super stressed and busy tonight - he has a big presentation at work and he is also having a health issue right now, so he's not feeling super well. So he might not get a chance to write to you this time. He told me to tell you hello for him in case he doesn't get a letter written to you in the morning. Say a little prayer for him. About the time you get this he will be at work starting his presentation, so he could use some prayer.

December will be here in a few days and it's going to be busy-busy-busy! All good, but busy! Our ward party is this Friday so we'll be able to send photos of that and tell you all about it next time. It's going to be neat! 

Ok! Well, that's all for now I guess! Love you tons! I always look forward to Monday morning! :)

Love, Mom

November Pictures!

Lots of pictures from Elder Valentine! It seems like Christmas already!

Lots to Be Thankful For!

Dear Bispo Valentine,

That's how you'd say Bishop Valentine in Portuguese!

also, your name in Portuguese is "Estavão" which is just ridiculous. Mine is "Spencer." 

Haha this one time a whole year ago (crazy!) here in Porto, me and Elder Johnson talked to a Jehovah´s Witness in potential (like an investigator) and he asked us our names (since that's what they ask about God) but he wanted the "portuguese translation." So E. Johnson said "alexandre" (Alexander) and I said "Spencer" because there isn't a translation! Basically, names only translate if they are biblical, which mine is not (to my knowledge), so this guy threw a fit because I wouldn't translate my name for him. It was pretty funny! 

Mom's name, Linda, means "beautiful" in portuguese! That's neat, right?

Wow, that's a big list of grateful things for Spencer! How bout one of my own:

 - I'm so grateful that I can eat pastries and croissants every day whenever I want!

 - I'm so grateful that American milk doesn't make me want to throw up

 - I'm so grateful that my consecrated mind recites Portuguese scriptures when I sleep (according to E. Karthigeyan)

 - I'm so grateful that Dad hurt his knee so that I could show him who's the real man around town by carrying him

 - I'm so grateful that I have had a year and a few months to train my week stomach to face up to the horror of an eater that is my sister

 - I'm so grateful that it rains day in and day out in Portugal so that I can appreciate the weather in Utah more

 - I'm so grateful that my comps get switched often enough that no one has tried to kill Elder Valentine for singing hymns all day every day

 - I'm so grateful that I'm attractive, even when it attracts the gay men of Portugal (which are unfortunately not few in number)

But I sent a real one to mom, for things I am really grateful for! That last one has a couple stories that I'll tell you after the mission...

This is Spencer's reply to my crazy Thanksgiving email:

Haha when you talked about the indian who brought McDonald's I was confused and almost thought McDonalds was really old until I read the rest of the paragraph. That sounds like an awesome trip! So how is your whole work thing going? I still don't know what changed to make you travel so much!

You know, the office is kind of stressful sometimes, but I really am doing great. I love every opportunity I have to teach and I love seeing people change. And the office is a way I can help all of the missionaries in my mission focus on their work and not on the temporal stuff! And I talk to President probably more than 99% of the other missionaries in the mission, so it really is a blessing. I really am so grateful for a family who supports me and loves me and is glad I am serving a mission! 

I really liked your Bishop's letter to the members. You're such a good Bishop! You really are a blessing for a whole lot of people.

Okay gotta make like a baby and "head out!" I hope you got that one, it's funny. :) Love you dad! I loved hearing about your trip stuff and the Thanksgiving stuff and your Bishop stuff. I love stuff!

Love, Elder Valentine! 

What Do I Call This? Chinese Character Email!

I'm not sure what Elder Valentine was saying with his email title...something in Chinese! But here's the email from November 21

世界中の親愛なる人,

These last couple weeks have been awesome! We have found two big families, one Brazilian and one Portuguese, and I just love teaching families! Because that is what the gospel is all about. Families. Our goal as members of this church is not to just be baptized, or to live a good life, but really to finish worthy of an eternal family by living our covenants that we make with our Father in Heaven. The Portuguese family we found, Cardoso, Susana, João Pedro, Diogo, and one other son that I haven't met yet, have so much potential to be an eternal family! Do we sometimes take what we have for granted? Did you have a bad week last week, or maybe you are facing a big struggle in your life? Take hope in the fact that your family can truly be united for eternity! This trial is but a moment, and after we will all be united with our Heavenly Father. I love this doctrine of the gospel! I am so happy to have the opportunity to teach people the Plan of Salvation and show them the path they can take to an eternal family. We have only been able to teach these families once each, so we will see how it goes, but I have so much faith that their families will be blessed with the gospel. God truly loves us, and wants us all back! He wants YOU back! So listen to Him, for God said "if you will ask of me you shall receive; if you will knock it shall be opened unto you." 

Besides that, our house flooded this week! And we live on the second floor! We have a really bad rain storm a few days ago and we woke up to a lake in our kitchen. Our apartment was probably built like 2000 years ago by the Romans or something, and water came pouring through cracks in the ceiling. We had to put pots under the little streams of water coming out, and I felt like the wizard in the Sword in the Stone, that old cartoon, when his house gets caught in a similar situation. Suffice to say, we will be moving out of this house soon, especially since it is the same place where I got bed bugs a few weeks ago. :)

Have a good week all! Remember that God loves you and wants you to be His, with all of your family. But it counts on you, so go make it happen!

- Elder Valentine! 

P.S. 私は日本語は話せませんが、あなたはクールです。:)