week # 13

Hellllooooo family!!

It has been One happy week!! 

Sorry for not sending my email to you yesterday!! Today we had temple p-day which means that we then do all of our p-day activities today but also because since yesterday was a public holiday no library was open! And I too apologise for not even having the time to send you a letter! Don't worry though my letter to you all is still in progress so it will arrive to you i hope very shortly!

Well on Sunday i was able to see G, F and S ! They came to our ward sacrament ( they are my Dominican friend and family that live in Sydney) and because they know a family in the ward as well they had gone to their place for dinner and lucky for us we were invited to that dinner too haha!! So It was really good to get to catch up with them!!

Hey but i have an experience to tell you!!! So as k missionaries we have been putting on an English Class at the B H chapel and at first there was a couple of people who came but lately no one has come which had been disappointing. because of that we said that if no one showed up again for last saturday we would have to cancel english classes al together until we knew there would be people coming! But we had a miracle!!! Someone actaully came to English class and guess what!! She is from Argentina!! her name is E and her english is not so good so I was able to practice my own spanish to help her understand english haha!! It was very fun and by the end of the lesson she was very grateful and thought Sister Cluff and I were great teachers haha! So we are hoping this saturday she comes again and we can be there so i can help out!

Love you all so much! I'm so grateful to hear that everyone is safe and well!! 

Love,

Sister Valdes!!

P.S i was wondering if you were able to send me your brown boots for me to use? It's been raining a lot lately and my feet have been getting wet haha!! If not no worries! Love you!!

My Awesome District

Hello President H!!

Sister C and I have had an amazing past week! My core experience with God would have to be with the P, a less active family in K 2 ward. They are a couple who haven't come to church for about 20 to 30 years now!! We have had a couple of contact visits with brother P and each time we have come over he didn't seem very happy or polite about our visit and even mentioned that we shouldn't hold our breath to even think that they would come back to church. However, last wednesday, being the persistent missionaries we are, we knocked on their door again to see how they were doing and this time Brother P actually let us inside and we got to meet his wife!! We had a lovely chat with them and we were able to get to know them and warm up to them a bit more. Unfortunately they have left for E for a month so we won't be able to see them for a few weeks but the great miracle is that they are happy for us to come back and visit with them when they get back! So i'm just so glad that heavenly father soften Brother P's heart so that we were able to get into their home and leave the spirit with them!

My best practice for teaching as Jesus taught i felt was yesterday with our potential investigator named J! he is a young man who goes to H and currently studying theology. We left a book of Mormon with him a couple of days earlier and we thought to go by his house to see how his reading was going! He said that he had skimmed through it a bit and to a conclusion mentioned that he wasn't really interested in converting to our beliefs. However I really didn't feel right for us to leave him at that particular moment. I was strongly prompted to bear my testimony and boldly testify how the book of Mormon can bless his life and that the message we share will help him be a lot happier. With that he decided to have us share more of our message to him and so on his doorstep we were able to teach him a lesson that very day! What was even more of a miracle was that he referred all 4 of his H friends who lives with him in the flat to come hear our message too! So it really bore testimony to me how powerful the spirit can be when we are bold!

Sometimes it can be hard to resist the temptation to become discouraged, but what has helped me the most to resist these temptations is by singing a song either in my mind or out loud as well as talking it out with Sister C. Just singing any hymn that comes into my head at the time really does fill me with the spirit to uplift me and remind me that no matter if we aren't having much success at the time heavenly father is still pleased with me for working hard and doing my best and because of that blessings will come around the corner! Talking with sister C

Sisters at the temple 

also helps because it always turns out that she knows exactly what to say to help make me smile and gives me that encouragement to keep on going! And i'm truly grateful to have her as my companion!

Nothing confidential to say.

With lots of love, 

Sister Valdes

week # 10 In the field BUT Three MONTHS out!!!

Hello everyone!!!

Well this week has been amazing with so many things happening and so many miracles received every day! And i mean everyday!!! 

So we had a couple of the ysa in both wards come out with us this week which was so much fun!! many of the girls are deciding to go out on missions which makes my heart leap for joy when they tell us and of course i let them know that they won't regret there decision on going because being a missionary is totally awesome haha!! 

Oh and do you remeber me telling you about a man named D? he was the man we found tracting that was reading the BOM and was up to Alma? Well we have been trying to visit him regularly and this week we saw him again! he really is such a nice man and i think he loves having us come over because all he does is stay at home. We had a great chat with him but unfortunately we still haven't been able to see his wife! We will continue to work with him and hopefully one day we'll get to know his wife! 

 But a funny story, so we were tracting with a member named M and we came to a house where I new they spoke spanish, so i was embracing myself to get ready to speak and give away one of the spanish pamphlets that i had stoked in my bag! So at first he seemed so friendly and we we found out that he was from Spain! So i began to tell him that i spoke spanish too and lead the conversation to the gospel! As soon as he realised then that we were there on his doorstep on a religious basis he immediately tried to close the door on us but i kept on shooting him questions so we could speak more but.... he didn't want to listen and he closed the door on us haha!!! Well i was just happy that i tried to speak spanish and at least he now knows the church's name!

But thank you all so much for your emails! papi thank-you for the great talk you gave me! I finally finished reading it and it's so good!! I'm definelty working now towards being the challenging and testifying missionary!! 

Love you all heaps and continue to stay well!!

Sister Valdes!

P.S can you please send me a letter with your emails i haven't had the chance to read them and i don't have time to print them out! Sorry, but thank-you!!

Oh and say thank-you to brother R and P for their emails! Let them know i will be relpying as soon as i get the chance :)

Hi President H!

My core experience with god this week would have to be how a couple of times, both Sister C and I have had the same promptings to go tracting on a particular street! Just having these same strong feelings i thought was pretty cool but what made each experience even more amazing was that every time we had followed these promptings we had found beautiful people who wanted us to come back and teach them more about the gospel!!! It truly has been a great week for finding people and I know that Heavenly father has truly blessed us and sometimes it amazes me that He trusts us this much to find these people and when we do he believes that we can be the help to get them closer to Him and His son! 

My best practice for teaching as Jesus taught i feel has been the times when we have gone tracting. I have been trying to improve my teaching skills in the way I listen to when my companion, the member with us and the people we are talking to are speaking. It is how we are able to have the spirit work in us to know exactly what to say that will touch those people hearts or have them respond to a questions that allows us to teach doctrine to them. So i have felt  that those times when i do listen to those who are talking rather than think of what i am going to say next, has assisted the spirit the be received by those people we had found during tracting and how we were able to receive a return appointment with them because they had felt the spirit! This gets me excited that as i continue to improve this skill i heavenly father with continue to bless us with even more people who are prepared to hear the gospel and want us to come back to teach them and soon after want to be baptised!

Thus my plan to make sure that we have a baptism in the month of June, is to invite/challenge all those new people we have found to be baptised on the very first lesson! This is something that i haven't done as of yet but i know that as i continue to pray for help to have that courage to invite this will help our investigators to know what is expected as they come to know the truth of what we are teaching! As well as having consistent, persistent follow up with them on their commitments as to make sure that they understand that what we are leaving with them to do is what will help them come to know the truth. With that, to also have regular contact with them either by phone or visiting them to check on how they are doing. I feel that by doing this we can assist in someone being baptised this month for sure!!

Nothing confidential to share.

Lots of love, 

Sister Valdes xx

week # 9

Hello my beautiful family!!!!

This week has been another great week in the areas of both K1 and k2!! The work is slowly but surely progressing along and I feel many more great miracles will happen for both wards soon!

Okay well since you asked, our flat is in the middle of the great suburb of k itself haha! 

Wow i can't believe it will be J last week in his transfer mission!! You know, i didn't think it was so bad of a question to ask missionaries how long they have been out so far on their mission but now being the missionary and having a lot of people and i mean a lot of people ask you how long you have been on your mission so far is quite depressing haha. seriously I have lost count on how long i have been out and sometimes i forget that it has been a while now and i just tell them it has been only a couple of weeks haha! I think it is one of my least favourite questions to answer haha! 

But Sister C and i have been working quite a lot with the members this week which really has been great! I am seeing their enthusiasm grow for missionary work and the great goals they have come up with as a family to hasten the work of salvation! I think maybe it would be even a great idea for you papi and jeryn to create some goals of your own too that are centred around missionary work. What we as missionaries have been doing is what is called the family mission plan and basically that is thinking of one main goal that you would like to achieve by the end of the year such as inviting a friend or family to hear the missionary discussions and then have 4 other little goals that will help you achieve that main goal such as having them over for family home evening or inviting them to activities or church. And then they put that on a sheet of paper and stick it up on a wall that is easily seen by everyone to help remind them of what they are working towards. I know that this hasn't been a problem for either you or papi to do your missionary work but i think it will be great for jeryn to start thinking about who of his friends he can share the gospel with and by setting some goals this can really help to see what you can achieve in the long run! So i invite you as a family ever so lovingly, to do that and let me know how you go!

i really do love you all and continue to be happy!!

Lots of love,

Sister Valdes

Hello President H,

My core experience with God this week has to be one of my favourite miracles! Sister C and I planned to go tracting while waiting for the zone leaders to come by to pick up my passport, and out of all the doors we had knocked on at first, no one seemed to be interested in wanting to take the survey. One Chinese lady in particular didn't speak much English and knowing that i had a Chinese restoration pamphlet in the car made me regret that i took it out of my bag in the first place. However as we continued to knock on doors i had the prompting to go back to the car and grab the Chinese pamphlet just in case we happened to meet another Chinese speaking person. And to our great joy we met a nice Chinese lady named B!!! She didn't speak much English at all but she knew enough for us to have a really good conversation with her. I was so glad that i followed the prompting of the spirit and grabbed the pamphlet out of the car because this is what made B want to hear more about the gospel because she could read something she could understand! She was so excited to have met us and we have an appointment with her this Tuesday so i can't wait to continue to follow the promptings i may receive to continue to help B come closer to Christ! For me, this experience has made me so grateful to know that all that i am doing now is what is allowing the spirit to dwell with me and even more grateful that i was obedient even to have followed what the spirit was whispering for me to do! If i hadn't then we wouldn't have found our new investigator B!

My best practice in teaching as Jesus taught would have to be my improvement in having no fear! This is one of the goals i am working towards to help make me become a more effective missionary and i found that this week has been the best period of time so far on my mission that i have worked and taught lessons with as much faith as possible, in myself and in the Lord. It's not to say that i haven't gotten nervous at times, but the fear of opening my mouth and speaking what i feel to say is not such a hard thing for me to do anymore. As i see myself building my faith and getting to know God and the Saviour more as i study my scriptures and praying more sincerely i find myself having more faith in them to help me do this work, for i definitely know i can not do it alone.

At the moment how i feel about my level of consecration is quite good. I know there a few things i can do better that i am working towards to help me become even more consecrated. And currently by doing the 40 day fast so far has helped me refine myself a lot more to be more aligned with my Heavenly father. Thus my intentions for the remainder of my mission is to continue to work hard and not lose hope in the people we are teaching so far and will yet to come. As well as seeing my vision come to pass which is to see at least 1 miracle every day and to touch many people's hearts with the spirit every day, that will lead them to accept the challenge to be baptised! 

Nothing confidential to say.

With much love, 

Sister Valdes xx

sorry this is week # 7 I missed to post

Hola mami y papi y Familia!

I too was so very glad to have been able to speak to you last night! 40 minutes is definitely not enough to speak because i realised there was so much more that i could have talked to you all about but i guess when you have a time limit your mind starts ticking like crazy wondering what things to mention haha! Well one thing that i regret not remembering to let you know mum was that I sang in Sacrament yesterday in K2 ward!! I sang together with Sister Cluff the children's song "Mother i love you". I thought we sounded good but I was just really happy to know that i took your counsel to take any opportunity possible to sing haha! So i hope this makes you SMILE!!! 

Wow but the DoTerra oils sound amazing! i will gladly be one of your guinness pigs to try them out!

So i do have a lot of things i want to share that happened all this past week and things i can't beleive i actually have done this week because they seem like it was ages ago when i did them. Well last monday for p-day one of the members in k1 ward her name is Sister L, so very kindly made an appointment for me to get my eyebrows threaded haha because they other day i was telling her that i really wanted to get them fixed. So sister L took us to see her friend that lives close by to get them done. This friend of hers has her won business in her own home which was exciting because Sister C and I of course took this as a missionary opportunity to get to know more about her and even teach her something about the gospel. The lady's name is P and she is the most kindest and loving person ever! Sister L has been friends with her for a while so after i got my eyebrows done we had a nice chat with her and her daughter while eating some indian sweets and was able to now have our foot in the door to visit her again to talk to her more about the message we have to share! At the last minute too Sister C then decides she would like to have her eyebrows threaded too and this being her first time she was so nervous! haha it was so funny! Sister C was in a little pain afterwards and her eyebrows went really red and swelled a bit for the rest of the day. What was even worse was that we had a dinner appointment which we got told about last minute to go to so it was a little embarrassing for her to walk into the families home with red eyebrows!

last wednesday Sister C and I had some good fun visiting some of the members in the k2 ward. One of the families were the C, and brother and sister C have some pretty interesting talents! Sister C in particular is an artist when it comes to painting life size baby dolls! She has her own business where she paints them to look life like and then she sells them to major TV series to have them used in the show and at the moment she told us she is actually on her way to finish another couple baby dolls for a movie! How amazing is that! When Sister C and I saw these babies, because they were all spread out in her living room we both wanted to hold one straight away! And let me tell you, they definitely look so real! because as missionaries we are not allowed to hold babies it was our chance to do so haha! Especially when both wards have the cutest babies ever, it's can get quite hard to have to sit on our hands and resist the urge to take them of their mother! This may sound a bit creepy but i guess you just have to be a sister missionary to experience that for yourself hehe!

Overall so many miracles are trully happening everyday and my love for missionary work grows stronger each minute! Life is definelty not easy but by the end of the day I always feel like we have achieved so much even when it doesn't show on paper! 

Love you all so very much and I hope you have a great week!

Con mucho amor,

Sister Valdes xx

P.S picture 1 = me having eyebrows threaded, picture 2 = Us eating some of Sister Cluff mum's famous dirt cake that we made!!! So good!!

Hi President H!

My core experience with God this week was earlier last week during tracting. Sister C and I knocked on this one door where this older lady opened it and at first was a bit hesitant to do the survey. But after some convincing we were able to actually be invited into her home and have a really good conversation with her! We soon found out that she was visiting from South Africa but originally is from Germany. Once i heard she was German i immediately put my German language skills into use and started to talk with her! Which was quite exciting because it had been a while since i had practiced my German and the words and sentences just formed as i spoke. So I thought that was pretty amazing to know that when there is a skill heavenly father knows we have he will put people in our way in order for us to use it and hopefully bless their lives. Unfortunately she was leaving back to South Africa that same week but i have a strong feeling that she will soon encounter more missionaries when she goes back home. 

My best practice for teaching as Jesus taught i think was during the lesson we had with an investigator named R. She has been having trouble committing to say a prayer and i feel that i had done better than i have before in being persistent in having an investigator say yes to commit to something. As with Jesus Christ, throughout the scriptures He emphasised on basic principles a lot to get his point across in order for others to commit themselves to live within that certain principle and thus i feel like having patience but also being persistent and bold is a trait that i am continuing to develop as i teach R and more new investigators. 

A characteristic that i admire in Sister C is her ability to make sense when she talks. She speaks in a very clear and direct way. It may sound a little strange that i have picked this particular strength of hers but i see that she has been able to strengthen it by studying upon her scriptures and gaining more of that knowledge of the gospel so that she will have it at that moment when the spirit leads and directs her. Speaking clearly is not one of my strengths so i know that by effectively using that time to role play in companionship study or in 12 weeks as well as study more upon the material i have such as the scriptures and Preach My gospel i can develop this skill and learn to trust in the spirit to guide me. 

Nothing confidential to say 

Lots of love,

Sister Valdes