Week Two of Training - April 28, 2014

Hey Everyone!

I hope everyone is doing well and enjoying this time leading up to
summer! I'm still shocked at how fast time seems to fly by. I will hit
nine months on the mission in about a week from now, and I can't
believe it! This week has been full of miscellaneous things and
success, so there is always a twist to the day!

Tuesday, April 22nd, 2014:

Elder Barnes has now been in the mission field for a full week, so
today was the day to go to the new missionary training meeting. The
meeting was held at the mission office with all of the trainers and
trainees. Elder Barnes said he really enjoyed the meeting and learned
a lot from it. He said that he particularly liked role playing the
Restoration, the Book of Mormon and a church tour while there; we
haven't had as much time as is preferred to role play in the mornings,
so it gave him a good opportunity to learn how to teach a few
different lessons that we often teach as missionaries. As a trainer,
it is my responsibility to balance the practice teaching that we do in
the mornings with the actual lessons that we teach to investigators
and less-active members. We didn't get back to the apartment until
after dinner time, so we grabbed a quick bite to eat before heading
out to work. We were really hopeful to have a lesson with Chris Varela
tonight. We decided to go help him with his homework and then teach
him afterwards. His homework ended up taking up the remainder of the
time that we had, so we were unable to teach him anything
Gospel-related. He will need more help from us with school if his
mother is going to give him permission to be baptized.

Wednesday, April 23rd, 2014:

During the morning and early afternoon, our whole district went over
to do service for Hector and Julia. They are the couple who was
baptized on Sunday (I performed the ordinance for Julia). There was a
lot to be done in the yard, so we spent about three hours helping them
clean up. When we finished, the Hermanas and Hermana Velasquez, a
member from the branch who came to help us, went to go grab pizza. The
other Elders and I practiced a birthday song in Spanish that we would
sing to Hermana Lopez that evening for her birthday. Elder Barnes and
I had to go to the doctor to help Elder Barnes, who is doing well.
Upon returning from the appointment, I made some tacos de chorizo for
Elder Barnes and I. They were really good and pretty close to the same
quality as the ones on the street! Elder Barnes wanted to go give Alex
Varela a Priesthood blessing to help him heal up from his flu-like
symptoms; I did the anointing and then let Elder Barnes do the
blessing, which was his first one in Spanish. His Spanish is
progressing quite nicely, and it was a great opportunity for him to
practice using more Spanish. During the evening, we went to the church
for mutual. Elder Knight made a cake for Hermana Lopez, and we picked
up some candles. We gave her the cake and then sang the birthday song
out of the Children's Songbook for her in Spanish. She loved it and
was really happy.

Thursday, April 24th, 2014:

As a follow-up to the doctor's appointment yesterday, Elder Barnes
needed to get some blood work done. We went up to Pasadena to get some
blood drawn, which will be sent back to the doctor in a few days.
Elder Barnes and I then went to district meeting at the church. Elder
Knight's lesson on our missionary purpose had a very interesting
perspective and take on the joys and struggles that are written into
what we do on a daily basis as missionaries. I enjoyed the lesson and
learned a lot from it. After district meeting, we returned to the
apartment to get some more studies in. I have really been struggling
to get enough studies and time with the "Twelve Weeks" program that
new missionaries are supposed to do. It's difficult to find enough
time in the day to get everything done that I want to get done!
Studies are essential for learning and practice so that we can teach
to the best of our abilities as missionaries. The only other thing
that we had time for during the evening was going to visit Alex and
Chris Varela. Elder Barnes and I focused the lesson on the importance
of reading the Book of Mormon because it has become apparent that
Chris hasn't been reading the Book of Mormon or praying as much
lately. We focused on Mosiah 18 so that Chris understands more of the
baptismal covenant; reading from the chapter in Mosiah also helped
Chris understand more about the importance of reading every day from
the Book of Mormon. Chris committed to read and pray every day, which
should show his mother that he truly desires to be baptized. Our
actions reflect the desires of our hearts, so we must act on our
faith.

Friday, April 25th, 2014:

As is usual on Fridays, Elder Barnes and I began weekly planning
shortly before noon. What is unusual, however, is spending over five
hours on weekly planning. President Becerra gives us three hours every
Friday to do it, and I think the five hours that we spent today may
have been the longest weekly planning session that I have ever been a
part of. We got through planning for all of our investigators in a
fairly quick amount of time, but we ended up spending a lot of time
trying to figure out how we can help Elder Barnes with his health. He
has been pretty stressed with trying to maintain it, so I felt it was
necessary to implement an effective plan of what we can do to help
him. After weekly planning, we went to contact one of the referrals
that we were given a couple of days ago. Unfortunately, it was a fake
address. After trying to contact that referral, it was time to go to
correlation meeting with Hermano Monzon. Hermano Monzon took Elder
Barnes, Hermana Vellinga, Hermana Lopez and I to get helote (it's kind
of like corn on the cob with a lot of other things on it) while we
went to go pick up Elder Knight and Elder Turner. Hermano Monzon
continually expressed how grateful he is to be able to work with us;
he is such a nice guy and really loves missionary work.

Saturday, April 26th, 2014:

I felt like our full time spent studying made all of the difference
today. Due to miscellaneous things that come up every day, we haven't
been able to devote as much time to our studies in the mornings as I
would like. We had a full four hours of studies today, and we had a
ton of success as the rest of the day went along. We went to the
pharmacy for Elder Barnes after studies, which put us in the area of a
couple of investigators named Gloria and Fernando. I haven't taught
them in a little while, and we were lucky to find them home. We
started sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ, but it quickly became
apparent that we needed to go back to the beginning and clarify more
about the Restoration. Elder Barnes shared a very powerful testimony
that what we were sharing was true. Fernando prayed at the end of the
lesson, and I think they are becoming more interested in what we have
to share. As we were leaving their house, I had the thought come into
my mind that we should stop by Santiago Garcia and Hermana Gonzalez.
We found them cleaning up from a yard sale and began to help them. We
then sat down and started talking about how we can help them in their
garden. Elder Barnes and I then shared Alma 32 and related how a seed
is a good analogy for Santiago's testimony to begin to grow; however,
he will need to water that seed by beginning to pray and read the Book
of Mormon more often. I feel like we are really starting to develop a
better relationship with them. Silvia Recinos and her son, Jose
Chavez, came to pick us up when we got back to our apartment. They
took us back to their house to eat pupusas with them, which were
really tasty! We talked to Silvia about what to do to obtain a new
birth certificate because the current one that she has apparently
isn't valid. She is going to try to get her sister to send it to the
States for her to be able to use to get the ID card to ultimately be
able to get married and then baptized. We talked to Jose for a while
about missionary work and about his responsibilities as a
member-missionary. It is incredible to hear about the changes that he
has made in his life through the Gospel. I love being able to hear the
experiences that people have in changing their lives.

Sunday, April 27th, 2014:

Church was pretty good, but one of the members of the branch
presidency kind of called out the entire branch for not showing up to
help out at a Mormon Helping Hands activity yesterday morning. I felt
a little awkward when he called everyone out, but it goes to show that
we need to be more proactive about doing service each and every day!
Elder Barnes and I were fortunate to have three investigators come to
church today, and each of them is progressing quite well! Alex Varela
should be able to get the Aaronic Priesthood next Sunday, too. There
are a lot of things happening in this little branch; I love seeing all
of the positive movement! After church ended, Elder Knight, Elder
Turner, Elder Barnes and I all went to the Perez family's house for
dinner. Their cousin was at the house, and she has been investigating
the Church for four years. Valerie has been waiting to get permission
to be baptized from her father, and it sounds like she will be able to
get baptized on her birthday in two months from now! It was nice to be
able to help answer some more of her questions as she prepares for her
big day! To conclude the evening, we stopped by the Varelas again to
say hello to Abel. Sunday is the only day of the week that we are ever
able to visit him, so it was good to see how he has been doing. We
didn't have time to share anything, but we will be able to go do
service for them on Saturday.

For P-Day today, our zone is having another zone activity! We are
going to play dodgeball at our church building in South Pasadena; it
will be my first time playing dodgeball as a missionary, so I cannot
wait! We are going to play at 1 PM, so Elder Barnes and I are trying
to get ourselves all ready to have some fun! I appreciate all of your
love and support! I hope you all have a wonderful week!

Love,
Elder Gabriel Valley

Sent from my iPad

Training a New Missionary - April 21, 2014

Hey Everyone!

I hope everyone has had a wonderful Easter! My weekend here was quite
eventful: I was part of a wedding, a special planning meeting with my
mission president, as well as three baptisms yesterday -- I was able
to perform one of those three, too.

Tuesday, April 15th, 2014:

I had spent the evening with Elder Knight and Elder Turner, seeing
that Elder Steffen left last week to go to Covina. It was really fun
and nice to be in a trio once again; the nice part about trios is that
it is much easier to get along in a group of three than in a group of
three and have more fun, too. We spent a lot of time trying to find a
couple of former investigators during the day, but no one was home
before the time that I had to leave to go to the mission office. When
I got to the mission office in the afternoon, I got to meet my new
trainee, Elder Barnes. He is from South Jordan, Utah and is actually
one month younger than me. That makes me the third-youngest missionary
in the whole mission! Elder Barnes has a great desire to work hard and
serve The Lord. I feel incredibly overwhelmed and intimidated to be
training, and the scarier part is that I am the only Spanish Elder
training an incoming missionary this transfer; it is a lot of
responsibility on my part. When we got back to the apartment, Elder
Barnes set down his stuff, and we then left to go eat dinner at the
Perez family's house. It was Elder Turner's birthday, so they had
everyone over to eat gazpacho. I was really nervous, considering that
gazpacho is a cold soup made with shrimp and other sea food. Anyone
who knows my dad knows that his allergy to shellfish is quite
apparent, so I was worried that I may have developed the same allergy.
It was my first time ever eating shrimp in my life; I haven't died
yet, so I guess that means I haven't gotten the allergy? For dessert,
the Perez family made a nice big cake. The best part is the Latino
tradition for birthdays: when Elder Turner went to blow out the
candles, everyone grabbed his head and shoved it into the cake. It had
to be one of the funniest experiences on my mission so far. Elder
Barnes had a fun first day in the mission field.

Wednesday, April 16th, 2014:

During the morning, Elder Knight, Elder Turner, Elder Barnes and I all
went up to a food bank to do service. They are giving out a ton of
food for low-income families, and they have been getting ready for the
Easter season by preparing baskets to give out with all of the food.
It was a fun service opportunity where we got to move giant crates of
food and stock all of the shelves for people coming in to pick up food
to eat for the Easter holiday. I love doing service because of how
great I feel helping people. When we got back to the apartment, I only
had a few minutes to help Elder Barnes get ready to teach Santiago. I
role played a little bit with him to get him used to how we teach
lessons. Teaching in the mission field is drastically different than
teaching in the MTC. He is doing really well, but the Spanish is
definitely a barrier for him right now. It reminded me of how
overwhelmed I felt when I got into the mission field, and it is quite
the task of helping him adjust to missionary life. We went to
Santiago's house to teach him about the Gospel of Jesus Christ,
focusing on the ordinance of baptism. We taught him the lesson and
invited him to be baptized. He declined and said that he wants to
continue learning before he accepts the invitation to be baptized. He
seems to be progressing, but he will need time before he eventually
comes to accept the invitation to be baptized. During the evening, we
went down to the church for mutual. It was nice to see how warm of a
welcome the ward gave Elder Barnes in his first interaction with them.

Thursday, April 17th, 2014:

At district meeting, we talked about conversion and the importance of
being personally converted to be able to help others see the path of
conversion. It was a nice discussion, and I feel like our district is
doing really well together; we have that unity that comes over time
because only one person changed from last transfer to this transfer.
After district meeting ended, we started preparing everything for the
wedding of two of the investigators that the Hermanas are teaching,
Julia and Hector. They are going to be baptized this Sunday, so they
need to be married and live the Law of Chastity before they enter the
waters of baptism. Our whole district joined in on the preparations to
help make the wedding special for them. President Muriel will perform
the ceremony. Elder Barnes and I went to go visit Alex Varela after we
finished helping with the preparations. We talked to Alex about the
concept of enduring to the end. He is now all finished with all of the
lessons that are supposed to be finished after baptism. The only
things that he still needs is the Priesthood and a calling. Alex is a
solid member who will be able to contribute a lot to the branch and
help others come into the Church, too. We returned to the church to
help with the last-minute preparations for the wedding. One of the
recent converts, Liz Carbajal, made a wedding cake that looked very
elegant and tasted even better than it looked. The wedding ceremony
was really special. It was quite the honor to be a part of the wedding
pronouncement.

Friday, April 18th, 2014:

President Becerra had a planning meeting with our entire zone about
three weeks ago, but our whole district somehow got forgotten. He made
the time to come meet with our district in the morning. It was so nice
to be able to spend two hours with President Becerra and learn so much
from him. President Becerra gave us a two-hour lesson (more of a group
discussion) that helped us realize the importance of planning with our
end vision in mind. President Becerra is a wonderful teacher and helps
us learn without giving us the answer; he helps us work out the
solution for ourselves and then teaches us the doctrine after we have
worked out the problem. After the meeting, Elder Barnes and I returned
to the apartment to do weekly planning. It was a good experience for
Elder Barnes to do his first weekly planning session right after we
had just talked to President Becerra about planning. It was a little
long, but it was to be expected for his first weekly planning session.
After weekly planning, we went to talk to Chris Varela about the Word
of Wisdom and Easter. He seems to be more and more excited to get
baptized; he only needs to wait for his mother to give him permission
to be baptized, and I think the approval will come very soon. To
finish off the evening, Elder Barnes and I went down to the church for
correlation meeting. We found out that the Hermanas got an
investigator approved by the First Presidency of the Church to be
baptized this Sunday, meaning that a total of three baptisms will take
place on Sunday!

Saturday, April 19th, 2014:

Today was the first "normal" day this whole week. We were able to do
our whole study session and begin on "The First Twelve Weeks," which
is the training program for new missionaries. The day consisted of a
lot of work with little success to show for it. I felt bad that Elder
Barnes didn't have a whole lot of teaching today, but it gives a good
indicator for what missionary work is like on a daily basis. We found
a new family named the Merlos family, and I couldn't quite tell if
they are members or not; they didn't really answer me very clearly
when I asked them. The Varelas also invited us over for dinner
tomorrow on Easter. It was a rather uneventful day, but we are still
working hard each and every day.

Sunday, April 20th, 2014:

This may have been one of the most exciting days on the mission to
date because the Hermanas had three baptisms today! It was also
Easter, meaning that the talks and program were all really good and
interesting. Elder Barnes and I helped teach Primary today, and they
were really crazy. We did, however, help Silvia get the money for
obtaining an ID card from the El Salvador consulate in L.A. She is
going to go down there on Thursday, and then she will be able to get
married and baptized right away! After church ended, we had the
baptismal service for Hector and Julia. The really exciting part for
me was that I was able to perform the baptism for Julia; it was the
first time on my mission that I was able to perform the actual
ordinance. Hermano Monzon performed the ordinance for Hector, and it
was a very spiritual experience for everyone present. The third
baptism was for Genaro, who was approved by the First Presidency. We
were able to Skype some Hermanas from the Temple Square Mission who
talked to Genaro when he went down to Salt Lake for General
Conference. Our district sang "I Like to Look for Rainbows" in
Spanish. The remainder of the day was fairly slow, but it was really
exciting to see all of the progress in this branch today. There have
already been five baptisms in this branch this year.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter and has a wonderful week. I
love you all and appreciate all of your support!

Love,
Elder Gabriel Valley

Sent from my iPad

My Mission President is Going to be a General Authority! - April 9, 2014

Hey Everyone!

I hope everyone was taking notes during General Conference because
that was probably the absolute best General Conference that I have
ever listened to! The Brethren were very bold and had some great
insights about what we must do to continue along the strait and narrow
path. This week felt quite long (at least between P-days) because we
normally don't have to go ten days between having a day off.
Regardless, General Conference and our temple trip made it all worth
it! Plus, I have two awesome pieces of news: President Becerra (my
current mission president) was called as an Area Seventy in General
Conference -- I believe that is why Elder Dallin H. Oaks came to our
mission a couple of weeks back, now that I think about it; also, Iwill be a trainer this upcoming transfer!

Tuesday, April 1st, 2014:

I had completely forgotten that April 1st meant that it was April
Fools Day. The morning seemed pretty normal until we got a text
message from Elder Knight and Elder Turner: they are going to take
away our iPads! I started freaking out and making all of the
preparations to switch back to pre-iPad life. After about an hour of
stress and anxiety, Elder Steffen finally realized that today was
April Fool's Day. We called Elder Knight to confirm that it was only a
joke, and I felt like my blood pressure returned back to normal. ElderSteffen had to go to the bike shop to fix one of his pedals, so we
dropped off his bike before heading over to the library to finally
email. I felt bad for not getting all of my emails sent out on Monday,
but it was very nice to be able to talk to my family. I find that
talking with my family is one of my favorite parts of the whole week,
and talking with them every week makes me miss them more and more.
Elder Steffen and I went by a lot of houses, but no one was home. We
have to have the tough days as missionaries to experience the good
days, so hopefully more success is around the corner. At night, Elder
Knight told us that we will be doing exchanges; I will be staying here
with Elder Knight, and Elder Steffen will be going to El Molino -
Central with Elder Turner. I'm quite excited to spend some more time
with my trainer, Elder Knight!

Wednesday, April 2nd, 2014:

Elder Knight and I stayed up talking, and it was really fun to catch
up on what has happened since we were together about four months ago.
I really enjoyed spending time with him; I enjoyed his company a whole
lot more today because I have learned so much since he trained me,
which made me appreciate his skills and abilities much more now. The
more I was around Elder Knight, the more good memories from Chino came
back into my mind. During the day, Elder Knight and I did the most
walking that I have done on my mission so far. I wasn't familiar with
the area that we were working in, so we went to many areas in which I
got lost. We were also unlucky to not find anyone at home during the
day. It brought back so many memories of Chino back when Elder Knight
and I would work for hours during the heat of the day and fail to find
a single person that would listen to us. The good part was that Elder
Knight and I really enjoy each other's company, so the work today was
quite fun. During the afternoon, there was some really heavy rain
outside that prevented us from being able to visit Hermano Magdaleno.
Fortunately, we managed to make it through the rain in time to talk to
Alex Varela. Elder Knight and I taught very well together; our
chemistry in teaching came right back. We taught Alex about the
importance of teaching and learning, specifically about how he can do
more for others by teaching them about the Gospel, causing him to
learn more in the process. Every time that I visit Alex, I develop
greater love for the man. Elder Knight and I then went to the church
to switch back companions. Chris Varela needed help with his homework,
so I helped him with his math homework while I waited for Elder Turner
and Elder Steffen to get there. It was such a fun day with Elder
Knight, and I miss serving with him.

Thursday, April 3rd, 2014:

Zone meeting for the East LA - North Zone takes place at the Fletcher
building. Elder Steffen and I had to travel about two hours each way,
which ate up the better part of our day. During the first hour of zone
meeting, the lesson on planning was a hard to focus because of how
tired I was; however, the second half of zone meeting was really
interesting and provided a great perspective on how to show true love
for those we teach through effective planning. The zone leaders, Elder
Perez and Elder Fellows, had everyone do a role play of planning three
lessons for a loved one that we would want to see progress in the
Gospel. Elder Steffen and I did the role play and planned for one of
his less-active sisters. It was really interesting to see how much
love we could find for her and how much we wanted to help her
progress, despite the fact that it was only a role play situation.
When everyone returned for the second half of zone meeting after doing
the role plays, the zone leaders made it quite apparent that we should
have that exact same love for each of our investigators that we are
currently teaching as we had during the role play. It is also worth
noting that during the role play, our desire was helping Elder Steffen
help his sister reach the temple to be sealed to her husband, not just
the goal of helping her husband reach the waters of baptism. It took
Elder Steffen and I more than three hours to get home, so we didn't
have as much time to work during the day as we would have liked. We
stopped by Santiago to set up a return appointment on our way to eat
dinner with Silvia Recinos. Silvia is really funny and very blunt
about everything, so it was really fun to talk to her. She still
doesn't have the money for her ID card from El Salvador; we will need
to take care of that before she can obtain a marriage license. On the
way back to the apartment, an English member stopped to give us a
ride. I love how helpful members are; there is no way that we would be
able to do the work that we do on a daily basis without their
assistance.

Friday, April 4th, 2014:

The English Elders knocked on our door in the morning while we were
doing our personal studies, which really surprised us. They told us
that we needed to go with them to help dedicate the home of a
non-member named Martina. Martina is friends with a member of the
English ward and wanted a blessing for her house because their family
has been struggling to make ends meet financially. We went by and
taught Martina a little bit about how the Gospel of Jesus Christ will
bless her family if she chooses to live the commandments of God. She
is Catholic but really doesn't have much of a background with the
teachings of Christ. After we finished talking to Martina for a few
minutes, I had the privilege to say the prayer to dedicate and bless
Martina's home. It was a neat experience, even though I was a little
nervous doing it for my first time. We set up a return appointment to
come by on Wednesday; hopefully, we can get the assistance of the
English member when we go by next. We then returned to the apartment
for weekly planning. We hurried and planned so that we could update
all of the white boards in the apartment that haven't been updated in
nearly three months. Upon finishing everything, Elder Steffen and I
went to go eat dinner with Hermana Caceres. She is such a nice, humble
and hard-working member. We talked to her about getting ready for
General Conference tomorrow, and it made me really excited when we
were talking about it. Correlation got canceled last minute, so we
decided to stop by Alex Varela's house to also get him excited for
General Conference. Having the ability to listen to a modern-day
prophet is a remarkable opportunity that I am very grateful to have as
a member of the Church.

Saturday, April 5th, 2014:

We were unable to find a place to watch General Conference at, so we
went with Plan B and watched it at the East Los Angeles stake center.
It ended up being a better choice because it was easier to focus, and
there were a lot of missionaries to talk to there. We spent the entire
day at the stake center watching all three sessions. It was probably
my favorite single day of General Conference that I have ever watched
in my life due to how many incredible talks were given. Elder Jeffrey
R. Holland began the first session. In his closing testimony, he
stated that he is more sure of restored Priesthood keys than he was of
standing at the pulpit to deliver his talk in front of the audience at
the conference center. In between sessions, it was really nice to be
able to relax with all of the other missionaries and just enjoy
General Conference. I did not feel stressed at all, and everyone being
together in a group made the day much more fun. I went to Chipotle
with Elder Low and Elder Porter for lunch. It was great to be able to
catch up with both of them, and it made me realize how much I missed
being around both of them on a daily basis. Between the afternoon and
Priesthood sessions, Elder Low and I went to go get frozen yogurt. It
probably looked weird to other people to see a group of twenty or
thirty missionaries going around everywhere. Priesthood session was
probably my favorite session of General Conference overall because the
Brethren really focused on Priesthood keys and how those keys work in
detail. Elder Dallin H. Oaks made the comment that we do not have the
keys for creation or for resurrection, which was a very deep piece of
doctrine that I had never thought about before. They shared some very
deep doctrine about the Priesthood and set the issue about women
obtaining the Priesthood straight (a group called "Ordain Women" is
trying to petition President Monson to ask The Lord if they can
receive the Priesthood). I also noticed a theme among all three
sessions of General Conference today of service and courage; it seemed
like nearly every talk touched on one or both of these things. I
didn't really feel like writing down all of my notes from General
Conference into this email, but the talks that were worth listening to
from today were Elder Holland's and Elder Oak's. On a side note,
President Jorge T. Becerra, my current mission president, was called
to be an Area Seventy during the afternoon session! I can now say that
I have been serving under a General Authority! Everyone in the room
freaked out when they heard his name called by Dieter F. Uchtdorf, but
everyone later commented that they thought it was just a matter of
time before he got called as a General Authority. President Becerra is
still young (51) and very well could be called to an even higher
calling in the future; he is one inspirational and devoted man. I am
very proud to call him my mission president.

Sunday, April 6th, 2014:

For the morning session today, Elder Steffen and I went to the church
building on Huntington and Fletcher. General Conference was beingbroadcast in English and Spanish there, so we had the opportunity to
watch it in English in the chapel. I personally liked the sessions
yesterday a little bit better; however, the difference may have been
more from where I was watching it at than from the quality of the
talks. I was once again shocked at how bold all of the Brethren were
in their messages. After the first session, everyone in the El Molino
district went over to the Monzons to eat lunch and watch the last
session of General Conference. I enjoy spending time with the members,
but it was a little tough to concentrate on the messages that were
being shared at General Conference. The Monzons fed us carne asada and
ribs, which made me a little sleepy when I was trying to focus. My two
favorite talks from today's sessions were Elder Bednar's talk on
pulling a spiritual load and Elder Christofferson's talk on the
implications of the reality of Christ's resurrection nearly two
thousand years ago; Elder Ballard also gave an excellent talk about
member missionary work (everyone, please read and apply the principles
outlined from this talk, especially the part about Preach My Gospel),
and President Uchtdorf gave a really interesting perspective on
gratitude. Everything church-related as a missionary takes on a whole
new meaning. After General Conference ended, it was right back to
work. Elder Steffen and I went to Santiago's house to eat dinner with
him and Hermana Gonzalez. She made us chicken tostadas for dinner, and
it may have been the very best meal that I have eaten on the mission.
It had been exactly two weeks since we had visited them; they have
been doing well, but neither of them were able to watch General
Conference. We weren't able to share our lesson with Santiago about
the Gospel of Jesus Christ, so we are going to try to come back
tomorrow to have a lesson. Elder Steffen and I were also able to meet
with the Varelas and catch both Abel and Lucy at home. We broke the
news to Abel that he is already a member of the Church; he seemed
quite shocked and said that he doesn't ever remember being baptized at
all. We are going to check the computer with him to verify that the
record we found is actually his. Lucy also told us that she wants
Chris to wait to be baptized until he shows the desire by changing
some of his habits that are contrary to God's laws, such as lying andlaziness. I'm optimistic that we can get help him in the coming
weeks, though!

Monday, April 7th, 2014:

Even though Easter hasn't even come around yet, the weather over the
past few days has felt a lot like summer. This side of the mission is
normally significantly cooler than the other side, but it has been
pushing ninety degrees over the past few days. It would be great for
someone who is on vacation; however, as a missionary with a tie, dark
slacks and dark leather shoes, it quickly becomes uncomfortable,
especially without the luxury of a car or air conditioning in the
apartment. Today was very physically exerting because we had to walk
so much in the heat of the sun. We were able to find a less-active
member named David Ortiz at home, but our ten minute visit with him
was quite awkward. He and his family were clearly uninterested, which
made it rather difficult to hold a conversation about any subject
whatsoever. During dinner time, our online investigator, Leybi
Aguilar, called to talk to Elder Steffen. He has been teaching her
since he was serving in the Belvedere 1st Ward and has been helping
her persevere through her family struggles. I haven't ever met her or
talked to her, so Elder Steffen taught her about the importance of
forgiving others for the faults they have committed; Leybi has been
having trouble trying to forgive her mother for the numerous things
that she has done to Leybi that have had physical, mental and
emotional consequences. When Leybi turns eighteen in September of this
year, she should be all ready to be baptized. To finish off the
evening, we stopped in to see Abraham and Hermana Oliva. They have
both been doing quite well, and Hermana Oliva was excited to talk to
us about General Conference. I love seeing the members excited about
General Conference because it is an indicator that they are taking the
necessary steps to continue progressing in the Gospel.

Tuesday, April 8th, 2014:

Early in the morning, Elder Mostert, one of the two Spanish AP's
called to tell me that I will be training this upcoming transfer! I
was quite surprised because I don't feel in the least bit ready to
train. Elder Steffen also commented that President Becerra picks the
trainers before anyone else; that means I was one of a hand full of
people selected to train, assuming that there will not be very many
Spanish missionaries coming into the mission field on this transfer. I
will go to the meeting for all of the trainers on Thursday afternoon
and get a trainee on Tuesday. During the afternoon, Elder Knight and
Elder Turner met Elder Steffen and I at the church to go over the
redrawn area boundaries. Elder Knight reassigned about thirty-five
people to us, which included investigators, potentials and formers.
Despite the intense heat of the day, we struggled finding anyone home
before dinner. After dinner, we talked to a guy who is less-active and
has a sister serving a full-time mission right now in Honduras. It is
really neat to run into members who may or may not be active while we
are out and about during the day. I talked to him for a little bit
about General Conference, and he still remembered a lot. To finish off
the evening, we went to visit Alex Varela, which is what we do every
Tuesday night at 8 PM. It's always nice to periodically check in on
Alex to see how he is doing. I was a little surprised to see that he
has not been reading in the Book of Mormon, like he should be doing on
a daily basis. We decided to watch Elder Holland's "Safety For the
Soul" talk about the Book of Mormon with him again to help Alex
understand the importance of the Book of Mormon on our religion. True
conversion can only come from a testimony of the Book of Mormon.

Today didn't feel like a Wednesday at all because it was our P-day. It
also felt like forever since we last had a P-Day. We went to the
temple today with our branch president, President Muriel, which was a
wonderful experience. I didn't want to leave because I don't want to
wait another six months to feel the same way that I felt today in the
temple; there is truly nothing in this world to compare to it.
President Muriel sent my parents a couple of pictures if you are
interested in seeing pictures. I can't send pictures on this iPad,
otherwise I would have sent a lot more of them over the past few
weeks.

As far as the training is concerned, I will go to a meeting tomorrow
for all of the trainers to prepare to train this coming week. All of
the new missionaries will get here on Tuesday morning, so I will not
know my new companion until then (assuming I'm not trio training,
which is a possibility). It's quite a humbling feeling to be training
so soon on my mission (the average missionary here trains after theyhave been out for about a year), so I don't feel quite adequate for the task.

 It should be fun, though! I'm excited to learn a lot in the process.

I hope everyone enjoyed General Conference and has had a wonderful
week! I love this week as a missionary because of how spiritual it is.
It is a great reminder of what truly matters in life and why we have
this church to lift us up. When we follow the commandments, we receive
blessings EVERY TIME; when we don't follow the commandments, we don't
receive blessings - EVERY TIME. It is as simple as that! Thank you for
all of your love and support! I appreciate all that each of you do on
my behalf, and I hope that everyone is well and happy!

Love,
Elder Gabriel Valley

P.S. President Becerra will finish his term as a mission president
(ends on July 1st), and he will be replaced by President Villanueva.
The Villanueva family is from Oaxaca, Mexico (if you want something
fun to do, look up the festival that happens in Oaxaca every year with
radishes). All of the mission will have the chance to meet President
Villanueva at Zone Conference, which will take place at the end of
this month or the beginning of next month.

Sent from my iPad

Misc. Pictures - April 2014

I Will Begin Training Tomorrow! - April 14, 2014

Hey Everyone!

It feels like P-Day was just yesterday! Having a P-Day on a Wednesday
like last week makes the time fly by. As you saw in the title of this
email, I will begin training tomorrow. I do know who my trainee is
going to be but that is because I am the only Spanish Elder that is
training this transfer. I will be training an Elder from South Jordan,
Utah who is named Elder Barnes. I don't know anything else about him
than that, so I'm excited to meet him tomorrow morning! I am quite
intimidated at the thought of being a trainer; hopefully all will go
well!

Thursday, April 10th, 2014:

At district meeting, we focused on the relationship between members
and missionaries, specifically how we can inspire the members to
become better missionaries and help us in the work of The Lord. We
talked a lot about a talk by Elder M. Russell Ballard from the April
2003 General Conference. The name escapes me right now, but you should
look it up and read it. On Palm Sunday, the Church will be releasing a
video called "Because of Him" that will focus on the Savior's atoning
sacrifice and why we need to remember it this Easter season. It will
be a huge initiative. Our district is planning to do a ward family
home evening on Monday night to introduce the video. In the afternoon,
I had to go to the mission office for the meeting for all of the
trainers this transfer. The assistants to the president (AP's) taught
the majority of the meeting and talked about how important being a
trainer really is. President Becerra picks all of the trainers before
anyone else, including zone leaders or AP's. I was a little shocked
that he picked me to train because I do not feel ready at all. The
meeting was good, but I wish they had gone over procedural stuff for
incoming missionaries more. I still have no idea what I am even doing
tomorrow! During the evening, Elder Steffen and I trimmed a tree for
Silvia Recinos, one of our investigators. We got her birth certificate
from her, and we later gave it to an Hermana from the Belvedere 1st
Ward in East LA who is going to translate it into English for us. We
will shortly thereafter be able to help Silvia get married and then
baptized! When we got to the church to meet the Hermana there, a film
crew was making a commercial for kosher hot dogs. We tried contacting
a few people to ask them if they wanted a tour of the church building
that would be in their commercial. They weren't too interested in a
tour, but they gave us all of their leftover food and drinks. I now
have more rice and beans than I know what to do with!

Friday, April 11th, 2014:

Silvia Recinos needed a little bit more help with cleaning up the
branches that we trimmed at her house yesterday; we went by in the
morning to help her clean it up and talk to her for a few minutes. She
is really funny and extremely blunt. She made Elder Steffen and I both
want to retire in El Salvador; she said that you can buy a really nice
house there for less than $100,000 and live like a king! We later went
back to the apartment to do our weekly planning. It consisted of me
doing almost everything because I will need the experience of running
this area by myself when my trainee comes in. I thought that I was
able to make some effective plans for this upcoming week, so we will
see how the first week with a new missionary goes. After weekly
planning, Elder Steffen and I went over to the church to meet up withthe rest of our district to plan the family home evening activity. We
planned a little bit more for the family home evening lesson and also
had correlation meeting with Hermano Monzon. Everyone was making
predictions about what is going to happen with transfer calls tomorrow
night, so it will be interesting to see what happens.

Saturday, April 12th, 2014:

It seems like a lot of our plans have been falling through over the
past couple days and weeks; today was another one of those days. I
think we went by at least fifteen different people during the best
time of the day, and we weren't able to get inside to have a lesson
with anyone. Days like today are the tough days as missionaries, but
they are necessary if we are to find success. During the evening,
Elder Steffen and I went to go talk to Alex Varela and his daughter,
Samantha. It is really good to see Alex really making the effort to
have a better relationship to his daughter; he is trying to spend more
and more time with her. We talked to both of them about the "Because
of Him" video that will be released on Sunday. After the short visit
with Alex, our whole district went to the church to continue planning
for the family home evening activity. We planned out the activity
thoroughly, and we will focus on the three main parts of the Atonement
of Christ. Right at the end of our planning, Elder Steffen got a call
from the AP's who told him that he will be heading to Covina - West.
It wasn't a surprise to see him go because I found out on Tuesday that
I will be training. He hasn't been here very long, though. No one else
in our district got a call, which means that it will remain the same
core group of missionaries. We later found out that Elder Thomas will
be his new companion. On a side note, Elder Thomas has been in Covina
since before Elder Low got there (he will have been there nearly eight
months by the end of this upcoming transfer). It will be a huge
difference training this upcoming transfer, but the district will
really help my trainee progress.

Sunday, April 13th, 2014:

The "Because of Him" video was released today, and it was way better
than I was expecting. You can find it on YouTube or on the youth
section of lds.org. I would strongly advise watching it; it is
extremely powerful. There are no audible words, but the music, text
and pictures are inspiring. Our district promoted the family home
evening activity today while we were at church, and it should yield a
high turnout. After church ended, our district stayed after to plan
even more of the family home evening activity. Our last one that we
did was nearly perfect, so we have to make this one inspiring, too.
Hermano Monzon had our whole district over for dinner after we
finished planning. It was really fun to spend some more time together
and enjoy each other's company. After leaving the Monzons, Elder
Steffen and I were able to catch Alex and Lucy Varela at home together
for the first time in a little while. We shared the "Because of Him"
video with them, and it had a huge impact on them. I haven't seen Lucy
that in favor of Chris getting baptized since I have been here; Chris
will hopefully get baptized very soon! I am definitely developing
greater love for the people here that I teach.

Today should be pretty fun spending the day with Elder Knight and
Elder Turner. We are going to go to Chinatown and then down to the
mercadito to buy some gorditas. Gorditas are probably the best food
that I have ever eaten in my life. They are the Mexican equivalent to
the American hamburger, but gorditas are so much better than American
food. I hope everyone is doing well and enjoying this Easter season! I
appreciate all of the love and support that you all show me! Have a
great week!

Love,
Elder Gabriel Valley

Sent from my iPad

End of March - March 31, 2014

Hey Everyone!

I hope everyone has had a fantastic week! This past week has been the
most successful of the transfer, in terms of numbers, and things are
definitely pointing in the right direction. I apologize for not
getting my email out yesterday, like I had hoped; we went to a
waterfall in Tujunga, and Elder Steffen and I had to help the zone
leaders for about four hours afterwards with cleaning the cars and
taking them back to the mission office. As a result, I am sending all
of my emails off today with their permission. It's crazy to think that
we are already into April! Here is a recap of the past week:

Tuesday, March 25th, 2014:

During the morning, we had to go down to the train station to buy
another month pass for Elder Steffen. We then had to go down to the
library to allow him to do a few things for the Army. I'm glad that Ihave all of my college stuff already taken care of already. Elder Steffen and I
contacted two different referrals during the afternoon and set up
return appointments at both places. I feel like we have so much
potential for finding new investigators, but we need to visit a number
of different people to be able to get all of these new investigators,
in addition to bringing more members to lessons with us. One thing
that I have noticed about this area so far is that it is very
difficult to get members present to lessons. At night, we stopped by
the Varelas to visit Alex and Chris. Abel now works Monday through
Saturday from 5 AM to 10 PM, so it will be very difficult to meet with
him. We shared two videos with Alex and Chris that were both inspiring
Mormon Messages. We hadn't taught Chris about the Law of Chastity, so
we used a Mormon Message about "Stay Within the Lines" to lead into a
brief overview of the Law of Chastity with Chris. We also shared a
Mormon Message with Alex about "Mountains to Climb." He is going
through some struggles that are the cause of his divorce, so we have
been trying to help him build his self-confidence. It is amazing how
inspiring the words of the modern-day Apostles can be. When people
have the hope that they can change, that is when the miracles come.

Wednesday, March 26th, 2014:

If felt so nice to have another day to get a lot of work done. I feel
as though we have had so many miscellaneous things going on that have
caused us to not have the amount of time to work that we would like.
During the afternoon, we tried going by a few different people who are
former investigators, but no one was home. We did, however, run into a
man named Eddy who we have talked to on the bus before. He told us
that we should go visit his sister. While Elder Steffen and I were
searching for the exact house, we ran into another man named Edgar. I
honestly believe that Edgar was placed in our path as we were walking
because he seemed genuinely interested in talking to us and wanted us
to stop by tomorrow to share a message with him and his family. Like
"Preach My Gospel" says, we must have faith in The Lord that he will
place people in our path who we need to talk to. At night, we went
down to the church for mutual, and Hermana Diaz wanted us to join in
to play a little basketball and dodgeball with the youth to emphasize
the importance of both physical health and also spiritual health. It
only lasted for a few minutes, but it was really fun to play some
games with people who aren't really that much younger than I currently
am. I honestly wish that we would be able to do more activities like
that as missionaries because those activities are a fun way to build
relationships between people. When the relationship between members
and missionaries is strong, we are able to see a greater number of
miracles in the lives of those who are earnestly searching for the
truth.

Thursday, March 27th, 2014:

Today was unquestionably the most successful day that Elder Steffen
and I have had together. District meeting in the morning was inspiring
because Elder Knight shared some powerful comments about developing
the faith to find more people to teach; I feel like we put that lesson
into practice today, too. Elder Steffen and I brought Alex Varela
around with us for about three hours, and he provided a lot of help
for us during the day, which enabled us to find three new
investigators and have a member present in each of the lessons. During
our first lesson, we stopped by Edgar's house. He is a young guy who
we contacted on the street yesterday. His younger brother, Giovani,
answered the door, so we began teaching Giovani about the Restoration.
While going over the First Vision, Edgar came out of his room and
ruined the whole lesson with all of his interruptions. He repeatedly
went off about God not loving us because He lets bad things happen,
which made it impossible to teach at all. Alex Varela came with us to
our second lesson at Karina's house. Karina is nineteen and was a
referral from Elder Morrell, who is one of the English AP's. (He was
originally a Spanish missionary who got moved to English work, so he
speaks to Latino people in Spanish and gives out a lot of referrals to
Spanish missionaries). The lesson with Karina was great! She was very
receptive and attentive to our message about the Restoration. She even
asked about how we perform the ordinance of baptism at the end of the
lesson! I can definitely envision Karina taking the necessary steps to
be baptized. For the third lesson of the day, Elder Steffen and I
stopped by Silvia's house to see how she has been. Jose and Jorge were
both home and busy, so we just talked to Silvia a little bit more
about what she needs to do to obtain her marriage license. I'm
optimistic that we can help her obtain it and help her enter the
waters of baptism within the coming weeks or months. To conclude the
evening, we went by Alex Varela's house to share a message with him.
We talked to Alex about the goal of entering the temple to receive his
endowment. Alex's mother was an active member of the Church before she
passed away, and Alex was really interested to learn about how he can
see his mother again. Alex is so humble and ready to learn, so it is
quite the privilege to help him progress in the Gospel. There is
always progress that can be made, but I was so happy and content that
we were able to teach four total lessons in a single day. The Lord is
blessing us here in this area, and now we need to be reapers, rather
than sowers -- "the field is white, all ready to harvest."

Friday, March 28th, 2014:

Yesterday, Elder Morrell, one of the English AP's, gave us three
referrals, one of which we were going to have a lesson with today. The
appointment was made for the early afternoon, so it threw off our
plans and timing for many of the things that we had set up today, such
as weekly planning. We went to go have a lesson with the referral,
Fernando, and his wife, Gloria. They graciously invited us in and were
happy to listen to what we had to share. The lesson started off well,
but Fernando and Gloria began talking and telling stories about things
that had absolutely nothing to do with what we were talking about.
They kept interrupting the flow of the lesson, making it nearly
impossible for us to focus on the commitments that we wanted to
extend. By the end of the lesson, we had been at their house fornearly two hours; I had a hard time focusing for that long.Fernando told us at the end of the

lesson that they aren't really ready to change religions; they just
wanted to let us in to learn more about what we believe. When Elder
Steffen and I got back to the apartment, we had to do a condensed
weekly planning session. We were quite efficient, and we finished just
in time to head over to the Monzon's house for dinner and correlation
meeting. Hermano Monzon wanted to started the meeting at 6 PM rather
than the usual 7 PM so that we could all come over and eat dinner as
well; however, Elder Steffen and I were the only missionaries who did
not show up an hour late. We still had the dinner and meeting, but we
didn't get home until about 9:45 PM. It seems like spending too much
time on one thing has some large ripple effects that cause other
things to take longer, too.

Saturday, March 29th, 2014:

The Varela family needed help with cutting down a few banana trees in
their back yard, so Elder Steffen and I went over to help in the
morning. It ended up being a much larger service project than we were
thinking it would be because Abel wanted to do a lot of yard work
while we had everyone together to work. We took down four banana
trees, cleaned out an entire garden, weeded all around the property,
in addition to removing a full truck load of trash. My favorite part
was using a pick axe to cut through the bark of the banana trees and
then pull them down. By the end of the five hours that we were
working, I was covered in dirt. I love grunt work like that because it
is so much fun to see the difference between the "before" and the
"after." When we finished, Abel bought everyone burgers from a local
burger joint called Troy's. I loved being able to eat some more
American food! I love eating Mexican food, but it is nice to be able
to enjoy a nice burger every once in a while. Elder Steffen and I
stayed around for a few minutes to talk to Abel, Alex and Alex's
daughter, Samantha. They are such a nice family, and Abel told us that
we are more than welcome to come back and visit and stay at his house.
One thing that I really love about Latino culture is the feeling of
"family" that everyone has; Latino people are much more unified as a
family (and consequently happier) than most white people. The more
that I work with Latinos, the more that I grow to love them and love
the differences between our cultures. Elder Steffen and I got back to
missionary work after we finished up with the service project.
Unfortunately, we weren't able to find anyone home. I was very happy
in knowing that we helped out the Varelas as much as we did, despite
not finding anyone to teach during the remainder of the day. It is
quite amazing how great I feel after doing service for people.

Sunday, March 30th, 2014:

Every fifth Sunday, the missionaries are in charge of all of the
lessons and the program at church; today happened to be one of thosedays, but no one told us in advance! We threw something together
quickly and managed to pull everything off. During Sacrament Meeting,
all of the missionaries in our district got up to sing "A Child's
Prayer" in Spanish from the Children's Songbook. It went fairly well,
but I am an awful singer. Hermana Lopez, Hermana Vellinga and Elder
Knight really carried the group on that song. After church ended,
Elder Steffen and I worked with Hermano Escobar to request a few more
records of members. What we discovered really surprised us: Abel
Varela is, in fact, a baptized member of the Church.The Perez family (Antonio and Angie) invited Elder Knight, Elder
Turner, Elder Steffen and I all over to eat dinner with them again. I
was expecting to get there and eat shortly thereafter, but we ended up
waiting nearly an hour for all of the food to be ready. We began to
watch a movie about stories from one of the handcart companies that
was called "Seventeen Miracles." It brought to life the struggles that
the pioneers faced, but it also talked about the miracles that could
not be explained in any other way than divine help from God. The movie
nearly brought tears to my eyes. Eating with the Perez family was very
nice. They are really fun people to be around; they are a
Gospel-centered family; and they can cook very well. During the
evening, Elder Steffen and I went to use the internet at McDonald's (I
always feel weird walking in there on Sunday evenings) and sync up the
data on our iPads. We saw Dolores Hernandez talking to some of her
friends, and we were able to talk to all of them about the "Finding
Faith in Christ" DVD that we gave Dolores. It made all of her friends
interested in what we have to share. It's incredible how effective a
friend can be in sharing the Gospel, even if they are a non-member.

Once again, I apologize for not having the time yesterday to get
around to sending my emails off. Hopefully, all of you are doing well
and are getting ready for General Conference this Saturday and Sunday!
We have the opportunity to hear the words of the Apostles and the
Prophet, which provide a guide through us in these last days. One
other blessing that we have as missionaries during conference time is
the ability to go to the temple. We only get to go every six months,
and we have that privilege coming up on Wednesday, April 9th! That
will end up being my P-Day next week, so don't be surprised if you
don't hear from me before then.

Thank you again for all of your love and support! I miss each and
every one of you and hope that life is treating you all well! Remember
to count the blessings in life, and it should be easier to do at this
time of year as we come to commemorate the death and resurrection of
the Savior, Jesus Christ, in just a couple of weeks. Have a great
week, everyone!

Love,
Elder Gabriel Valley

Sent from my iPad

Stake Conference with a General Authority - March 24, 2014

Hey Everyone!

I hope everyone has had a fantastic week! It's crazy to believe that
March is nearing its end already; it seems like time goes faster and
faster with every passing month. This week has been full of service
opportunities, which may have ended up cutting into our work time a
little bit more than we would have liked; however, I love doing
service, and service demonstrates charity, which is the pure love of
Christ. Imagine how much better this world would be if everyone could
just do one nice thing for their neighbors!

Tuesday, March 18th, 2014:

Elder Steffen and I got up a few minutes early today to be able to go
play basketball at a local park. It was actually a lot of fun and made
me feel better going throughout the day. The amount of exercise
(especially fun ways to exercise) that we have done over the past two
days has really made me miss home. During my studies today, I finished
the Book of Mormon in Spanish for the first time! It has taken me
about four months (just shy of three full transfers) to make it all
the way through, but I finally completed all 642 pages in a second
language, including color-coded underlining as I went. I read the Book
of Mormon twice in English on my mission before doing it in Spanish,
and I think I will read it through again in English before starting
again in Spanish. During the afternoon, we spent a great deal of time
searching for a very old lady lady from the ward named Nellie. We
listened to her and read a little bit from the Book of Mormon to her.She's very nice. During the evening, we stopped by Elias again to see how 

he has been doing. He is on parole for threeyears; he did tell us, however, that he may be able to cut off a year of the parole if he
behaves well for the first year-and-a-half. To finish off the day, we
stopped by the Varelas. Abel was still working, and he has been
working an insane number of hours lately. Elder Steffen and I went
around back to talk with Alex about the Book of Mormon. We shared a
segment from Elder Holland's talk, "Safety For the Soul," and talked
about the importance of always reading the Book of Mormon. It was
really neat how I finished the Book of Mormon in Spanish today and was
able to testify of its power and importance.

Wednesday, March 19th, 2014

After many hours of working on the Area Book since I arrived in El
Sereno, Elder Steffen and I finally finished the very last of the
former investigators today, so we are now all finished. While walking
out and about, we were able to contact two referrals. We need to do a
lot of finding right now because the current investigators aren't
really at a spot where many of them can progress. This area reminds me
a lot of when I first got to Chino with Elder Knight. There were a
number of "eternal investigators" who we ended up dropping to see if
there was more potential elsewhere. During the evening, we helped out
the Dias family with some service in their plot in a community garden.
Elder Steffen and I got the chance to dig up a lot of weeds and
prepare the garden to be planted. I love doing grunt work because it
allows for some much-needed exercise. It was a wonderful opportunity
to meet the Dias family and help them strive to become even more
self-reliant. We ate pizza with them before heading back to the
apartment to call it a day. Service opportunities are honestly some of
my favorite activities as a missionary. If everyone in this world
tried to do one small act of serve for others around them, this world
would be a different place.

Thursday, March 20th, 2014:

Elder Knight taught district meeting again, and it was a very
interesting lesson. He had gone to the training meeting in Arcadia
yesterday, which happens about every two transfers. The lesson was a
recap of what President Becerra had talked about during that meeting:
learning how to say "no" to investigators and members so that they
learn how to become more self-reliant and not so dependent on the
missionaries for every single one of their little needs and problems.
Members especially rely on the missionaries way too often for their
callings, for help teaching lessons and for blessings when there is
almost always a different person who should be stepping up to fill
each one of those roles. What ends up happening is that we get asked
to do much more than we should, and we are consequently not fulfilling
our main purpose of inviting others to come unto Christ. As we become
better at saying "no," we will have more time to work, and we will
also be able to help others struggle and grow in the process. After
finishing district meeting, Elder Knight, Elder Turner, Elder Steffen
and I all walked down to In-N-Out Burger to get lunch. I always feel a
little uncomfortable walking into restaurants to buy food because
everyone there turns around and stares at you. It was a good little
bonding activity, but I would have rather saved the time and money foranother occasion.  During the evening, we stopped by Hermano Magdaleno
to see how he has been doing. He told us that it has been about three
or four years since he has gone to church because he got offended the
last time that he tried going. Hermano Magdaleno also told us that no
one from the branch goes to visit him (besides us) or even used to go
visit him in the past. Members need friends in the Church if they are
going to remain active. All of our other appointments during the
evening cancelled, so we didn't have a ton of work today. We need to
find a few more solid investigators.

Friday, March 21st, 2014:

The morning went by like normal, and we went into weekly planning
again, like usual for Fridays. It was a good weekly planning session,
even though it went a little bit longer than we would have liked.
Weekly planning with the iPads seems to be more productive than weekly
planning ever was before the iPads. After we finished weekly planning,
we visited Stan and Gloria again, and we were finally able to have a
lesson on the Restoration with them. The lesson actually went very
well because the Spirit was very strong during the time that we were
there. Stan and Gloria both said that they believe Joseph Smith was
called of God to perform His work. Stan was also really big on wanting
to come to church this Sunday, so I invited him to the stake
conference that is happening this weekend. Stan was really excited,
especially when I told him that Elder Dallin H. Oaks of the Quorum of
the Twelve Apostles will be speaking on Sunday. After we visited with
Stan and Gloria, we went over to the church for our correlation
meeting. It was the first one that I have been to where Hermano Monzon
was actually there, due to various reasons. He seems to be up to speed
with all of our investigators and their respective needs, and he seems
like he is very involved with helping us. To conclude the night, I
headed up to El Molino - Central (downtown Pasadena) to work with
Elder Turner on exchanges. Elder Turner seems really nice and all, but
I'm honestly not sure how much we really have in common; hopefully, it
will be fun to mix things up tomorrow.

Saturday, March 22nd, 2014:

I was expecting exchanges to be like a normal day of finding and
teaching, but we ended up helping Hermana Morales move the entire day.
It was honestly the first day of my entire mission that I did not put
on a shirt and tie for the entire day. Elder Turner and I were
expecting to help Hermana Morales out for just a few hours in the
morning and then return to work in the afternoon. She hadn't packed up
anything, and there was a mountain of trash in her small room to sort
through before we could even begin to start loading everything into
the U-Haul moving truck. Even though we started with everything before
noon, we didn't end up finishing with the packing of the truck until
about 5:30 PM. During the moving process, Elder Turner and I spent a
lot of time talking to Hermana Morales' son, Ricardo, about life and
really getting to know him better as a person. I invited him to come
to the English stake conference tomorrow where Dallin H. Oaks will be
speaking, and he even seemed open to bringing his girlfriend to it,
too. I later found out that I will probably not be able to go to the
English stake conference tomorrow to hear an Apostle of The Lord
speak, but I hope Ricardo at least has the chance to be able to do so.
We took the moving truck to Hermana Morales' new place, which is a big
complex of apartments for retired people. Elder Turner, HermanoPerez, Ricardo and I all unloaded the truck in the course of
about two hours and dropped everything in Hermana Morales' room. We
did not have time to help her get all settled in because it was
getting late, but we did manage to get all of her stuff moved in one
trip. I was shocked that she was only expecting the move to take two
hours, and it ended up taking more than ten. We switched back
companions, and it sounded like all of us had busy days but were
unable to find any lessons to teach. It wasn't quite what I was
expecting to do during exchanges, but we were able to do service for a
full day.

Sunday, March 23rd, 2014:

Unfortunately, I didn't get to go to the English stake conference
where Elder Dallin H. Oaks of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles was
speaking, but i did get to go to the East Los Angeles Stake conference
(Spanish stake) where Elder Craig C. Christensen of the presidency of
the Quorum of the Seventy was speaking. It was probably the best stake
conference that I have ever been to because it was a lot more like a
General Conference session: we had President Esquerra (stake
president), President Becerra (mission president -- I think he will be
a member of the Seventy or the Twelve in the future, too) and
President Christensen (presidency of the Quorum of the Seventy) all
speak in the course of a little more than an hour. It was also really
neat to hear all three of them speak in Spanish and to be able to
understand every single word that they said! That meeting left me
feeling really inspired. During the afternoon, President Esquerra
actually came out with Elder Steffen and I to a lesson with an
investigator named Santiago. I love working under President Esquerra
because he has an immense love for missionary work. He is a convert of
about thirty years and has an awesome testimony of the Gospel of Jesus
Christ. We taught Santiago about the Book of Mormon, and President
Esquerra shared his conversion story; it was so powerful to learn
about the dream that he had that confirmed everything about the Church
for him. When we have the desire to know of the veracity of the
message of Jesus Christ, in addition to having the desire to act upon
whatever answer we are going to receive, it is in that moment that we
will receive a knowledge of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon and
of the Church which so testifies of it. Santiago wants to read the
Book of Mormon before accepting an invitation to get baptized, so he
committed to read the first chapter of the Book of Mormon before our
next visit with him. To finish off the evening, Elder Steffen and I
went to go visit a few potential investigators and set up some return
appointments for the upcoming week. This area seems to have tons of
potential; it is up to us to start harvesting some of it and reap the
rewards that come from sustained hard work.

This week has been great, even if my teaching numbers weren't where I
would have liked them to be at. Our sole purpose as missionaries is to
invite others to come unto Christ, which is best fulfilled through
teaching. As members of the Church, we have the opportunity to be
teachers and missionaries at the same time through acts of service
that we perform, which can be as small as offering a smile. My
favorite quote was given by St. Francis of Assisi: "Preach the Gospel
at all times, and, if necessary, use words." I hope everyone can look
for the service opportunities around them and exemplify the love of
our Savior, Jesus Christ, through their actions. I appreciate all the
service and the support that all of you have been so gracious to offer
me, and I hope to be able to show the same love back to each and every
single one of you! I hope everyone has a great week and is getting
ready for General Conference to come in the very near future!

Love,
Elder Gabriel Valley

Sent from my iPad