Thursday, July 3, 2014

The work is rolling on!

June 16

Woah SHOCKER! My companion got transferred into a different area! WOW
that was quick! I now have Elder Chan, the chinese program veteran. He
is the last surviving Chinese senior of the chinese branch. He will be
leaving the mission in 3 transfers.

I am excited to have this opportunity to serve with him because I know
I will be able to learn a ton from the last surviving "Ancient."

Okay so I gotta say, if there is one word I can use to describe my
current companion (well, two words) I would have to say "Severus
Snape."

Why?

Severus Snape is a person you grow to loathe and hate until the very
last part of Harry Potter, when you discover that he is actually a
super awesome heroic stud muffin x 1000.

All i have heard about Elder Chan thus far are the most horrendous
things.... won't get up in the morning, isn't too obedient, doesn't
care about missionary work... so on and so forth.

I was expecting some hardcore trials.

What ends up happening? He is a pleasure to work with and is a
terrific missionary. I respect this elder so much. So much.

This week was not too eventful.... Other than the fact that our
investigator Fan passed his interview a couple days ago :) I am so
stoked... He is accepting baptism this saturday, the 21st. He has
asked me to baptize him. I love this guy so much-- we hit it off so
well when I first met him. He has grown tremendously. Baptizing him
two days before my personal baptism date will be the best present in
the world.... I am so happy for him. So, so happy. I know his life
will be forever changed and filled with so much light and happiness...

That is simply what the gospel does for people... Over and over and
over and over again.

Have a great week everyone! I love you. Really, really.

Elder Valentine

Workedy Work Work

May 12

Hey there party people!

This week.... WE FOUND MINI CHINA. OH my goodness it was amazing.
Apparently every sunday, the local high school gets rented out by the
chinese community for a huge portion... the kids all attend chinese
classes while the parents either kick back in the cafeteria or do
mother dance classes. It is pretty funny/awesome.

I was walking around and there were only about 2 white people in a
whole cafeteria of several hundred chinese people. I HEARD NO ENGLISH
OH MY GOODNESS I ALMOST FELT LIKE A FOREIGN MISSIONARY.
It was a sweet, beautiful moment for me.
We are allowed to go there to do finding. My question is, will it be
weird for us to go there and bounce from table to table in a huge
cafeteria.... we are the only ones wearing white dress shirts and
ties, after all, so I am pretty sure everyone would figure out who we
are sooner or later.

Mother's Day was yesterday :) That was wonderful! I got to call and
skype the family! (Definitely the highlight of the week!)

Investigators... Paul is doing well. We had to kick back his baptism
though because we felt he wasn't truly prepared. Cathy is still a
tough nut to crack... she does commit though and she does do her
homework! So we are proud of her :) Fan Zhong is getting married soon!
(This is my techy friend who loves anime). The wedding should happen
this month! Yay! Mr. Yin is great! He reads and studies and sincerely
does his best. He is one of those golden ones, in my opinion. Totally
prepared. Those are the four progressing investigators. We hope to
have three, possibly four (depending on Cathy and Yin-- Yin doesn't
have a date yet, and Cathy might not be ready by her date) baptisms in
June. (June is a good month-- that is when I was baptized!)

OKAY PEOPLE SOOO WE FOUND A BETTER WAY TO INVITE. Please use this!
Let's say you and your friend are talking... religion gets brought
up.... and they ask you a question about religion.
Person A: So you believe in ____?
You: Yes! And you know, it is so interesting that we are talking about
this because the missionaries are actually going to be coming over to
our house in about a week and a half to discuss this very topic! (now
this right here is the kicker) It would mean so, so much to me if you
would come over and learn with our family then.

Try it, try it, try it :) Please please please!
I know as you all invite others to come unto Christ, you will actually
find YOURSELF drawing closer to Christ as well :) Please try it out,
and shoot me an email about how it works! :) Love you all!

Have a great week everyone!

Love, Elder Valentine

Vampires

Apr. 28

Elder Beck got sick this week with a crazy bad sore throat-- he got it
from an exchange with the district leader.... He was hoping that I
would get it too, so I could experience his pain.

Ha, like I was going to let him have that small victory! What did I
do? Well, I did what any sane member of the Valentine clan would do--
I busted out the garlic pills.

You may think I am crazy-- I won't blame you-- but yes, we use garlic
pills to combat illness.

Guess what.

It works and worked. I have not had the slightest illness despite
being with Elder Beck for a whole week, enduring his coughing,
grumbling, and whatever other strange noise was emitted from the
depths of his deranged esophagus.

(So yeah, garlic was first used as a remedy back in the "Vampire" days
because it was known to combat illnesses back then-- it may just be a
placebo effect quack, but hey, whatever works works. Oh yeah, I made
the title Vampires because I wanted to make it somewhat interesting.
Hehe. he. he)

This week was pretty awesome in terms of people!
Fan Zhong, my awesome Chinese compadre whom I love so much-- came to
our branch yesterday and loved it! (I totally forgot to mention we
took him to the English ward last week because it would be easer for
him to access... It was so boring... I felt so bad for him. He thought
the Chinese branch was waaaay better. We are happy)
We met Mr. Yin through a missionary referral! That was pretty cool! he
is so great. Missionary referrals are awesome. That is where we get
the most amount of good investigators from!

We have a baptism on the 16th-- Paul's! We just got to get him to
church more. He always says he will come, but then he forgets, or he
forgets to tell his mom. Yesterday we drove to his house to wake him
up, and it turns out his mother knew nothing about it and arranged
things to do that morning.

I kinda sorta cracked down on him yesterday night. Not hard. Just a little bit.

I swear, Elder Beck is like the protective mother of the investigators
and I am the blunt father. That is really what it is like with all of
our investigators. It works well as a companionship though.

Alright all, sorry for the lack of funny stories this week.... I hope
you are all doing well!
The work is working!

Elder Valentine

LOVE YOU!!!
Sent from my iPad

Wednesday, April 23, 2014

Kung. Fu. DUNK.

HELLOOOOO FROM SUNNY VIRGINIA! FINALLY!
The forecast?

NO SNOW.

Thank goodness :)

Alright so I have a cute little story to tell all of you... it is
definitely a miracle.
Saturday night was Lu Jiang's baptism. All was going well until he
told us his Dad was not able to make it.
BLAHOEIOFESJFOJS. We wanted his Dad to come sooo badly!

So, we did what needed to be done and released the tiger on him, AKA
our branch president.

The President gives him a call... Here is the conversation:
(translated for your convenience)

Pres: Hello! So your son is about to be baptized in a few minutes--
all we are waiting for is you!

Dad: Ehh I don't think so. He can go ahead and get baptized. I am
tired, just got off of work,
aaaand yeaaaah.

Pres: This is your son's baptism! You HAVE to--

Dad: Eh hold on, someone knocked on the door.

Who does he open the door to find?

THE SISTER MISSIONARIES.

What does he do? He sees the nametags and hands them the phone saying
their President is on the phone.

They give each other weird looks then take the phone.

SIsters: H-h-hello?

Pres: Hello? who is this?

Sisters: The sister missionaries!

Pres: Oh! Wonderful! We are having a baptism tonight. It is actually
the son of the guy you are talking to right now. Would you like to
come?

Sisters: Sure!

Pres: Aand talk Lu Jiang's father into coming as well. Just have him
follow you in his car. Thanks!

So the sisters talk Lu Jiang's father aaand.... he ends up coming.

The sisters were just randomly tracting the area, looking for a
referral. They do not speak Chinese whatsoever and had no prior
knowledge about Lu Jiang, the baptism, or the situation.

Quite the miracle, indeed.

The baptism went very well! It was my first actual baptism in which I
performed the ordinance! That was way cool.

The father and his friend (accompanied him) were tearing up at the
baptism. I thought that was way cool.

I do not have much else to report-- the days seem to mesh together
more and more .... I love it haha. That means we are doing some good
work! We have had a baptism every month for the last little while...
we have two more lined up for the next two months... We are going to
up the game and shoot for two a month. That would be doubling the
expectation level per unit (unit meaning branch/ward). If we get the
other chinese companion in on the double baptism action, that would be
quadrupling the standard. Well, we shall see what happens!

Hey, thank you so much to those of you who shared that Christ video on
easter. Really. The church wanted that to be such a big deal and I am
so thankful for those who amped the #becauseofhim trend the church set
up.
I was a little disappointed to see that only a few of the members I
shot out info to actually did it, but hey, now I have an enormous
appreciation and respect for those who did. The names that come to my
head are Becca Jensen, Riley Haycock, Carly KOZAK (BOOM, BOOM
FIREPOWER CONGRATS ON THE WEDDING!), Amy Aberg, Emma White, Mama
Nguyen, Maddi Wirthlin... I am sure there are more that I cannot
remember but thank you so much to all who did!

PS if any of you have NOT seen the video, here ya go :)
easter.mormon.org

Truly a beautiful video :) Just two minutes long, too! :D

Check it out if you haven't seen it yet:)

Well, gotta blast! (Jimmy Neutron)

You are all some fine, fine specimen :) Have a great week!

Much love,

Elder Valentine

Monday, April 21, 2014

More pictures!

 Elder Valentine with companion Elder Beck

At a zone missionary breakfast on April 12

tippy's tacos

Apr 14

Houston, we have a problem.
(Hey, Houston is a good place by the way. Well, I like the people.
Okay false, just one person there. That makes Houston the best place
in the world. . . that's how it works, right? Wait... I guess I should
be saying Brazil is a good place now. Okay, they are both good places.
:) You get the picture.)

ANYWAY. Last week I sent a bunch of photos to myself to send to you
all! I will get them out eventually, buuuut they came out all
corrupted and just... weird when I opened them on my Ipad to send you.
It stinks. Hopefully I can make it work today. We shall see what
happens!

Hey! Good news! Lu Jiang is getting baptized this saturday! Wappahh!
Woot woot! Holla back!
I am going to be performing the baptism! I am pretty nervous, to say
the least. Well, not really, I just need to go work on the baptism in
Chinese. That is the tough part.
You know when you pronounce a tone wrong it make a whole different word, right?
Yeup, this will be interesting. I'll tell you all how many times it
takes before the deed becomes official.

Now I would like to tell you about Tippy's Tacos.
Elder Beck and I were in the mood for some mexican food. I am not
talking Taco Bell, or little do-it-yourself-party tostadas, I am
talking some legitimate, hole in the wall, mexican food.
We called all the missionaries (starting with the spanish elders) and
finally secured a cheap hole in the wall restaurant.
We went and it ended up being too expensive for our tastes... we then
looked through mexican food on the gps and one particular place caught
our eye....

Tippy's. Tacos.

It sounded pretty wall-holish so we thought we would give it a go. We
were so stoked on the way there.

We arrived, and it was A HOLE IN THE WALL RESTAURANT! WE WERE SO EXCITED.

We looked at the menu... I ordered the big wrap, and Elder Beck
ordered the "Tippy's famous California Enchilada" that came with a
side of two tostadas.

We were so excited, we couldn't handle it.

The food came.... Here was my huge wrap, there was a beautiful
enchilada with some rice and beans on the side... but where were the
tostadas?

We look over and there was a small bowl with two hard corn disks.

Now, I know I am not the El-Mexicano-Foodo-experto, but I was
expecting his tostadododos to be covered with lettuce and stuff... no
matter. He still had his enchilada, which looked beautiful, might I
add.

He finished his little disk things and cut open his beautiful
enchilada. He took a bite and.... I see a mixture of confusion,
surprise, followed by a dash of "Is this real life?" appear on his
face. He cuts off a piece and tells me to try it. I take a bite
and....

Beef. With cheap 99 cent taco seasoning. That is all I taste.

We proceed to dissect his enchilada, only to discover a tortilla with
sauce on it and beef inside. That was it.

I helped him finish it up and we walked away, cursing the day this
"Tippy's Tacos" Tippy was ever born.

On a good note, my 6 dollar wrap was the equivalent of a 3 dollar
burrito at Taco Bell.

Oh did I mention we found Bollywood? We went to a neighborhood for a
couple chinese families and holy mackerel I swear we found ourselves
smack dab in the middle of rich india town. There were Indian kids
everywhere-- on bikes, balling it up in games of basketball, playing
swords in the grass, walking dogs, chatting up other indian folks,
playing with babies, so on and so forth.

The chinese people we met told us that the 2 percent chinese
population in this area refer to it as America's "Dubai".

It was funny, to say the least.

Well, folks, that is all I have for you today. I hope you enjoyed the
stories. I hope you are all busy making your own fun stories at home,
too.

OH YEAH I SAW MARIE. PRESIDENT GAVE US PERMISSION TO SEE HER!
funny, we ended up going to an Indian restaurant with her. It was
literally the day before we were being followed by some Indian kids in
that Dubai neighborhood.

IT WAS GOOD HOLY SHISHKABOB.

Have a good one everyone :) Love you all.

Elder Valentine

PICTURES FINALLY!


OH MY GOODNESS DAD LOOK WHO I AM ON A DINNER DATE WITH. (If you have ever
seen somewhere in time, you will get this)
 
Guo yi xin (baptism #2)!

Lin Lin (baptism #3)!

Salmonilla, 4AM, Captain America, General Conference, Oh my!


Apr 7

Sorry for the not-so-creative email title. Haha I am getting lazy...

Elder Beck and I had an interesting week! Not too successful, though
:( Many breaker days.
We have reasons though!

1)We both got really sick this week. He ate some raw meat, and I ate a
few too many uncooked eggs... we both had the same symptoms so we
looked on the internet aaaand... Salmonilla poisoning. Just name all
of the symptoms on a pebto bismo bottle, and that's what we had. Not
too fun!
2) Elder Beck had to make some videos for the Assistants to the
President! They were for the beginning of the second quarter. It was a
tad frustrating due to how the others were going at a snail slow pace.
Elder Beck tried to do work but the others would always just waste
time. We ended up staying at the mission office until 4 blinking AM in
the morning. That day was ridiculous! They are taking us out to eat
tomorrow, though, so we are happy about that!

(Elder Beck spent a total of two days there-- they called us up after
the first day and told us they wanted to do it all over so we had to
go again on Friday)

OKAY SO WHO WATCHED GENERAL CONFERENCE?? It was pretty great, if I do
say so myself :) I saw a link on facebook that addressed General
Conference as "Ted talks with a twist." I thought that was pretty
neat! Have any of you watched the link? I haven't yet.

Anyway, what was your favorite? I love it when the apostles talk about
how they themselves received their testimony and faith of this gospel.
I really love it because it shows how HUMAN they are. It means that
they were at one point at where you, me, our friends, family, ANYONE
is at, in terms of faith. The real kicker is if they were once where
we are now, we are all very well able to be where THEY are now, in
terms of faith.

How wonderful would that be? I will continue to apply the steps they
took to increasing their faith in hopes that I may too one day have
the faith they all possess.

Here is the link for conference in case you want to check it out :) I
encourage you all to check it out :)
https://www.lds.org/general-conference/sessions/2014/04?cid=HPSU040614654&lang=eng

Love you all :) thanks for the prayers and good wishes!

Elder Valentine

方長老

Tuesday, April 1, 2014

WOAAAH NELLIE COMPLETE VERSION (

Sorry everyone, me in my ultimate gooberness sent out the email before it was completed...


From: Kelley Valentine <kelley.valentine@myldsmail.net>
Date: March 24, 2014 at 10:47:33 AM EDT
To: Kelley Valentine <kelley.valentine@myldsmail.net>
Subject: Woaaah Nellie
I heard a woman say that recently.
My companion, Elder Beck, didn't understand what it meant, so I told
him it was an old saying.
The lady put her hand on her hips and said "Uh uh, did you just date me?"
She then went on to say that that was not "tubular or rad" whatsoever.
Hahaha such a funny moment.

ANYWAY!
There was another baptism last saturday! WOOH BACK TO BACK BAPTISMS
FOR THE CHINESE BRANCH! YEAHYUH!
At church yesterday, there were 45 people! It was awesome (We actually
filled the relief society room for sacrament meeting and had to bring
out extra water cups! Woot woot!! There were 7 new people there
altogether! Our Branch president was soooo happy. He had the biggest
grin on his face. As we were sitting in a completely filled gospel
class, (he and I were in the far corner because of how many people
were in the class) he leaned over and slapped me on the leg and said
"Every week. Let's do this every week." and then a few moments later
"I love this." He couldn't be quite about how stoked he was. It was
awesome. It was like watching a forty year old man show his birthday
boy side.

His excitement made me feel like I was that kid in an elementary
class who had the gold star on his chest.

ANYWHO

LINLIN'S BAPTISM OH MY GOODNESS. This is the one who is a little
slower than the rest. The baptism is going fine, she starts giggling
when they are about to perform the baptism but then as they start to
lean her over into the water.....

"AAAAHYEEEEEEEEEE AHHAHAHAHAHA"

SHE POPS OUT AND STARTS GIGGLING AND SCREAMING! This process happened
about 9 more times (please, trust me when I tell you I am being
serious and am not exaggerating whatsoever!)! People were gathered
around trying to coax her and calm her, but nothing seemed to be working! They had her try and put her face in the water herself so she could feel it before the next attempt, but as soon as her face got close to the water she would laugh and scream.

Soooo what ended up happening was they shut the font doors (so it people could not see the baptism happening) in order to help her not feel as nervous... President Hsu then asked Elder Johnson to play some music during the baptism. Man, I have not heard someone pound those keys so hard! You could hear more screaming and giggling emanating from the font behind the music. After a while, the bathroom side doors open and these people come out with these thumbs up signs and everyone smiling. I was expecting someone to walk out and announce "IT'S A GIRL!" because I really felt like I was sitting outside in a waiting room hearing some crazy thing happening that I could not see.
Needless to say, it was a baptism unlike any other.
She was totally cool about it afterwards, saying things like "Yeah, so were any of you as scared of the water like I was?"

Saturday night we started tracting.... Knocked on the first door and it was a lady who invited us in as soon as she discovered we could speak chinese! Yaaay :) We had a lesson! AND SHE CAME TO CHURCH THE NEXT DAY! Now that is a missionary miracle. A one door knock out! :)

Lu Jiang's lessons are going great! All of the other youth in the branch and in other wards are bonding together to help teach him on the sundays he comes to church. It is wonderful :) It's really sad, actually. His mother is in china, and his dad is at work all day, so he just lounges around and reads books by himself all day. He told us we can come teach him every single day if we wanted to because he is always just at home.

I am so excited that he is making new friends at church. Really really

Hey everyone, Thanks for reading! I am so glad to be out here :) The chinese program is on fire right now-- altogether there are 6 to 8 people on date for our branch. We have had about 500% to 1000% growth so far compared to the years before we came. It is truly wonderful. I love my branch. I love my chinese family. I love being able to give the gospel to the members of my family I haven't quite met yet!

Have a great one, all :)

Love,

Elder Ching chong fong kang wong ping pong Valentine

Sunday, March 30, 2014

Woaaah Nellie!

I heard a woman say that recently.
My companion, Elder Beck, didn't understand what it meant, so I told
him it was an old saying.
The lady put her hand on her hips and said "Uh uh, did you just date me?"
She then went on to say that that was not "tubular or rad" whatsoever.
Hahaha such a funny moment.

ANYWAY!
There was another baptism last saturday! WOOH BACK TO BACK BAPTISMS
FOR THE CHINESE BRANCH! YEAHYUH!
At church yesterday, there were 45 people! It was awesome (We actually
filled the relief society room for sacrament meeting and had to bring
out extra water cups! Woot woot!! There were 7 new people there
altogether! Our Branch president was soooo happy. He had the biggest
grin on his face. As we were sitting in a completely filled gospel
class, (he and I were in the far corner because of how many people
were in the class) he leaned over and slapped me on the leg and said
"Every week. Let's do this every week." and then a few moments later
"I love this." He couldn't be quite about how stoked he was. It was
awesome. It was like watching a forty year old man show his birthday
boy side.

His excitement made me feel like I was that kid in an elementary
class who had the gold star on his chest.

ANYWHO

LINLIN'S BAPTISM OH MY GOODNESS. This is the one who is a little
slower than the rest. The baptism is going fine, she starts giggling
when they are about to perform the baptism but then as they start to
lean her over into the water.....

"AAAAHYEEEEEEEEEE AHHAHAHAHAHA"

SHE POPS OUT AND STARTS GIGGLING AND SCREAMING! This process happened
about 9 more times (please, trust me when I tell you I am being
serious and am not exaggerating whatsoever!)! People were gathered
around trying to coax her.

Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Another mesmerizing week, if I do say so myself.

Good afternoon, everyone!

We are snowed in again.

Now that I have been living in the cold snow for awhile, I am now able
to look upon the saying "Beauty is pain" with a much greater
understanding.

We have another baptism this Saturday! Linlin is getting baptized :) I
am so happy for her! The other missionaries were able to get her
going. I guess it required making flashcards for her and having her
review them every day to understand what was going on. One of the
missionaries said he enjoyed it so much, he is considering going into
an Elementary Ed major !

Haha, kidding, he did not say that, but they really did have to make
her flashcards! They definitely paid off though! (Just to make some
clarification, Linlin is a 24 year old student in college, not an
elementary aged girl... didn't want any confusion!)

Our two current progressing investigators are doing great! They love
to learn and read so everything is going great there :) (Liu Jiang and
Paul)

Last time we were at Liu Jiang's house, his dad asked us what our
favorite chinese food was! I told them "I love everything-- I could
eat the ocean" and Elder Beck said "BAOZI!" (Those rolls filled with
meat and such)

They called us a few days later to come on over and they loaded us
with (hold your seats) 6 BOXES OF BAOZI. Wowzers.

These are like big things-- not little baby rolls you can buy from
costco. These were legitimate hand made baozi in these take out boxes.
The dad told us he bought them from a vendor in New York. Man that was
some good eating.

Hey, did you all get a chance to go see stake conference? The
broadcast? That was so great! I loved it. Really. The self mastery
message was amazing! (I cannot remember the last one but it was
hilarious how he called out the stake president!)

Transfers are this thursday! This has been the fastest transfer in my
life. Laughter and merriment really does make time go by quicker.
Haven't laughed as much in my life as now. I love it.

We ran into a less active by chance the other day... when she opened
the door, all of these foamish things fell over... I asked her "Hey...
is that for... larping?"

(In case you do not know, LARP stands for "Live Action Role-play"-- in
other words, people make swords, shields, bows and arrows out of foam
and duke it out as if they were a live version of dungeons and dragons
or lord of the rings)

Her eyes got wide "HOW DO YOU KNOW ABOUT LARPING???"

Her son then came out and gave us a demonstration of his bow and arrow
(which is awesome, by the way) and unintentionally convinced me that I
need to larp with my kids when I am older.

We got pictures, of course.

Another funny experience? We were driving down the road for some
tracting when all of a sudden we spotted a clan of asian people just
walking down the road. Our eyes got huge and we swang a U-ey to go
catch them. We parked and made our battle plan of how we were going to
make our approach...

We charged into the chinese restaurant after parking our rickshaw
(that is what we call the chinese missionary vehicle) thinking they
were headed there... we popped out and found out they went into the
grocery store instead...

We went over and engaged in chinese conversation with them!
Unfortunately, they were just visiting the area and heading over to
New York in the next couple of days.

We gave them a Book of Mormon with a mormon.org card inside then hung
out at the grocery store for an extra five minutes so they wouldn't
get freaked out hahaha...

Okay that story was not as funny as I thought it would be to tell. I
am sorry. I will do better next time.

Hey everyone, you have a good week! I love you all! The church is true! :)

Love,

方�老

Fang Zhanglao :)