Email #1

Hey Mommy! I don't know dad's email address so you're lucky you even get an email this week. It's Pday and I'm in the laundry room and I can't even express how much I've learned in the past seven days but I'll try.

The biggest thing I learned in the beginning is that my flaws as a human being are also my flaws as a missionary. I left home thinking "Self-doubt won't be an issue in missionary work, cause it ain't about ME" but really, that was my biggest struggle the first few days and it brought lots of tears but also some amazing revelation. I can't let my self-doubt get in the way of the blessings ready to be poured out upon me and upon my investigators as well.
OH! My companion is Sister Fackrell and she's great in every way. She not only listens to but loves my random rants. She's super empathetic which has been a huge blessing when teaching lessons. She's a quirky girl from oregon and honestly reminds me a lot of Darlene. I've finally found out how to make her laugh at the drop of a hat, so I feel like her and I are as close as we can be. She says I "connect her dots".

The coolest thing was singing the opening hymn at the welcoming meeting and they changed the lyrics to "We are now the Lords missionaries, to bring the world His truth". Me and Fackrell both cried. I knew that first day when I peeked at her and saw her getting emotional too that her and I would get along really well.

My district is made up of me, Sister Fackrell, Sister Johnson, and Sister Wilson. And the Elders are Clem and Kellis, and Byram (District Leader) and Hathcock. Hathcock, Wilson, and Johnson are all from Utah. Clem is from Indiana and I think Kellis is from Oklahoma. Fackrell is from Oregon. Did I say that already?! They're all fantastic and ADORABLE. We are constantly pumping each other up about the gospel, but leaving room for cracking plenty of jokes between the waves of spirituality. The past few nights, us four girls have shared scriptures about Lamanites and we get so pumped about teaching the Navajos.

I think it was Saturday night, we were all kinda crashing, but especially Johnson was super down and just feeling homesick and awful and BLARGH. I started talking to her and just spilling spiritual vomit and she scooped it up and threw some back at me, and Sister Wilson rubbed that spiritual vomit all over herself and before we knew it we were more riled up than a cage of monkeys. Johnson was on her chair preaching like a baptist minister, and Sister Wilson had a Book of Mormon in hand and was punching the air and kicking and talking about how awesome it's gonna be to teach. We all just received, through each other and through ourselves, the answers to WHY we're here. And why we should be so excited about it.

But honestly it's just been life changing being here just a week, I've found so much joy in learning and me and Fackrell just rejoice in the gospel. Elder Perry came and talked on Tuesday which was AMAZING. The best part was he testified of everything in Preach my Gospel and it was just confirmation that it isn't just a textbook, it's revelation from God.
There have been crazy silly times, me and Fackrell have gotten majorly loopy but the biggest evidence of that is a quote from last week. "My... My messing just gets writier!" -Sister Fackrell. Thus we see the insanity of the MTC, turning our brains to mush. There have been so many times when I just grabbed my head and yelled in class "MY BRAINS ARE OATMEAL!" I actually talk way too much in class and it needs to calm down but I have SO MANY THOUGHTS.

Satan tries to sneak in hate-notes like "PS YOU SUCK - LOVE SATAN" or "YOU CANT DO THIS" or "WHAT IF YOU CANT REALLY TEACH LIKE THIS IN THE FIELD. PS U SMELL LIKE POO - SATAN" and I've had to crumple them up and just toss em. I'm so happy to be surrounded by a great district and just a great companion who is able to lift me up. Also everyone loves my words like dooble dob, goob gob, and the latest "zip zop" which is the little badge reels we use for our ID tags.

I played prelude in sacrament meeting on Sunday which was awesome. Oh and my Sister Training Leader was a girl named Sister Lambert, she's from Huntington Beach and I had met her like a year or so ago at Nate Myers birthday party! She was so awesome, she left a couple days ago.

I've missed everyone at home! Especially when I realized that Byram reminds me of Eduardo, the way he says little jokey things and rushingly says "JUS KIDDIN JUS KIDDIN", and gets super excited about stuff. And a few days ago a member of our Branch Presidency was telling us about travel plans and he mentioned "Just as advice, totally not related to mission stuff, be careful using debit cards, someone can just take all your money and its very easy to have fraud happen... etc." For some reason that made me SUPER emotional cause I thought of Daddy right away. It's weird to miss the dumb "dad-advice". And Sister Metcalf, one of the BP members wives gave us a hug and I teared up right then and there cause I was like OH ITS LIKE HUGGING A MOMMY AGAIN.

The two big lessons I learned this week were definitely to be BOLD! I can be a bold person, I know, but for some reason I can also be so unsure and timid. One of the teachers this week, truly working through the spirit, took me aside after we had taught a lesson and he said "Sister Valdez, I feel impressed to tell you that you need to stop comparing yourself to others. Don't be anxious, don't be worried. Stop doubting yourself. You're a great missionary. I want you to know that when you compare yourself to others, you will almost always put your weaknesses up against their strengths. It's not fair, and it's the adversary's way of dragging you down." That was the basic gist but he said a buttload more and I just broke down because I knew those words were straight revelation. It was as if God give the teacher the exact words that He would say to me if he was here. So, as Elder Kellis told me "Put a rock in your pants, and BE BOULDER"

The second lesson was today we went to the temple, and it was just so amazing to go through with our investigator in mind. Feeling the peace there and being able to feel so close to my Heavenly Father just reminded me WHY I am here. Why I've given up 18 months of my life. So that others can feel that same thing. I am so blessed and I can't wait to share all this happiness.

Also if you wanna share this email or parts of this email with people at home, thats cool.

Sidenotes, things i need, ETC:

Coconut oil would be nice for removing make up. But not a whole big thing of it.
The carrots went bad.

I leave Monday.

I forgot my red pencil skirt, I think it's in my room.

And the CD Nearer I left in Daddy's car.
Thank you for the packages! It was amazing to get stuff from home especially the letters. Sorry I haven't responded but the schedule is SO tight I barely have time to breathe. Hopefully I can write some tonight, but we'll see. SO SORRY. But I love hearing from everybody.

Can you also send the lyrics to Amazing Grace and My Hands are the Lord's Hands?

I love you lots and hugs and kisses and pinchy pinch and i wanna squeeze you and smush your face a lot of times and whack the dog and tell pants that she's a butt nugget and give everyone my love.

- Sister Valdez