As a Mormon guy, like many mormon guys, I went on a mission when I was 19 and I served my two years in Oaxaca, Mexico from 2001 - 2003. As such, I was in Mexico when this telenovela aired on Mexican television. Now in Mexico, maybe its the same in all of Latin America, but they would run telenovelas for 6 months, one episode a day during the week, and that was the entire show. Not like America where you had 13-20ish episode during fall and winter months and that is a season. Also important to know, is that many Mormon families offer to cook meals for missionaries and we had one sister who cooked for us everyday and we would pay her for the meals. As it happened, we would be there everyday to eat right as this telenovela would come on and I also arrived in the area right when the show started AND I was in the area almost exactly 6 months before finishing my mission and coming home to the states. As such, I became absolutely obsessed with this show. The twists and turns and people going from good to bad and bad to good and the forbidden romance between Valentina and Urestes and Norkys Bataista's rocking hot body and so many other things kept me absolutely addicted to this show. There were days that I missed an episode due to traveling on mission duties and the like, but I did my best to always be at that sister's house everyday right at 2pm and we always stayed for an hour. And on Monday's, our preparation day when we didn't work or eat with the sister, I would find a restaurant that was playing the show and sit and watch as much as I could. If I missed anything, the good sister would always fill me in. I went through I think 5 companions in that area and each one of them told me to keep them updated on the plot after they left. Unfortunately however, I ended up coming home about 4 weeks before the end of the show and I never saw the ending. Actually I did catch the final scenes of the last episode years later on YouTube, but there is currently a big fat "gorda" hole in my heart where Valentina and her friends belong and it has been vacant now for almost 10 years.
