Dear family,

Ok, so I guess I have a lot to write.  I guess I dont have words to write about the mission.  I was doing pretty good about being strong and not crying until Sunday, and then I broke.  I cried, but what can you do.  I only have 3 days left to be a missionary, and I just want to use these days the best I can.  Im the only sister traveling home so im companion less.  This is weird.  

This morning was craziness.  Last night Hermana Reales and her companion (hermana Soria) moved into our apartment because there arent enough missionaries to keep two areas open in Junin.  So, basically the whole apartment was filled with suitcases...haha. Anyway, then we almost missed our bus to get into Buenos Aires, but we were blessed to get on with all our stuff.

Hermana Reales and Hermana Rios are now companions and are staying in Junin.  Im leaving the area happy to know that Martin and Sabrina are working towards getting married in the temple.  Victor finished reading 1 nefi.  And one of our investigators, Martina, finally set herself a day to get baptized and is working hard towards that goal.

I will miss that place a lot.  The work has been hard, but so worth it.  You know when something really, really awesome has happened and you dont know how to describe it...well, thats the mission. haha.  So ill just leave it at that.  

I learned a lot and it gave me desire and energy to work hard for what lies ahead.  

I am so excited to see you all real soon!

Love, 

Hermana Yingling

p.s. thanks for all of the letters and emails that you all have sent me.  i have cherished and appreciated every one.

Dear family and friends,

HAPPY 9TH OF JULY....haha it is the Argentine Independance Day.  I celebrated the 4th of july by eating ice cream. haha.  We called our district leader Elder George (because he is a Marine and USA crazy) at 6:40am and sang the national anthem. haha it was awesome.

The mission is winding down and we are seeing HUGE miracles and changes here in the Junin Branch.  Actually the whole mission is changing a lot, but they are all really, really good changes.  I´ve learned a lot about how the mission is helping people change their bad habits.  Not just those who don´t live the gospel, but those who are trying to live the gospel but have learned how to do some things incorrectly.  I really have a testimony about diligence and enduring to the end. I´ve realized that it is hard work enduring to the end, but it always pays off.  The lessons I have learned on the mission i hope to carry over into the rest of my life.  I have one week left and i am super, super excited to work super hard.  I´m hoping and praying that i see my goals achieved.  Today we were talking to a sister and she said that we need to be grateful for the opportunity that we have been given to be able to work full-time in the Lord´s work.  And it is so true.  It is such a blessing.  

Last week we struggled finding new people and families to teach and we finished the week sad because we had 4 frusting days in a row.  But this past week, we saw that our dilligence did pay off.  It was easy.  We found tons and tons of really awesome families to teach!!! :) I got to speak in sacrament meeting about personal revelation and it was cool.  I love that topic.  I learned lots about revelation and how i can better apply the principles of preparing to receive revelation so i can receive more personal revelation and how i can better intune myself to the voice of the spirit.  that is key in our lives.

oh yeah, and my companion fell on her bike like 3 times this week.  the third time she landed pretty badly on her wrist and i thought she might have broken it.  but i worked the magic that i learned in school....(sunday school....aka prayer) and it got better pretty quickly.  haha.  but i realized that i´m super rusty on my first-aid/ injury management skills. haha.  i´ve got lots to study up. 

welp, that´s all.

love you all!

hermana yingling  

what a week!

 

on Saturday president and sister Carter came to junín.  we got to go out to dinner with them saturday night which was super fun.  then sunday president used the time of the classes to teach the members here how to work with the missionaries.  it is something that we are really working on in the whole mission.  i learned a lot about how to teach members the importance of working and actually doing visits with the missionaries.  it is of vital importance.  we have seen huge blessings as far as the participation of the members goes. 

 

it has gotten a lot better since the other sisters came because we have been able to stop by the members house to be able to teach them how to work as well as get the "normal" work done. haha.  there have been huge blessings here in junín and a lot of changes.  I was thinking about how junín was when i first got here.  it has changed lots.  not because of just my efforts.  but they have been combined efforts.  without the combined efforts of our "team"  this work does not move forward.  we could be working for 100 years and not have progress if just a few work.  it requires the work of everyone. 

 

i´ve gotta make this email a good one because it is one of my last emails.  one thing i´ve learned to love on the mission is change.  change is good because it forces us to learn.  it puts us in difficult positions that help us to grow.  like becky just told me in her email, changes force us to walk without the crutch that we thought we could never live without.  changes are hard, but the hard things in life are also the things that we learn to appreciate more than anything else.

 

i love the mission.  i am grateful every single day for what i get to learn during this experience.  i will miss it a lot.  but, i´m excited to go to work in the other missions that Heavenly Father has waiting for me.  I can´t be sad about the change, because it is inevitable and it is necessary....so I´m just happy!  Don´t get sad, get glad!!!  hahaha.  

 

Anyway, until next week!

 

love, sister yingling

uerida familia,

So, we went to the lake again today.  I just have to say that Junín is a lot more fun with 2 companionships of hermanas.  haha.  it has been fun.

This week was cool because there were 41 people in church yesterday!!!  wow.  it was a huge blessing.  2 investigators came to church. one from our area, and the other some kid that we found a couple weeks ago that lives in the area of the other sisters.  i was happy to see him show up.  and the other one is named gladis. pray for her.  she is 72ish and is awesome.  she is reading in the book of mormon and she walked with us to church (more than 20 blocks).  she is catholic like lots here, but we feel like her greatest challenge will be her family.  so far so good, but pray that she won´t have many problems with her family rejecting and that she will be strong through the trials that are sure to come her way.  she is super, super awesome and we are trying to help enter into the waters of baptism on the 14th of july. 

also, 3 inactives went to church yesterday!!  i´m super happy about that one too.  i hope they will continue enduring to the end.

oh, mom, my fake tooth chiped so if you could sign me up for a dentist appointment for as soon as you can when i come home that would be awesome.  luckily you can hardly tell that it chipped because my real tooth was underneath it. haha   and dad i do want that job.  i can turn anything down at this point. haha. 

faith i do not even believe that you are engaged because i don´t even know the name of the kid.   so you´d better not be. haha.  if you are, i just might not ever forgive you. that´s all.  i´m not as forgiving as jacob was with erik. haha.

um, well, that´s about all. 

lots of love,

hermana yingling

p.s. jacob.  eu sei que a igreja de jesus cristo é a igreja verdadera.  sei que o livro de mórmon é verdadero.  sei que jesus cristo é meu salvador e que vive.  espero que entendeu meu testimunho...jaja  tinha muitas erros e minha companheira teve que corregir muito. jaja. 

dearest ones!!

so, tuesday we were working like normal and we get a call from the assistants.  i thought that was weird and answered the phone.  elder steele told me, "you sisters need to be in the bus terminal at 5:30 pm to wait for the bus that is traveling from Buenos Aires."  i asked if that was all and told him it was all super mysterious.  he laughed and that was it.  we didn´t know what or who was coming, but we were excited.  we guessed a whole bunch of things none of which were right.  we got there and every time a Pullman bus pulled up we called the assistants only to find out that the first two weren´t the right bus.  haha we were super excited.  probably the biggest surprise of my life.
then, the bus came. haha.  and guess who got off.....HERMANA REALES!!! haha with a mini missionary as her companion!  haha yes!  now in junín we are 4 sisters!  i don´t know how it is possible, but i have basically had the same mission as sister reales. no just kidding, but all of my companions pretty much have been her comps and we served together 3 transfers, and out of my 3 and her 4 areas, 2 have been the same.  haha but anyway.  i´m feeling super good about it all because i feel like i can leave Junín in good hands.  :) at least hna. rios and hna. reales are staying when i leave.

anyway, so now i am working half of what i was working before (area wise) and it has made the work not easier, just much more possible.  i am super grateful.

we found a lady named Rosa this week.  the night we knocked on her door she let us in and we started teaching her.  she told us a bunch of stuff and said, "i´ve never told my pastor this, but i just feel like Jesus is telling me that i can trust you because you are His servants and will help me."  then she said that we remind her of her daughters that she hasn´t seen in a really long time and she said she feels like what we have taught her is the truth.  so, we invited her to be baptized and we invited her to church on sunday.  she showed up, but because of some complications had to leave early.  basically we are seeing a whole bunch of miracles. 

oh yeah, speaking of miracles.  i didn´t catch the lice that my companion brought me from transfer changes. haha.  it was disturbing how many she had on her head.  i saw them one day in the street and that night i got to comb them all out of her head.  i´m glad they make special combs here to remove lice because they are pretty ugly things. haha.  that was seriously a blessing, because she had so many and we had already been together one week and so i thought for sure i had them too.

anyway, it has been a week full of miracles, changes, and blessings too.

lots of love,

sister yingling


p.s. happy father´s day dad!!! you are the best dad i have ever had!  :)  oh yeah, and this applies to my grandpas, my uncles and my brothers too...

photo: 867  hermana rios and i

ok, here is the letter,

so, let´s see.  i had a cool experience on Sunday.  we were sitting in Gospel Principles and Francisco, Monica, Juan and Estela (a lady that got baptized the saturday right before I got to Junín) were all there.  They all participated and it was cool to see how they have grown and how much the Holy Ghost has helped them learn and change in their short time as members.  They are all reading daily in the scriptures and attending church every Sunday.  I felt so blessed for the opportunity that Heavenly Father has given me to be a missionary and to be able to participate in their spiritual growth.  it is so beautiful and it makes me super happy. 

there are lots of hard things going on here, but, when i think about the growth and the good things that happen, it makes it all worth it.  i realize that God had His hand in all things even during those hard times when it seems like there is nothing going right, and when i feel like i´m a terrible missionary because i can´t achieve what I think is success.  but then every time i´m overwhelmed with the trials Heavenly Father shows me that I am fulfilling my purpose as a missionary.  after all, i just need to help others to come unto Christ through faith, repentance, baptism, the reception of the gift of the Holy Ghost and enduring to the end.

That is a hard process, because that process brings the salvation.  and salvation never was never easy.  Christ paid everything and suffered everything to bring about the salvation of all men.  why can´t we then suffer a little bit to help a few progress towards the salvation?  and at the end of the day we realize that the experiences we have had weren´t "suffering" at all, but rather blessings that we cherish more than anything.  we realize that we are even more in debt to our God than ever before and we realize that we can NEVER pay Him back enough.

so, that´s why i keep serving, trying to pay Him back. haha. i´ll never get there, but i´ve gotta give it the best i can.  love being a missionary. 

love you all, lots.  i pray every day for you guys.  i´m forever grateful for how you have supported me and prayed for me every day.  i feel the strength of those prayers.

love, sarah

foto 1119:  we slept in the church because we didn´t have anywhere to stay before our zone conference.  haha. i actually slept really, really well on that bench.  i must have been tired. haha.

o my faithful blog readers,

 

ok, so there is no time ever. haha.  yesterday we had transfer changes.  and what happened?  i´m still here in junín, i´m dying here.  and i´m dying without training ever. haha.  but i´m totally ok with that.  i was worried about leaving junín to someone who is new to the mission and doesn´t have a lot of experience, because basically it could destroy everything that has changed here.  anyway, so when president told me he was sending a sister that is young but has some experience, i was super happy. 

we left yesterday morning 8:30am and didn´t get back until 1am.  haha.  but i´m super excited because i finally got the brazilian! haha.  yes!  she is awesome.  speaks english, spanish, and obviously portuguese.   i´ve always felt like she was a good missionary, and from what i´ve seen so far, i believe she is.

 

jacob, some of her friends served in your mission.  one was elder madero and elder carvalho...if you know any of them.  could be a cool small world connection.  oh and by the way............happy 24th!!!  don´t worry, i didn´t forget.  wait, you are old.  what in the world.  i hope you had a good birthday, it sure sounds like you did.

 

anyway, basically we are super excited to get to work.  and that´s why i don´t even have any time because today is not p-day, but i didn´t have any time yesterday (literally zero) so the assistants told me to write today. haha.   

 

this last week has been interesting because i got sick and lost my voice.  but completely. i had to speak in a whisper because i couldn´t speak correctly.  it got pretty cold these last couple days and everyone got sick and i was one of them.  and i was like that for 5 days. haha.  today i can speak better. so that is a huge blessing.  

 

basically i just want to say that i believe in miracles.  we are seeing a lot.  things are hard (like always) but they are looking up.  it is really cool to see that have gotten baptized, get up and bear their testimonies, and start to work in the church.  it is cool to see them leave their old life behind and begin a new one.  it is cool to hear the family of those who have been baptized talk about how many wonderful changes they have seen in that person.  it is true joy. 

 

the mission is changing a lot of things and i´m loving all the changes.  i wish i could stay to see how it all works out, but i know they are God inspired.  President Carter is truly inspired. and everything is super exciting here now that the temple in Buenos Aires will open up in August for the open house and be dedicated in September.  Too bad i won´t be here because it is going to be awesome!!

 

anyway, that´s all the cool news from down south.  hope you are all enjoying all the hot weather and doing fun stuff outside.  

 

love, sister yingling

 

p.s. angela, i don´t know when you´ll read this, but congrats girl!! say hi to brooksy for me...haha  oh and i finally got your letter and your announcement.  the day before you got married. haha.  you are beautiful.