Week 12

Ok, so I forgot to answer some questions. Actually the only one that I can remember is my companions name. Haha I can´t believe I didn´t tell you. That is horrible. Anyway, her name is Hermana Salazar. She was born in Argentina, but lived a lot of her life in Chile and now she lives in Argentina again. She is AWESOME. haha. super great. one of those people that everyone gets along with.

Anyway, my week. We didn´t have anyone to make lunch for us this past tuesday, so i tried. But i´ve forgotten so much being on my mission. haha i even forgot to make a simple alfredo sauce. so i forgot the milk, and it was too floury and it was gross. my companion made fun of me. that is her favorite thing to do i think. haha jk. but she was nice and ate it anyway. but don´t worry, i remembered the milk and made it again later on in the week and it was sooo good.

the work in south america is difficult because no one wants to go to church. maybe that is a world-wide epidemic, but i don´t really know. all i know is everyone is great because almost all the stores are closed on sundays, but everyone still seems to work on sundays. haha i don´t get it really. we are trying to find scriptures that will help us teach to the needs of our investigators and our less active families. we have some people that want to be baptized, but are failing to keep the commitment of going to church. this is huge. if only they could have the vision we have...haha but i´m sure that is how the prophet feels all the time with the members of the church in general.

one of satan´s greatest tools is laziness. i see it everywhere, and as i think back to my life before the mission, i can see how satan used laziness in my life to keep me from becoming a better- more rounded person. anyway, prayer is the only way we can do anything. prayer, prayer, prayer. it is the key. specific prayers.

one of our investigators is 13. she has been reading the book of mormon (a lot! she read the whole book of moroni in 1 day...!), but didn´t come to church on sunday and we don´t know why. we haven´t been able to contact her or anyone in her family the past 2 days and it is really weird. they have a lock on their gate that they don´t normally have, so we don´t know what is going on.

let´s see what else. oh...we have a jehovah´s witness investigator. well, not really an investigator. i think he wants to convert us. they make me sad. they don´t even want to go to the celestial kingdom. they don´t even believe in anything hopeful. what kind of life is that? seriously. it is so sad. and all they can do is argue the bible. our "investigator" haha said we can´t use the book of mormon to teach we can only use the bible. and he likes to use the book of mormon against us. it is silly really. every jehovah´s witness we talk to says they respect us, but then they like to attack us with their beliefs and they don´t say respectful things. it is sad. i just wish they would take a moment to test the word. then they would see the fruit and taste of the "sweetness" of the gospel. but i guess if they just want the terrestrial kingdom, that is fine. that is where they are going. but i´m sad. i want them to go to the celestial kingdom. maybe they will accept the gospel in the next life....i hope so. they are so close. i think they do a pretty good job for not having the Book of Mormon or modern revelation to learn from.

unfortunately i don´t know the bible well enough (sad day) to prove them wrong, but that is probably a good thing. then i have to resist the temptation to bible bash. my companions dad used to be a jehovah´s witness and she said it was really, really, really hard for him to convert. but now he is a hard core member! :) anyway, i´m loving the jehovah´s witnesses. haha.

i´m seeing miracles in the ward i´m in. we had a new mission leader that was just called right before i came, and he is helping the mission work tons. they are calling ward missionaries and we are having meetings once a week with the relief society and elders quorum presidents. it is great. things are starting to turn around and our numbers in sacrament meeting are starting to climb. i hope they can keep climbing. we have a ridiculous number of inactive families..and if we can get them active, things are really going to improve in this area. missionary work is a hopeful work.

hmm...what else. oh. i teach English on saturday´s. it is really weird to teach english. there are all these rules that i haven´t thought of in ages it feels like, and i even forgot that we had a whole bunch of specific rules. and i never realized how difficult english was to read, but there are so many different sounds for every letter that everyone gets really confused. i´ve been trying to teach my companion the little tricks i know...but half the time i don´t even know why a word sounds the way it does. it is really funny.

anyway, that´s all for this week!

love you!!

sarah

Oh, and I got a dearelder from someone and I don´t know who. The email address was stephen@viamankind.com . I have my guesses, but I don´t have an address either, so I can´t send anything. Anyway, so if you read this stephen@viamankind.com , maybe you should send me your address and I can respond...maybe. Turns out it is hard to write letters on P-days.

Oh, and whitney hebbert, I don´t have your address too, so if you could dearelder me that, i´ll try to write you a letter as well. :)