Ok, I´m going to explain the photos in this email....

002: We went to the track!! I went running, and my district leader apparently looks like Leonardo Decaprio so in this picture we were pretending we were in the movie titanic (which i have never seen, so i don´t really know). Me, Elder Paxman, and Elder Castro.

014: I was giving our stats to our District Leader and H. Salazar started attacking me with the plundger..haha.

015: We were wearing our rain ponchos that we bought for ooober cheap...too hot to wear my rain coat and to rainy to only use an umbrella... H. Salazar pulls the look off well don´t you think?

more coming...
024: All the Hermana´s at our new missionary meeting. I missed mine because of my stay in Atlanta, GA, so I got to go after being a missionary for 1 month already. We ate yummy food...

029: So I had a race with an investigator we are teaching. He doesn´t want to marry his spouse, so my companion decided to say that I would race him and if I won then he had to get married, if he won then he didn´t have to. Well, I knew I would win because God was on my side, but still.... she didn´t even know that boys ran faster than girls and so I told her that and she got a little worried. haha This is the shirt she made. The front says "corre yingling corre" and on the back "Yes for marriage!" haha. He still isn´t married, but now he is telling people that he has to get married...so we´ve made progress. We ran 4 blocks total...maybe 400 meters, and H. Salazar was really worried because he started off really fast. I knew he would die, so I just stayed close, and at half way I had already pulled ahead. He stopped running and I kept going to the end. It felt so good to go "fast" again. He hitched a ride in his neighbors car...haha it was really funny. He really hit the wall....badly.

030: I don´t know why, but she loves to take pictures of me eating...haha
51: eating again....a hot dog. Hot dogs aren´t my favorite food, but here we seem to eat them a lot (well more than I´m used to) and I think I like them more because they are american food...haha.

053: Andrés and Nicolas. Some of our two favorite boys of a recent convert. This was after we helped their mom rearrange her whole house. It sounds like a lot, but really she just lives in a garage, so it wasn´t a lot. I loved it. Everyone knows how much I love to rearrange and organize stuff... :)

058: Us again, but the whole crew this time.
063: Dilan and Dustin, their mom, mom´s boyfriend and family, and grandpa. Plus another boy named Facundo...or something. I´m not exactly sure.

070: Dustin coming out of the font. He is so cute!! E. Castro baptized him.

010: This was last night. I´m using my athletic training skills to help her leg heal. She has a sprain and maybe a slight strain. The side walks are really uneven here, and we were running home saturday night and she kind of tweeked it a little. This morning we called the doctor and it was weird to talk "medical" terms again...but I liked it. I miss anatomy...a lot. And I´ve already forgotten everything. I wish I could have my anatomy books sometimes, but that´s ok. It will come back quickly.

009: Damian (left) and Marcos. Marcos baptized Damian. Marcos is the brother of Damian´s girlfriend. I never taught him, but it is always good to see someone be baptized. :)

008: Daiana coming out of the font. She always went to church and we thought she was a member. She is only 11 years old, and when we found out she wasn´t a member we made sure we got the signature of her parents asap so she could be baptized. She is great. :)007: Before Daianas baptism on Saturday April 23. From the left. H. Salazar, Hermano Horton (second counselor in the bishopric), Daiana Iglesias, and ...ME. haha. Funny story about H. Horton. We at lunch at his mother´s house the other day, and she started talking about how their last name is english and sometimes they drop the "H". she asked if I knew any horton´s and I said no. the she asked if i knew anyone with horton without the h. haha I started laughing and said, yes...my boyfriend. haha she thought that was really funny. So I have a question for andrew (because I´m assuming this stuff will go on my blog) where did the "H" go on your last name? Hermana Horton wants to know...haha.

004: For Easter (aka Pascuas) they do a thing called Rosca´s here in Buenos Aires. A member gave us this one. it is kind of a sweet bread with random stuff. this one had prunes, almonds, and banana something with those red, red cherries. Kind of a weird mixture, but it tastes good.

003: Last P-day. We made "tortas fritas" kind of like scones (well the kind my family makes) but they puff up differently. But different at the same time. I´m going to make scones for H. Salazar one day. She thinks it is weird to put honey and butter on bread. The first thing our American zone leader said when she gave him one to try was, "where is the honey butter?" haha I laughed really hard because that´s what I wanted too.


Dear family,

I hope you liked the pictures. Oh and HAPPY EASTER...or FELIZ PASCUAS!! My second easter away from home wasn´t so bad. I didn´t get to do an easter egg hunt but i was given a choclate egg. A white chocolate egg. I don´t usually like white chocolate, but this one was home-made by a recent convert and it was actually really yummy. I can do the white-chocolate in small doses. Anyway, that was my easter.

I´m learning a lot from the scriptures..and I love it.

I´m seeing how necessary this gospel is in everyone´s lives...and it is hard to help them understand the importance. The importance of the gospel only comes with time...time immerssed in the gospel. Never let doubts keep you from building your testimony. That´s satan´s tool...he loves when people just stop doing the little things...because eventually he will get them to stop all together. And then, a few years down the road, you will wish you never had, and it is 10X´s harder to come back. Staying faithful is the safest route...and in my opinion, the easiest. Maybe a little harder every day, but much easier than trying to change your whole life once you have already fallen away.

I´m greatful everyday that I was born into the covenant. I love to look back on my life and notice where I have been blessed, and count the many different ways that my life is better because of this gospel. And there is nothing worse about my life. That´s the cool thing. The gospel is always a win, win situation. Keeping the commandments more and more never hurt anyone. Only good things come from it.

Anyway, peace out!

love,
sarah

Dear familiares,

this week was a difficult one. we worked hard, but things just weren´t happening. it was sad. I think some of it had to do with the fact that Heavenly Father wants to remind us Who is in charge. It was a pretty good, humbling, slap in the face kind of week. They aren´t fun while you experience them, but afterward, I´m always greatful for what I´ve learned.

we are trying to do some "spring cleaning" even though it is fall here. haha but we are trying to clean up the ward list of members here. that is the goal in the mission at least.we visited like 20 houses and either the house didn´t exist or the members no longer lived there. we would find like 1 out of those 20 houses. but we are hoping in the long run that it will help the future missionaries and the ward leaders as well.

also this week we focused more in the "tough" area of our ward. it is richer, and people are a little less receptive, but h. salazar and I are convinced that there are some people that need the gospel right now in that area. our area is HUGE so it is really difficult to work in both places (the poorer and the richer) at the same time. it is a lot easier to talk to the poorer people, but they don´t know what it means to keep commitments sometimes, so we are trying for the other side. usually the missionaries don´t work there because it is more difficult, but we are trying.

we found who we hope is a "golden" contact in the difficult more rich area of Castelar. His name is Blas, and guess what, he has a family!!! wahoo...oh the joys of teaching a whole family. he seemed really interested and he has no religion... :) Also, he thinks baptism is really important, and has always been impressed with the missionaries he has seen in the past (yay for planted seeds...that´s why it is so important to always act how Christ would act, because you never know who you will impact). Anyway, we are excited to start teaching him. Pray that we can have success. I´m sure you always do...but just a reminder. Also, pray for the missionaries. That they won´t be lazy. It is a problem...and I don´t really get it, but it is what it is.

oh and here are some pics. details in another email...hopefully...haha

Anyway, until next week!! lots of love!
Hermana Sarah Anne Yingling

week 14

Dear Family, friends, and people who like to read about my life as a missionary...

This week was great. I got to experience the first baptism of someone that we found and taught. They are little angels. Seriously. Dilan(9) and Dustin(8). We have been going through the ward list and visiting less actives and they were the result of one of these families. We knocked on the door and the grandpa answered. He said that he wanted to start coming back to church, and he wants his grandsons to get baptized. We met their mom Jessica and she said the same thing. So basically they were golden contacts. haha and they are so awesome. They are so cute and it is so cool to see their lives change. Some day they will be missionaries and I´m so excited for them when that day comes! I´ll send pictures someday when I remember to bring my camera. :)

Oh, and we had some miracles yesterday too! We have been trying so hard to bring more people to church. Finally it paid off. We got several of our investigators to come to church, and one of our inactives that we just barely found like a week ago came to church. His name is French and his whole family are members and they live in Utah. haha. We haven´t even been able to teach him, but he came to General Conference and said that I called the prophet and told them to speak about how to gain a testimony and things like that. haha he said he felt like the talks were directed right at him...haha. I just laughed and said, now you just need to get a testimony and start coming to church. Anyway, yesterday he came to church and we didn´t hardly do anything. A testament to me that we as missionaries don´t do the converting. We are just mouth pieces of the Spirit. We help people come to places where they can feel the Spirit, and the Spirit is who does the changing.

Another example of that happened yesterday as well. We had a goal for a certain number of people with scheduled baptisms by the end of the week. We only needed one more and could only think of one person that might, maybe, if we were lucky commit to a date. His name is Juan Manuel, and he is re capo...as they say here. That just means that he is really cool. He is 22 and his girlfriend is 15. She is a member and she is who brought him to church the first time. That´s where we started talking to him. He really liked what he heard and so we invited him to be baptized for the first time weeks ago. then the aunt of the girlfriend didn´t like that (we don´t really know why because she is a member, but she didn´t want him to be pressured into being baptized I guess...or she thought we were trying to date him or something...we don´t really know) and she said we can´t call him, or go to his house to talk to him and things like that. It was really sad, because every chance we had to talk to him he really liked what he read and felt at church, etc.

So we decided that we would exercise faith and not be afraid of the wrath of the aunt of the girlfriend. We decided we would go to his house to talk to him. Before we knocked, we said a little prayer and asked for help in completing our goals. We asked that he would have the desire to be baptized.

We went and knocked and then turned around to see him running over to us from the opposite corner. The first thing he said to us (after our hey, how are you?´s) was "I texted you (oh i forgot to mention that after church he texted us and said that we could come teach him tuesday night...we were so excited!) because I realized today in church that I wanted to be baptized as soon as I can." We both started laughing because we were so happy. He said that he really wanted to be where Dilan and Dusting were (receiving the Holy Ghost and being confirmed a memeber of the church) and feel what he felt today in sacrament meeting. It was a pure miracle.

That right there is another example of how we do nothing to convert as missionaries. I am always surprised at how and why people desire to change. Because the funny thing is, we can try really, really hard with someone and they don´t progress at all (because they aren´t prepared yet...but they will be in the future) and we don´t have to do anything but provide an opportunity for someone to feel the spirit and they can progress so much. It is pure awesomeness... haha

Anyway, guess what I did today. We found a track, and I went running!!! I loved it. Except the part where I couldn´t run very fast for very long. But I still loved it. I think I ran like 3 1/2 miles total, and it was hard. I even had to stop. And I only went like 8 min. pace too. So so so so bad. I miss running like crazy. And my companion always says she is too tired to go running in the mornings...and I feel selfish if I make her loose sleep to run, so yes, we don´t hardly ever. And when we do...really, really slowly..haha. Except at night when we are trying to make it back to our apartment in time...then she books it. haha

What else? oh yeah. I played a violin at the baptism. it was so fun. but the A string (aka the most important string for all the hymns etc.) kept slipping because it was bad...and it had a funny buzzing sound, but i think everyone still liked it.

and I cut Dilans hair too. good thing I bought haircutting scissors in the mtc. it has provided a lot of service opportunities...and i get to practice more and more. thanks mom and gina for teaching me how through example. :)

and that´s all folk! love you lots and lots!

to all my friends...sorry if you don´t get letters from me very often. I don´t really have lots of time. But you´ll get one eventually... :) and thanks for all the letters I´ve received!

love,
sarah

Ha Ha Very funny

Dearest family,

Ok, I am sitting here laughing at all the funny things that my family says and my companion looks over to me, she is crying, because her sister-in-law passed away and she just found out. Oh man, I feel so sad for her. I would be so sad if someone in my family died. I don´t know what to say to comfort her.... but she is great. She is sending scriptures to her family to comfort them...

Anyway, not to start off on a sad note...but yeah. Um, general conference was AWESOME!! haha. We really wanted to get a lot of investigators to general conference and we tried so hard, but we just didn´t get hardly anyone. sad day. We even made little pizzas to eat for lunch for our investigators, but that didn´t help them come. haha. Our oven broke half way through cooking them and so we decided to finish cooking them at the stake center. We took them and as conference was going they were keeping warm in the oven. I decided I should go take them out, so I went and took them out and put them on the counter. Then I remembered that we had snacks for our investigators (he was 9 so we figured it would help him stay focused) so I went to go give them to him. I came back to the kitchen like 1 min. later and I saw some kids (probably 13-15 years old) running out of the kitchen with smirks on their faces. I didn´t think much of it until I realized that half the pizzas were partially eaten. haha they didn´t even take the part they didn´t finish with them. So I thought, "ha, you think you are going to get away with stealing our food? watch this..." and I hid them in a cupboard. I didn´t think they would have the patience to look. I came back after the conference was over and ALL of our pizzas were gone. It was so sad...but kind of funny too. Man, nothing is safe here....that is the sad truth. So maybe I shouldn´t have you send my violin down. That decided for me. I think it will be better if I don´t.

Anyway, that is my funny story. of the week. and here are some pictures...( i hope they send. and mom, you can put them on the blog!!) and explanations.

1- Elder Paxman my district leader. he is from Texas. If we met our goal of contact during the week, we got to throw a water balloon at him. Haha H. Salazar and I had fun. But then because we didn´t meet our goal for New Investigators for the week, our zone leaders got to throw water balloons at us. I think I was the only one who really got wet. haha
2. Our area. Pretty big. The flags are where members, investigators, old investigators, recent converts and part member families live.

More in another email,

Love, Sarah Anne