okie dokie, or however that is spelled.
dear familia,
hey guess what, i was so blessed today. we live in the front part of a house that is owned by a lady. (hey i just looked down and there was a dog in this building. don´t worry, that´s really, really normal here, but i just realized that in the states you would never see a dog....but especially a street dog....in a building. thought that would be funny to tell you.) anyway, back to my story. she let my companion borrow her bike so i could go running and she could bike next to me. it was so good. i´m real slow, but oh well. i just need to trust that i can get back into shape quickly when i come home. it felt so good to tire my self running again. i miss it. i have a feeling waking up tomorrow morning will be hard. i try to go running with my companion in the mornings, but it is really hard to ask them to wake up earlier so we can go running. i think hermana reales wouldn´t mind going every morning if we didn´t have to wake up earlier. but because we have to, it is doubly hard for her.
anyway, we are having some great miracles. one of them is kind of a weird miracle, but i know it is a blessing. It is that when people tell us that they have no intention to keep commitments or move forward in the gospel at all. as sad as that is, it is a huge blessing because then we can use that precious time to find more people who really are ready to progress.
and the other miracle is that our investigator Marta is super duper prepared to be baptized. She told us this week that she loves the paintings of Christ that we have in the church because they look just like Him. She has had a lot of death experiences and miracles in her life and feels like she has been preserved to accept this gospel. She told us that she wakes up during the night sometimes just to read the Book of Mormon. She feels like it was written especially for her. And she quit smoking even before we had taught her two lessons (even before we taught her about the word of wisdom as well). I love "golden" investigators like her. Not because they are easy, but more because they show me that really we are not the ones that do the converting. It is the Holy Ghost that testifies, and if they can recognize that, then the Gospel changes their life drastically. I´ll try to send pictures of her baptism next week.
Anyway, to answer some questions. No I have not had fleas yet. My companion hermana claros had them with a different companion, but i try not to touch the dogs that i know have fleas. and when i do pet a dog i try not to touch my head until i can wash my hands.
um, let´s see. oh my companion is named Carolina Reales. We got to the mission at the same time but I have a little bit more time than her because of the MTC in Provo. She is from Córdoba, Argentina. She was studying biology and music before the mission. Her dad lives in California right now, but is going to move back to Córdoba soon. She plays the piano and the Clarinet (but she had to send her clarinet home because we got a new rule for the area that we can´t have any instruments in the mission. borrowed or anything. good thing i didn´t bring my violin...). She wants to continue studying music when she gets back from her mission. She is great and we get along just swelly....haha if that is a word. Anyway, that´s about everything that i know about my companion. believe it or not we are together 24 hrs. everyday, but we don´t talk about ourselves all that much. haha. oh yeah, and she love, love, loves chocolate.
anyway, that´s all folks!
love, sarah
ps, congrats chris and claire. i´m super happy for them.
pps, wow, bexi is gonna have a baby!!! craziness. i wanna see her baby. for sure it is gonna be super duper cute. :)
Monday, July 25, 2011
Monday, July 18, 2011
Dear family,
Ok, so I don´t have very much time. This week was a good one. Well, they are always good. Even when they are difficult. We had some great things happen. One thing that I really liked was that we finally got to meet our president and his family. We had interviews with him and his wife and we met his daughter. she is 15 and makes me laugh. poor girl can´t speak spanish, but she goes to an international school and so she has friend that speak both.
oh yeah, and guess what. Heavenly Father totally blesses you for diligence. This sunday we tried real hard to get some investigators at church, but no body went. So we left and went to go look for someone. We contacted a guy named Fabian on the street. He doesn´t live in our area, but we invited him to church and he went to church with us!! wahoo! it was so good.
I learned so much about faith and hope this past week. Seriously. Nothing happens without these two things. I love preach my gospel. It is so inspired and I learn how to trust in the Lord so much more as I study PMG and the scriptures.
Thanks for the pictures fam. I LOVED them. haha looks like so much fun. We´ll have to do it again some day. Faith I wanna know what´s up in your life.
Ok, that´s all.
Love, Sarah
Ok, so I don´t have very much time. This week was a good one. Well, they are always good. Even when they are difficult. We had some great things happen. One thing that I really liked was that we finally got to meet our president and his family. We had interviews with him and his wife and we met his daughter. she is 15 and makes me laugh. poor girl can´t speak spanish, but she goes to an international school and so she has friend that speak both.
oh yeah, and guess what. Heavenly Father totally blesses you for diligence. This sunday we tried real hard to get some investigators at church, but no body went. So we left and went to go look for someone. We contacted a guy named Fabian on the street. He doesn´t live in our area, but we invited him to church and he went to church with us!! wahoo! it was so good.
I learned so much about faith and hope this past week. Seriously. Nothing happens without these two things. I love preach my gospel. It is so inspired and I learn how to trust in the Lord so much more as I study PMG and the scriptures.
Thanks for the pictures fam. I LOVED them. haha looks like so much fun. We´ll have to do it again some day. Faith I wanna know what´s up in your life.
Ok, that´s all.
Love, Sarah
Monday, July 11, 2011
Dear family,
Hey the date is 7/11. you need to go to a 7/11 and get a free slurpie. yum. one time we did that in high school for our run. haha. ok, ok dad, don´t worry, it was at the END of our run. haha.
Ok, detail shmeetails. I am in the ward Libertad and it is split into two areas (A and B). we work with elder castillo (argentine) and elder jimenez (from utah). This is how my week went last week...
Monday:
we went to the mission offices in Ramos Mejía and I found out that my new companion (Hermana Reales) is awesome. We also learned that we didn´t have an apartment and that we didn´t have ANYTHING for that matter. We stayed the night in Ramos Mejía and worked in that area.
Tuesday:
we moved all our stuff to our new apartment and moved all our furniture in and everything (we have a big fridge and a microwave!!! :)...although I still haven´t made use of the microwave yet... oh yeah and we have AC and heating...not by duct, but still. a whole lot better than a space heater) then we had to get copies of keys so we could get in and out of our apt (actually it is a house that is pretty old, but has been remodeled some what, so it is pretty nice). we met our landlord Delia (we are going to teach her tonight... :D) and we got so sick of not doing anything that we didn´t put all our stuff away and decided to go find some people to teach. because it is a new area we literally had nothing. ZERO. so we started knocking doors. we found some people that were pretty receptive. Oh yeah and we met our bishop and a few members. We didn´t have a ward mission leader and my companion is GREAT and used the spirit to let the bishop know what´s up and that now that we have 4 missionaries in one ward, we MUST have a ward mission leader.
Wednesday:
spent a good portion of the day arranging everything and going shopping because we didn´t have any food. then we knocked doors all night. i think i understand more how Andrew´s mission must have been. knocking doors all day. It´s kind of fun, but then again it is fun teaching people too.
Thursday:
guess what we did. that´s right. knocked doors. oh and the elders brought us some directions and names of old investigators they had in their area book that now belong to our area.
Friday:
tried to visit some of the names we were given and found a guy named Alexis. He wants to learn more, so that is great. oh, and we knocked some more doors.
Saturday:
knocked doors. we were sad because we didn´t find anyone to bring to church (or anyone that could come to church on sunday for that matter...).
Sunday:
I love sundays because we get to go to church. Ok, Sunday always was my favorite day even before the mission, but I like them on the mission too. We walked to church sad because we didn´t have an investigator. Then we had tons of miracles. First, the Elders brought a lady in to Relief Society (Marta). turns out she lives in our area, so she is our investigator...and the Elders already set a baptisimal date with her. Wow. They are great. Now we need to do the same for them. Also, we got to know some of the members and they are all sooo excited to have sister missionaries in their ward because they have NEVER had sister missionaries. One sister (sister widman) told us that she had been praying to have sister missionaries in the ward. :) haha Then we visited Alexis and had a really good lesson. He didn´t want us to enter his house because of his dad. but then his dad came out and started telling us about how all churches are horrible because they are just businesses. he didn´t even let us speak to bear testimony. so after he left we started talking with alexis more (he is about 22 years old fyi...). anyway, he told us that he thinks basically the same way as his dad, but he doesn´t want to think like that. he wants to change. he wants to find peace and find answers to his prayers. so we gave him a Book of Mormon and bore our testimonies and promised him that he will find the peace he wants if he will read and pray about the Book of Mormon. He said he´ll do it. and he wants to go to church on Sunday!! wahoo! sunday was full of miracles.
anyway, that´s all folks! until next week.
Love, Sarah
Hey the date is 7/11. you need to go to a 7/11 and get a free slurpie. yum. one time we did that in high school for our run. haha. ok, ok dad, don´t worry, it was at the END of our run. haha.
Ok, detail shmeetails. I am in the ward Libertad and it is split into two areas (A and B). we work with elder castillo (argentine) and elder jimenez (from utah). This is how my week went last week...
Monday:
we went to the mission offices in Ramos Mejía and I found out that my new companion (Hermana Reales) is awesome. We also learned that we didn´t have an apartment and that we didn´t have ANYTHING for that matter. We stayed the night in Ramos Mejía and worked in that area.
Tuesday:
we moved all our stuff to our new apartment and moved all our furniture in and everything (we have a big fridge and a microwave!!! :)...although I still haven´t made use of the microwave yet... oh yeah and we have AC and heating...not by duct, but still. a whole lot better than a space heater) then we had to get copies of keys so we could get in and out of our apt (actually it is a house that is pretty old, but has been remodeled some what, so it is pretty nice). we met our landlord Delia (we are going to teach her tonight... :D) and we got so sick of not doing anything that we didn´t put all our stuff away and decided to go find some people to teach. because it is a new area we literally had nothing. ZERO. so we started knocking doors. we found some people that were pretty receptive. Oh yeah and we met our bishop and a few members. We didn´t have a ward mission leader and my companion is GREAT and used the spirit to let the bishop know what´s up and that now that we have 4 missionaries in one ward, we MUST have a ward mission leader.
Wednesday:
spent a good portion of the day arranging everything and going shopping because we didn´t have any food. then we knocked doors all night. i think i understand more how Andrew´s mission must have been. knocking doors all day. It´s kind of fun, but then again it is fun teaching people too.
Thursday:
guess what we did. that´s right. knocked doors. oh and the elders brought us some directions and names of old investigators they had in their area book that now belong to our area.
Friday:
tried to visit some of the names we were given and found a guy named Alexis. He wants to learn more, so that is great. oh, and we knocked some more doors.
Saturday:
knocked doors. we were sad because we didn´t find anyone to bring to church (or anyone that could come to church on sunday for that matter...).
Sunday:
I love sundays because we get to go to church. Ok, Sunday always was my favorite day even before the mission, but I like them on the mission too. We walked to church sad because we didn´t have an investigator. Then we had tons of miracles. First, the Elders brought a lady in to Relief Society (Marta). turns out she lives in our area, so she is our investigator...and the Elders already set a baptisimal date with her. Wow. They are great. Now we need to do the same for them. Also, we got to know some of the members and they are all sooo excited to have sister missionaries in their ward because they have NEVER had sister missionaries. One sister (sister widman) told us that she had been praying to have sister missionaries in the ward. :) haha Then we visited Alexis and had a really good lesson. He didn´t want us to enter his house because of his dad. but then his dad came out and started telling us about how all churches are horrible because they are just businesses. he didn´t even let us speak to bear testimony. so after he left we started talking with alexis more (he is about 22 years old fyi...). anyway, he told us that he thinks basically the same way as his dad, but he doesn´t want to think like that. he wants to change. he wants to find peace and find answers to his prayers. so we gave him a Book of Mormon and bore our testimonies and promised him that he will find the peace he wants if he will read and pray about the Book of Mormon. He said he´ll do it. and he wants to go to church on Sunday!! wahoo! sunday was full of miracles.
anyway, that´s all folks! until next week.
Love, Sarah
Monday, July 4, 2011
Dear family,
Ok, so this week was an interesting one. Originally president benton
asked me if i wanted to stay in Ituzaingo 4 for another transfer. I
told him I would like it, but also that I was willing to leave if that
is what Heavenly Father had in store. Anyway I didn´t know if I would
stay and go, but I thought maybe I´d stay because that is originally
what President Benton said. Then we got a call from President Benton
wednesday night (the night before he was to fly back to the states...)
because he had a question. Then he said, "sister yingling, you might
want to start taking photos because MAYBE you will be leaving". So
that was a little weird. I still wasn´t 100% for sure if I was
leaving or not until saturday night when I got the call saying that I
would be leaving. I still didn´t know where I would be going to, but
knew that I was leaving. In the mission all the missionaries make
their predictions as to who is going where and it is real fun to see
if you are right. We knew that we were getting two more sister
missionaries who are visa waiters from Argentina, so we knew that a
new area would have to open because nobody was leaving either. So it
was hard to guess who would be opening the new area.
Anyway, this morning we went to the mission offices to find out where
everyone was going and an Elder came up to me and said that I was
going to the ward Libertad, area B. H. Claros and I looked at each
other all confused (because only Elders are in that Stake, and the
ward Libertad doesn´t have two parts A and B). Then my companion
started saying, "I told you, you are going to the new area!!!" haha
I found my new companion and we started learning about our new area.
Because we are the first missionaries in our area we don´t have an
apartment. Actually, yes. It was signed for on Saturday and we don´t
have furniture or anything. haha so tonight we are staying in the
area where the offices are. This will be interesting to start a new.
I´m excited though. I hope and pray we can start it off right because
then we can hopefully leave the area with a good foundation.
Let´s see what else happened this week. Well, we had to go to the
doctors office this week because my companion got whiplash (she fell
down...poor girl). But she also had an in-grown toenail that she
refused to take care of. haha it was really funny because she told me
(like 4 weeks back) that her big toe was hurting. I looked at it, and
it was obviously an in-grown toenail. I told her that we had to call
the doctor and she just kept saying "no, no, no, it will go away" but
usually those things don´t just "go away". anyway, her toe got all
infected so when we went to the doctors for her whiplash the doctor
looked at her toe and said he had to remove part of her toenail. we
went back on friday and i got to watch the "operation". haha it was
sooo cool. he pulled like half of her nail out of her toe (because it
had grown into her toe). anyway, afterwards we went back to the
mission offices and met our new president. President Carter is great.
And he is taller than me!!! (it is really weird because there are
few Elders who are taller than me and President Benton is considerably shorter than me...haha) Anyway, obviously president carter is awesome because he is taller than me. But really, I can tell that he is a good man and that he will be a really good president.
So, yes, a lot of changes, and I will for sure let you know how my new area is. It is weird, because usually you don´t change to an area or even a stake that touches the stake you were just in, but mine does and I think it might even touch my old area. we will find out when I see a map of our new area.
Anyway, thank you everyone for all your prayers. Seriously, they are the most important thing right now. I´ve really learned a lot about how important it is to realy on prayers in EVERY aspect of life. Not just missionary work, but really, everything. But, missionary work really requires more prayers. I like the story of Alma the younger how he went to the city of Amalekiah (uh, i don´t remember how you spell it in English...) and the people wanted nothing to do with his message (sometimes I feel like that too...even though I´m in an area of the world that is relatively receptive of our message). Anyway, he prayed and fasted very diligently for them and that is when he started seeing people change their lives. I really have a HUGE testimony of the importance of prayer and fasting.
Welp, love you all.
Love, Sarah Anne
p.s. mom, thanks for the reese´s. I enjoyed it so much and I shared it with my companion. She loved it. haha. they need to start selling here in Argentina. Oh and that is weird that they made all the illegal fireworks legal...haha and i hope puggs doesn´t die of a heart attack. i´ll be sad if he does. and I´m glad that the funeral went well for Uncle Louis. One thing I love about the plan that Heavenly Father has for us is that we know that we really can...one day....live with our family again. Heavenly Father is so smart I love it. :) This is one of the most important messages that we share everyday. how are we so lucky to have the knowledge of these things?
oh, i forgot to say HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY!!!!! independence day here is the 9th of July. haha. oh and President Carter and his wife say hi. :)
Ok, so this week was an interesting one. Originally president benton
asked me if i wanted to stay in Ituzaingo 4 for another transfer. I
told him I would like it, but also that I was willing to leave if that
is what Heavenly Father had in store. Anyway I didn´t know if I would
stay and go, but I thought maybe I´d stay because that is originally
what President Benton said. Then we got a call from President Benton
wednesday night (the night before he was to fly back to the states...)
because he had a question. Then he said, "sister yingling, you might
want to start taking photos because MAYBE you will be leaving". So
that was a little weird. I still wasn´t 100% for sure if I was
leaving or not until saturday night when I got the call saying that I
would be leaving. I still didn´t know where I would be going to, but
knew that I was leaving. In the mission all the missionaries make
their predictions as to who is going where and it is real fun to see
if you are right. We knew that we were getting two more sister
missionaries who are visa waiters from Argentina, so we knew that a
new area would have to open because nobody was leaving either. So it
was hard to guess who would be opening the new area.
Anyway, this morning we went to the mission offices to find out where
everyone was going and an Elder came up to me and said that I was
going to the ward Libertad, area B. H. Claros and I looked at each
other all confused (because only Elders are in that Stake, and the
ward Libertad doesn´t have two parts A and B). Then my companion
started saying, "I told you, you are going to the new area!!!" haha
I found my new companion and we started learning about our new area.
Because we are the first missionaries in our area we don´t have an
apartment. Actually, yes. It was signed for on Saturday and we don´t
have furniture or anything. haha so tonight we are staying in the
area where the offices are. This will be interesting to start a new.
I´m excited though. I hope and pray we can start it off right because
then we can hopefully leave the area with a good foundation.
Let´s see what else happened this week. Well, we had to go to the
doctors office this week because my companion got whiplash (she fell
down...poor girl). But she also had an in-grown toenail that she
refused to take care of. haha it was really funny because she told me
(like 4 weeks back) that her big toe was hurting. I looked at it, and
it was obviously an in-grown toenail. I told her that we had to call
the doctor and she just kept saying "no, no, no, it will go away" but
usually those things don´t just "go away". anyway, her toe got all
infected so when we went to the doctors for her whiplash the doctor
looked at her toe and said he had to remove part of her toenail. we
went back on friday and i got to watch the "operation". haha it was
sooo cool. he pulled like half of her nail out of her toe (because it
had grown into her toe). anyway, afterwards we went back to the
mission offices and met our new president. President Carter is great.
And he is taller than me!!! (it is really weird because there are
few Elders who are taller than me and President Benton is considerably shorter than me...haha) Anyway, obviously president carter is awesome because he is taller than me. But really, I can tell that he is a good man and that he will be a really good president.
So, yes, a lot of changes, and I will for sure let you know how my new area is. It is weird, because usually you don´t change to an area or even a stake that touches the stake you were just in, but mine does and I think it might even touch my old area. we will find out when I see a map of our new area.
Anyway, thank you everyone for all your prayers. Seriously, they are the most important thing right now. I´ve really learned a lot about how important it is to realy on prayers in EVERY aspect of life. Not just missionary work, but really, everything. But, missionary work really requires more prayers. I like the story of Alma the younger how he went to the city of Amalekiah (uh, i don´t remember how you spell it in English...) and the people wanted nothing to do with his message (sometimes I feel like that too...even though I´m in an area of the world that is relatively receptive of our message). Anyway, he prayed and fasted very diligently for them and that is when he started seeing people change their lives. I really have a HUGE testimony of the importance of prayer and fasting.
Welp, love you all.
Love, Sarah Anne
p.s. mom, thanks for the reese´s. I enjoyed it so much and I shared it with my companion. She loved it. haha. they need to start selling here in Argentina. Oh and that is weird that they made all the illegal fireworks legal...haha and i hope puggs doesn´t die of a heart attack. i´ll be sad if he does. and I´m glad that the funeral went well for Uncle Louis. One thing I love about the plan that Heavenly Father has for us is that we know that we really can...one day....live with our family again. Heavenly Father is so smart I love it. :) This is one of the most important messages that we share everyday. how are we so lucky to have the knowledge of these things?
oh, i forgot to say HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY!!!!! independence day here is the 9th of July. haha. oh and President Carter and his wife say hi. :)
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