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. :)