Ok, due to some inconveniences today we don´t really have a lot of time. So to be obedient, I´m just going to write real quickly... :) This week we had a meeting with President Carter. Actually it was all day Friday. We arrived at the mission offices at 8:00am and didn´t leave until about 6:00pm. Wow. Long day of meetings. But it was great. President Carter changed a LOT of things about the mission. I thought this would happen, but I´m really excited about it. I really think with all of the new rules and with all of the new focus, we are really going to see an increase in baptisms. But not just that, an increase in CONVERSIONS. As you all know, there is a HUGE difference between the two. Because a baptism with a conversion is the type of baptism that Heavenly Father recognizes. Plus it is just sad to see those people who you taught that got baptized go inactive. Super sad. So, I am really excited about these changes to the rules. Anyway, that´s pretty much it. We a learning a lot about miracles and obedience and enduring to the end. It is great.

That´s about all... love you lots!
Sarah

p.s. here are some photos since I can´t write very much....enjoy!!

001: Marta
002: Elias

The two huge miracles of the last transfer!! They are so awesome and have really strong testimonies.

Hey awesome peoples i know,

Guess what, this week was so crazy. One of those weeks that is really frustrating, but at the end you are greatful you struggled to see the blessings in the end. The whole week we did a whole bunch of good things, but at the end of the week we were still a long way away from meeting our goals and it was pretty depressing. Everyone that we had planned to bring to church either got sick or went out of town because of the holiday weekend they had here. Sad day.

Anyway, Sunday rolled around and we knew that we had a lot to do with very little time (because church takes up the whole morning). We were hoping that we would see miracles for our obedience and diligence during the week. And guess what, we saw some pretty incredible miracles.

The first miracle: We went to visit some people who of course were not home, so then we went to our back-up plan that we had. We passed by a house where a man and woman were standing outside their door just chatting. We passed by and the guy said, "hola Elderes". (haha it is so funny to be a sister missionary. Especially in a place where there have NEVER in the history of this ward been sister missionaries, because even the people on the streets who aren´t members don´t know what to call us. haha). I recognized him as the man i have been wanting to talk to for a few weeks (because every time we pass by him he says that same thing...and every time i want to talk to him) but for always being in a hurry we never talked to him. anyway, my companion started talking to him first introducing us a missionaries for the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Turns out the guy is an in-active for most of his life (actually the son of one of the members in my first that I always wanted to go visit, but we never did) and he just recently moved to this ward. Anyway, his girlfriend isn´t a member and her son isn´t either. They both (Eduardo and Eugenia) are wanting to change their lives for the better and she really wants to go to church. He does to, but doesn´t feel like he is worthy to go to church. Anyway, it was awesome because they said that they would go to church this coming Sunday!! Now they just need to quit smoking and live the law of chastity and get testimonies! :) I´m so excited for them.

Ok, when we left their house we contacted a girl named Myra. She told us that she had spoken to elders a while back and they gave her a Book of Mormon. She said that she felt a lot of peace after talking with the elders and she has already read the whole Book of Mormon. She said that when she started reading the Book of Mormon, good things started happening in her life. She wanted to go to church, but didn´t know where the church was. so we arranged to visit her and she said that she is going to go to church this coming Sunday!!

Two miracles in a row. Wow. I love how Heavenly Father lets us struggle for a while, but if we endure with faith, knowing that if we do our part then He will do His, He really blesses us. I have really learned that I can do nothing. The only thing that I can do is be obedient. If I´m not obedient, I will not have success as a missionary, but as I am obedient, I know I will continue to see more and more miracles.

Anyway, that´s all folks!

Until next week.... love, Sister Yingling

Dear family,

I learned this week that in Buenos Aires, Argentina hail the size of baseball falls. haha it was soo crazy. Friday during the night I woke up to hail and fell back asleep thinking it was the normal quarter sized hail (yes, the small marble sized hail is really, really small here...) that fell a couple weeks ago. Then when we got up in the morning, it was really pretty outside. Anyway, we went on with our day as normal and right as we were about to leave, the sky turned from sunny to night time and down poured. it is fun here because in a matter of minutes it can go from summer to what seems like a hurricane, flooding all of the streets. Hail the size of quarters fell again. We stayed inside until it passed and then went out.

We were going about our day (i was sure greatful for my boots that are AWESOME) and we decided we should stop by a members house to pick up something. As we walked to her house, there was thunder 5 times in a row...super, super loud. seriously the loudest i have ever heard it. We got to her house and as we were talking to her from outside her window the sky again went from sunshine to darkness in literally seconds and it started to rain. We pulled out our umbrellas and then it started to hail. Initially it was the size of marbles and the sister asked us if we wanted to come in. We said, no because it would pass soon. Then they got bigger, so she went to go find her key to let us in and i was looking back to see how big the hail was. There was hail literally the size of tennis balls or baseballs falling. Just then the Elders called to make sure we were under a roof, and I told him we were working on it. Then a huge hail hit my umbrella, and i scream-giggled because it was so exciting. haha. Seriously, so fun. We finally got to go into her house for refuge. Surprisingly our umbrellas didn't break. I am always really greatful for my umbrella...it is awesome.

And now they are wanting to use the computer, so id better get on with the spiritual stuff that happened this week. Well, we found two less active families who have children who are 11 years old and they aren't members. The cool thing is that they both of desires to go back to church and they want their daughters to be baptized. There are some stuggles that we are working out, but with the help of the Lord, we are going to working on activating these families and baptizing their daughters in this coming transfer.

We prayed really hard for a surprise baptism this last weekend, and we got one. Well for the ward anyway. It wasn't for our area. Anyway, one of the elders in our ward was trying to arrange a surprise baptism and so we got to help out with that. the girls name is Jessica, and she is like 20 years old i think. Her dad is a recent convert and he didn't know that he was going to baptize her. It was cool when she walked out in white. Everyone was all super excited.

This week i saw a lot of my prayers answered. I have a huge testimony of prayer, but also a huge testimony in patience. when we pray for answers and for things to happen, we need to be patient. we can't expect things to happen on our time table. it is always on the lords time-table. the cool thing about that is that it always works out better too. :)

well, until next week!
sarah

dear family,
hey guess what. I went to a petting zoo today. For p-day. but it was awesome because i got to hold a baby lion, pet big lions and tigers and ride a camel. :) Best petting zoo EVER! Oh and I went to a cathedral in Luján. I bet you could look it up. It is really pretty awesome looking.

anyway, this week was so awesome. Marta was confirmed a member and we had 98 people in sacrament meeting!!! Three of the 5 families that we have to work with went to church and have desires to be more active in the church. It is really fun working ina ward with a set of sisters and a set of elders. It just seems like we can get so much more done and that the bishop can use the talents that the elders have in places that we don´t work very well and vice versa.

It is funny in our stake because there have hardly been any sister missionaries here and so they all look at us like animals in a cage or something. haha and they don´t know how to react with us. it is really funny.

um, anyway, i am learning a ton about how important obedience is. to the enth degree....haha. the more obedient we are as a companionship, the more miracles we see. try it. it is great.

anyway, not much time,
love you lots
sarah

oh p.s. the mission presidents wife does a blog. i don´t know if i already mentioned it, but it is buenosaireswest.blogspot.com if you want to check it out.

Dearest persons that live in the United States of America,

Ok, this week was awesome. We had the baptism of one of our investigators. Actually basically our only investigator. Her name is Marta. She is about 60 years old, and is incredible. She has so much faith and such a strong testimony. She paid her tithing this past sunday. $4 pesos. She earned $40 pesos this week and we taught her all about tithing. even though she didn´t have money to buy food, she saved the $4 pesos to pay her tithing on Sunday. Also, she came to church all by herself even though she was sick (she had the flu or something) and walked in the cold even though she shouldn´t go out in the cold. she said she was going to go to church no matter what because she wanted to be baptized after the meetings. so she got baptized. she was so cold and shaking, but so happy and kept saying, "thank you, thank you". she suffers from epilepsy and doesn´t have the money to buy her medicine, but i know that she will be blessed for her diligence and her patience and her obedience. wow, she is incredible.

and, we had another miracle. we split our ward with some Elders, and a couple weeks ago they told us about a boy that always goes to all the activities and always goes to all the church meetings who isn´t a member. his name is Elias. his dad is a member (as of about 4 years ago) but inactive (as of about 2 years ago). because Elias is only 13 years old, we have to get permission from his dad to baptize him. Elias wants to be baptized real bad, but his dad says that he needs to wait longer. He also told the Elders that he didn´t want them to come by anymore. So, the Elders asked us if we would go talk to the dad. So we got permission and crossed our area limits by like 3 blocks to visit the dad (named Pedro). The first time he wasn´t there so we left a little note ( it is amazing how notes are miracle workers). Elias told us that when his dad saw the note, he was really happy. So we stopped by again. We prayed that he would be home and that we would be guided in our words. We didn´t even know what to say, but that is the name of the the game as a missionary.

we went by his house and he answered the door. he was nice, but a little bit closed (obviously because it was the first time that we had ever met him..) and we just started talking to him. we talked about a bunch of different things, everyonce in a while diving into a gospel topic, which he would quickly change every time we did. anyway, we finally started asking him about why he got baptized and his testimony. that got him to remember that he did have a testimony. then my awesome companion asked him if he ever had the opportunity to bless the sacrament. he said that he did once. we asked him how he felt during that experience and as he started talking, tears began to flow. he told us it was a really nice memory and that he remembered feeling really happy at that time in his life. we helped him understand that he really did want his children to have that experience too which helped him realize that Elias needed to be baptized. then elias shared his testimony with his dad. it was really a cool spiritual experience. he signed the baptism paper right then and there, and we are planning on his baptism for the following Sunday, or if not then, not this saturday, but the next. Elias was so excited that when his dad went inside to get a pen, he started jumping up and down saying, "thank you! thank you!" we were so excited as well that we almost hugged him. haha. no worries...we didn´t. but later that night at our ward family home evening he was telling everyone that he is going to get baptized the next Sunday.

It is moments like these that makes everything worth it.

Love you all!!
Sarah

Dearest persons that live in the United States of America,

Ok, this week was awesome. We had the baptism of one of our investigators. Actually basically our only investigator. Her name is Marta. She is about 60 years old, and is incredible. She has so much faith and such a strong testimony. She paid her tithing this past sunday. $4 pesos. She earned $40 pesos this week and we taught her all about tithing. even though she didn´t have money to buy food, she saved the $4 pesos to pay her tithing on Sunday. Also, she came to church all by herself even though she was sick (she had the flu or something) and walked in the cold even though she shouldn´t go out in the cold. she said she was going to go to church no matter what because she wanted to be baptized after the meetings. so she got baptized. she was so cold and shaking, but so happy and kept saying, "thank you, thank you". she suffers from epilepsy and doesn´t have the money to buy her medicine, but i know that she will be blessed for her diligence and her patience and her obedience. wow, she is incredible.

and, we had another miracle. we split our ward with some Elders, and a couple weeks ago they told us about a boy that always goes to all the activities and always goes to all the church meetings who isn´t a member. his name is Elias. his dad is a member (as of about 4 years ago) but inactive (as of about 2 years ago). because Elias is only 13 years old, we have to get permission from his dad to baptize him. Elias wants to be baptized real bad, but his dad says that he needs to wait longer. He also told the Elders that he didn´t want them to come by anymore. So, the Elders asked us if we would go talk to the dad. So we got permission and crossed our area limits by like 3 blocks to visit the dad (named Pedro). The first time he wasn´t there so we left a little note ( it is amazing how notes are miracle workers). Elias told us that when his dad saw the note, he was really happy. So we stopped by again. We prayed that he would be home and that we would be guided in our words. We didn´t even know what to say, but that is the name of the the game as a missionary.

we went by his house and he answered the door. he was nice, but a little bit closed (obviously because it was the first time that we had ever met him..) and we just started talking to him. we talked about a bunch of different things, everyonce in a while diving into a gospel topic, which he would quickly change every time we did. anyway, we finally started asking him about why he got baptized and his testimony. that got him to remember that he did have a testimony. then my awesome companion asked him if he ever had the opportunity to bless the sacrament. he said that he did once. we asked him how he felt during that experience and as he started talking, tears began to flow. he told us it was a really nice memory and that he remembered feeling really happy at that time in his life. we helped him understand that he really did want his children to have that experience too which helped him realize that Elias needed to be baptized. then elias shared his testimony with his dad. it was really a cool spiritual experience. he signed the baptism paper right then and there, and we are planning on his baptism for the following Sunday, or if not then, not this saturday, but the next. Elias was so excited that when his dad went inside to get a pen, he started jumping up and down saying, "thank you! thank you!" we were so excited as well that we almost hugged him. haha. no worries...we didn´t. but later that night at our ward family home evening he was telling everyone that he is going to get baptized the next Sunday.

It is moments like these that makes everything worth it.

Love you all!!
Sarah