dearest persons that i like,

Ok, must see pictures of halloween and all of your costumes. Sounds awesome. Here, no one did much. There are only a few businesses that had halloween stuff out, and i´ve only seen one person dressed up (working in one of the businesses... haha). It´s ok. They are still working on catching up to our awesomeness here. haha. but my comp. H. Reales said that in Córdoba they celebrate halloween more. Córdoba sounds very much like the states from what she has told me. i wanted to dress up as my companion for halloween, but she didn´t like that idea very much (because like i said halloween isn´t as big a deal here), so my halloween consisted of cleaning the apt, running errands, and eating at mcdonald´s. i ate the yummiest ice cream there today....yum, yum, yum.

oh abby. i like your pictures lots. who took them all? you are too pretty to go to a dance with that weird boy, but i guess that is all right. oh, and i liked your outfit lots. especial my shoes. haha jk. especially all of it.

ok so not lots of time to write, but here are some details.

-Cristian (30 yrs. old) was baptized on friday. oooh, it was soo good. he has changed his life around lots and is so much happier. you can just see it in his face. that is the awesome part about living the gospel. it just makes you happy. also, a lot of his family came to his baptism and they really liked it. i think his family will be a miracle family if we can just help them all get married. they are all really receptive. :) God´s chosen.

-We had a miracle this sunday. As we were waiting for sacrament meeting to start, one of the Elders in the ward came to me and said, " a lady named Eugenia is here". my eyes got all big with surprise and i practically ran to greet her. then i saw that her boyfriend came too!! he was born in the covenant but stopped going to church when he was 16 yrs. old. and the last time he went to a church meeting was over 15 years ago. we have invited them many, many times and she only came to church once.....2 months ago. then we tried visiting them lots, but nothing for the longest time. so on saturday we went to go visit them and they were home. they were angry with each other (but really angry) and so we didn´t want to interfere, but i didn´t want to leave there without inviting the spirit. so we invited her to pray. she didn´t want to at first, but we reminded her of the blessings of prayer and she prayed. then we left. i guess the spirit really worked on them, and they were humbled enough by their difficulties, that they finally came to church. Proves how powerful the spririt is and that we can only be helpers in the work. we do nothing of ourselves. it was such a nice surprise. (early birthday present).

anyway, no more time. hope it all made sense.

love,
sister yingling

Dear family and friendsies,

So, I just printed out today the pictures that you sent me.... thank you so much! But i´m still waiting for pictures of my parents....hint hint. :) Well, my birthday isn´t this week. but it is in the week to come. i´m excited. because i´ll be one year older and wiser too. happy birthday to me!! haha. hopefully i can use that wisdom to help me in the work.

oh, and i like hearing that there are two mormons running for president and that i´ll get the chance to vote for them. yay!! Go latter day saints! haha.

um, well, what happened this week? well, we were sad because we had a baptism planned, but then we learned that he smoked, so we had to move the baptisimal date. But we all learned the importance of reading your scriptures and saying your prayers. It is the first thing that goes. When people loose their testimonies it is because they stopped reading the book of mormon. That is when you are weak and when satan can attack you. For example, when Cristian told us that he had smoked, we were sad and shocked. Then we asked him when the last time he read the Book of Mormon was and he said something like 4 days before. Even in such a short period of time like 4 days Satan worked hard and tempted him and he fell. But, he learned (and we all learned) of the importance of reading the Book of Mormon every single day. It sounds tedious and it sounds like it doesn´t matter THAT much, but it does. Thats why i love studying the scriptures every single day. they give you power and protection that you don´t even know you have until it is gone.

and they voted for their president on sunday. they pretty much do everything the same as us except it is an obligation for everyone 18-75 years old. if you don´t vote, you get a ticket and it is a pain to pay (even though it is super cheap).

um, i guess that´s pretty much all for now. oh except i just barely learned that transfer changes are on my birthday (Nov. 3), so that will be weird because i might be moving to a new area and i for sure won´t be with H. Reales anymore... :( i hope it isn´t the worst birthday ever...but i´m sure it won´t be. Any situation can be good, depending on how you look at it. I love the gospel, because it helps you look at every situation with the right eyes, and it teaches you what tools you can do to change your life and be happy ALWAYS. Those who are sad are those who don´t want to keep the commandments, and lose the hope they could have. but those who do keep the commandments always have hope, which brings happiness.

until next week!
love, sister sarah

dearestests,

ok. so. this weeks was interesting. i think i always say that. i´ll have to count how many times i say that in all my emails after my mission....haha. we had some pretty cool experiences.

there is a family that we are teaching. ok, it is a husband and wife that we are working with. the husband is a less active member that goes to church every once in a while and his wife is pentecostal evangelist. i think that is how you say it in english... anyway, to say the least, she doesn´t want anything to do with us. whenever we come over, it is "hello, how are you?" just to be nice, and besides that the only other thing she has ever said to us is, "i´m not in this conversation..." when we tried to ask her what she believed about faith, etc. anyway, so it has been hard. we have felt for a long time, that we need to break the ice with her. we need her to trust us and have more confidence in us, but we haven´t found a way in.

so we decided to make a calendar to help him do his scripture reading. everyday for a month we put a scripture from the Book of Mormon and a scripture from the Bible that talked about similar topics. topics like the restoration, the restoration, and the restoration. haha. no. not all of them were about the restoration.

when we got to their house, he wasn´t there (which was weird because he doesn´t usually work that day, but this time he did). we thought she wouldn´t let us in, but she asked us if we wanted to come in for a little bit and wait for him. so we said, yes...of course. :) so we were so happy for THAT miracle. we got to talk with her, and we feel like now she trusts us more. then we explained what we did with the calendar and she seemed pretty happy about the scriptures we put from the bible. then as we were getting ready to leave, her husband walked in. so we explained it to him, and we left.

then sunday, he came to church. he told us he was really grateful for what we did and that we came just in time. we were a little confused, but happy he felt that way. then the ward mission leader told us what had happened.

in elders quorum, this brother broke down crying while he was bearing his testimony. he told everyone that when he was traveling home on the train that day, he had decided to drop the church for good. there were just too many contentions in their marriage because of their religious differences, and he couldn´t do it anymore. so as he was coming home, he was trying to figure out how he was going to tell his wife. well, when he got home, we were there. then after we left, the elders quorum president called him. those two things combined were a testimony to him that God really didn´t want him to give up. They were a testimony to him that God knows what he is going through and cares about him.

i was so happy when i heard that because it helped my testimony grow. i know Heavenly Father loves every single one of us. I know that He cares about us, and not just that, He cares which church we go to and which church we are in. He wants us in His church, and once you are in, He doesn´t want to loose you. I´m so grateful everyday for the opportunity I have to participate in these miracles.

Ok, no time to write more!
love, sarah

p.s. this past sunday was mother´s day here. might be the only country in the world that has mother´s day in october and not in may. so, happy mother´s day mom! (again). and it was on your birthday. or is your birthday the 18th. i´m forgetting everything here. it is weird. either way, happy birthday again!!

Dear Family,

Ok, so good stuff happens on the mission. I love, love, love the mission. haha. ok that was a little dramatic. but seriously. i wake up every morning grateful that i get the opportunity to be a missionary. grateful that i have a special calling, and grateful for all the things that i have learned.

This week was great. We are teaching a guy named Cristian and his mom Silvia. Cristian is going to be baptized the 22nd of October. His mom wants to be, but isn´t married, so we are praying to find a solution to this problem. We taught Cristian about the Word of Wisdom this weeks. He told us that he smokes, but that he wants to stop smoking. He told us that he wouldn´t smoke anymore, and since that day he hasn´t smoked. He has progressed soo much. One of those chosen of the Lord. He thanked us the other day for all the peace that we bring into their home and how his life is changing. The cool thing is when someone tells that and you are caught by surprise. It means that you really haven´t done anything and the spirit has done 100% of the converting. it is ironic, because it is ALWAYS like that. haha.

I guess that is one thing that I have learned about the mission. I think I thought that to be a successfull missionary you had to work and work and work to try and change the hearts of the people to repentance. But you don´t. You just have to do what you are supposed to do (pray, be diligent, exercise faith, be obedient) and the Lord will guide you to His chosen. Then the Spirit does all of the converting.

This week was a happy one. It rained a lot, and I love the rain. Even though it makes missionary work more difficult, somehow I still love it. haha. Anyway, I don´t have time for much else.

Lots of love!
Sarah

p.s. happy birthday Gina and my little Angel with chocolate twined hair (haha...your nickname is a little bit long...haha). Love you both!

oh, and the picture is of a picnic we did as a district. we all brought "our" instruments..haha. it was fun.

Dear family and friends,

I was watching the conference in Spanish when they announced the new provo temple and I almost jumped up out of my seat and screamed YES! haha. But i´m not joking. I am so excited for that. It is funny how Heavenly Father works to answer prayers. Seriously, that was such a huge issue just because of how many people go to the temple. it is sad, but lots of people in provo don´t go to the temple because they can´t wait for hours to enter in a session, or do baptisms. it is worse with the baptisms because there is only one font.

I like all of you learned lots and lots during conference. I am really fortunate (maybe it was like this in Erik and Jacob´s missions too) because I can choose to watch the conference in English or Spanish if I want. They have a room just for the missionaries so they can go watch it in English if they want. I like to watch it in english because i like hearing their voices. It just isn´t the same when you are listening to a translator. Had I been in the smaller room watching it in English I can almost garantee you I would have jumped up when the prophet announced the Provo temple....haha

This week was an interesting but good one. It is funny how Heavenly Father teaches you lessons to humble you up sometimes. haha. I always need help being more humble as my brother so kindly pointed out... :) I can learn from the examples of my brothers. Teach me how you do it!! haha But this past saturday a boy named Joshua was baptized between conference sessions. It was such a good baptism! We really felt the spirit lots and lots. It was the last baptism to complete a family (well kind of...because the dad has other kids that aren´t members from a different wife) and it was so happy. That is why this work is so good. You get to see how happy people become by using the atonement and changing their lives around to follow christ.

Let´s see what else? Hmm...I can´t think of anything else. Just that I really liked conference, but that has already been said.

photo 1: The traditional 9 months picture. haha. wow, can´t believe this week I finished half my mission. :( Weird.
photo 2: Joshua is the one closest to H. Reales. His friend Brian baptized him.

Welp, love you all lots!
Hermana Yingling