dear persons in the states,

this week was a little bit crazy and hard. I learned a lot about the atonement and how we really need to make use of the atonement every single day of our lives. If we don´t, it can be easy to let pride slip in to your hearts. Plus, that is why Christ suffered for us. So we could actually make our lives better by using the atonement. If we don´t make use of it, every day, then His atonement is in vain those days.

this week has been pretty warm here. i don´t really know how hot it got. 90 degrees F more or less. I don´t know. but i do know that we haven´t yet hit summer here and it is going to be hot here. haha. but don´t worry, becuase i´m using lots of sunscreen.

this week to celebrate thanksgiving I made a pumpkin (actually it was butternut squash) and apple pie. my companion likes the pumpkin pie but not the apple pie, because here they don´t really use cinnamon, where as there, we use it alot. but that´s ok. more pie for me. haha. oh and we ate lunch at a members house who gave us raspberries and ice cream for desert. the cool thing was that the raspberries were sooo big. they looked like black berries, but with the raspberry taste. then they let us pick some of the raspberries from their bush (it was definitely a raspberry bush too) and we took them home so i can make a raspberry pie. super excited to make that one.

and, i can´t really think of what else to write. i can´t believe it is almost december and i feel like it is june. haha. weird.

anyway, that´s all. hope you enjoy the cold. :)

love, sarah

Dear family and friends,

Ok, first I have to say.... HAPPY BIRTHDAY MAXWELL!!! I LOVE YOU!!! :)
wow, can´t believe he is three. i remember being three. weird.

Ok, so this week was a fun one. We were told that we had a bus to take 40 people to the district conference (it´s just like stake conference but smaller because we are too small to be a stake...). Our leaders were really stressing getting the investigators to church this week and obviously we wanted to get them there as well. It was a 3 hour drive to our district meeting, so we had to find people that were willing to be at the church at 6:00am Sunday morning (when no one wants to wake up at 8:00 to go to church at 9:00). Then the leaders of the branch were telling us that we couldn´t bring any investigators because the bus was already full of investigators. So we had a problem. And what did we do?

We prayed.
A lot.

I don´t know how many times I can be surprised by the miracles you can experience by relying on the Lord completely. I hope I can always remember that, because life is so much better when you rely on the Lord. It was crazy, but somehow it worked out. Heavenly blessed the branch to only be able to rent last minute a larger bus so we could take more people. And he blessed us with members that were excited to invite everyone they knew...literally. At the end of the day, Sunday was a success. We brought investigators to church, enough to surpass our goal, and there was still plenty of room for the members too.

President Carter spoke at the district conference and told the members, "I have permission to add 20 more missionaries to our mission. Where will I put the missionaries? I´ll put them in the places where the members prove by their actions that they are willing to work with the missionaries. Junín has need for 2 or 3 more missionary companionships because it is so big, but right now you only have 1 companionship of sister missionaries. I am willing to put more missionaries there, but you as members need to prove to me that you are willing to work." haha I laughed. It´s so true though. Missionary work doesn´t go hardly anywhere without the help of the members. It is just impossible. So, get to work!! haha. jk. But seriously, just inviting those who aren´t members to participate in activities really helps the work a lot.

Anyway, don´t have time for anything else, but I love you all lots!

Love, Sister Yingling

p.s. Sammy, Happy Birthday yesterday! I miss you and hope you had a spectacular birthday.

oh and the pictures are from last P-Day at the lake and the movie is from yesterday. It down poured and we got soaked. I thoroughly enjoyed every second of it. It is super fun to ride bikes in a down-pour. We biked through puddles deep enough that our feet were completely under water the whole cycle. haha. It was fun, and I was excited, so I took a video. I hope you like it. Sorry I think I speak spanglish part of the time.

turns out i can´t send the video because it is too big. wish i could cut it somehow. i guess you´ll all just have to wait 8 more months. sorry!

Dear fam and friendsies,

Ok lets see. Highlights of the week.

Starting from today and working backward...

We went to la Laguna!! I wish we could go to Lagoon...but it was still awesome. It is a lake that is about 15km from our apartment, but still in our area. Suposedly we have memebers that live out there, so we need to go work out there. Plus it is sooo pretty. We went on bikes and I thoroughly enjoyed every bit of it. I´ll send pictures next week...

So being in a branch, we have permission to teach some classes when the members don´t show up. Yesterday my companion taught the Sunday School class for the youth. There are on average 2-4 youth and they are awesome. I taught the week before. There is a boy named Facundo who is 13 yrs. old and is the life of the ward. Seriously. Last week he shared his testimonio and left EVERYONE crying. He is a really choice son of God. They really need him here.

Speaking of that, I love being able to associate with some really, really strong and choice spirits. Seriously. It is amazing how Heavenly Father has EVERYTHING planned out. He knows who needs to be born where to bring about His work. In my short time as a missionary, I have met some people that really are incredible. Who have such strong testimonies and such spiritual gifts as I have rarely seen before. I know these people are placed in the parts of the world where the church is not well established to help establish the church. It is all part of the plan Heavenly Father has created for us.

Anyway, that´s pretty much all, plus not tons of time to write this week.

Lovies!
Sister Sarah Anne

Dear Family,

Ok, so this week was a crazy one.

Tuesday:
Last district meeting with the best district ever. we were all sad to have changes, but changes are good because we learn and we grow. After our district meeting, they told me to go to another room with my companion and then i had to enter with my eyes closed. when i walked in they started singing happy birthday (ok, but in spanish) and there was a cake and everything. i was happy because i didn´t think i would get to have a cake for my birthday so it was a good surprise. also, in the district meeting i got my birthday package. THANK YOU SO MUCH!! I love, love, love the markers and the journal and the reeses. yum! I was glad to find something with peanut butter...and especially reeses. :)

Then tuesday night i got the call. H. Reales and i both thought that i would be staying and she would be leaving. So i wasn´t prepared when they told me that I was leaving. We were both like, "what?!" and "NO! NO! NO!" She didn´t want to stay because it was very likely that she would be training, and i didn´t want to leave because that´s just how it is in the mission.

Then wednesday we were doing our plans at night when we heard the voice of a sister in the ward who is 78 yr. asking our neighbor where the missionaries lived. so we ran out (because poor lady can´t walk very well and it is also dangerous to be wandering alone at nighttime). she said, "i wanted to give you something for your birthday" and gave us a tupper of chocolate moose topped with cream (one of our favorite desserts she makes). oh, she is soo sweet! i really am going to miss that ward a lot.

then, thursday, i was off. we went to the mission offices to have our meeting to find out all the changes. turns out, h. reales is going to be training. my new companion is Hermana Azcurra. Also from Argentina. haha surprise? it is funny because i have been blessed to have all Argentine companions. we have other sister missionaries who aren´t from argentina and plenty of americans too, but i have been blessed to be with the argentines. i seriously don´t mind at all. we were sent to the area Junín. 6 hours away from my last area. if you want to look at a map, i am almost on the border of Santa Fe and Córdoba (the provinces). So that is how i spent my birthday. Traveling in a charter bus (for only 4 hours) to my new area. It was sooo fun! haha. I like traveling anyway, and it was a double decker charter bus to top all that off.

plus, i got my dream of going to the country. my companion and i never thought that we would have the chance to go to the country (because they always had elders there...) it is sooo much prettier here in junín. and there is a lake in our area, so i should be sending you some prettier pictures for the next little while. but, because we are so far away from everything, we don´t have district meetings. it is weird. and, we are in a branch instead of a ward. so we are getting used to that too.

the members think it is weird to have sister missionaries, but the worst part about moving into an area where there were elders before is how dirty the apartment is. seriously. i´m just going to send you pictures of how "clean" the bathroom was. the bathroom is the worst, but the kitchen is bad too. haha i sure hope my brothers didn´t ever let their apartments get this bad.... This morning i spent 1 hr. cleaning just the floor of the shower, the toilet and the sink. the next few p-days will be the same until we get the apartment clean. i´ll send you the after pictures too.

ok, in junín, we are privileged to work with a senior missionary couple. they are great and they have done a lot in the branch. he is the branch president and they have worked miracles here. they told us that when they first got to junín there were only about 10 members who went to church, but now this past sunday there were 40. :) not too bad for a branch. plus they all have such strong testimonies. it was great yesterday to hear all their testimonies. my companion and i get to teach two different classes. the gospel principles class, and the sunday school class for the youth. that´s fun too. oh yeah, and the area is so big that we get to use bikes!! :) plus it isn´t as common that you get robbed here in the country, so that is another reason we can have bikes. it is super duper fun.

this sunday we had some miracles because of all the work that the elders did before. we have been blessed with investigators that are really prepared for the message and 2 of them came to church on sunday. :) there is a lot of work to do here (as there always is...haha) and we are both super excited to be here. I love feeling the spirit super strong even with just few people in sacrament meeting. it is cool to see that the same spirit is here in this branch and is utah with hundreds of people every sunday in sacrament meeting. that is why this gospel is awesome and a testimony to me of the truthfulness of this church and that is why i love it.

anyway, gotta go work!
love,
Sister Yingling

0628: Cristian who was baptized not last weekend, but the week before and his niece who is handicapped.
0631: After our district meeting my district surprised me with a birthday party! :) haha they bought me a cake with my favorite color and everything. It was great...and yummy!
0632: They caught me tasting it. haha
0633: My cake! Cakes taste different here...i like the ones in the states more, BUT that being said, i loved it still. and i was super greatful that i had a cake. :)
0637 and 0635: Elders in my district
0641: The district my old district....now we don´t really have a district because it is just my companion and i and our district leaders companionship.
0661: The moose that the sister in Libertad gave me for my birthday. yum!
0662: Hna. Reales and I leaving our apartment.
0667: My new comp. Hna. Azcurra. She is 30 years old, but doesn´t look it at all because she is sooo little. haha. we are complete opposite when it comes to looks.
0669: Hna. Azcurra and I on the bus. We were lucky and got to sit on the upper level. haha look at the guy behind us that is looking at the camera. and the guy that is sleep behind us as well. haha. those seats were sooo comfy. sadly right after this, my camera died so i couldn´t take pictures of the scenery but i´m sure i´ll have more opportunities in the future.
0671: when we celebrated my birthday that night with a make shift cake. my comp says that i have to make three wishes. i only made one and then the camera quit. haha.