dear family and bloggers,

ok, so i don´t have lots of time today because there was a power outage and we couldn´t use the computers for a long time.  this week we had lots of miracles.  we finally had our branch activity that we have been planning for a super long time and it turned out super well.  we saw lots of fruits from the activity.  what we did:  we divided junín (the most populated part, the are that we are working) into 12 areas and wrote down all the names from the list of members who lived in those zones.  then we had 8 missionaries come to our area to help us out and the members came and we did divisions with the members.  we went and visited almost every single member on the list!  :) we left them a letter from the branch presidency and saw what their needs were etc.  we did that all day saturday.

and sunday, we saw results!  a less active member came to church with his great-granddaughter.  she is 14 and told us that she wants to get baptized. :)  so, now we are helping her prepare to be baptized on june 16th.  her name is martina. pray that she´ll keep going to church and that she can make it to her baptisimal date.

anyway, there is lots more to tell, but no time.  but i do have something very, very important to say............


happy 17th abby!!  love you!

i know it´s kind of a lame present, but that´s about all i´ve got right now....


oh and andrew, i have no idea if you have moved or not because i only get your dearelders like once a transfer.  anyway, facebook my sister face to let her know what´s up so that she can tell me.  i have a letter to send you, but don´t want to send it if you have moved again...haha

ok, that´s all for now folks!!  last week of this transfer....time to work it!!  wahoo!

love, sarah

fotos:
1084:  we went to the lake today.  i´m super out of shape.
1106:  we played on all the jungle-gym stuff there and then we ate lunch and afterwards i looked up and saw the sign that said, "toys, only children allowed"...hahaha.  oops.

Ok, dear family, This week was a surprising week. Full of blessings. First of all, I got to speak with you all on Sunday…. . J Then Monday we had a sisters conference which was awesome. I got to speak about emotional well-being. It was super good, the conference, and it was super good to see all the sisters again because it had been a really long time since I last could talk with anyone. It is always fun because that is how you hear news about the wards and the converts in the areas where you have been. Oh and we got to eat corn bread for lunch. It was a true American meal, and I loved it. Some of the latins didn´t like it so much, but they are just picky like that sometimes. Then we got up early Tuesday morning to travel to a different city because we had our first district meeting….haha. it was fun. Then we finally got to our area about 5pm on Tuesday to start working. That night we went to Francisco´s house and we didn´t have time to really teach him anything, so we just read him a scripture on the door-step. I was thinking that I should ask him when he wanted to be baptized. So I did. He said, “i´ll let you know a couple of days before hand when I want to get baptized. Or, do you need to know one week before?” so then I said, “well if you want to get baptized this Saturday, you can, we just need to do the interview and find the clothes and that´s all…” he said, “ok”. So Wednesday we did the interview and he was good to go. Then Wednesday during our companionship study we felt like Monica (a girl who has wanted to get baptized but has struggled having a true change of heart) was ready to get baptized. So we went to her house and invited her to get baptized on Saturday. She said she wanted to, and so we did the pre-interview. Then she had her interview on Thursday and she was good to go. Both Francisco and Monica showed up on Saturday for their baptisms and it turned out really cool. I was super happy. Then Sunday, both of them went to all three hours of church and were confirmed and Francisco was given the Aaronic Priesthood and is now a priest. He was super happy afterward. That night we went to his moms house with him to teach her and we are hoping that she will progress too. Welp, that´s all Love you lots! Sister yingling p.s. becky, the other day we went to a sisters house (she was just baptized in oct) and she told me that the other day she prayed for you to get better soon. J

ok, it was good to hear your voices yesterday. and thanks for the lemon bar recipe mom. it looks good and we´ll have to try it out. everyone here is going to love it. i just know it. so, today we had the first sisters conference with all the sisters in the mission. it was cool. we got to go to the mission home and we ate a completely american meal. yum. a chicken chili soup with corn bread and some beans. i loved it. i got to speak on emotional well-being in the mission. haha. it was kind of a weird topic, but it turned out pretty good i guess. im feeling weird because i realized that i hardly know any of the sisters now. being in junin you are just a long ways away and you hardly ever see or talk to any sisters at all. it was fun to feel like we were part of the mission again. haha. i learned a lot about the importance of our purpose as missionaries. how we need to focus ourselves in the mission (but this applies to life too) on the important things. it reminds me of the talk by elder oaks (?) the good, better, best talk. it is so important because you could focus on a million things and not get anything done very well, but you need to focus on the most important to reach your potential in life. anyway, thats all i have time for. love, sister yingling NOTICE: This email message is f

Dearest familiares, So, guess what!? We moved! Yes! I´m so happy too. We moved from an apartment that had paint falling off the walls, no hot water and plumbing problems to a way better apartment. and it is awesome because there is a whole bunch of storage space so everything can be way more organized! :) Now we just have to travel further to get to the church, but still, it is so worth it. Now we just have to clean 2 apartments instead of only one. haha Weird story, when we were organizing some things in our apartment i came across an english hymn book that was left behind. the funny thing was that when i saw the word "hymns" i was like, "that looks weird. it looks wrong. i looks like it is missing a letter" haha i´m just super used to the spanish hymn books that say "himnos" And my companion is awesome because she is willing to wake up at 6am with me so that we can go running. So for this week we are going to see how 3 times this week works. We have so much stuff to do, so the past week we were getting up at 6am (after being sick for a while i hadn´t been getting up at 6am...so now i am again, but my companion is too.) to work on stuff that we have to do. i´m excited to start running a little bit again. i´m super out of shape. speaking of running, that is cool that you saw coach shane. Yesterday was a fun day because Francisco our investigator accepted the law of tithing which at first was difficult for him. Also, he hasn´t smoked for 1 week now and is getting baptized this coming saturday! :) He is awesome (un capo)! And we got to eat lunch with a missionary family that came to our branch on sunday. It is always fun to be other missionaries, they feel like family. oh and we also finally completed with our goal of 15 lessons with members in one week. it has been a battle the last couple months, slowly getting better, but it was so nice to finally get there. we are hoping and praying that we can keep the members involved. things are turning around here and i´m hopeful for the future. my companion is great and is helping a lot and i´m super grateful to my Heavenly Father that she is my companion. i have seen how Heavenly Father answers prayers but in ways that are very unexpected. but i know that He does answer. and i had a really cool experience this week that built my testimony of our prophet Thomas Monson. i know that he is a prophet and i love being able to see how things change in the church according to the prophets and how they receive revelation. love this gospel. it is the truth. ok, lots of love, sarah p.s. becky, i´m really hoping and praying that you will recover quickly. just know you are in my prayers. love you!

Dear family and friends, I love holidays. Argentina has a million and two holidays. any reason to close their businesses...haha. Anyway, due to the holidays, i am writing you today....sorry. So, I got my new companion and she is from argentina. Actually she is a mini missionary and her name is Hermana Martinez. She is from the Merlo stake which is the stake where i was in my las area. haha. She is awesome. She will be finishing her mini mission at the end of this transfer, so i will for sure be getting a new one. Don´t know if i´ll be staying here until the end, but it kind of looks like i will be. Anyway, it is amazing how good of a missionary she is. seriously. having zero experience she is awesome. she is only 18 yrs. old and she wants to serve a mission. i think she will get to because it just seems like that is what she was made for. haha. but needless to say i am so grateful for her help here in junín. this weekend, we should be moving apartments and i´ll be super happy because then we´ll have hot water and a heater....yes! believe it or not, i am showering. funny story of the day. it is funny how Heavenly Father works...always setting up little surprises for our lives. We just barely got done teaching a lady and we had to go to a tire place to pump up my back tire. Anyway, as we finished, i looked down the street and there was this kid who we were working with when i first got here. his family had lots of problems and had to move (remember when i told you about the miracle when we prayed with them as a family that they would find a house?). Anyway, so we basically lost track of them because they moved to a different town kind of far away. Anyway, it was way weird. It is funny to be in an area for a long time because you see lots of weird stuff that you normally would never see. we´ll see what happens. anyway, we are seeing a lot of things looking up right now. still have a lot of struggles, but it is because i´m hard and Heavenly Father needs to teach me somehow...haha. But seriously, i have learned lots of stuff. And my companion is teaching me lots of stuff. i hope and pray you are all doing well. especially becky...she is in my prayers. Good thing we get to fast this upcoming sunday. love, sarah p.s. andrew, i sent you a letter a couple weeks ago and then got your letter that you had moved right after...haha. so, i don´t think you´ll ever get it. but, just fyi. i have one written and sealed. just need to send it....haha ?s.z,e-r!e,t.l?ek hope you got my secret message...haha