No Time...

Email #3 (the real one):

Hello family!!

First off, I want to apologize for this taking so long to get to you. Monday we had ZERO time to email because President Watkins took us to the beach! Which was super awesome. We just sat on the beach all day (which is like a 45ish minute drive from where I'm at) and I wrote letters to Charlie and Brooke, and took a nap. We played around a little too, and it was super fun just to hang out with a bunch of missionaries. Some that I knew, some that I didn't. But it was just a good day. Elder Philpott from my MTC district was there too, so it was fun to see how he's doing out here. So it was a super fun day, and I got fried... haha I forgot to wear sunscreen. Whoops! We of course aren't allowed to go swimming or anything, but we can go play in the sand if we have permission from Pres. And he took us, so we of course had permission. It was a great day, but by the time we got back we had no time to email, and then yesterday was crazy, so today we finally had like a half an hour. So here I am. Sorry, this email will be short!!!

So exciting news of the week: I'm having my first two baptisms on Saturday! One is an older man named Victor. He's 55 and he has been super accepting of everything. So we've been getting him ready for baptism, and it's happening on Saturday!! The other is Isaac. He's 9 years old, and is getting baptized. His mom and all of his siblings are members, but he hasn't been baptized yet. So here's the story. Juanita (the mom) has like, a bagazillion kids. They are super poor and live in this little dump. And the kids are INSANE!!! Like, they are nuts. Way more crazy than normal kids. So it's always been really hard for her to get them to church, and honestly, she's a memeber but doesn't know much about the gospel. She takes them to the baptist church, because they pick them up for church on a bus, and give them pizza and take them to Chuck E. Cheese after. How can we compete with that right? It's easier for her to take the kids there. They like it more. But she still wants them to be baptized into our church. So the sisters have been working with Isaac for forever, and he's never wanted to be baptized. But finally the other day, he said he does! So, his baptism is on Saturday, and they're going to come to church with us now. Kind of a miracle if you ask me!

I love you all, sorry this email is like, super short. I just have like, no time. Seriously. But next week it will be a good one, with pictures from the baptism and everything. Love you all! Have fun at school and work and home and CTR. I love you!!!

-Hermana Bingham

Email #2:

so, we have like, no time to email today. It's super duper lame. I am SOOOOOOOOOO sorry. So hopefully we will have time to email you tomorrow... I hate that I can't email you. I haven't even had time to read yours. So I'm PRAYING for tomorrow. I love you!!!

Hna. Bingham

Email #1:

So sorry I haven't emailed before now. President took us to the beach yesterday and we got back too late to email. And I would email now, but we have an appointment at 1 who always gets there early, so we don't have time. So, I will write you after that. Sorry it's taken so long! I love you guys! Talk to you later!

Miracles

I can't believe that school is starting! Like, what the heck!! That's crazy! Bryce is a senior, Jayson is in high school, and Kyla's in Jr. High. And I'm out here, saving souls. What the heck? When did we all get so old? I don't know. But it's crazy. I feel like an old woman out here. Also I'm driving a Buick, so that doesn't help. I have a crazy story for all of ya'll. But first off, I want to say MOM I'M FINE SO WHAT I'M TELLING YOU NEXT YOU DO NOT NEED TO WORRY ABOUT! So last week on Monday night we were visiting a less active lady, Hna. Nunez. We had been trying to leave because it was past 9 so we needed to get home, but she kept talking. Mexicans love to talk. It's the truth. They tell you EVERYTHING!! So we finally got to pray with her, and we were headed out the door, when she said one more thing. She told us one more tiny little story or something, I don't even remember. But in the process of this, we hear this loud squeal, and then a crash. Immediately Hna. Nunez's daughter says, "That wasn't your car was it?" We were parked on this road that has a little turn, and we we pretty far away from the turn in the road, and there were cars behind us on this road, so we thought it couldn't be ours. We walk out into the street and there is this car in the middle of the road, bumper had fallen off, and it was smashed. Parked right next to whose car? Ours. This car (according to witnesses that actually saw it happen) had gone around this little turn at about 60-65 mph, lost control, spun and then smashed our car on the drivers side back door. It pushed our car into the curb, breaking the axel, and yeah, basically it's totalled. So we had to get this guys info and all this fun stuff and call the other hnas in our district to get them to give us a ride... it was kind of intense. Wanna know the cool part though? I know that the Lord is truly watching out for his servents. Because Hna. Kofford always drives, and she puts her purse in the back seat before. So IF we would've left Hna. Nunez's house after we prayed like we were trying to, she would've been smashed by the crazy driver, and I probably would've been on the other side, in the gutter and probably would've killed my legs. We were super blessed. It was crazy! The Lord is really protecting his servents that's for sure. It was a miracle. Because Hna. Nunez said 1 more thing, we were protected. And then we thought we'd just go into our bike share early, but President had just bought an old Buick just in case someone needed it. So we are driving around in a Buick. It is AWESOME!!! We love it!

Other miracle of the week! So a few weeks back Hna. Kofford had been trying to contact formers, and only two people answered. One was definitely not interested, and the other was this lady named Rosa. She told Hna. Kofford that she had lots of stuff to tell us, so we should come by and see her. Well we have been trying to get ahold of her to set up an appointment for forever, and we couldn't get ahold of her. So we just decided to go to her house. We knocked on her door, and we saw someone come up and lock the door. But we didn't give up. We waited and waited, and knocked again, and just when we were walking away, she opened the door. Well, we ended up talking to her for a long time, and she was crying and telling us all these hard things that have been happening in her life, and we had an awesome lesson about the Holy Ghost with her and how he is a comforter and a guide through hard things. We told her we can recieve the gift of the Holy Ghost after baptism, and she was like, "I need that in my life." What? crazy right? And super awesome. She accepted an invitation to be baptized, but wants to know more before we pick a date. So, we're going to try to get in contact with her this week and teach her more and pick a date for her baptism. She's super great. It was one of those lessons you just walk away from feeling great. It's the best feeling in the world.

We've seen so many miracles every day out here. Being able to find people, getting lessons, and so many things. I love it. This Friday Hna. Kofford and I are working with Habitat for Hummanity putting in a sprinkler system for some home or homes. Not sure. But I have a feeling this will be a good service opportunity, and a good way to get in some good contacts and lessons. I'm super pumped. We'll be there for like, 8 hours. YAY!

Adrienne Clark is going on a misison? YAY! Good for her! You'll have to tell her to let me know when she gets her call. I'm super excited for her! This is the best thing EVER! Missionary work is the greatest, and sometimes it is hard, but it's totally worth it. The happiness we help bring to people's lives is incredible. I love it.

Also, I heard the new temple movie is awesome. A lady in my MTC branch presidency (well, her husband was in the presidency) told me about it and said how awesome it was. So apparently she saw it quite a few weeks ago. Who knows how. But she said it portrays everything better so I'm super excited to see it. In our mission President said we get to go to the Oakland temple every 6 months I think. So I'm super excited. We can also go if and Investie we helped baptized goes to recieve their endowments. Cool right? So maybe someday I'll get to go with someone I taught!

About the letters, My companion has all hers sent there and it's fine. Because we're there like every day so we can get it. I think if I was in a further area it would be a pain in the rear for them to forward it all, but where I'm here and can just pick it up I'm 99.999999% postitive it's fine.

I love you all, I hope you have a fantastic week at school and all that good stuff! LOVE YOU!!!

Hermana Amaya Bingham

p.s. apparently Bingham is a really weird name. Mexicans can't say it. They find it weirder than Kofford. Don't ask why, I don't know. It's funny though. :) Also there is an Amaya family in my ward. I haven't met them yet, but when I do I'll have to tell them how their last name is my first name. Crazy stuff. Love you guys!

I'm in Freakin California!

HELLO FAMILY!

I'm in freakin California! Craziness right? And I LOVE it! Mom, I am allowed to read letters any day of the week, but this works too. I have an hour to email, and that's plenty of time to read emails from people and write back. So we're good. My bedding was there waiting, so thanks so much for sending that. I love having my quilt with me. It's like having a piece of home right here in San Jose. And I am going to need a bike. I think. Here's the deal. right now we have a car, and the other sisters in our zone have one too. But one of our cars is getting pulled, so there will be one car for the 5 of us (the other sisters are in a tripanionship). So we will need three bikes total so that we can take turns with the car and the bikes, but I'm thinking that the other sister will be buying since there are three of them, but if I do end up needing to buy one, I'll just use my card and then you and dad can decide what you want to do about that. But I'll let you know if I need one.

So right now I'm in the Yerba Buena area, which is basically the best area ever. We are in the area that covers the mission office (which address you have) so you can continue sending letters there for now, because we are there all the time so I can pick up mail whenever. We hardly ever check our own mailbox, and honestly, I don't even know my address. So if you choose to send mail mail, send it to the office. It works best. :) So my companion is Hna. Kofford. She's from Idaho, and she's 20 and basically awesome. We get along super well. She's hilarious and I love working with her. She's a great trainer, and I love her. It's a little weird being without Hna. Raney, but she's in a zone super close to mine, so I actually saw her the other day. So in our zone, we have a goal for this transfer. That goal is to get 21 baptisms, which is about 20 more than we usually get in one transfer. And our neighboring zone is doing the same goal, which means in our stake (both zones cover the same stake) we will have a total of 42 baptisms by the end of this transfer. So to help us acheive our goal, we get 21 contacts every day, 5 new investigators every week, 5 baptisimal invite every week, and we fast every Sunday and do all this awesome stuff. It's hard, but it works. We got 5 new investigators in 2 days last week, and 5 baptisimal invites. CRAZY STORY TIME! So it was 9ish last night after our zone meeting, and we were heading home. We only had 4 baptisimal invites, and needed one more, and 2 more contacts for the day. So I jokingly said, I just really want a car to pull up at this light with two people in it so I can give them a card and invite them to baptism. And IMMEDIATELY a car pulls up with two people in it. So I rolled down my window (their's was down) passed them a picture of Christ, told them who I was, and asked if they would like to learn more. They said maybe, so then I continue onto say that as they learn more about our church and come to know that it's true, would they "follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized by someone holding the priesthood authority of God?" And they said yes. We didn't have time to get a number, but they have ours. We probably won't hear from them, but I was able to get the invite and we reached our goal. Not in the way we would've preffered, but we reached it. But this whole 21 thing is going to work. I've been here for 5ish days now, and I've already been to 5 baptisms. None of them are our investigators, but they're all in our district (and our ward). And our zone had a total of 8 this weekend I think. It's crazy. The Lord is definitely blessing us with a miracle.

So basically, I love it here. There are tons of Mexicans and they feed us yummy food, and basically every night. I have been told I'm going to gain weight, and I believe it. They feed you so stinkin much! But it's awesome! It's delicious. I've had pupulsas twice now (they are a El Salvador food, and delicious). They are  basically a little tortilla kind of think, but the meat and stuff is inside, and they are small, but then on top you put this cabbage stuff and hot sauce. It's yummy. Maybe Sister Finkenthal knows how to make them. You could ask. And last night we had beens and rice and this super delicious beef and homemade tortillas with another family in the ward. It's awesome, but when I come back 8 billion pounds, don't be surprised. Just kidding, I'm going to try to not gain weight. I don't want to buy new clothes! And I think the bikes will help with that.

This week was super awesome. We had some good solid lessons with some of our investigators, and some good solid finds. The other day we just happend to bump into this little Mexican lady on the street that we said hi too, and she just started crying. She's had a rough time over the past three weeks, and she just needs to be happy. She's all alone. So we're going to get in touch with her this week and go help her. She's so tender and cute. We've also had some rough experiences though. We're teaching this lady named Magdelena. We had this super awesome lesson with her, like, she was basically punched in the face with the spirit, and then we asked her about baptism (again) and she just said, "I don't know... maybe" we can't get her to commit. And apparently this happens every time. They can tell she feels the spirit, but she won't commit to baptism. And Victor. He's like golden. He understands everything, and loves church and the gospel, he says it makes him happy, but he doesn't want to talk about baptism dates because his life is already super crazy right now (he's a single dad with a hard job and he has to sell a bunch of his Father's land in Mexico) so he wont' commit to a date either. It's a little sad because we can see that they're both ready, but they just won't commit. But I can definitely see the Lord's hand in everything we do, and I know that if we have faith, He'll help us out with everything. I love this gospel, and I know it brings us true happiness. I'm so grateful for the opportunity I have to be out here, helping others find their way back home. I love it, and I'm excited for this upcoming week. I love you all, have an awesome week!!

Love,

Hermana Amaya Bingham