DINNERS EVERY NIGHT!!

Hello mi familia!

I'll explain the subject of this email in a little bit. But first off, it was so good to see all of you! I am so grateful we get to skype. It's way more fun. My poor companion couldn't get skype figured out/her familiy couldn't so she ended up having to use a phone, but spent most of her time saying "Are you there? Can you see me?" Technology... it sucks. But it worked out great for us, so I'm happy! It was so good to see how happy you all are and how well everything is going. Question: how tall is Kyla now? Am I officially the shortest in the family yet? Anyways, It was so good to see you. For reals. And I'm glad the holiday was good too. Sounds like you had a fun one filled with lots of family. Speaking of which, I need Lori's address and Grandma B's address. I want to send them thank you notes, but I don't have their addresses... so it makes it a little hard.

So I feel like so much happened this week, it's hard to know where to start! I guess I'll start with the most awesome, which was Christmas Eve. I know you already heard this story, but just bear with me. Some people haven't. :)

So on Christmas Eve we had this awesome missionary devotional, where President told us that we have gone from the lowest baptizing mission in California, to the highest baptizing mission in California. Awesome! Also, he said his goal for next year is 1000 baptisms. Which is an insane goal. That is like, South America status right there. It is going to be an awesome year, full of miracles. And I'm just lucky enough to get to spend the whole year on my mission. Yay!! What a way to end it, right? But lets not think about that right now. Anyways, so after this devo Hna. Monical and I head home to do some studies, and we end up getting carried away finding things to give to one of our investigator families, Aide and her kids. We had gotten them those little kid Book of Mormon stories, and another cute little Christmas book called the inkeepers wife, but we wanted to get them other stuff too. They are super poor, and were struggling this Christmas. So we found a Finding Faith in Christ DVD for them, and a memeber that lives in our area but is in a different ward was so sweet and gave us these little purses with chapstick, mints and advil inside, but we ended up giving the little purses to Aide and her daughter. We also gave them a box of swiss miss packets, and it was awesome. BUT, the best part was getting a call from Bishop Medina. He said he was on his way to Bishop's storehouse, and had been thinking about Aide. Did she need anything? So we call her, and she literally has like, nothing. She had been washing their clothes with dishsoap, they didn't have shampoo, they don't even have spoons. She was so embarrassed, but asked if we could get them maybe some floor cleaner, shampoo, laundry detergent and toilet paper. But from talking to her, Hna. Monical and I decided we were going to do a little more. We called Bishop and told him the situation, and told him we wanted to get her some food too. As we were talking about it, bishop just says, "I'm just going to get her one of everything, how does that sound?" We were so excited. Later that night we went to her house, and bishop is there with his van, FULL of boxes and boxes of food, cleaning supplies, toilet paper, everything that she could need. It was AMAZING. All the YB missionaries were there and we helped unload it and put it outside her door. Then we sang "Nearer my God to Thee" to her when she opened the door, and brought everything in. She was crying, and the kids were so excited. It really reminded me of the true meaning of Christmas. I couldn't even sing the last verse of the song, because I was crying. The spirit was there SO strong. Christmas isn't about the tree, or the gifts, or the snow, or anything like that. It's all about giving. Our Savior has given us everything, and this is our time to give a little back to him. And the best way we can do that is by serving others. This was seriously the best Christmas I have ever had. And I never want it to end. When I get home, I want to keep finding ways to serve others, especially during the holiday season. It was an incredible experience.

On Christmas day, I got to talk to you, obviously, and then we just visited different member's houses. It was fun to be able to see them and share a christmas message with them. It was great. But Christmas morning all the YB misssionaries met at our apartment, the elders sat outside, and we ate breakfast together. While we ate we discussed what we could do to help make our ward better. It was awesome. We have a new Yerba Buena ward vision statement: DINNERS EVERY NIGHT!! Not just because we're hungry and want to get fed, but eating a people's houses is a good way to get in and show them that you care, and get to know them. Also, because this umcoming week we had no dinners. None. But we spent an hour calling people yesterday, and now we have dinner every night. We're excited. We really want the members to trust us so that we can help them, and also get refferals and get them involved in missionary work. We are so excited. Also, we're going to start playing soccer every two weeks as a ward, and having the memebers invite their friends, so that we can find new investigators. We're so excited. We made lots of goals to help progress the work. We're starting off the new year with a 40 day fast as a ward. A different family fasting for missionary work every day. It's gonna be awesome. I'm excited to see how the work progresses.

It's been a great week. And I'm excited for this week too. Missionary work is seriously the best. I love it with my whole heart. I don't think I'm going to come home. Ever. Jokes, I miss you all a lot. I'll come home when it's my time. But someone will have to drag me onto the plane. I don't want this experience to end, ever. It's the best thing in the world!!!

I love you all, have an awesome week! Choose the right, return with honor, and remember, "by small and simple things, great things come to pass" (AKA: read, pray and go to church :) ) LOVE YOU!!!

Love,

Hermana Bingham

Christmas Eve dinner at the Escalante's. Yerba Buena missionaries and Sandy

 Merry Christmas!

 Merry Christmas from our ZL's. Twinkies are back in business. :)

Yerba Buena meeting: Vision statement, DINNER EVERY NIGHT!! 

Me, Hnas Fischetti, Monical, Arias, Elders Lopez and James. Best. Ward. Ever.

Merry Christmas

Hello Family!

Guess what? it's December 23rd, and I get to Skype you on Wednesday! Woohoo! I'm super excited, just so ya'll know. And yes, 11am for you, and 10 for me. So yeah. I'm super pumped. Merry Christmas everyone! I feel like an awful missionary, people are sending their families packages, but honestly I can't afford it. So I'm sending my face over a satelite and missionary blessings. Also, all my love. And this email. ;) Don't hate me.

So, I got a suprise package from amazon this week... I'm gonna assume it was from you. Funny story behind it though. So the address you have is my mission office, which is not open on Saturdays. Well aparently the amazon delivery guy didn't know that, so he shows up at the church (mission office is in the Yerba Buena church building) saturday morning with my package, and no where to put it. Luckily our primary kids were having a breakfast there, so the primary president, Hna Gonzalez is going to make sure lights are off and doors are locked after. She goes to the door, and all of a sudden this delivery guy starts running at her, yelling "Sister Bingham?" She said "No, I'm Sister Gonzalez" so he was like, well, you can sign for her! So she signed for me and took the package and set it by the mission office door. Then some elders found it, sent me a text, and told me it was there. So I got it, it was just kind of funny how it happened. Thanks! I haven't opened it yet, so I have no clue what it is, but I will in a couple days! Also, Thanks Grandma Bingham and Grandma Ashcroft for the packages. I'm planning on writing thank you letters after Christmas when I actually open them. :)

So this week.. if I could pick one word to describe this week I would pick... I don't know. There are too many. Crazy, amazing, spiritual, life-changing, happy, frustrating, stressful... yeah.. kind of bipolar. There we go. That could be a good one. So here's what happened. Yahaira was all set to go. It was happening. We went to the Oakland temple with her Saturday night, which was beautiful and an incredible experience. Then on Wednesday we met with her. Wednesday morning she had her last final, and she felt really stressed about it. So after she took it, she gave into temptation and smoked a cigarette and some weed... yikes. So we were disappointed to say the least. We told her we'd probably have to move her date, but inside we really didn't want to. She felt super bad. Like, super bad. So we call the bishop to get his advice. He said he would be down for whatever we decided to do, but he was concerned about what she would do the next time she was stressed. But even more than that, he was concerned about her boyfriend. He told us that he wanted her to break up with him before she got baptized. Yeah, that's not our place bishop, but okay, we'll do our best. We had already taught the law of chastity on monday, and everything was going great with that. Also, it was the best law of chastity lesson I've ever taught. super awesome. So we met with her on Thursday and just talk to her. We devised a plan for what she could do next time she was stressed, and then said, "so we want to talk about your boyfriend..." Then she told us she was going to see him after us, and she was planning on breaking up with him. WHAT?!?!?!?!?!?! How cool is that? So we got everything figured out, she dumped him because he wasn't supporting her and she didn't want the temptation, and on Friday she passed her interview and was baptized Saturday night. it was CRAZY!! She's coming with us to a lesson tonight, and we're so excited. Her baptism was THE BEST baptisimal service I've ever seen. So it was her, and Jared Paredes, who is an excommunicated memeber that got baptized (I'm skyping at his house), and seriously, the spirit was SO INCREDIBLY STRONG! You have no idea. I can't even descibe it. It was just amazing. They both shared their testimonies, and holy cow, it was just beautiful. I was bawling my eyes out. The atonement is real people... so incredibly real. Something Jared said really stuck out to me. He said something like, "My testimony of the Atonement is that none of us are worthy of it, but God loves us enough to let us use it anyway." It was better worded than that, but still. It really made me think. Am I using the atonement the way i should be? So I decided that was something I'm going to work on. Is not taking the atonement for granted. It was an incredible experience.

So this morning I woke up at 4:30 and hiked a mountain to watch the sunrise. It's called mission peak, and it was so much fun. Early, but fun. And beautiful. And my butt and thighs hurt really bad. But it was so much fun! Hard, but fun. :) And we were done and home by 9:20, so that was nice!

I love you all, and I can't wait to SEE YOU!! So cool! Have an awesome Christmas eve, and Christmas morning. Send everyone my love! Merry Christmas! Talk to you soon! :)

Love,

Hermana Bingham

 Oakland temple. Us with Yahaira, and her friend David.

 Me, Yahaira and Hna. Monical at her baptism.

 Me, Hna. Monical, Marifer and Jared Paredes, after the baptism.

 The view!

 More view from the top of Mission Peak

 Sister Arias and I. We survived!

 I made it!!!

 Sunrise!

So pretty, so worth it!

Feliz Navidad

Feliz Navidad!!

Ay! It is December 16, that is less than 10 days until Christmas. What the? So here's the deal with Skype and stuff... We are going over to a memebers house at 10 in the morning on Christmas to skype. So I will probably be skyping shortly after 10. My skype name is just amayabing I think, if you want to try to add me before then life might be easier, but who knows. I am going to write down dad's and we'll figure it out. No worries people! I am SOOOOOOOO excited to talk to you all! If you have any more questions, and happen to see this within the next little bit, just write me back and I can answer them. We'll have like 45 minutes, so yeah. It will be great. We're going over to the Paredes house to skype, so I'm hopiong you can meet them. They are honestly my favorite people I've met here. They are SO COOL!! And they are feeding us that night too. They are just always so willing to help us out, and take care of us. They are awesome. I'm super excited.

So this week... it was an interesting week. That's for sure. First off, on Tuesday we got asked to go help at the Creche exhibit in Palo Alto. Which is this HUGE thing the church does every year with nativity scenes from all over the world, and different performances every night... it's really cool. Also, a BAGAZILLION non members are touring our church building every year... it's awesome. Missionary work. Bam. But anyways, Tuesday night we drove up there, super excited to be hosting and helping people go around, and us ourselves seeing the exhibit... but we got put in the little kids room, helping them make wise men crowns and telescopes, and play dress up with nativity scene dress ups... yeah. First thought: really, I have to spend the next 3 hours of my life making crowns? I won't even get to see the exhibit!! But after a while in there, I realized how FUN it is! Kids are so stinking adorable, it was awesome, helping kids make crafts and stuff. The teacher in me definitely came out... it was a blast. I didn't get to see much of the exhibit, because we had an appointment at 8 we had to race back to San Jose for, but from what I did see, it was really cool. We'll have to come back out and see it in a few years.

Second item of business... Yahaira's date got moved to THIS SATURDAY! we're super excited. Like, she is awesome. We just found out she has a boyfriend though, so we're probably going to teacher her the law of chastity tonight. Wish us luck. :) It should be interesting. We are so excited for her though. Pray for her, we don't want this to fall through!

Thirdly, we got put on bikes this week. Yup. Bikes. We had a car get yanked from our zone, and now us and the elders are in a car share, meaning we are BIKING half of the week. So that's always fun. My bike is pink, it's super adorable. We look ridiculous riding around in skirts on bikes with helments, and we get super hot and sweaty (yum right?) so that's fun. And my thighs shall soon be ripped. I'm excited. I think... We rode on Saturday, and it was only fun for the first 5 minutes, then I realized how out of shape I am. Yup... good stuff. The bike thing is kicking my butt.

So another worry is that the youth of our ward are REALLY stuggling. Like, every single one of them has a drug problem, or something is going on. We had a really good chat with two of the young women on Saturday at the ward chirstmas dinner, and we're hoping to try to help them a little bit. If anyone has any ideas on how to help struggling youth, please let me know! Mom, if you could also ask sister baker or sister prichett for yw activity ideas, that would be awesome.

And Jileen, I haven't heard of Colfax. I'll ask around this week, and see what I can do. It's possible! If it's anywhere in my mission, which goes from like, Fremont down to Monterrey. I'll ask around though.

Have a great week family! I can't wait to talk to you on Christmas!! I love you all!

love,

Hermana Bingham

Our Christmas corner!

 Bikes!!

 The youth in our ward acted out the nativity scene...it was awesome!

 Elder James fencing Jared--if Elder James won, we got to shove Jared's face 

in cake for his birthday (latino thing). If Jared won, we don't

The dog licking cake off his face. Elder James didn't win, we shoved his face in anyway.

Good News...

GOOD NEWS!! I'M STAYING IN YERBA BUENA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You have no idea how excited I am. So we're usually in one area for about 4 transfers, so this will be my 4th here, so I'll probably move in January. I was just scared that I might be leaving for some reason, but I'm not. So all is well. We just started a new transfer this morning, and I'm SUPER excited. It's going to be a good one. Wanna know why? Well, it's STORY TIME!!! Your favorite, I know. :)

So Mariela Medina, the bishops daughter invited her friend over for dinner with us a couple months ago. The friend showed up, Kofford and I talked with her and nothing else really happened. Well, this girl shows up for church with Mariela for the primary program. And then last week she was at church again. Well, good news, she lives in our area. Her name is Yahaira. So the elders set up an appointment to meet with her on Tuesday, and then asked us to go. So we go, but they had invited a guy because they thought the elders were coming, and people were being dramatic and upset, so Elder Alvarez and Elder Bird (our zone leaders) ended up coming with us. We taught the Restoration to Yahaira, and Isaiah, her friend. and it was AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!! She accepted a baptisimal invitation, and we have a date for the 28th with her. :) The next day Elder Bird called us and told us that that lesson was the best lesson he had ever seen sisters teach. Which was a really high compliment. Elder Bird is from Spanish Fork, and I went to high school with him. So you know me, I'm always more nervous around people from home and that I've known before, and I've made myself look like a complete idiot in front of him before. So this coming from him was huge for me. He's also been out for a long time, he should go home in the next couple of transfers I think, and he's been an AP. He's an awesome missionary. And he just complemented us over and over on our teaching. It was SUPER cool. The spirit was in that lesson so strong. And I learned a lot from Elder Alvarez and Elder Bird too. It was really cool.

We met again with Yahaira on Saturday. She brought another friend (who does that? :) ), and we taught the plan of salvation. We were also forseeing some word of wisdom problems, so we taught that too. Here's the cool thing though. She has had a problem with smoking cigarettes. Well, about 2.5 weeks ago she lost her id, and hasn't been able to buy them. She has also wanted to ask people for cigarettes, but hasn't. Then she prayed and thanks Heavenly Father that she lost her id so she couldn't buy cigarettes. SO COOL! She also came to church on Sunday even though she had food poisoning, and told us that someday she wants to serve a mission. Um, WHAT??!?!!?!? She is the greatest. We're super excited for her. We're probably going to move up her date to the 21st though. She's super ready. Also, Jared Paredes, a memeber of our ward who was excommunicated, is getting rebaptized on the 21st. He just found out last night. We are SO excited for him. So the 21st will be an awesome day. I"m super excited.

It's getting chillier here, but word is it's going to warm back up. Booyah. Also, our heater died this week, so that was an adventure. We were stuyding all bundled up, it was freezing!! We finally got a new one, so now we are warm. :) But now our bathtub won't drain, at all. I even tried to unclog the drain... so yeah. Life is interesting. We take the water out with a bowl after we shower and dump it in the sink... pics to come. :)

I did get to watch part of the 1st presidency devo with Jared and Marifer Paredes last night. We started it late, so I saw the last two talks, but it was really good. I liked it a lot!! :)

Well, I hope you all have an awesome week! Oh yeah, BRYCE: how are college applications going? Where did you apply? Also, when are you starting your mission papers? And getting your patriarchal blessing? I wanna know! Digame boy!!

Love you all,

Hermana Bingham

 Us with our car. Yeah, brand new, 2014 chevy cruze. Mom and dad would NEVER trust me to drive this car, but God does!!! I've been driving this for the last 6 weeks. Boo ya.

Us all snuggled up when our heater was broken. I stink at self timer.

 Language study in bed. It was warmer with all those blankets!

 Getting the water out of our tub at night... gross.

Really gross.

A Really Good Week

Family!!!

HAPPY DECEMBER!!! I'm happy to report that December 1st was a nice 70 degrees and sunny! I love California. Everytime I get chilly at night when it's dark, I just remind myself that there is snow in Utah, so life could be worse. :)

In other news, this week was great! For Thanksgiving we had a completely normal day. Like really. The only difference was that we ate turkey at dinner. :) We had dinner with a member of our ward, Teresa Guardado. She's a recent convert and loves the missionaries. So all of us ate with her. We had turkey and rice and mashed potatoes, with a nice costco pumpkin pie for dessert. It was really nice of her to feed us. There were 11 people there in total. So a little different from normal thanksgivings, but it was still really good. It was nice to be able to just try and find people in the street and share a scripture on gratitude with them, and pray with them about the things we are all grateful for. So it was a good day. :)

Thank you so much for the package!! How did you know I wanted that MoTab cd? You know me too well! and I LOVE the christmas tree!!! I put it up right away. The 25 days of Christmas is fun too! I opened up the first envelope yesterday and we shared our first candies! We decided to eat the candy at night and do the envelopes in the morning. So today I opened up #2. I love it! Thank you so so much! Also, the gifts are tucked away in the box so I'm not tempted to snoop. :)

Also this Saturday we had a BAPTISM!!!! Michelle, our 10 year old got baptized, along with her 8 year old sister Samantha. Their parents are members, but had been inactive for along time, so this step and everything leading up to it has reactivated their family. So it was a really neat experience. BUT, there is more to the story than that. :) So the baptism was supposed to be at 4, so we called our ward mission leader to have him fill up the font. Then before the baptism we decided to do a language study at our apartment from 2:30-3:30 so we could get to the baptism at 3:30ish and get everything in order. We get a call at 3 from Elder Alvarez, saying that Mario (the WML) had called him to have him fill the font. Also, they had to leave to go visit a former, so if we got to the church before him, could we set up a TV for their lesson that was supposed to take place after the baptism and check the water? Sure elder, why not. So we get to the church, and see that the elders are already there, so we immediately go find our girls and get them jumpsuits. Well, the girls go into the bathroom to change and we just hear "Um, sisters, there is water EVERYWHERE!" Hna Monical and I just look at each other, and then take off sprinting to the font. The elders were in there, and had just realized they forgot to turn off the water... So both the mens and womens bathrooms were completely flooded, as was the font. Good work. So we get it turned off, and un plug it so it will drain a little bit. Well, once you un plug it, the stopper just kind of floats around in the water, and doesn't plug again without any help. So elder Alvarez says, "close the curtains please" and goes in the bathroom. We all know what he's about to do, so we're just laughing. Then he peaks his head out and says "please close the curtains!" and Michelle says, "are you naked" His response? "Yep." Nice one elder. So we quickly closed the curtains and Elder Alvarez got to go for a swim in the font, then we got to mop up the bathrooms before the baptism. The service ended up starting 45 minutes late because their friend that was giving the talk wasn't there (she was driving from Modesto.. it's a ways away). So that was fun. But it all worked, the girls got dunked, we're all happy. :)

Then we ate the biggest dinner of our lives at the Cisneros house. The fed us all their Thanksgiving left overs. So we start off with this HUGE plate of ham and stuffing and potatoes and corn, and then they bring out a big sandwich, like a Torta. Holy crap, it was SO MUCH FOOD! I still feel fat from that. And we fasted all day yesterday. Yikes.

It was a really good week, and we saw lots of miracles. Thank you for all your love and support and prayers. I love you all, and hope your week is fantastic!

Love,

Hermana Bingham

We set up this Christmas tree in the office this week!

 We found a tree in the office to take home!

 Me with a few of the contents of my christmas package. The stockings were already hung:)

 End of November and it's a nice warm 73 degrees out. No biggie.

 Weekly planning with our new pillowcases. Which we LOVE!

 See, we really are weekly planning, even though we're on the floor 

with pillows and have sweats on under our skirts. :)

 Mopping up after the flood in the font

 The font

 Michelle, Me, Hna. Monical, Samantha

 3 generations! We all taught Michelle. My comp and I, Sister Kofford (my mom), 

and Sister Packer (Koff's mom, my abuelita). :)

This was taken yesterday, December 1st. Yes, it is that green outside. :)