Hermana Bingham's Adventures in San Jose: 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