Hermana Bingham's Adventures in San Jose: 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