This Is It!!!

2  John 1:12   (Having many things to write unto you, I would not write with paper and ink: but I trust to come unto you, and speak face to face, that our joy may be full.)  

Just kidding. I'll write you a bit. :)

Wow. This is it. This is my last day. Well, not counting tomorrow, which will include going to the temple and hanging out at President's house. It's crazy to think that I'm already here. I've been a full time missionary for the last 18 months and it's about to end. This has been the greatest experience. I don't even know how to describe my mission in words. I have learned SO much, I don't even know where to start. I feel that on my mission I have truly come to learn who Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father are. I have found a personal relationship with each of them, and I can truly say that I KNOW They live, and that They love me. And I love Them. I don't know everything. I'm still a 20 year old girl trying to figure out life, but I do know that this is the true church of Jesus Christ that has been restored to the earth. I know that the Book of Mormon is true, because I have witnessed it's power, and have felt of it's spirit. 

But more than all that, I am I witness that Christ lives. I am a witness of the healing power of His atonement. "Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed." I have felt the healing power of the atonement in my life. I truly have. Sometimes in life, we feel alone. We feel weak, and like we can't do it. And in reality, we can't do it--alone. But with Christ, we can do all that the Father requires. And that is because of His atoning sacrifice for each and every one of us. I've seen the atonement heal me, and it continues to heal me and perfect me every day. I'm a work in progress, but I know that someday, with Christ's help, I can truly be even as He is. I've seen it work in the lives of so many others. I have seen people change, and become more happy and free. And I know that as we apply the atonement, and strive to become like Christ, we too can be truly free, and become perfected in Him. That is a promise given by God to each one of us. I am so grateful that I have learned that on my mission. 

I've also learned that this isn't the end! This is just a new beginning. And because of that, I'm not sad to leave. Of course, I'm leaving a piece of my heart here in California with all the people I have come to love, but I am not sad. I know that I will see theses people again, and that one day we will stand before the throne of God together and rejoice, because we have the gospel, and we can all live together as His children in His kingdom. I know that I can STILL be a missionary, just a little bit of a different kind of missionary. But I am so excited to see where life takes me. 

Thank you all for all your love and support. I love you all with my whole heart, and I'm so excited to see you all soon! 

See y'all Wednesday!

Love,

Hermana Bingham 

2 Timothy 4:6-7    (For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.)  

us in the crazy rainstorm--we just did work like normal! Nothing too exciting!

MTC--- reunited again! We sang at the despedida (Outgoing fireside) last night. 

I"ll show you more pics later! LOVE Y'ALL!!

Best 2nd to Last Week Ever!

Hey family!!!

Wow, what a great week it was! It was fantastic! The best second to last week that one could possibly have. First off, nothing crazy or bad happened this week, so that was good! It was a week of normal missionary work! And then, we had the ward Christmas party on Saturday, which was a blast! I love our ward so much. It sounds like you've already seen some pictures of us and crazy elf hats, and even a video, but I'll send you some more. I'm glad you enjoyed the video, and had fun showing it off to people. It was fun. The sister that always sends you those pictures has a son serving in Salt Lake, so she gets how it is to be a missionary parent and loves to send pictures every time we see her. :) But the ward Christmas party was great. There was tons of yummy food, including tamales!!! So we all ate delicious food, talked to everyone, and we even got to get our picture taken with a Mexican Santa Claus! So that was really fun. 

Then on Sunday we had a great day. We actually weren't able to watch the first presidency Christmas devotional because we were filling up the font for the baptism and couldn't figure out how to get it turned on... awkward. But we got everything ready for the baptism, and at 7pm we had the baptismal service. I gave a talk, then Andres got baptized, and then Hermana Buys and a couple of the elders bore testimony while Andres was changing, and then he got confirmed, and then Adriana his wife bore her testimony, and then he bore his testimony! It was a great baptismal service, and the spirit was really really powerful there. I'm so excited for their family to continue progressing. They'll be at the temple in a year. That's for sure. Hopefully I'll be able to get there. 

We also set a baptismal date for Amada and Bernardo's daughter Nicole this week. She's 10 and has learning disabilities, so she didn't get baptized with the rest of her family. But she's going to get baptized for her birthday, so we're super excited about that. Too bad her birthday isn't until January. :( who knows, maybe Hermana Boyd and I will road trip it out here. :)

If you haven't seen it yet, you should all go to christmas.mormon.org to watch the new video the church made called "He is the Gift." Watch it, share it, spread the Christmas spirit. There is no better way to share the gospel than through that video right now. It was supposedly the only add on youtube yesterday, so it's going to be big. It's a really good video, kind of like the "Because of Him" one for easter. It's really good though. We even have special contacting cards for it. I love it!!! 

Well, I hope you all have a great week. I'll see you all really really soon! Oh, and I'm sending two packages home today. One with books and stuff, and one with bedding and stuff. We have some spare bedding in our apartment, so no worries, I'm not going to freeze this week. :) I love you all. I'll see you really soon!!

Love,

Hermana Bingham

My comp and I at the ward Christmas party

Us and Hermana and Hermano Martinez, the ones that sent the video

Us with Mexican Santa

la familia Gonzalez

Us, the Gonzalez family, and Hermano and Hermana Garcia (hno Garcia baptized him)

Us, the Gonzalez family, Elder Rich, Elder Wilson, and Elder Prince

Us with the Gonzalez family

flight plans. just in case you didn't get them

Thanksgiving

Hello family!!!

Wow! Sounds like you all had a GREAT thanksgiving! Tell Julia congrats on the baby! She looks so cute! And I'm excited, because that means I can hold a baby when I get home. Woohoo!

So this week was nuts. I decided that I really don't like doctors (no offense Dad. :) ). The problem was that my poor companion has been pretty sick lately.. like feeling SUPER dizzy, and having stomach problems and everything, so a couple months ago we had to go to a gastro doctor, but last week ever since she started driving her dizziness has been worse. So our mission nurse told us to go to urgent care, so we went and they are having her go see an ENT later in December. Then we went home, went to one appointment, and then to dinner. And at dinner we were eating some Indian food that the member had brought from the restaurant she works at, and Hermana Buys started having an allergic reaction to the food that was really similar to her nut reaction. And she's REALLY allergic to nuts. So I drove her home since it was possibly and emergency, the elders met us at home, broke into our apartment before we got there to get her Benadryl and water, and then gave her a blessing. And then we waited, and waited, and she didn't get any better, in fact, she was feeling worse. But we pretty much figured that it wasn't her nut allergy, that it was something else, but we didn't know what. But the mission nurse told us to take her to the emergency room. So I had to drive her to the emergency room, and we were there for a couple hours. The doctors gave her some steroids to help with the reaction, and we waited. We got home around 9:30pm and crashed. But Wednesday morning when we woke up, she was SUPER exhausted... understandable, her body had just taken a huge hit with the reaction and everything. And we had a return appointment with the gastro doctor from a couple months before. So I don't like doctors because I've spent WAY to much time in a doctors office this week. But I am grateful for them. They helped us a lot this week. But all day Wednesday we pretty much stayed in and let her sleep. So I felt pretty useless and like I couldn't really do anything. But other than that she's been doing pretty good. This week we have to go get her blood drawn for a blood test for the gastro doctor, and get her some medicine for the dizziness... The poor thing. I feel so bad for her. So that began our crazy week!

The rest of it was pretty normal. Thanksgiving was great. We had a pretty normal thanksgiving dinner this year, at a family's home. We ate with the Navarro family. It was really fun. Then we headed over to Amada and Bernardo's house to help Bernardo with his talk, and she fed us more turkey and mashed potatoes, and TAMALES!!! They were so yummy. But I felt so sick... I ate WAY to much. But it was really fun, and a really good day. 

Then on Saturday Andres and Adriana got married! We helped decorate the church gym Friday night, and then again on Saturday. The wedding was beautiful, the reception was great, and we had a lot of fun. And now they are living the law of chastity, and he's one step closer to baptism, so that's the best part. He gets baptized on December 7th, at 7pm. Happy Birthday Daddy! haha. We're super excited. 

Well, it was a good week overall. Thanks for the love an encouragement. I love you all, and I hope you have a great week! Please pray that we can stay out of the hospital, or out of any kind of craziness this week. I just want to have a normal week! haha. I love you!

Love,

Hermana Bingham.

p.s. We get to tour the 49ers stadium for pday this week. It's in our area. Be jealous. :)

 Merry Christmas! Mini golfing last pday

Happy Thanksgiving!

I love my companion!

Adriana walking down the aisle!

us and Courtney Haight, the bishop's daughter

Cake. so cute!

us with the bride and groom!!

Emotional Trauma

Hey Family!!!

How's everything going? It sounds like you had a great week, which is awesome to hear. It makes me happy! 

First off, I have a couple more favor's to ask.. man by the time I get home I will have asked for so many favor's that you'll never want another missionary to come home every again!! Sorry Bryce... haha just kidding. First: My eyes seem to be getting a tad bit worse, especially at night. Can you set up an eye appointment for me before I go to school? And a dentist appointment? It's been 18 months.. I'm long overdue. Thanks, you're the best!!!

Also, has Julia had her baby yet? And how's Taylor doing? He's been on my mind a lot lately.

So I'm going to start off this letter with my bad news. Last Monday after I emailed and everything we were driving back home and I went to change lanes, and apparently didn't check my blind spots as good as a thought I did because when I changed I swiped another car... Now before you get all worried, no one was hurt, I was just really shaken up. Because um, hello, when you hit another car it kind of rattles you. I just made a scrape on the side of the other car, and a little dent and a couple scratches (not bad at all) on the front of our car by the left tire. But we just exchanged info with the other car and then I got to call our vehicle coordinator and work everything out. I also had to call President, and he took away my driving privileges... because on the mission when you get in an accident, your privledges get yanked. So thus began our crazy week. I was an EMOTIONAL WRECK!! and super depressed for a couple days because I did something super dumb, and my companion was stressed because now she has to learn to drive on CA roads, and she does't have a ton of experience... but now we're doing good. We're going to have to bike for a couple days when our car goes in to get fixed, but other than that we're good. The church insurance is taking care of everything and my brain is a lot more calm. But it was really rough. Needless to say, I cried... a lot. And I still feel bad. But I've learned my lesson, and next time I drive, I'll be checking my blind spots WAY better than I ever have in my life. 

In other news, I got my trunky papers (flight plans) on Saturday!! Looks like I'll be leaving here at 10:15 am and getting to SLC at 1:09. Get ready Utah, I'm coming home! But not for 3 weeks, so don't get ready too fast. :) You should be so proud, I didn't even cry when I looked at them. :)

Even amidst the crazy we still saw a ton of miracles this week. We found 4 new investigators (not nearly as high as Bryce's 21, but good for us!) and taught 20 lessons this week. WE HIT STANDARDS OF EXCELLENCE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We were so excited. We busted our butts though. It was so much fun. We also have started sharing a Thanksgiving message with everyone, and it has made me realize how much I have to be grateful for. We've been watching "In the Spirit of Thanksgiving" the mormon message, and it just reminds me of all the good in this world. I have so much. I have a family that loves me, I have amazing friends, I have a roof over my head and clothes to keep me warm. I have a great companion, I have so much! But most important, is that I have the gospel. I know that I have a Heavenly Father who loves me more than I can comprehend. I know I have a brother, Jesus Christ, who suffered and died for me so that I can be clean, and gain eternal life. And there are SO many people that don't know that. So this Thanksgiving, I'm grateful for the opportunity I have to share my knowledge with all those around me, and help others come unto Christ. 

I love you all so much. I hope you have a great Thanksgiving. Just know that you're always in my prayers, and that I'm grateful for each and every one of you. I love you!

Love,

Hermana Bingham

Sister Buys, first day on the road. This is what she was really feeling. :)

This is where we filled up Saturday night. If gas prices look like this in the CA bay area,
what are they like in Utah?!?! haha

Hey Family!

HOLY COW, IT SNOWED!?!?!?!? I'm going to die!!! It's been like 60 degrees here and I"m already freezing to death. What is wrong with me? As I type this my hands feel like ice cubes, as well as my toes. I think I"m going to die. Literally. Bring something to keep me warm to the airport okay?

First off, to answer some questions, Hermana Boyd is going to go to UVU, but she did before the mission too, and she's fine with driving. In fact I think she wanted to live at the south end of BYU if I"m not mistaken. She has a plan. No worries. :)

Second, thanks dad for all your hard work with my classes!!! I just dropped one, so now I have all the classes I want, and a near perfect schedule! The one problem is that night class, but there isn't another option for that one, so I'll just deal with it. haha. But thanks so much. I really appreciate it. 

So this week was incredible! Different for sure, because we went from having 4 sisters in our apartment to just 2. Hermana Buys and me. Alone. So it's weird, a little empty, but it's fun. But I really miss Hermana Boyd and Hermana Fuentes. Good news is, we'll all be in Utah together! We just have to go to temple square to see Hermana Fuentes. But now there are elders in the Sister's old area. Elder Rich, who goes home to Las Vegas at the same time as me, Elder Prince, and their trainee, Elder Wilson. So we have 7 missionaries in the ward now, which is NUTS! But it's super fun. Also, Elder Magana's new companion (other elders in our ward) is Elder Barlow, who just happens to know Alex Minson, because Alex served in his ward at the beginning of his mission! Small world right?!?

But the reason that this week was so great, was that on Saturday we got to go up to the Tri-stake center next to the Oakland temple to have a combined meeting with our entire mission and the entire Oakland/San Francisco mission to listen to Elder Bednar. He came to do a fireside for the 50 year anniversary of the Oakland temple. And holy cow, that missionary meeting was so incredible. 550 full time missionaries, our mission presidents, Elder Packer, our area 70 and his wife, and Elder and Sister Bednar. It was incredible. But he didn't just speak to us. WE had a giant discussion. He asked us to study 3 talks before hand, and we just talked about them all. Then he gave us time to ask him questions, and it was so incredible. But it was so much information! He told us we weren't allowed to write down anything that was said, only what we felt. And after looking over my notes serveral times, I have come to the conclusion that what I learned most was about being an agent, not an object. 

Now let me explain what I mean by that. We have all been given the gift of agency. That is the freedom to ACT. Well, duh Hermana Bingham, we've all known that since we were 3. But here's the catch. How man times to we go into a meeting, learn lots of good stuff, but then not do anything about it. How many times do we actually act on what we've learned. Or when we pray for blessings, do we actually go out an act so that we receive those blessings? It's really cool. I realized that most of my life, I've been an object. I've been acted upon. I'll go to meetings, and people will say things.. I'm being acted upon. But until I do something about it, I'll still be an object, not an agent. I don't know if that makes any sense. But something that helps clarify it are "Ask in Faith," "Seek Learning by Faith," "Converted unto the Lord" all by E. Bednar, and "Free Forever, to Act for Themselves," By E. Christofferson from this last conference. Read them or listen to them, they are all incredible talks on how we can be agents, rather than objects. 

I love you all. I hope you have a fantastic week! You're always in my prayers! Love you!

Love,

Hermana Bingham

 Google bikes! Doing service on google campus. :)

The new elders, eating the Chilean food that our member made for the Chilean... but she got transferred. :(

Hermana Buys and I with the view of the SF bay from the visitors center at the temple

Us and the temple

Isn't it beautiful?

Expectations

**This actually arrived on November 4th. I was just delinquent in posting it. Sorry!

Hello family!!! 

Wow, Bryce is on his way to Argentina! Or is he already there now? Who knows! That's so cool! I'm so excited for him. I hope you made it there safely kid, and let us know how you're doing! Write me! 

Charlie is also home now, as you've probably all noticed. It's weird. For me, it just kind of tells me how close my time is. I've only got 6 weeks. It's crazy! I promise I'm not trunky or anything, but with Hermana Boyd headed home, and Charlie just got home, and Bryce on his way to Argentina, time is just a very real thing for me. 

Thanks for helping me with classes everyone! It looks like a great schedule. I emailed dad with a fix suggestion he asked for. I would do it, but if he can get me the best professor available at that time, I would appreciate it. Hopefully I can get into the classes I'm on the waitlist for... That would make class life awesome! If I only had one class on Tuesday, and one class on Thursday I would die. It would be so great! But anyways, thanks for your help! I appreciate it a lot. 

I didn't email yesterday because we went to Santa Cruz! It was a blast. It was a much needed p-day, and a much needed trip to the beach because this week was a little stressful. We found out that our Bishop doesn't think we're working hard because we honestly haven't been hitting standards of excellence lately. We've be getting lower numbers, but the quality has been great, and we're working our rear ends off. so that was frustrating. And our WML (Ward mission leader) wants us to shoot to get 30 lessons (not realistic at all right now) and keeps trying to get us to go tracting. Which we will get sent home if we do. It's really hard to work with, but we're trying. It's just been a little bit stressful. But one thing I've learned it that we are accountable to the Lord, and He is the only one that matters. If we're doing good in His eyes, then we're okay. I'm really grateful for that. Over the course of my mission I've really learned the importance of accountability. It's so important to be accountable to the Lord for what we do each day. And I know that as I apply that more and more, I see more and more how proud He is of what I"m doing. It's incredible. 

Thanks so much for all your love and support. I hope you have a great week. I love you all!

Love,

Hermana Bingham

Roomies

Pizza My Heart for lunch! Yum!!

Santa Cruz!

Halloween lunch

Me and Hermana Buys

Hermanas Fuentes and Boyd

Roomies with scary teeth

Halloween lunch with Sister Haight!! (Bishop's wife)

Hermanas Fuentes and Boyd

Last p-day. Picnic at a part. That water is the edge or the San Francisco Bay. :)

Cute old fence

LIFE IS NUTS!!!

Hey family!

Oh my goodness! Kyla is 14, Lauren is home, Bryce is going to Argentina soon... LIFE IS NUTS!! That's so awesome. Also, Charlie gets home this Thursday. Isn't that crazy! Time flies. And I only have 7 weeks left. AHHHH! There isn't enough time! 

Thanks for calling the counselor mom. I wish they would've been more helpful, because the classes on the map some of them I've already taken, and some of them I can't take until I've been accepted into the program. So the map doesn't really help me a super ton right now. But we'll work on it. And yeah, if you can call someone about the spanish class and religion, that would be awesome. I would love to take the 2nd half of the Book of Mormon, and that spanish class. I need to take my Civ 1 GE credit... but I'm not sure what class sounds the most interesting. But yeah. My class registration date is Nov. 3rd starting at midnight. We're probably going to Santa Cruz that day so I won't be emailing or on the computer. Which means I'm going to need you to register for me. Is that okay? I could do it on the Tuesday, but it will be better if we can get it done before then. That way I can get better class times and stuff. You can go on mybyu and look at the class schedules and figure something out ahead of time. my username is ****** and the password is my usual. I don't know. It's stressing me out a bit. If you have questions, shoot me a letter this week. Ahhh school! I just don't know what to do!

But in other news, it's been a great week. I got the package. Thanks so much! I loved it! Also, we set a baptismal date with Andres this week. He will get baptized the same day as his daughter on Dec 6th. I'm super excited! It was a huge blessing because this week I have been super stressed out about school, finding a job... and then there is the missionary stuff too. We haven't been hitting our goals or standards of excellence, investigators aren't progressing, no one wants to talk to us, and it's just been a little disheartening. But we met with Andres yesterday and he told us that he decided to get baptized on Dec 6th, and then later we met with Amada and she told us that she and Bernardo are going to the temple to do baptisms for the dead this week! So it was a really big blessing to know that we are doing okay, and that the Lord is still blessing us with miracles. 

Thanks so much for all your love and support. I love you all, and I hope you have a great week!

Love,

Hermana Bingham

Carving pumpkins!

Us with our pumpkins!

Making homemade ice cream!

Ward trunk-or-treat

me with some of the girls from the ward!

a member brought his 4 wheeler and took us on a ride!

It started to rain while we were on our ride!

more pics from the ride!

Us with our crazy suckers!

The elders brought us ice cream! And Jesus!

Hermana Boyd really is enjoying the giant rice krispy treat! :)

Mission Conference

Hey family!!

How is everyone? It sounds like you've had a pretty awesome week, so that's great! I"m glad you had fun at Cornbelly's. I've never actually been to that one, so I might have to give it a try next year. :) If you want another good one, Castle of Chaos in Orem is really good. It's worth the money. :) I"m glad you all enjoyed your fall break this week though!

Also, Happy Birthday Kyla! I know it's not until Saturday, but I can't believe you're turning 14! That's nuts! I hope you have an awesome birthday. 

So I bet you're all wondering why I'm emailing today instead of yesterday. Well, it's because yesterday we had a mission conference with Elder Pino of the seventy. So it took up from about 9 to 4, so they moved our pday until today. But it was a really great meeting that was really inspiring! He talked a lot about our calling and our purpose as missionaries, and it was a really good reminder. It really made me want to work even harder. But it did stress me out just a little bit, because we're already having a hard time meeting standards of excellence (20 lessons a week, and 140 contacts) and doing our hour of training every day and an hour of language study, and service. I don't know how to balance everything out. Everything we're doing is what we need to be doing, but we can't fit it all in! There isn't enough time! So basically, a lack of time is stressing me out. But I know that if I council with the Lord in this, that He will help me to know what to do. That is something that I really have learned. As we put our complete trust in the Lord, He will ALWAYS guide us to do what we need to do. Always. He never leaves us alone, or leads us astray. 

Yesterday Sister Mella also talked about the spirit. She talked about how we can have the spirit more in our lives/what keeps us from feeling the spirit, and she talked a lot about comparing ourselves. I struggle with that sometimes. I feel like I'm not doing as well as everyone else, so therefore I"m not good enough. But she taught us that when we do that we are 1. giving into Satan, and 2, not allowing the spirit to be in our lives! It thought it was a really interesting spin on things, and so that's what I'm going to work on this week! I"m really excited to see how it goes. 

I love you all, and I hope you have a great week. Thanks for all you do! 

Love you lots,

Hermana Bingham

We made carmel apples!

After our RS Zumba activity!

Milkshakes to celebrate hermana Boyd's 17 month mark, 

and hermana Buys' 2 month mark!

our home entertainment system for movie nights. :)

Mission conference yesterday. 

Hermana Quintana and I matched almost perfectly. By accident!

Hermana Raney and I

Mini golf for pday last week!

Hmmm... :)