Zone Conference

Hello family!

I can't believe you already got my trunky papers... Ay! That's still MONTHS away! Good thing I'm not trunky! haha. But for reals. Does San Jose do flights into Provo? If not, I don't think they'll take me up to San Francisco, so it will probably be SLC. We'll see. 

Happy Birthday Mommy! I'm glad you had a good day! Bacon wrapped meatloaf? sounds yummy. anything with bacon is good! Sounds and looks like the reunion was a blast! I loved the pictures, thanks Daddy! I'm excited to be able to go to those again next year. Sad I had to miss it! But it sounds like it was a blast. 

This week has been so good! We had an incredible zone conference on Thursday. President Mella talked about how his first day here, Elder Packer (our area 70) asked why we couldn't double or triple the number of baptisms we had in this mission. Right now we're on track to get about 500 baptisms this year. So that means like, 1000-1500 would be double or triple that. That's A TON of baptisms! But we talked about changing the way we do missionary work. He talked and said how the definition of insanity is doing things in the same way, and expecting better results. He said that we have to change the way we do missionary work if we want to see more baptisms. We have to up our game too. We have to get more investigators at church, and find more investigators. So we have to change the way we contact. We have to start teaching immediately, testify with power, get to know other people's beliefs. It was really inspiring. He showed us numbers and statistics, and we learned that basically, any investigator that comes to church regularly will most likely get baptized. That's so cool! So if we work hard, and the wards fellowship, every investigator we get to church will be baptized! So cool! So we're working really really hard on getting EVERYONE to church. It's going to be awesome. Really. 

We've been shaping up on the obedience. Every week we get a little better. Progress! I'm really grateful for that! Also, I've decided that I'm changing my studies to only in Spanish. I finally finished the Old Testament, and now I want to do EVERYTHING in spanish. So I'm going to send home a package sometime next week probably with my English Preach My Gospel in it. You're more than welcome to look through it, but save it for me because I'll do more with it when I get home. :) But for now I'm focusing on Spanish. :) 

I got to go on exchanges with another sister in our zone this week, Sister Wheeler. she's great. But we got to eat dinner with their investigators who are Russian! Problem is, they don't speak a ton of english. The wife does, but the husband doesn't understand much. We had a member there translating, but it was still interesting. I've never had the experience on my mission of being "out of the loop" with the language. Usually I understand what's going on, because I've only been in Spanish and English. It was fun though. We had fish (complete with tails and heads), and chicken with wild mushrooms... I'm still alive though, so I don't think they were poisonous. That's good. :) It was fun. 

Yesterday some members of our ward hosted a Peruvian party to help our investigators Amada and Bernardo (who are Peruvian) feel fellowshipped. Some other members from Palo Alto and San Jose came too, and it was fun. BUT, the cool part was is that some members from Palo Alto brought their family from Davis, and we were talking to the lady from Davis, and she has two kids. We asked their names, and get this, one of them is named Amaya! Spelled the same and everything! It was really cool. I finally met someone with my name. Spelled the same! It was fun. the little girl is 6, so her mom looked at her and said, "Amaya, guess what this missionary's first name is? Amaya!" And the girl was so surprised! It was adorable. And then I asked her, "Amaya, how old are you?" Yeah, I felt like I was talking to myself. Never had that problem before! It was funny. 

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

Love,

Hermana Bingham

Zone conference: we like to match. :)

Miracles Are Happening!

Howdy Y'all!

My companion is from Texas... I say y'all now. Especially because this is my second comp from Texas. 

First off, sorry I'm emailing a bit later today. We went lazer tagging this morning with our zone. It was super fun. I definitely ran around like a crazy person. But lazer tag is totally different when you have to stay within sight and sound of your companion at all times. Not to mention your TWO companions! But it was really fun. So now we're back, and I'm emailing. super late. But that's alright! I'm here now, and that's all that matters. :)

So to answer some of your questions mom, yes, I did get the package. Thanks for the shirt and the candy. :) It got here, even without the apartment number. Second, yes, it's a Spanish ward, and it's on FIRE! Like seriously, the members are really strong, and really supportive of missionary work. Which honestly isn't super typical for Spanish wards since most of the people are recent converts. But here everyone knows what they are doing, all the auxiliaries are really strongly formed, and have really solid people in the leadership positions. It's really nice. And there are a lot of miracles happening right now. More details on that later. Third, I am still an STL, even though neither of my companions are. The other STL is in a different companionship, so now exchanges will be a little different. We'll have to figure that out. 

Having a native companion is really nice, because my Spanish does get corrected. The hard part however, is that she points them out ALL the time, so it's put a damper on my self confidence. And they are like, really tiny things, but every time I say it wrong she kind of jumps on me. So that's hard, but good. I'll get used to it. My struggle now is that I'm almost nervous to speak Spanish. Oh, and since there are 4 natives in this ward, I've been learning more bad words. Yikes. I had a goal not to learn any of those. And I had been doing good. they will just say it in a joking way, but it's not the greatest thing. But we do have a goal to speak more Spanish. 

So MIRACLES ARE HAPPENING! We've seen a couple big ones this week! We have this investigator named Amada. She is currently living with her "esposo" that she's not really married to, and their two children. She had been learning, but he wasn't super interested. But this week he started listening to us, and they decided on a date to get married! August 15th! Which is a huge step for them! That means they can get baptized soon! They are praying about that date right now! And it will be their family! Amada and Bernardo, and their daughter Nicole. We're so excited! 

The other big miracle that we saw this week is with Andres. Andres is the "esposo" guy of one of our active members named Adriana. He had been taking the lessons from missionaries a couple of years ago, but since then has wanted nothing to do with the church or us. But he's been warming up. The bishop has been visiting him, and last night he told the bishop that he wants to marry Adriana in November, and then get baptized on their daughter Genesis's birthday in December. SWEET!  It's progress. So we're going to go start meeting with him soon. 

The obedience thing has been getting better. Lucky for me, hermana Boyd and I are on the same page. So we're able to help set goals that will help us be better in the little things. So it got a little better this week, and we have more goals this next week to help us get even better. But as we've been increasing our obedience and the quality of our missionary work, we are really seeing those miracles. It's amazing. I'm so grateful for all the Lord does for us. And I know that it's by our obedience that we receive blessings. Even in the small things that seem insignificant. They are great in the eyes of the Lord. And it's worth it, because we show our Father how much we love Him, and then He blesses us, more than we can possibly imagine. I'm so grateful for this time I have to be a missionary. I couldn't imagine being anywhere else. I love you all. Have a fantastic week at the family reunion! 

lots of love,

hermana Bingham

p.s. address update since I sent it wrong last week!

3480 Granada Ave #147

Santa Clara, CA 95051

p.p.s  Big shout out to the Ashcroft clan at the reunion this week! love you all!

Cute kitties!

 We decided to match the elders... So this is us and elder Barbosa and elder Fernandez

Santa Clara!

Hello family!

First off, it sounds like you all had a fun week! Golfing, meat, girls camp. Sorry it was a little frustrating mom, but it's sounds like it was lots of fun. Oh, and a rocket launcher, fun! 

So I know you all really just want to know where I'm at, so I'll talk about that later. Just kidding. I'll tell you now. Right now I am serving in the El Camino ward, here in Santa Clara, CA. Our ward actually covers Santa Clara, Mountain View, and Sunnyvale, but our area is Santa Clara. Which is a 3rd of the stake. The other two elders cover the other two thirds. So far it's been really fun. This is one of the more "coveted" spanish areas in the mission, so I'm super excited. It's a big ward, the bishop is great, the members are really strong... it's great. There is so much potential here! I'm excited. This will be my last area, which is a little weird to think about, so I don't. But it's been fun. I'm in another trio, so that puts a whole new spin on things. my companions are Hermana Garcia-Gomez (or Hermana G-G) and Hermana Boyd. Hermana G-G is from Veracruz, Mexico (NATIVE!!) but raised in San Diego. She goes home in October. Hermana Boyd if from Flower Mound, Texas (close to Dallas), and she goes home in November. And then me in December. Yes, we are all dying here. :) I love them both. They are super great. They are both really hard working, excellent missionaries, and I'm excited to get to know them even more. We've had a lot of fun already. And I actually have some pictures to show ya'll. And I never have pictures on week one! That's pretty impressive. 

Oh yeah, our address is:

3480 Granada Ave #147

Santa Clara, CA 95051

This week I've learned a lot about obedience. I've been noticing that this area has some problems with disobedience. Not huge problems, but just disobedience in the little things. Like staying too long and hanging out at members homes, or being out past 9, even when we're not in a lesson, or morning schedule problems. Or even just what does and doesn't count as a lesson or a member present lesson. Even just effective planning. And I'm not saying that I was always exactly 100% perfect in my obedience before, but I tried my best. And most days that best is pretty good. And I have a really firm testimony of being exactly obedient. Obviously we are all human, and we make mistakes, but this week has been really hard. I want to change these things, but trying to figure out how I can help the missionaries around me without making them feel like I'm attacking them is hard. This area has so much potential, but I know that we can only reach that potential by being exactly obedient. And sometimes that's hard. When no one around you is being obedient, it's hard to stand alone. But it's something you have to do. Always keep the commandments, and we receive blessings. If we don't, we don't get blessings. And blessings are so important, especially in missionary work. We have NO room to afford being disobedient. Really we have no room anywhere in life to be even just the slightest bit disobedient. It's been a really big learning experience for me, and I'm determined to be EXACTLY obedient this week. No matter what. and don't worry, it's nothing big, just little things. and I'm doing my best. Sometimes we just have to fix tiny things. :) That's why we have the atonement right? :)

I love you all! Have so much fun this week, and have fun at the family reunion! I love you all!

Love,

Hermana Bingham

The Andersen's and I (back in Seaside)

Dinner with the elders one night, since no one wanted to feed us. It was a little chilly

We matched on Sunday!

Changes Are Coming

Hello family! 

First off, I'm getting transferred! So today is my last day here in Seaside. Tomorrow I'll wake up bright and early and drive to San Jose for transfer meeting. I have no clue where I'm going yet, but I'll let you know next Monday. I'm excited! It will be a new adventure. 

It's been a pretty good week. We have had tons of success. We met most of our goals, slacked on a few, but it was okay! We had tons of help from the members. It was fun! 

This week we had meet and greets up in San Jose with President and Sister Mella. Let me tell you, they are awesome! I'm so excited to work with them. They will do wonderful things in this mission! I'm very excited to see everything he has in store. It will be so fun. They have really shown and told us how they are going to focus on following the spirit. They really want every decision that they make to be spirit guided. It will be so interesting. He also told us that we will become a technology mission! We don't know when yet, but very soon here we will be getting facebook and iPads. Woohoo! My guess is sometime within the next 12 weeks. It will be an interesting change. I thought it was really cool though; he talked about how the First Presidency and Quorum of the 12 want us to learn how to use mobile devices responsibly on our missions. I thought that was really interesting. I had never thought about it like that before. And it's a really good point. Most youth, even adults, have all these smart/mobile devices, and they get to a point where it becomes an addiction. They can't live without it, and are constantly wasting time on it. Before the mission, I was guilty of that. I wasted way too much time on facebook and netflix. But if we learn how to use these devices responsibly, and for good, to hasten the work of the Lord, then we will take that back with us after our missions. I'm excited to be able to learn that. I think it will be an excellent thing for missionaries to learn. Bring on the iPads!!

For the 4th of July we got to do service at the Monterey parade! We were on traffic control duty: making sure cars didn't try to drive where they weren't supposed to, which basically means we just got to sit there and watch the parade. It was super fun. We did that, went to lunch with our zone because everyone came up for service, we did weekly planning (planning ALL our lessons for the week--takes a few hours), and then we headed up to the Bowman's house for dinner. She is our RS president, and invited us, the Seaside elders, and the Fort Ord elders over for dinner. It was a beautiful 3 course meal, complete with appetizers (veggies and dip, and bacon-wrapped scallops), a main course (salad, mashed potatoes, watermelon, chicken, bread...) and dessert (homemade peach pie with fresh peaches and vanilla ice cream. Yum!) It was super good. Also, super classy. The Bowmans are fairly wealthy, so the best of manners are expected at their house, which is like a museum... yeah, it's nice. Lets just say we ate our watermelon slices with a fork and knife. Yup. That happened. Then we headed over to visit Tiffany, a less active member, and we got to watch the fireworks from her balcony! President Mella gave us permission to be out until 10 if we were invited to watch the fireworks by a member and there was a proselyting opportunity. Since Tiffany is a less active, and invited us, we got to stay! And there wasn't even a show, but just a TON of illegal fireworks. It was super great. And she has a killer view of all of seaside, so it was pretty great. 

I hope you all have a fantastic week! I love you all!

Love,

hermana Bingham

p.s. Tell Kenna congrats for me!

 Hiking in Big Sur last monday. Redwoods!

  really pretty cove and waterfall

 Griselda, Alexis, Isabella and me - They are less active members.

And the cutest people EVER!

Tanya Cook and me. She'll get baptized sometime this month.

Parade! Sister Thorton, Blair and me

 Sisters Ikegami and Ferrin

 Sister Thorton, me, Sister Blair and Sister Quintana

 Us at the Bowman's house

 All of us at the Bowman's!

 Tiffany and I

 Watching fireworks, wearing ski coats, blankets and drinking hot chocolate.

What's wrong with that picture?:)

Melanie and I

 Rachelle Packard (member) and I

 Us and Aldo -- he gets baptized this Saturday!

 The Ryan family

Sister Monical and I.  She goes home!

Hermana Thorton, me Hermana Santidrian and Hermana Raney