Hermana Bingham's Adventures in San Jose: 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