Hermana Bingham's Adventures in San Jose: Rescue

Hola familia!

It's been a good week! I am jealous of the fact that you are at lake powell right now, but as long as we go first thing next summer too, I think I'll be okay. I might forgive you.

Sounds like you've got a lot of stuff going on! Girls camp prep, talks in sacrament (go Kyla!), indexing, exploring on the boat and fishing, Jayson is working at Magleby's too... wow! Pretty soon we'll have a family legacy at that place! My kids will work there too? Jokes. But like, for reals. We'll just keep this going forever. But in order to keep the chain, one of us will have to work there for a while after missions. I vote not me. :)

It's been a good week here too! We had an awesome week for lessons... we got 26! Usually we get around 23, so this was awesome. We've had a lot of really good solid ones as well. Have a told you about Melanie? If I haven't I should.

Here in the California San Jose Mission we focus a lot on the rescue. Basically bringing people that have already made sacred covenants back into the fold. It's really awesome. We believe that a rescue is just as important as a baptism. We just don't report them in numbers. But it is amazing!!! So Melanie is a less active that is returning to church. She has an amazing story! She grew up in the church down in Southern CA. She went to church, went to seminary, but as a teenager decided that she wanted to prove that she could be a good person and not be Mormon, and be a good person and drink, gave into peer pressure, and took her first drink of alcohol. After that it went downhill. She left the church, didn't really want anything to do with it, and became an alcoholic. She always believed in God, always was really in-tune to the spirit, was a spiritually aware person, had awesome experiences, and went to different churches. She thought she was winning. Right? Wrong. Well she hit rock bottom with the alcohol, and started going to AA meetings. She has now been sober for a few years. But her husband is an alcoholic that doesn't want to do anything about it. And there is a lot of other stuff that was wrong in the marriage, and she had been praying to know what to do. Should she get a divorce? She felt like he was holding her back, and it wasn't a very good situation. She has a 7.5 year old son, and didn't know what to do. Well one day she felt very strongly that she needed to get a divorce and leave him. So she and her son were staying with a friend, and they went to church on Sunday. And while she was sitting there she heard, "What are you doing here Melanie? I want you in the Mormon church." And she realized she didn't know what she was doing there. And as much as she didn't want to go back to the Mormon church, the next Sunday she showed up in our sacrament meeting. She met the bishop and the RS president, and decided that she wanted to take the discussions over again. The last time she had gone to church was 20 years earlier. We met her, set up an appointment with her, and all was well. But apparently the same day she came to our church, her husband showed up at her old church looking for her. So it was a miracle that she was at ours! And she is the most amazing person in the whole world. She really truly wants to know of the truth, she is so grateful that she is back in the church, she recognizes the hand of God in her life like no one else I've ever met... she loves the Book of Mormon and reads it all the time, and we are just lucky enough to be a part of teaching her and her journey back. She is preparing to receive her patriarchal blessing here in a couple months, and we are so excited for her. She is amazing! I feel so blessed to be able to learn from her. She is incredible. I will you all could meet her. But I just love the fact that missionary work isn't always finding people that have never been baptized. It's also helping the lost sheep that have wandered away from their covenants, and bringing them back. Missionary work is the greatest. I love you all. I hope you have a fantastic week. Say hi to Lake Powell for me, and tell it that I love it and miss it. :) Jokes. I love you all, I miss you all. Have an awesome week!

Love,

Hermana Bingham

p.s. I decided what I want for Christmas. Or wedding. It would make a good present on either occasion. It's a book that is pictures of a lot of the temples in the US. It's called His Holy House by Boyd. you can find it at Deseret Book. A member of our bishopric just bought one, and it's like the greatest thing in the world. You should go look at it!