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... :)

Things That Matter Most

Dear family,

It sounds like y'all had a  great week! I'm excited to see the new car! But I'll be okay waiting for a while. :) Jayson, you looked super good at homecoming. I loved the pictures.

As for SD card, I have a DANE-ELEC card, that's 8GB. It's blue with a red and white stickers. If that doesn't help, I can just go look for one. :) But thanks so much! I'm excited for the package. It also sounds like Bryce is doing really good! That makes me happy! 

This week was a really good week. We got to watch the new Meet the Mormons movie! Have you seen it yet? Aee you going to see it? It was fantastic. I was so inspired by it! It dives into the lives of 6 Mormon families from all over the world, and just shares who they are. I love it. It's really well done, and super fantastic. If you haven't seen it yet, go see it this week! It's incredible!!!! We also got to go to the temple. I got to see the 3rd new video this time, with blonde Eve. That threw me off for a minute, but it was fine! I liked it, but I still think I like the first one better. But it's been 6 months, so I can't really remember. Now I just need to see the 2nd one and I'm good! but it was amazing. I just love the temple so much. I literally feel homesick when I leave, and I want to go back. But it made me excited to think that I don't have to wait 6 months to go again! Woohoo! 

Speaking of temples, I just want to tell you all that Myley and Mathias are engaged!! The big day is January 2nd. I'm just so excited and happy for her, I want to brag to the whole world! 

Also, we found out this week that in November we will start receiving training for Facebook proselyting and iPads. So that is super exciting. We'll get more info in November, and start using it all. So I'll be back on facebook for like a month before I get home. That will be fun! :) I'm excited for it all. It will be really different, but it will be good! 

This week I've had to really focus on the things that matter most. https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2011-06-012-moments-that-matter-most?lang=eng This video is a Mormon message that really helps me when I'm struggling. A lot of times, I feel like I get caught up in the little things. Like for example, I get caught up in the fact that we have too many things to do, and not enough time in the day. I get caught up in trying to make everything perfect for my trainee, when I really should just focus on teaching by the spirit. Little things like that. I know that when we focus on the things that matter most, we truly will be led by the spirit, and really  come to know our Father in Heaven and our Savior Jesus Christ better. I challenge you all to really focus on the things that matter most this week. It will help so much. I promise!

Sorry this letter is short, I had a lot of letters to read this week. A lot. :) suddenly I'm popular! Just kididng. But I love you all, and I hope you have a great week. I love you!!

Love,

Hermana Bingham

P.s. Our goal was to take a picture a day this week. :) Also, I like to match my companion. :)

matching!

on the roof of the temple

Roomies! Hermanas Boyd, Fuentes, Bingham, Buys

Ice cream!!

last night. We just happened to have the same color of blazer. :)

in front of the fountain

Hermana Buys and I

Training

Dear family,

This week has been amazing! I got my baby, general conference was awesome.. basically that was it. It was super fun. Kyla, that drawing is incredible! I love it so much! Good work! And it was super good to hear from you Bryce. Thanks for keeping us posted! 

My nena's (another word for baby) name is Hermana Buys! She is from Eagle Mountain, UT, is 19 years old, went to the Mexico MTC, and is AMAZING!! I love her. She's a wonderful missionary, and a really hard worker. I feel super blessed and privileged to be able to work with her. It's been interesting adjusting our schedule to training demands, but it's been super fun. We're learning together, and having a blast. She likes music, and food, and we have really similar personalities so we get along great. She's allergic to gluten and nuts, so it's a good thing we're in the Spanish program! We just eat a lot of corn flour! I love her to death!

Conference was amazing wasn't it? I LOVED IT! It's always so good, but I really liked how they talked this time about prophets and gaining our own testimonies of the things that they talked about in conference. I thought it was really interesting. I feel like especially in the Sunday morning session, every single talk was about prophets. It was really cool. That is something the world really needs, and it's going to give us a lot of good tools to use with our investigators. Woohoo! I feel so spiritually recharged after conference, it's so great. The hard part is that with doing training, and having conference, and not being in my area for two days while I was waiting for baby, our numbers were shot. But that's okay. We'll make it up this week. 

Our temple day got moved back so we'll be headed to the temple this week. We also get to watch Meet the Mormons this Thursday morning, so I'm super excited. I've heard how awesome it is. Speaking of Meet the Mormons, you can go to meetthemormons.com/glorious and download a free song. It's an EFY song, but in this version they have David Archuleta singing it, and I love it. So if you want to send me the soundtrack for that movie, or that song, I would probably die with joy. :) Also, I'm in need of a new memory card for my camera. I'm just about out of space and I don't think It's going to last. Can you send me one? Oh, and am I supposed to be getting that reunion shirt? Grandma A said something about it right after the reunion but I haven't seen one. Just let me know. :)

I just want you to know how grateful I am for you. I love you all so much, and I'm really grateful to have you in my life. Thank you for all the support and love that you always send me. You're all the best. 

I hope you have a fantastic week! Don't forget to go back and study the conference talks and apply what was said in your lives! I know I have a lot of work to do, and I'm super excited to be able to go back and study more! I love you all! Have a great week!

Love,

Hermana Bingham

This is our ward photo from a month ago. Funny picture

 Serious picture

 I was in a trio with Boyd and Fuentes for 2 days while I waited for my baby!

 Day 1 with baby!

Our first Sunday together!

It's A Girl!!

Dear family,

Please do not be alarmed by the subject of this letter. But do know that I am indeed going to have a child! I'm TRAINING!! Let me explain. In the mission, we refer to our trainers as our mom, and our trainees as our babies! So when we get training calls, we are pregnant! And I am pregnant!! I'm so excited! Hermana G-G goes home this week, and I will pick up my new companion Thursday morning. I can't wait! So my last two transfers in the mission I will be training. 

Hermana Kofford is so excited to be a grandma, but she goes home this week as well, so she won't get to meet her grandbaby. :( But Mom, you're right, Hermana Kofford ended up finding an internship in Alabama, so she is moving out there for a couple months after she gets home. But thanks for being willing to take her in! 

So Bryce is in the MTC!! Oh my gosh! I'm so excited. I bet it's so weird to only have 2 kids at home! Hey Dad, if you do end up selling the truck and getting something smaller, start looking for me too. That's going to be a purchase that I'll probably want to make soon after getting home. 

So it's crazy, but I've been thinking about Bryce all week. I thought about him when he got set apart, and when he entered the MTC, and it's been amazing because I've felt a difference. I've really felt blessings from having another missionary in the family. I've had more energy and I've been able to get things done more effectively. It's awesome. Missionary work truly does bring blessings!

This week we also got to go to women's conference. I LOVE that meeting. The talks were all so good, and I was going to bring my notes to share some of my thoughts with you, but I forgot. Whoops! But I loved the focus on the temple. And I loved how they talked about preparing for the temple. Something that I took from that is that each time we go to the temple we need to prepare ourselves to go. We should think of things we need help with, questions we have, or just things that we are grateful for, and prepare ourselves to be spiritually uplifted. We get to go to the temple next week and that's something I'm going to try to do. I really want to prepare myself to go and feel the spirit in that sacred building. 

So guess what? We just found out that we get to have a special missionary screening of "Meet the Mormons!" I'm super excited. Hermana Fuentes has already seen it because she was serving on Temple Square, and she said it was really good. Rumor is that it's playing for free at the Joseph Smith Memorial building, so that would be a good place to go see it, but also paying to go to a theater to see it will keep it in theaters longer. So that's something to consider! But I say, go see it! I hear it's awesome and really good. So go see Meet the Mormons. I haven't seen it, so I can't tell you anything other than to go see it, but I bet it's worth it! 

I love you all, and I hope you have a great week. I'm praying for all of you! Wish me luck with the greenie!! I'm so excited! Love you all!

Love,

Hermana Bingham

 Me, Adairis, Angelo, Miguel, and Hermana Kofford. This family is one of our old investigators in our first area. They still aren't members, but they are the best!

 My mommy and me!

 This is the closest thing to a 3 generation picture we will get. 

Kofford, me, and her hand on my pregnant belly. :) 

  Pregnancy pics. Yeah, we're nuts! But doesn't that look kind of real? :)

Hermana G-G and me :)

You know how people take pictures of their naked bellies? 

Well, this is mine. Yup, I used my laundry bag. :)

This is it!

HELLO FAMILY!

Oh my goodness, Bryce gets set apart tonight!! In just a couple hours! That is so exciting! I've been dying all day! I just can't wait! I'll  be in an appointment with an investigator, but I'll think of you! Go get them dude! 

Also, sorry for emailing so late! We took a bus down to Santa Cruz for pday yesterday. It was fun, and I got pretty sunburnt, but Today it doesn't hurt very bad so it's all good. But it took all day, so that's why I am emailing today! 

It's been a crazy week. The most exciting piece of news is that we got another sister! So I told y'all about how Sister Quintana got emergency transfered so Sister Boyd was companions with us again right? Well, Thursday morning we went and picked up Sister Fuentes to be Sister Boyd's new companion! Sister Fuentes is from Chile, and she is currently serving a mission in the temple square mission. But something cool about temple square sisters is that for 3 months they get assigned to another mission, so they get to come out and have a totally different experience! Their transfers are different than ours, so she came in on Thursday, and will go back to Utah on December 10th, 7 days before I do! So I told her I would come see her on Temple Square. She's awesome, and Hermana Boyd is so happy to have a companion again. They are working hard, and things are going great. And Hermana Fuentes is super fun. She's a sweetheart. I'll take you all to temple square to meet her. You'll love her. :)

Here's another crazy story of the week! So yesterday when we got back from Santa Cruz, we had just enough time left to go grocery shopping. So we went to Grocery Outlet, and shopped there. I only took my wallet in, because my purse had clothes and stuff in it. We did all our shopping, and took the groceries out to the car, and took them home, and went about our nightly business, came home, and cleaned a little, and fell asleep. Well, this morning I woke up and realized my wallet wasn't in my purse, or anywhere in the apartment. So I prayed to know what to do and to be able to find it. I decided that after studies we would go to the car to look for it, but ALL during personal study I couldn't stop thinking about where it could be. And I got really nervous, because my companion can't drive, so if my drivers license was gone, then we would have to walk, or bike, and I would have to cancel all my cards, and I wouldn't have any money, and I was so nervous. So I asked Hermana G-G if we could go look for it in the car, so we did, but it wasn't there. We searched the ENTIRE car, but nothing. So by then I'm close to tears and throwing up because my tummy hurt and I was nervous (bad combo), but we go inside and I call 411 to get the number for Grocery Outlet. Then I call them, and THEY FOUND IT! I was so happy I cried. Big surprise right?  But we couldn't go get it until later in the day. So i came to terms with the fact that probably something would be missing out of it, but when we went and got it, everything was still inside. Nothing was missing. It was a HUGE tender mercy, and a miracle. I am so grateful that Heavenly Father answers prayers, and that there are still good people on earth! :) But really, it seems like something so simple, but for me it was a huge miracle. I know my Heavenly Father knows me and loves me and wants the best for me. I'm so grateful for that. 

I hope you all have a fantastic week. I love you all, and I'm praying for you all! I love you Bryce, you will make an amazing missionary! Get me your info ASAP! I love you!

Love,

Hermana Bingham

GG and I sharing a shake for a birthday lunch for another sister

 Saying goodbye to Hermana Quintana

 Helping at a stake 5K

 Diana made this beautiful sticker decorating person thing. It's suppose to be me. :)

We look exactly the same, right?

 At the beach, under the wharf.

 Me under the wharf

 Missionary tag

 Roomies! Hermana Boyd, Hermana Fuentes, me, Hermana GG

Selfie of Hermana Boyd, Hermana Fuentes and me. I look kind of like a tomato. :)

Back in a trio--at Chipotle!

I'm a nerd... how many can you name?

Ward culture night!