"Nuts" about Christmas

Christmas in Riberalta is kind of sad. Not because I'm sad or anything, I'm doing fine. It's just that almost nobody celebrates it right. Which is for one of two reasons. One reason is that people decide to go and get drunk Christmas Eve so then they have a crappy day on Christmas. Because people are intelligent.  They other reason is that a whole lot of people just go nuts. Go to gather nuts, I should say. Let me explain.

Riberalta exists as a city and doesn't die for one reason. Almendras. (almonds). But these almonds are some really fancy type that only grows basically in this part of the world. They're supposedly one of the most expensive nuts in the world. And they are quite delicious. It's also really cool how they grow. Basically like 5 or 6 nuts grow inside of a larger coconut looking thing. It makes no sense. But when the season comes, these nut-cases (hope you noticed that pun, I was quite proud of it) get heavy enough that they just fall from the giant tree they're hanging on. And of course, we're in almendra season right now. So that means a whole bunch of people, mostly the men in the city, go to live in the jungle and go nut gathering for a while. Because that's where all the money comes from in the city. So lots of people have to do it to make enough money to get by. Which kind of sucks. We have a lot of investigators, and some members, that have to go nut farming during christmas. But there is a lot of people who stick around until after the holidays so that's good.

Hope you enjoyed that lesson on the economy of Riberalta. Back to the missionary work

So last night was super fun. The missionaries at least know how to do Christmas right. We organized a choir with all the missionaries in Riberalta to go to the central plaza and sing a few songs at night. Also we used the chubby elder for his body and made him rent a santa suit to take photos with the children. Which he just totally owned. His name is elder Tayco, from Utah, and he's a stud. Makes a great spanish-speaking Santa Claus. We sang a few hymns there in the plaza, and did one special musical number with 6 of us, which was a mix of "what child is this" and "the first noel". I got to sing the bass part because I'm one of the few people here that actually knows something about singing. I sang bass, the two Hma Freeman and Hma Ipson sang soprano and alto, and then Elder Maccerhua played the violin and sang tenor when he wasn't playing. And then Elder Jorge and Elder Quintana also sang along. Not because they know how to sing parts, just becuase they sing decent and wanted to participate. It turned out really well. I'll try to steal some photos or videos from sombody who took some.  

Later that night we enjoyed a killer christmas eve dinner from the Cortez family. Which I do have photos of. The members here are pretty awesome. And most of them actually do Christmas right! so that's a bonus

Well there's your Christmas update for those of you who won't be skype-ing. Love you all! Eat way to much junk food this Christmas and do something nice for someone! Because Jesus loves that person too.

Elder Bingham

last pday we had a bunch of zone money to blow so we went to that super fancy restaurant again. it was extremely delicious.

our house of gringos when I was in intercambio with Elder Croft

coro en la plaza!

Me with Elder Santa

Christmas eve dinner with the Cortez fam

Zone-leader sampling

This week I was Zone Leader! Or, since Thursday anyway. It's a long story. But I don't really have much else to talk about this week, so I guess I'll fill you in on the long story.

So our zone leaders, Elders Croft and Barrott, went to Santa Cruz on Tuesday for a leadership conference, but then only Elder Croft came back, because Elder Barrott stayed there so he could get some medical attention. You might see a recurring theme in my emails from here in Riberalta. So when Elder Croft got back I left Elder Quintana and Elder Jorge together and became Elder Croft's temporary companion. I'll be with him until tomorrow when Elder Barrott gets back here. This also means I've become basically the replacement zone leader for a while. It's been kind of fun. But also a little tiring

Elder Croft's area is super awesome, I've been enjoying it quite a bit. He has some really cool investigators and stuff. Our days have been filled with awesome appointments. I don't know if I wrote about this, but two transfers back I had an intercambio in this area with Elder Marispini and that day we found the shiniest golden, most prepared investigators of all time. And this Wednesday they're getting married so they can get baptized on Saturday!! There names are Mariano and Tania, and it made me really happy to visit them again and see how strong their testimony is. They've sacrificed a TON to be able to get the money to get married and baptized, since their really poor. But they are like the most converted converts I've ever seen in my mission. Both are going to be leaders in the church in Bolivia some day, I can feel it. 

Unfortunately, I don't know exactly how my own area is going right now since I haven't been in it for a few days. But there's some decent progress, I'll be happy to stay there a 4th transfer if that happens. But I've already been here 3 transfers, so there's a pretty decent chance I get a change. I guess you'll find out on Monday when I skype! Well, the fam will at least. the rest of you, sadly I won't get to email on monday since we're doing skype. But I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas! Do something good for someone else this season, and remember the real reason for Christmas (hint, his name starts with Jesu and ends with cristo)

love you all! enjoy being cold on Christmas!

Elder Bingham

last photo with the trio in the corner of my area with an awesome view

since our district was tiny without elder millis, we combined district meetings with another district here. 

so this is the double district in the last meeting

Elder Ritchie has the most perfect smolder I've ever seen in my life. Look out ladies,

 he'll be coming in hot in like 20 months

Elder Croft and I had to hide from the rain waiting for a taxi for like 25 minutes, so he decided to read us the book of mormon while we waited. That's a consecrated ZL everybody.

Christmas literally came early!

So this week was extremely eventful. One of the coolest weeks we've had in a while. Christmas miracles are coming in full-swing here in Riberalta

On wednesday President Cabezas came into town for interviews, and on Thursday we had the multi-zone conference with the missionaries in Guayaramerin (the neighboring city in Beni). Those missionaries all took a 45 minute taxi ride down here for that, which was awesome because I got reunited with my good buddies Elder Prince and Elder Hernandez for a day! I'll send some pics about that.

Also the conference was super awesome. Literally the whole time (9:00-2:30ish), we talked about faith. Faith in different things, but faith. Something I need to work a lot on. What I liked most was when we talked about miracles. God is a god of miracles, and he's never going to change that. So there's no reason he can't make miracles happen here in the mission either. Alma 26:12 says;

"Yea, I know that I am nothing; as to my strength I am weak; therefore I will not boast of myself, but I will boast of my God, for in his strength I can do all things; yea, behold, many mighty miracles we have wrought in this land, for which we will praise his name forever."

As missionaries, we can work with the STRENGTH of GOD. There is absolutely no reason we shouldn't be seeing miracles here. Even though we are weak, God is like super jacked (spiritually). He has the POWER, which he kindly loans to us when we serve him diligently. What a nice dude right?

After the conference Hermana Cabezas surprised us and said we were going to have our super fancy Christmas lunch right then, since they wouldn't be able to make it up to Beni in a date closer to Christmas. So we all headed out in taxis to what is literally the nicest restaurant in Riberalta, some super fancy place called "El Tropical". And we wonder why people think the Mormons are all rich. We disfruted very much from the fancy buffet, and also the fact that hermana cabezas gave everyone santa hats. Pics to come

After the lunch, we all headed to the chapel to do a #iluminaelmundo activity. Everyone took a couple helium balloons, attached a contact card to it with some Cristmas message and our phone number, and we released them into the sky together hoping someone would find them. It would be a miracle right? I'm convinced if somebody finds one of those cards and calls it, it would be because God led them to that card and they are super prepared to receive the gospel and change their lives...

And then the next day, that freaking happened! Like for real! The zone leaders called and said someone had found a card attached to a balloon, read it, called the number, and wants us to visit them! Miracles do happen! They live in our area, only problem is, they only gave us the name of their street, and they don't answer their cell phone. But we are going to contact that whole street until we find them. Also, it was kind of funny, looking for that reference, we found one less active family that we didn't know existed. and one other lady that has the exact same name as the one who found the balloon. We got really confused talking to her, since we thought it was our golden balloon investigator, but she was really confused, because she had never found any balloon or contact card. It was kind of awkward. But God works in mysterious ways.

Wow that was a lot. my arms are tired from typing. love you all, pray for more Christmas miracles please!

Elder Bingham

our lunch pension has a pet bunny and my comp took this creepy pic

me with Elders Prince and Villalobos at the Christmas lunch

super fancy buffet food

Miracle Balloons! we released them into the sky shortly after. i would send a video but i dont think it would load

I think Prince and I both got a little fatter since the MTC, you can compare photos to check

me with Elder Hernandez, my favorite Colombian

Elders of the Amazon: The Curse of the Sick Newbies

Hey you remember two transfers ago, when I was in a trio because a new missionary went to Santa Cruz sick? And then last transfer when I was in a trio because a new missionary went to Santa Cruz sick? Well, not even joking, it happened a third transfer in a row. The only difference is the missionary who went to Santa Cruz sick was in his second transfer instead of his first, and we don't have to change houses. Elder Millis, one of the other missionaries in our house, had some constipation issues and had to fly down to the big city. So now Elder Quintana and I are proselyting in a trio with Elder Jorge, Elder Millis's trainer.  I decided I might be cursed, and it's my fault somehow that the newbies get sick here in Riberalta. So I either need to get transferred or President needs to stop sending new guys here.  But now our district has lost one of our good men, and we will have the tiniest district meetings in the world, since we also have the zone leaders in our district, but one of them usually goes to another district's meeting to see how they're doing. We'll see how that goes.

But hey I still have other cool stories this week! A little bit ago, we found a family! And i think Thursday we finally found all 4 of them together. They're called the Guise-Chavez family, and they're all super interested! They accepted a baptismal invitation in the first lesson if they feel like they get and answer, so now we just have to think a little bit about what date we can put them down for. The lord really does prepare people to receive the Gospel. And at the end of the visit, the dad asked us "so when are you going to invite us to your church?" Which was amazing but...

We actually didn't have church this week. Yesterday in Bolivia they had elections, which means nobody was in their house the whole day and like all the roads were closed to vehicles. And us missionaries just had to stay shut in the house ALL DAY, mission president's orders. Supposedly it would be dangerous, especially for us gringos, to go outside. Some groups of people here in Bolivia are a little racist and they generally hate americans and their government, so I guess election day gets them fired up or something and maybe they would want to mug us or shank us or something.  So yesterday I did something unimagineable, I TOOK A NAP *gasp*

I know, I know, sounds horrible. But yesterday, taking an hour long nap wasn't actually a sin, since we couldn't proselyte. So I enjoyed very much my hour long sinless siesta, thank you. I also spent the day cooking chipilo (basically little fried chips made out of unripened platano), reading the scriptures a lot, listening to music (righteous music, don't worry), and writing in my journal and stuff. It was incredibly boring, I wanted to go contact people or something. But it was kind of nice to have a day to chill for a little bit.

But that was basically how my week went. Wish me luck working in a trio in two areas for the THIRD freaking transfer in a row. Oh well, come what may and love it, I think some general authority once said.

Elder Bingham

An investigator had a new cat and I made it just sit in my hand. I was very happy.

Also their little girl was very happy, her name is Carmen. She really wanted to get in the photo too.

These two didn't seem to be sad enough that Elder Millis had to leave so I filled in the space

frying unripe platano!

NEW RECORD!!!!!

Imagine that subject line in the voice of the announcer in super smash brothers for those of you who have played that game as much as I have.

Sorry everyone for not writing anything last week, that was the fault of me being lazy and also that I had a really boring, kind of uneventful week. But this week was cooler!

Well, Thursday was Thanksgiving, which means absolutely nothing to anyone here. But its like one of my favorite holidays, so I made sure we were going to celebrate at least a little bit. I told our lunch pensionista about it and what we eat normally, and she tried her best. But instead of turkey, which she couldn't find, we just had chicken, but with mashed potatoes and corn. So I guess that works. But she also made us a delicious lime pie, so I was very happy about that. And in district meeting I made sure we sang the hymns that had to do with giving thanks. You do what you can here in the mission.  But this thanksgiving made me really grateful for how awesome the holidays are in the United States. I hope you all enjoyed hanging out with your families and gorging yourselves like the wonderful Americans you are.

So as far as the missionary work goes, we're finally seeing progress in our area! This week we broke my mission record for most new investigators found in one week by finding THIRTEEN. We were pretty happy about that. And most of these investigators are pretty solid. In particular we found a family of 5 (three of baptize-able age) named the Lucia-Ramos family, and the Guise-Chavez family. Who are both really interested to learn more, and both accepted a baptismal invitation! (if they get an answer and find out that it's true, of course) We'll be working with them a little more this week, hopefully we can get them to cumplir compromisos and go to church and stuff. 

But other than that there's not much to tell, hope you're all doing great and enjoying that it's probably getting cold over there. Here its heating up again. and it was already really hot.

love you all, say hi to somebody for me.

Elder Bingham

our attempt at thanksgiving lunch. it works

Key Lime Pie

Elder Quintana is still obsessed with ducklings

I wanted to put a sign here that says "Tree-huggers beware" but I don't think anyone here would get it.

So my first transfer here we found the two friendliest dogs in the world outside of an old investigator's house (but never actually the investigator). But I like to stop by that house when we have a rough day and they make me happier. The other day these dogs were outside of their house and I tried to take a picture while they were jumping up and trying to lick me and stuff. It kind of worked out

hope just pics is fine

So this week was actually kind of crap, to be honest. Dont really have too many good things to talk about. So I hope just a few photos is fine Don't want people to get worried. But I'll make sure to have stuff to tell next week. Also I needed to send some personal responses to people who needed a pick me up. But don't worry mom, I'm doing fine. Here's some photos

update on Tincho the monkey: he likes crackers. and is still my favorite

I made a discount version of Fantonio with my crappy hat

 I stepped in mud after it rained. It did not look that deep at first

these birds were just sitting with their wings open and it reminded me of that guy in Hercules who opened up his coat real wide and said "do you wanna buy a sundial?"

(lack of) transfers

Well this is the first new transfer of my mission where literally nothing happened to me. Transfer calls came, and i'm staying in this area, staying with Elder Quintana for my companion, and staying district leader. So that was a little underwhelming. The sad part was that they took some of my best gringo friends from me this transfer and stuck them in different zones, including Elder Selinger, Elder Buhler, and Elder McClune. Which I guess I've really only talked about Selinger. But whatever, you guys don't care too much about that I'm sure. On to the other stuff.

When transfers came and they took Elder Selinger from me, a new Elder came in from another zone named Elder Jorge. (yes, his last name is Jorge) He's this really studly Peruvian who's also a stud of a missionary. But when he came here he just cleaned the crap out of our house and also got his comp, who was Elder Selinger's trainee, way more excited about everything and they're seeing a lot of progress in their area now. Really our whole zone is just getting a lot more excited, I think everyone's going to kill it this transfer. Including us maybe.

We found a family of 7 this week!! and 5 of those 7 are of baptize-able age. They're the familia Paja-Crespo, and all of them are awesome and interested. Except the dad kind of, he just kind of likes listening to us. His name is Hector, and he has a really hard time believing that god calls prophets in our day. Also he's convinced the the true church should be the one that does the most humanitarian aid in the world. Which would be the Catholic church, because they obviously have the most money for multiple apostate reasons. So that's a little rough, even though the true church's humanitarian efforts are actually amazing. But he doesn't really get that yet. He told us (but in spanish) "if the mormons opened up an orphanage here to help all the little kids I would get baptized tomorrow and take all my family with me."  So for now he's kind of a stumbling block in the progress of his family. But with lots of prayers and faith I think he can come to realize the truth with the rest of his family. 

Also yesterday we found an amazing older couple named Luis and Marcela who don't know that much about the bible and get really confused  about all the different churches and beliefs and stuff. Which is sad, but like exactly what us missionaries are looking for. So we got excited about that. But after we talked about the restoration, the husband  said the most sincere prayer I've heard in my life, saying maybe he's a little confused, and he just wants to know what path he should take. That really strengthened my testimony that the lord prepares people for the restored gospel! Unfortunately, he's going to travel to La Paz for two weeks. So I'll get back to you then and let you know how things go.

Well overall, the work is going pretty well here, thanks for all the prayers and emails, I love you all!

Elder Bingham

when we changed houses temporarily last week I just had to stand up and basically street surf in the motocar (basically a motorbike with a trailer) and it was awesome. also terrifying sometimes

When we were in trio we ate lunch with some Peruvian members who cooked us
awesome peruvian food in bamboo shoots.  

Also the missionary with me in this pic is Elder Maccerhua, not my comp

cooking with bamboo shoots

nobody paid attention when I took a selfie at the district conference

You ever get that feeling of deja-vu?

So you remember last transfer when an Elder got really sick, so he had to go to the hospital in Santa Cruz and Elder Gonzales and I had to work in a trio with his companion? Well, that happened again. In almost exactly the same way.  There was one missionary in the Riberalta area named Elder Maccerhua, and he was training a new missionary, Elder Smit. Elder Smit got sick. Like REALLY sick. I'm pretty sure he had salmonella and amebas (don't know what that is in English), and a urinary tract infection, and diarrhea. So they had to send him to the good medical care in Santa Cruz. And since Saturday, Elder Quintana and I had to change houses and go work in trio in two areas until the end of the transfer. Which we get transfer calls tomorrow night. Its kind of weird that another transfer is over already. So next week I could possibly be in a new area, and possibly with a new companion! We'll see what happens.

But this week I've actually worked in two trios. The fist couple days this week Elder Selinger's companion traveled to Trinidad to to his papers, so we were with him until thursday afternoon. and then one day like normal, and then back to a new trio. I've worked with a lot of different missionaries. But for that reason, we couldn't get too much work done in our area this week. Our numbers were lower than they've been all transfer, which kind of sucked. Our investigators aren't progressing much and we're struggling to find new ones. So like normal. I was getting a little frustrated with myself for not doing things right or not being as good as other missionaries. But I had a nice little spiritual experience Sunday that helped me out.

In sacrament meeting Sunday morning, for the opening hymn, we sang "cuenta tus bendiciones" (count your blessings). I didn't really thing too much about it at first. But sense it was fast/testimony meeting, I was thinking about what I could share my testimony about, which has honestly been a little difficult for me lately. Usually when I get frustrated and stuff I can't think of what to share or what's actually going well in my life, which is a problem I need to work on. But then I thought about that song, and thought about all the blessings I have. and then I realized again just how much God loves me. And how much he loves every one of us.  He's given us so much, and he created us with so much potential. He's already made me into a much more effective missionary than I ever thought I could be, so I should never really feel frustrated with myself. God sent me here for a reason and he's given me a whole lot of blessings and help so I can fulfill my calling. So I got up and bore my testimony about all that, and I felt a lot better that day. So I hope you can all try to remember how much God loves you and all the blessings he's given you when you have rough times. Just keep going, and never forget who you are. Love you all!

Elder Bingham

PS: I kind of forgot to bring my camera with me today, so I don't have photos to send. Sorry :(

the dreaded man-cold

You remember last week how I said it was actually pleasantly cold here in Riberalta? Turns out that cold was the downfall of my companion. He came in with what I think Marianne once called a "man-cold". Which is basically just when a guy gets a cold, but then that cold is bad enough that he thinks he's dying and he can't do anything. And also complains about his cold excessively.  So this week has been full of my companion coughing and doing everything really slowly. Which has been a little frustrating. But lots of good things also happened this week, don't worry.

Those good things include interviews with President, zone conference, and a baptism this saturday! In interviews, President basically gave me the huazca and said I need more to have more faith in myself. Which is very much true. I will be working on that. Basically in every interview I've had with President Cabezas I've come out half inspired and half humiliated (or humbled, how does english work?) half humillado. I think that's humbled. Zone conferences you usually just come out full inspired. This zone conference I learned that we need to have more faith here in the mission field. Sometimes we have a tendency to just get annoyed or frustrated when appointments fall through or people lie to us or investigators don't come to church, so then we lower our expectations. But when that happens in the mission, we just need to work harder and have faith that the Lord will put the prepared people in our path. This week I've seen a little bit of that. We started teaching a funny old lady named Magdalena who has a lot of potential, and this older fellow named Antonio Mora, who's been recovering from a surgery. Antonio is really poor and he can't walk well, so I thought he wouldn't be able to make it to church if we didn't have a member pick him up. But this Sunday, nobody in our branch could make it over there to help him. But I was super surprised to see him show up to church anyway! He had enough faith and desires to sacrifice 4 pesos to take a taxi to church. Which is like nothing for us, (like 50 cents) but this guy has almost nothing. He can't work because he's still recovering, so he doesn't have much money. But he can see the blessings that come with the gospel and I'm happy about it.

Also we had two baptisms this Saturday! I baptized this 9 year old named Aaron, who's parents are both members, but he never got baptized when he was 8 because his dad had to go work in the field. Which happens a lot here in Riberalta. So we had to teach him the lessons, which we were happy to do. He's an awesome kid. We also baptized a 16 year old named Emar who we've been teaching for a while. So that day was also happy.

That would be all for this week I think. Love you all!

Elder Bingham

Look what I found outside of the meat market!

(It is a decapitated cow head)

Our branch secretary, Alexander lended me his sunglasses and I look like an extremely well dressed Terminator

Baptism!! I'm the really tall one in the back (surprise)

I took an awesome photo of Elder Steve Erwin messing with Tincho the pet monkey trying to take his pen

Elder Steve Erwin

So you guys remember the crocodile hunter Steve Erwin? Of course you do. shame on you if you don't. But I decided Elder Quintana is the reincarnated form of the crocodile hunter. Except not with crocodiles. So far he's kind of obsessed with ducks and ants. Yes, you heard that right. I'll explain a little more with the photos I send.

But as far as everything else goes, this week has been kind of awesome but also really frustrating. Awesome because it was "cold" here in Riberalta. Rainy season has started, and I'm loving it. there's been a couple storms recently and I haven't felt nearly as hot or sweaty. Last night I broke new ground and slept with a blanket. And I didn't even use the fan. But I did have the window open blowing nice cold air in. We're still enjoying the nice weather today. So i'm praying that keeps up for a while 

But as far as the work goes, we're finding that nobody has real intent here. Or in other words, we ask them to pray to know if the church is true, or the book of mormon is the word of god or whatever, and they say they'll do it. We come the next appointment, ask them if they prayed. They usually say yes, so we ask them what they prayed about. And it is has never been even close to what we asked them to pray about. Just for health and protection and stuff. And then we ask them, "if god told you to do ______, would you do it?" which they always respond in the affirmative without hesitation. And then we ask "if god told you the church is true and you need to get baptized, would you do it?" and then they always say "i don't know" or "maybe". So if anyone has advice about how to help people have real intent, I would love to hear it.

But other than that the work here is going alright. We're making little bits of progress here and there. we found an awesome family, la familia Aguilar-Hurtado, and they were really interested. We went to a lesson with them on Wednesday when I had an intercambio with my good buddy and zone leader Elder Croft, and I'm pretty sure we taught the best lesson 1 of my entire mission. They understood everything really well and we taught really well together even though I've never worked with Elder Croft before. but I have lots of hopes for this family. But other than all that, its been a pretty normal, boring week this week. 

Love you all, thanks for the emails and the support. Pray for the Bolivians, they need some Gospel in their lives (real, restored church Gospel, that is)    

Elder Bingham

intercambio with elder Croft. bonus points if you can figure out how we made our hats magically float there.

 I came up with the trick myself. It's really handy

Elder Quintana is in love with one of our investigator's baby ducks

he also spent like 15 minutes looking at these giant ants and trying to get this picture.

Triscodekophobia

Well this week included Friday the thirteenth in October, and Elder Selinger decided to celebrate. Because supposedly "triscodekophobia" (no idea if I spelled that right,) is the fear of friday the thirteenth or something and that's like his favorite word. And when we all got back to the house friday night, the power had gone out. It was too perfect. So we shot a couple horror movies. We'll see if I can get them to send. Also a few other cool things happened this week so here you go.

One funny/spiritual (?) experience happened a couple days ago. An appointment had fell through and we didn't know what to do, so my comp suggested we say a prayer and ask what to do. Right after I finished the prayer, literally within half a second, our phone rang. It was the zone leaders, and they told us they had our new beds and they needed help getting into our house and moving the old beds and stuff. So not exactly the answer we were looking for, but it was still cool and it gave us something to do.

The other experience that stood out this week was a family we started teaching, the Olmos family. Or basically just the mom and her 21ish year old daughter. They're super friendly, but also super active in their church. But we talked to them about the restauration and invited them to read the Book of mormon, and they had a bunch of questions and it was an awesome lesson. When we came back to visit them, the daughter Alejandra had read some of the Book of Mormon, which was cool, but she started telling us that we had basically put doubts in their minds about their church. They seemed really stressed about it, I almost felt bad. But we testified that if they read the book of mormon and prayed about it, they would know our church is true, even if it would be a hard change. And then Alejandra turned to her mom and said "creo que vamos a hacer una semana de oracion y ayuno" (or, they're going to be fasting and praying this week to find out). So we obviously got really excited about that. If they get an answer, they'll be some awesome members with awesome testimonies. So I hope you can all help us out in praying that they get that answer. We'll let you know how that goes next week.

But thats all for now, love you all! I also have some good pics this week, don't worry.

Elder Bingham

you better watch out or this Jayson (me, not the horror movie one) 

will be coming to haunt you the next Friday the thirteenth

Remember that pet monkey I sent a pic of like a month ago? We started teaching the owner so i could take a pic a little closer up. But I can't remember his name

Elder Quintana was playing with an investigator's ducks and one of the baby ones pooped on his hand. it was hilarious.

Old geezers and mangos

Well this week has been filled with old geezers and mangos, as the title describes. So in other words, its been a weird week.

Well as far as old geezers go, we've been focusing a lot in finding people to teach this week. Mostly because Elder Quintana really likes contacting everyone. Which is great, but he almost does it in excess. Like makes us late for appointments sometimes. But we've ended up teaching a few old geezers who don't really understand what we're talking about. Also most of them cant see good enough to read the book of mormon if we give them one, which makes it kind of hard for them to progress. Also Elder quintana is really intelligent, which means he likes to teach everything he knows with complicated scriptures and like lots of details about the history of different churches and the apostasy and stuff. But I think thats because he hasn't adjusted to Riberalta yet. Where the people really don't get stuff like that. Here you have to teach in the simplest way possible or they will have no idea what you're talking about. Also we've ran into a lot of people who kind of just want to bash with us this week. So I learned a lot about using the book of mormon to respond to objections. As missionaries, we don't have to respond to every question or objection they have. I've learned this week that that just leads to more objections or more contention. Also longer, less spiritual visits. So this week I've been trying to improve, and teach (like in district meetings) about that. Cause sometimes people have a lot of apostasy built up that just needs to be destroyed by the book of mormon. So I highly reccomend reading it if you havent done that yet. Its a good book.

Also, its freaking mango season in Riberalta. Theres mango trees all over the freaking place here, and all the fruit is starting to get ripe now. We went and did a service saturday digging some holes (and I felt like a manly man swinging that pickaxe around. Also my back hurt because I'm a large man trying inside a relatively small hole digging), and the family we helped gave us a whole bunch of mangos to eat in return. And they're freaking delicious. So we just constantly have mangos in the house to snack on. I bet you're jealous.

Well, that would be all from this week. Once again I haven't taken too many pictures, sorry. But I think I have a few. We'll see. 

Love you all! Try not to be too sad that you don't have fresh mangos growing all over your city!

Elder Bingham

also from the las pday this last transfer with elder Gonzales at "el mirador" which is basically just a place where you get a really cool view of the river

pic from last transfer with a cool family in our branch. also where we eat lunch

it was raining really hard one day. looked up at the sky and it was basically clear. Bolivia

Gringos invade Riberalta

Well, I think I'm probably setting a record. I now have my 6th companion in 6 transfers in the mission. Including the MTC. My son grew up really fast and he moved out already.  Elder Gonzales got transferred to Santa Cruz for some reason, and I'm staying here in Riberalta with my new companion, Elder Quintana. He's this Peruvian kid who looks like he's about 16, but he's really like 3 months older than I am. Also I'm district leader again. So I just decided that I'm going to have a different companion with some kind of assignment every transfer of my mission. But I guess that's what President Cabezas wants me to do. Or the Lord, I guess. So I'm fine with it. I just hope one day I can have a comp for at least two transfers. Cause I have yet to have that best friend mission companion that I stay with for a couple transfers and then i also my best friend at home. But some day.

But transfers were really eventful. Three people are training new missionaries in our zone. And all three are new gringos. Over half of our zone is gringos now. And also, all the new guys that came are as tall or taller than me. So I don't really feel that special anymore. On the bad side, we kind of suck at playing soccer now. almost all our best soccer players in the zone got transfered. But ni modo.

So General conferece happened. And I was suprised to find out that I could watch it in english. They had one room sectioned off in the church with a tv transmitting in english for all the greenies in our zone. But unfortuately, it was really hot in that room. The only room with air conditioning in the church is the chapel, but that's where they transmitted it in spanish. So I ended up going with that for the rest of the sessions anyway. But of course, I got the most out of the first session. Elder Holland's talk helped me out a ton as usuall, when he talked about imperfections and stuff. Cause normally I feel like my missionary abilities are like slightly above sub par. Or, I guess I feel like I'm a good missionary, but not a great one. But that talk helped me out a lot when I listened to it, but I've already forgotten most of it. I'll go over the few notes I wrote down. I'm looking forward to having all the talks in english in about a month when we get the liahona.

I did hear about Elder Hales' death, we were able to watch every session. That was kind of a bummer, but Elder Anderson's mini tribute to him was amazing. I felt the spirit a lot there.

But the mission work goes about like normal here. I'm happy, its really hot, and we're progressing in our area little by little. I'll let you know how that goes next week, I think we should have a great week of teaching.

Love you all. Glad to hear that all these freaking hurricanes and shooting and fires and stuff aren't really getting too close to home. But for real like what's going on over there? I just keep hearing about how our country is getting destroyed. Those areas will be in my prayers.

Elder Bingham