Hello family and friends! Thank you all so much for the emails I received, they made me really happy today.
Oh and I decided on a mission scripture for my plaque, sorry I forgot last week. Alma 26:30. In elder Hollands devotional last week that I told you about he went through many scriptures in that chapter, so I went and studied it after, and that scripture was one of my favorites. One of my new favorite chapters. Everyone should read it who is planning on serving a mission.
Lots of great news from the extended family as well! Tell Hailey welcome back for me. Those experiences from her mission sound amazing, I hope I can be as good a missionary as she was. And congratulations on Tommy getting sealed, and Sierra is engaged??? What? I feel like I have a special connection to this engagement because I saw them holding hands before it was common knowledge that they were dating. But congrats!!
So what happened this week? Nothing too exciting really. Im happy to say that el dragón has passed. And then I instantly started clearing every plate and eating way too much. The food kind of sucks here I decided (since they have to prepare so much for so many people, cant expect too much.) But I always seem to be really hungry, so I take what I can get. My trips to the bathroom have been much less frequent and much less disgusting. But I have to be careful, the dragon is a patient beast. He's just waiting to strike, going from elder to elder until he comes back to me. But I will drink lots of water, thanks for the advice.
This week was pretty much exactly like last week, except it went faster and lessons were harder. Nothing really changes too much at the CCM, the schedule is pretty specific. We have 2 ´´investigators´´ now, Nicolas and Andrea. Nicolas is super easygoing and keeps all his commitments. Except he apparently played rugby on Sunday instead of going to church (GAH). Its pretty easy to prepare a lesson for him. Our last lesson with him was amazing. We didn't know what else to teach him about since we've already gone through the first 3 lessons, he´s reading the book of mormon, and he's praying. So we just decided we were going to talk with him for the 15 minutes and find out what he wants to learn from us and how we can help him. Which is a little tricky in Spanish, but it went great. We talked with him about how faith is a principle of action, and he needs to have faith in Christ and act on any promptings he receives, and have faith to act on commitments, like going to church. I normally do most of the talking in lessons because I know a lot more Spanish than elder Prince, but he's been doing much better and is learning quickly. That lesson he did a great job of testifying and bringing the spirit. He testified to Nicolas that the spirit was here, with us, in that lesson, and it was really powerful. He said he almost cried. But Elder Prince and I are getting along great. We're teaching together better and learning lots from each other.
Andrea is this 17 year old girl who's parents are separated, and is having trouble with school, and she's a lot harder to teach. She doesn't pay attention all the time, and doesn't really seem too interested. And she asks really hard questions. Like questions I don't even know how to best answer in english, let alone spanish. But one maestro (teacher) told us that often a great way to answer questions when you're struggling with an answer is to either testify of truth to bring the spirit, or answer that question with a question, like ''why do you think God would *insert one of Andrea's really hard questions about why God allows things to happen*?'' I think we'll try that in our lesson tomorrow with her, and see how it goes. We just need to have faith that we can have the spirit with us while we teach.
One more spiritual thought. The MTC devotional we watched this week (we watch one old devotional every Tuesday from a general authority) was from Elder Anderson. Everyone looks forward to the devos because its a great break from the constant classes and teaching. He had three main points. 1) it takes time to see the full benefits of missionary work. 2) be looking for people in their mid teens to mid twenties that are spiritually seeking. They are often very receptive. 3) (my favorite) As we testify of Christ, Christ will confess us before his father. That is amazing. As we do our best to take his name upon us and share the gospel, Christ will testify of our works to Heavenly father, because he knows us and our lives personally.
Oh I also finished the book of mormon this week. Ive been reading it a lot. I was midway through alma when I got here. We have lots of time to read el Libro de Mormon, and Ive been enjoying it more than ever. I started over almost as soon as i finished. I love that Book.
Elder Bingham
ps: we can only take pictures on pday, and since we do the same thing every pday, i only have one. This is Tie Guy. He sells lots of ties, bags, coin purses, etc to the missionaries every day we´re at the temple, for pretty cheap. Ive bought 2 llama ties and a coin case, but I forgot to take pics of those. Next week. Oh, he's going to Utah in 2 weeks for general conference, maybe someone can find him there and say hi. I also now realize this picture only has the back of his head in it, so good luck recognizing that. Oops.
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