Estoy cansado

Hello everybody!

Well, it's been another week already. Some good things have happened this week, but it's been a little rough too. It's been pretty hot lately, which seems to make me really tired like all the time. Its usually less hot out in the streets than it is in houses, since it's windy outside, but inside you just have to burn. I really like teaching lessons and visiting with people, but then I sometimes feel relieved to get back out in the wind.  Such is Bolivia. But it's all worth it for the good experiences. And there's lots of them.

This Thursday we had a big conference with a member of the Area presidency, Elder Enrique Fallabela I believe his name is. We were there from about 2 until 7:30, so we didn't get much else done that day, but the conference was great. And yes mom, it was all in spanish. Everything is always 100% in Spanish. But I'm usually able to get a general idea of what's going on.  Presidente Cabezas spoke first, and he talked about how the theme for this conference was being un mision de milagros. Elder Fallabela followed this up talking about what miracles are made of. He said the four pillars of miracles are faith, obedience, hope, and charity. If we have those four things, we can make miracles happen in the mission. So I'm going to work on those, since it's going to take a miracle for me to understand what people are saying here. Everyone mumbles or talks really fast, or both. But the spanish is improving. Elder Fallabela also talked about the atonement, and the importance of asking for references from everyone. All in all the conference was great. Plus they had these killer empanada things and donuts during the break in the middle. And I got to hang out with Elder Prince for a while. Good day.

On Saturday I had a cool experience with prayer. We were going to teach a lady named Yolanda, who was a recent contact, but as you know, we always need to have another man there when teaching a single woman. We stopped by a member's house to have Yolanda's friend, who is a member, accompany us, but only she could come. Not her husband. So as we were walking over to her house I just kept praying in my heart that there would be another man there so we could teach. And at the exact same time we walked up to the door, her 20 something year old son came home. Boom! Prayer answered! We ended up having a great lesson with her and her 3 sons. But it was great that the one son (his name is Diego I think) came at the same time as us, since he was the only adult. I think she has a strong chance of getting baptized in the future.

Honestly nothing else too exciting happened this week, or I just can't remember it. We had a great day yesterday, I think in part thanks to the power of fasting. We had I believe 5 investigators show up to church, and then got about 4 new investigators later that day. We also taught José y Maria that evening. Jose is on his way to be baptized this Saturday, but Maria needs more lessons and stuff. But then she told us that she wants to be baptized this Saturday with him too! She really feels the church is true and is going to ask her parents for permission to be baptized. She's really excited about it. And so are we. This Saturday should be an amazing day.

As always, your prayers and emails are appreciated. I love you all!

Elder Bingham

Conference with Elder Fallabela

This is elder prince and I at the conference. He's my nephew now. In other words, my trainer trained his trainer.
We're a big happy family.

A couple questions Jayson answered for me (mom):

Mom: So, is “winter” over already? Is that why it is so hot? or is it still winter and it is just hot and summer will be even hotter?

Jayson:I have no idea how the seasons work here. It feels like its gotten hotter, but supposedly the cold season is in June or July. It's very confusing

Mom:  Do you have a large area you cover? Are you walking long distances or is everything pretty close?  

Jayson:  My area is pretty big. Most of our appointments are in walking distance, but sometimes we take a bus