"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!