Merry *cough* Christmas *cough cough*

Hello everyone! We're all winding down here after christmas trying not to eat too much candy and trying not to get too trunky. Honestly other than Christmas this week was pretty boring. Mostly because we got super sick right after.

Around Thursday in district meeting we figured out like half the zone got sick at the same time. I came in with a fever and back/knee pain and just felt super weak. Elder Reynolds got back from an intercambio with a bad cold. Elder Fernandez and Elder Allen were sick with basically the same thing I was. And then the next day we found Hermana Paico in the clinic with a fever and back pain. So I think most of the zone just came down with almost the same thing at the same time. It's been fun.

Thursday we had to rest in the house quite a bit because we just were not functioning. Friday morning was the same. But then after that luckily my sickness has dropped down to just a really bad cough and a stuffy nose. But i'm still coughing up a storm. Wish me luck.

Happy new year everyone!!

Elder Bingham

christmas eve dinner! people brought us way too much food.

our pension got a new puppy and it fell asleep on Elder Reynolds' arm

Fa la la la la, la la la freaking la

Everyone here in Trinidad is getting in the Christmas spirit! Mostly us missionaries. So Elder Reynolds and I decided to deck our halls. But we don't have holly, so we settled for paper snowflakes and the two paper Christmas trees that we have taped to the wall, one from my fam and one from Elder Allen's fam. "Fa la la la la, la la la freaking la", as Elder Reynolds so nicely put it.

Merry Christmas Eve everyone! To sum up our week, we did some contacting, some teaching, found some awesome new investigators, got rained on, got really muddy, and felt the spirit! I also gave a bomb talk in the special Christmas sacrament meeting. I think I almost made some people cry. Maybe. 

But not too much else went on this week. Tonight we're going to sing Christmas hymns in the plaza and have some good dinner, and then tomorrow I'll call home. See you guys soon! Have a Merry freaking Christmas!

Elder Bingham

 last monday we ate lagarto a la piedra. Aligator cooked on a red hot rock. It was fetching delicious.
and it only cost 35 bolivianos (about 5 dollars)

wilderness explorer Elder Bingham spots some wild chanchos! They must be having a blast in all the mud here in trinidad

our christmas decorations

Everything happens to Elder Bingham, part 2

This week was pretty wacky. Let me give you a quick summary of some of the funny/unfortunate things that happened to me.

1: I accidentally left my umbrella hanging on the back of a mototaxi while I was taking out money to pay him and he took off with it

2: We got trapped in an investigator's house for like 3 hours waiting for rain to pass

3: I got bit in the hand by a parrot. Multiple times

4: I almost fell flat on my back slipping around in the mud. About 5 times.

5: I totally forgot to bring a change of clothes to our baptism and was forced to wear damp stuff coming out of the font. Might have chaffed a little.

6: I accidentally got the key stuck in the door of our house and we were locked out. The zone leaders were forced to kick in the door boards so we could get inside.

But hey we also did some really cool stuff this week! On Saturday we went to a children's hospital as a zone to sing christmas songs to all the sick kids and contact some people. Elder Allen also gave away a bunch of cheap plastic toys that he got in a package. There were many cute kids and we had a blast. Christmas spirit woop woop

Then later on Saturday Adan Soliz got married and baptized! He's an investigator we've been working with for a while but he's super converted to the gospel. He's come to church every week for months now but he just hasn't been able to get married until now. So we showed up to their wedding looking super handsome. I was wearing my fat Santa Claus tie that I still had on from the Christmas activity and both of our shoes were super muddy from trudging around in the mud in our area. But it's okay nobody judged us probably. But then Saturday night Adan got dunked! I had the pleasure of baptizing him and we had a really spiritual baptismal service.

But I think I'll let the pics tell the rest of the story. love you guys

Elder Bingham 

we went to a lagoon last Monday. Beni is cool

This is as close as I could justify getting to swimming. Shout out to Elder Yocom with his perfect photobomb

companionship unity at its finest

I was going to take a selfie with the zone but Elder Reynolds decided to put up his umbrella. The guy's a little camera shy

Adan's wedding!

Capybaras!!!!

Adan's baptism! and a Christmas tree!

Counts as a wilderness explorer pic, even though its just a statue of a horse

a wild Michael Jackson on a throwback pepsi bottle!

Wilderness explorer Elder Bingham spots a crane in flight!! We had to throw a rock at it to get it to fly but it worked out

found this nativity in the children's hospital and for some reason it has two Baby Jesus'. Catholics

Elder Bingham goes on house arrest

So this week was an interesting one. Lots of miracles happened! Well, like one miracle at least. But it was an awesome miracle so it basically counts for lots of them. 

Wednesday I had an intercambio with Elder Cahua from San Diego. He's a stud in his third transfer in the mission and he was really excited to escape from the moist, mosquito infested house of his area in Paititi. Elder Reynolds was really bummed out that he had to go over there. Especially since nobody there speaks english, they're all latinos in that house. But Elder Cahua enjoyed his stay in our beautiful house with air conditioning where we sleep at (we also live in a gated community, it makes me feel super rich. I love our house), and we had a solid day proselyting. His shoes got really muddy though because he didn't have rain boots.

Then that night the zone leaders gave us a little surprise. Thursday there were going to be lots of protests and we weren't going to be able to leave the house all day. Which meant the intercambio with Elder Cahua was extended another day. Elder Cahua was super happy about it because our house is a party, but Elder Reynolds died a little inside. Back at our house we spent all day cooking up lunch, playing with Elder Allen's nerf hoop, studying the scriptures, burning old garments that were in the house for some reason, and watching the biography of President Monson's life. I quite enjoyed it, even though we missed out on a day of proselyting.

But then after that we were a little worried about our area since it was Friday already and we had only found 1 new investigator so far. Saturday we spent most of the day contacting to catch up on that but only ended up finding three. Granted, they were three solid people, but we got home tired and a little disappointed that things didn't go better. But we don't stop there! On Sunday we got back to it but we planned a little better and ended up visiting some people we had contacted earlier. As a result, we found 9 new investigators on Sunday!!! We found two different families of 5 people and they were both super solid! One of them was especially cool, their name is the Bolling family. We just followed an impression to go to some 16 year old kid we contacted a week ago to see if his family would be around. When we yelled at their door (knocking isn't really a thing in Beni), a little girl peeked her head out and said "¡pasen!". We didn't really believe her at first, it was too easy. But then she said "pasen" again and we went on in to meet the one of the friendliest, most receptive families I've met in my whole mission. They had talked with the missionaries before in one of their parents' house so they were eager to learn more. Christmas miracles everybody!

Wish us luck, we have a marriage and a baptism this week, and we're stressing out trying to get another couple married so they can get baptized next week. Pray for Freddy and Bertha please! They're the best and need to get married so they can get their sins washed away and stuff.

Elder Bingham

the most hilarious bad english translation I've ever seen

A cool little lagoon out the back of our area. Elder Reynolds refused to turn his head for the selfie,
but Alvaro (the member accompanying us) was a good sport

"Christmas Dinner"

Hey Merry Christmas everyone! It's basically the Christmas season right? But we also basically celebrated thanksgiving this week so I'm kind of torn.

This week President came to visit Beni! He also came accompanied by the assistants and Hermana Cabezas. We were all super excited since they said Wednesday night we were going to go to a restaurant for a special "Christmas Dinner", even though it was only November 28th. They wouldn't be in Beni anytime soon so they decided to celebrate christmas with us right now. But then Tuesday morning the assistants called and said they wasn't going to be any Christmas dinner and that we were just going to have a special lunch on Thursday when we had our zone conference. "President Cabezas did us dirty" as Elder Yocom put it. So we didn't get dinner, but we did have churrasco (Bolivan steak basically, they grill big chunks of meat and serve it with cheesy rice and fried yuca. Its really fetching delicious) for lunch on Thursday. I basically counted that as a late Thanksgiving dinner instead of a Christmas dinner.  Sister Cabezas also gave us all Santa hats and fruitcake! The fruitcake was nasty but I ate it anyway. Why do people like that stuff?

The assistants also stayed in our house for the two days they were here since we have bunk beds and some extra space. They're both really chill. One of them is named Elder Angulo, and he was here in Central 2 for six months earlier in his mission, so he gave us some handy advice about the area and got really excited when he found out his converts are still going to church. He got me a lot more excited about my area and it went great.

Saturday we participated in the worldwide day of service for December 1st! our ward got together and cut all the really tall grass outside of a children's hospital here. Cutting grass doesn't sound like something it should take a whole ward to do, but there was a lot of it, and here in Trinidad, we didn't have any working weed whackers. So we all went to town with machetes and little shovels. I was going ham with the machete and hermana Paico was all like "Elder Bingham is Indiana Jones". Which is true. 

Then the rest of Saturday it RAINED. Really hard. All of the streets in our area got flooded and it was useless trying to proselyte, so we ended up just staying in the house from like 4:30 until the end of the day. Now all the streets in our area are really muddy and we go out in boots sí o sí.

But thats about all that went down this week. Thanks for the emails and the package! Love you guys!

Service outside the hospital! I finally got to wear one of those yellow vests

The flooded street outside our pension. This one didn't even have that much water compared to the rest.
Flooding is a bad problem here in Trinidad

here's the package mom! the sour patch watermelons not included in this pic because
I ate them all immediately after opening the package. Don't judge me

Wilderness explorer Elder Bingham spots a capybara (I think that's its name) chilling in the swampy jungle

Wilderness explorer Elder Bingham spots a snake in the canal! I pushed a tiny frog in front of its mouth
but it didn't even try to eat it. I was disappointed.

proud dad moments

Well transfers happened, and what do you know, I left my area again! It was kind of weird/sad being in Guabira for such a short time, but I'm really excited for my transfer now! I headed back to Beni! I'm now working in the city of Trinidad, in the area Central 2. I've also adopted another son! (I'm finishing the training of another Elder). His name is Elder Reynolds, and he's my 4th companion from Idaho! And my second from Pocatello, Idaho. I don't know why I always get stuck with the elders from Idaho, but it's alright, they're pretty cool people.

Trinidad is the coolest! the people are really humble and receptive, and it's the only city in Beni that has a stake instead of a district, which means there's lots of members and strong wards. I love it! We already have 8 investigators with a baptismal date, but the only problem is that all 8 of them have to get married before they can get baptized. Oh, Bolivia, when will you learn the law of chastity? I'm also really enjoying training, except it's kind of stressing me out a little bit having to take most of the decisions in an area I don't know too well and trying to teach my son spanish. His spanish has got a long way to go. The poor guy has studied every other language except spanish. He knows a lot of Russian, and a little bit of french, german, czech, polish and I think a few other European languages. He really wanted to go to Russia on his mission. But he's happy to be here and he really loves the people. I've been inspired by his faith and testimony, and we'll work hard together.

Also remember my first son, Elder Gonzales? From way back when I get to Riberalta? He's my District leader now! Its kind of weird, but I'm proud of my son. Hopefully I can go on an intercambio with him sometime.

I also live in the same house as the zone leaders, and one of those Zone leaders is Elder Samuels! Remember him? He's from Payson and we were in choir together in high school. And we're both dying at the same time. It should be a pretty trunky finish to my mission. We'll see.

But I'm excited for these last 12 weeks! Should be the coolest time of my mission

Love you guys!

Elder Bingham

Back in Guabirá, Junior finally hunted the little bird he was trying to kill with his slingshot!
He cooked it up for us. It didn't taste that bad actually.

Back with Elder Samuels! SHHS represent!

We have a beautiful mango tree in our backyard and I love it.
I eat a mango every morning for breakfast and sometimes one at night.

Elder Bingham starts his training

So this I'm starting my training! I say that because I'm entering the last 12 weeks of my mission. As most of you know, the first twelve weeks of a missionary's experience is his training. As I'm now in my last 12 weeks, the joke here is that I'm in my training to go home. Qué trunky. The mission is flying by.

But this week was packed! On Tuesday we had interviews with President Cabezas and I got a little bit of huasca (a slang here in the mission for strong reproof, you know, the kind that hurts a little). But it was good because it made me realize a lot of things I need to improve on to finish up my mission strong.

Thursday we had a multi-zone conference, which meant our zone had to rent out a mini bus to drive us all to Santa Cruz, which is about an hour away. I hate driving places in the mission. I get so bored. But then the conference we had was super cool so it was worth the drive. They also gave us giant bacon cheese hamburgers for lunch and it was delicious. And then I slept for most of the drive back to Montero. It's nice when you can get away with taking a nap in the mission.

Then on Saturday we had a baptism! It's about time too. Fernando Escobar got baptized. He's been an investigator for a couple years now but he finally decided to repent and be baptized! To be honest, I'm not really sure what made him finally decide to be baptized, but elay, he did it! When I got to this area he was basically preparing for baptism already so I'm not too sure how he was before. But we had a nice baptismal service and a couple of investigators came to see it, including Maria Esther, the teenage girl we started teaching last week. Maria Esther has been going to all the activities with the young women and she already wants to be baptized! This girl is one of the most prepared people I've met in my mission, her along with her sister in law Rosa. So I have high hopes for this next transfer if I stay here in Guabirá, we should get in a few baptisms.

Sorry no pics of dead armadillos this week. But wilderness explorer Elder Bingham is always on the lookout for more wildlife.

Love you guys!

Elder Bingham

 Spanish laffy taffy joke:

 ¿Quien vive aqui? 

muuuuuuucha gente

family home evening with the Montero Pimentel family! A less active/part member family we're teaching

Fernando's baptism

a normal, boring, missionary email (¿sorry?)

This week I don't actually have any snarky remarks or weird stories. It was just a pretty good week. Sorry if this doesn't end up like your typical Elder Bingham email. I do have some cool pics though with the (domestic) wildlife of the jungle that is Bolivia!

So this week started off with a really fun intercambio on Wednesday with Elder Millis. You might remember him, he was in my district in Riberalta. I was his DL when he left the womb. A member named Franklin came with us all day and we had some pretty solid lessons, including a lesson with this lady named Alicia who committed to a baptismal date! She says she feels like the book of mormon is true because a few years ago she had some crazy dream, and then when she started reading the Book of Mormon, she read what she saw in her dream a few years ago! Cool right? She's great. She just cant come to church sometimes because she has some health problems. Hopefully that works out.

We also found a few more investigators who are super prepared! That same day at night we had a lesson with Rosa, the lady we met last Friday that already came to church once (I think I mentioned that last week), and her sister in law was also there this time, and we had a pretty good lesson. Her name is Maria Esther. And then this Sunday they both came to church! Maria Esther participated in the young women's class and she loved it! She is really interested and participates super well in the lessons. I'm pretty excited to keep teaching them. They should get baptized maybe next transfer.

I'm feeling a little too lazy right now to try and think of what else happened this week, so I hope that satisfied you all. Enjoy some pics of wilderness explorer 

Elder Bingham with the wildlife.

Birds!

 Puppies!

Dead armadillo! (armadillo is a delicacy here, hopefully someone cooks us one sometime. i'm down to try it)

Kevin! He turned 15 the other day. We had churrasco and cake for lunch.

Everything happens to Elder Bingham

This week everything happened to me I swear. the first part of our week was kind of rough but then we overcame the adversity and had a solid second half of the week. But all the things that happened are kind of funny now looking back on it.

Tuesday I had an intercambio with Elder Williams, a new missionary from Arizona, but this time, I stayed here in Guabira, which meant we got a little lost. Basically the entire afternoon we were wandering around in this really far out part of our area, in the hot sun, with lots of mosquitos, from like 3-6. We were trying to find people to teach but it didn't go too well. But then from 6-9 we had a few solid lessons and we got back home to enjoy a nice mango (oh yeah its mango season now) and a glass of cupuazú, my favorite fruit juice in the world.

Wednesday is when all the crap happened. First, I accidentally shut my hand in the gate of our house and my finger hurt for a while. Then I think some tiny little birds pooped on my shirt, there were some little brown spots that came out of nowhere and smelled really bad. Then a different bird either peed or pooped on my arm (i'm not to sure which, it was too yellow to be poop but too thick to be pee). Later that day I got bit by a thousand more mosquitos and at the end of the day I almost passed out during a lesson. Not even sure why it happened, maybe I was dehydrated, or maybe from all the mosquito bites, but then after that I had a recurring headache for a couple days.

Friday was Todos Santos, which is basically the equivalent of day of the dead in Mexico or memorial day in the States. This made it really hard to teach people that day because everyone was either having a party with all their family and didn't want to listen, or they were in the cemetery leaving candles and stuff. But despite all that we had a few decent lessons. But then at the end of the day we went to visit two 16 and 17 year old siblings, but when we got there, their aunt received us and said that those two had moved to Santa Cruz. Also that they weren't siblings... they were a couple!! Those two were lying to us the whole time. Its no wonder they were asking law of chastity related questions. Elder Tuares and I laughed about that for a while. Super crap.

But don't worry it was actually a good week! Saturday we started our fast and the Lord immediately rewarded us with a super prepared lady named Maria, and then on Sunday we had 5 investigators come to church, including one young mother we had just barely found on Friday! Miracles do happen! Even when crap happens the rest of the week haha

But don't worry I'm happy. Mom

Elder Bingham

I only have one photo to show this week. Elder Tuares with someone's pet monkey

The rains came down and the muds came up

It rained EVERY DAY this week. There were a few days that it rained a lot and other days when it rained for like 10 or 15 minutes, but it still rained every day. And in my area, that means there's a lot of muddy streets. The worst part was that every time after it rained, the sun came out strong and made everything really hot and humid and then the mosquitos came out full force. I've actually gotten really good at killing mosquitos. We're at a constant war. But they normally win honestly. I hate mosquitos with a perfect hate.

But this week wasn't super eventful other than that. I did have an intercambio with the Zone Leaders. I went to the area Estacion with Elder Hunt from Arizona. He's super chill. His area is basically the center of Montero, which feels about like my area in Belen. Brought me some memories. But I had some fun with Elder Hunt and some decent lessons. 

On Friday we did a zone activity where we gave out some cold maracuya juice so we could contact people for the whole zone. That was pretty fun and we talked to some nice people.

Sunday was special because it was the first time this transfer where we've had investigators come to church this transfer! Sad, I know.  But we're teaching this less active family called the Familia Montero Pimentel, and they have a 10 year old and 8 year old who haven't been baptized yet. They're a really cool family and the reactivation process is going pretty well, they stayed in church for 2 hours, but they still feel a little uncomfortable there since they haven't been in so long. But the goal is that we can get the dad ordained to the priesthood so he can baptize his kids on the 24th of November!

Thats about it for this week. Love you guys!

Elder Bingham

in our area we found a palm tree growing inside of another tree. Like what the heck

Elder Miller's cow head bottle he bought. It feels really weird staring into its eyes when you drink

 a member somehow got an ostrich egg. Its gigantic. 

I like Prophets

So the highlight of this week was that we got two South America exclusive sessions of general conference since President Nelson is taking a tour through the South America Northwest area. Today he should be headed to Chile to dedicate the new temple. This week my testimony was strengthened by like 1000% that Russell M Nelson is a prophet of God. Let me tell you a little bit of what went down. The rest of the week wasn't too exciting honestly.

So Saturday there was a devotional for just the missionaries of the South America Northwest area that was held in Lima. We watched it in the stake center in Montero. Present were Elder Falabella, the area president, Elder Gary E Stevensen of the 12, and President Nelson, all with their wives. They all took turns giving messages, but I most enjoyed President Nelson's message. He basically just gave a 25 minute summary of all of Christ's ministry in 3 Nephi, explaining us the importance of every chapter from 11 to 30. I got super learned. He talked about things I had never even thought about before, like how America is the land of Joseph's inheritance because he didn't get any in the holy land, and how many times Christ mentioned the word "repentance" in all of 3 Nephi. Someday I hope to know as much doctrine as that guy.

Then on Sunday President Nelson traveled to Bolivia with the same crew! There was a special broadcast just for everyone in Bolivia that was held in La Paz. And it was even cooler. There was a decent choir that they kept calling the "Bolivia Tabernacle Choir". Sister Nelson gave a message where she basically just told everyone stories about President Nelson receiving revelation as a prophet, which was pretty dope. And then President Nelson got up. He first asked all the Primary children to stand up and sing "Soy un hijo de Dios" for him and it was really tender. The love you saw in his face looked about like what I imagine the Savior's face was like when he was blessing the children. And then he started giving his message. It started out pretty normal, but then he was like "con su permiso, quisiera dirigirles in Español". And then he GAVE THE REST OF HIS TALK IN SPANISH. Granted, he had a really thick American accent and he read it off of a paper, but it was still awesome. It sounded just like a new missionary coming into the mission in Bolivia but the spirit was turned on 100% so you could understand everything just fine. 

President Nelson is a pretty cool guy.

Elder Bingham

the giant sugar factory in our area from a distance

Elder Tuares and I with Kevin, our pension's son who's super cool and who always greets us with "suh dude"

 giant snail we found in intercambio friday

This morning it rained like CRAZY and our whole house got flooded.
We were moving water for like 2 hours.
This is just the back

Elder Bingham gets back with his ex

Don't worry it isn't what it sounds like.

So after 8 months, Elder Bingham was finally blessed with a transfer!! And it definetly wasn't what I was expecting. I am now in the area Guabira, which is a little town in the middle of nowhere close to the city of Montero, which is a smaller city in the department of Santa Cruz. Basically, I'm really far away from most of the rest of the mission that isn't in Beni. And my companion... Elder Tuares! You might remember I was with him for one transfer a while back in Belen. I'm back with my ex comp. Its a party. I'm also no longer District leader, but thats fine. Elder Tuares and I get along really well and we're working hard, I'm happy to be with the guy again. This could potentialy be my last area in the mission, so good thing its super cool.

So Guabira is a little town known for its giant sugar factory thats always burning sugar cane. If you're close to the factory you have to deal with the constant odor of the burning cane, which is a pretty nasty smell. Like all the men work in the sugar factory during sugar season, seems like it pays pretty well. But other than that Guabira is a lot of humble farm land. There's some parts of our area where theres only houses like every 100 meters and a bunch of grass and cows in between. Its pretty wild. My area almost couldn't be any more different from Belen. On Saturday Elder Tuares and I got super lost looking for the house of this contact we did the other day and we were just wandering around for like 40 minutes in the middle of nowhere looking for the place. And when we finally got there she wasn't home! It was pretty fun though. I'll send a video I took if I can.

But that same day we had a super faith building experience! We have been praying like all week to be able to find a family to teach. A mom, a dad, and kids. And then right after we escaped from all the jungle farmland, our prayers were answered! We started contacting after our cita fell through, and at the first house we went to, a nice guy named Julio and his wife (and they are actually married, halleluia!!) let us talk to them for a bit! they have three kids and one of them is of baptizeable age! They are really interested and I'm excited to teach them in the future. The people in Guabira are really humble and receptive, and I think we should have a lot of success here. Wish me luck! Or just pray for me, that works better than luck-wishing.

Elder Bingham

The members are going to jinx me super hard

Well, this was quite possibly the last week I'll have in Barrio Belen. Or it could not be. You know, going a 7th transfer in one area wouldn't be that ridiculous. (jk yeah it would) I feel like there's like a 95 percent chance that I leave my area, but you know, I haven't had the best luck in the past. But the members here are honestly setting me up for failure. I'll explain in a second.

This week the most eventful thing that happened was general conference (duh). We didn't manage to get any investigators to come, but at least one of them watched it in their house with some members, so that works out fine. But what can I say about conference that you don't already know? I liked it a lot. I felt very inspired and I felt the spirit abundantly. 2 hour church will be dope. Also one of the Singers in the tabernacle choir looks like Benedict Cumberbatch.

So this week from the members around here I heard a lot of jokes about the upcoming transfers. Most of them telling me I'm just going to stay here until I die. Like I haven't heard those jokes for like 2 transfers already. Most of them just seem to be mourning my probable departure. But I feel like they might be jinxing me and I'm getting super anxious for the transfers. Yesterday all the YSA of the ward invited us to dinner, I guess as a send-off for me. I had to give a little thank you speech and one last "hasta la vista, baby" in my terminator voice. It was kind of sad honestly. If I do end up leaving this transfer, I'll be excited but also I little sad. I've put a lot of work into this area and I love the ward members here. These have honestly been the best times of my mission so far. But whatever happens, I'll be glad to keep serving as a missionary. Wish me luck

Elder Bingham

me and Elder Anderson rode to general conference in the trunk of a member's car yesterday. The open trunk. It was scary

We went to a crossfit place for a pday activity last monday. This was the bathroom that I thought was pretty funny.
Also I'm really out of shape

... and then we went to TGI Friday's as a zone right after. Cajun shrimp and chicken pasta.

a funny sign on some camba's door. nice people

district #5 in Belen, district #8 in total as a District leader. Proud of my district

the zone