Riberalta Cripple-Transport Service

Hello family. And friends. And any strangers that for some reason read my emails. Thanks for tuning in to my mission. It's certainly an interesting one, hope you're enjoying the broadcast. This week's email is brought to you by the Riberalta Cripple-Transport Service, helping cojos go to church since 2018

Which was something we've done frequently recently. We have this really funny investigator named Ruben, who had an accident a few months ago in work where a truck basically crushed his leg. He had surgeries and was in recovery for months, but thanks to the miracles of modern medicine, even modern Bolivan medicine, they were able to repair his leg with some nails and stuff. also taking flesh from his upper leg and attaching it to the damaged part so it could all heal up nicely. But he still has a couple months before he can walk again. he's going around on crutches for now. But he's super excited to learn and go to church, and he has a baptismal date for the 24th of february! The only problem is that he can't get himself to church. So our ward mission leader has been a stud and has been taking him to church, a baptismal service, and a branch activity in his motocar. He's also taking a recent convert to church named Carlos, an old guy who can't really walk too well.

But this sunday, everything almost went wrong, because our mission leader called in sick. So Elder Quintana and I decided to just go to Carlos' house and pay for a taxi for him, since the guy has like no money. We headed to Ruben's house, planning to do the same thing, but he wasn't there! So we just headed over to the chapel, and we were surprised to find that Ruben was already there! He told us he only had 5 pesos, and he used 4 of them to take a taxi to church. We were pleasantly surprised, didn't think he was going to go by himself. The kid has a lot of faith, knowing that even if he doesn't have much money, its really important to go to church on Sundays. So I would invite all of you to take a moment and say a thankful prayer that you have cars and stuff to comfortably go to church every sunday without having to worry about the money to pay for a taxi.

Also this week we were temporarily stressing out about the fact that we might have Hepatitis A. One Elder in the zone has been super sick, and hadn't gone to the bathroom in like 5 days. His eyes were also yellowish. So everyone thought he had hepatitis, and Hermana Cabezas told us that we had to go to the hospital to get a blood analysis, since we eat dinner at the same house as said sick elder.  So everyone was freaking out about the prospect of this Elder and his companion going home, since they were both really sick. And we were obviously also worried about getting sick ourselves.  But luckily, the test results came back, and it turns out that nobody has Hepatitis. Not even yellow-eyed elder. Not sure what he has, but it isn't hepatitis at least.  I was very thankful that got still wants me to continue my mission and not be sick.

Love you guys, help a cripple cross the street or go to church this week yeah?

Elder Bingham

Vomiting a chicken and the magic of platanos

Hey hey fam how's it going? Over here we're still waiting on news about communism. But President told us to tell you guys that the case of the government has been taken care of, and our proselyting should go on as normal. So don't worry about it too much. But president also sent us a whole bunch of emergency instructions about staying close to our house and stuff, so i'm not too sure. Just please pray that Bolivia doesn't go communist.  The bright side about all this is that it's really fun to make communism jokes these days. But the work goes on like normal for now. Don't worry mom, I won't get arrested.

So this week we had our interviews with President Cabezas and zone conference with President and the assistants. The biggest thing we talked about is our new plan de misión. President has received the revelation that our metas de excelencia (¿excellence goals? I hate english)  need to increase. Now the standards (i think that's a better translation) for our numbers are as follows; 5 baptisms, 40 investigators with baptismal date, 45 in sacrament meeting, and 100 new investigators every month. Yes, that is extremely high.  WAY too high, i thought at first. But they talked a lot about faith, and diligence, and the things we need to do to be able to achieve these goals.  So if everything goes according to plan, the whole mission should be killing it soon. We're going to be saving all kinds of souls. That is, if communism doesn't rob them from us.  I'm feeling a new excitement for missionary work, and I want to be able to have that kind of success. Hopefully with the new transfer next week we should be able to get that going.  GO DEMOCRACY!!!!!

Also we had an awesome lunch this Sunday with our branch president and his fam, and I now have a much greater appreciation for how amazing the plaintain is. I'm pretty sure its the most diverse fruit in the world, because you can make things out of it when it isn't ripe yet, when it is ripe, when it's really ripe, and even when it's rotten. If you use it green, you can make chipilo (like plaintain chips) or masaco (mashed up plaintain with cheese). When it's ripe, you can just fry it and it's extremely delicious, a good side for any meal. When it's really ripe, like starting to get brown, you can make some dessert I forgot the name of, where you basically boil it and then serve it cold with the plantain water. Mix in powdered milk to make it even more delicious, and sweet. And when it's rotten, you can make freaking vinegar with it!!  I'm in love with platanos. Why don't we have more of them in the states??

Also, in the soup sister Clavijo made she basically threw in every part of the chicken to give flavor to the broth. Including the head and the feet. I didn't feel like eating the head, but it did make for a good picture. Enjoy

Elder Bingham

I had to sit in the back of our ward mission leader's motocar going to a baptismal service it it was kind of sketchy. 

also managed to snag and awesome selfie with Elder Morocho who was on a taxi behind us

chicken head soup!!

worth the nasty taste for the equally nasty photo

The red-yellow-green scare

Hey you guys remember the Red Scare? I learned about it in APUSH one time. But to be honest, I've mostly forgotten what it was exactly. I just remember people in the United States were really scared about like communist spies or something. Or they were scared that communism was going to take over America. I don't remember the details. Don't tell Ms. Wright, she'll be super mad.

But basically, something similar (probably) is going down in Bolivia right now and everyone's freaking out about it. Basically the president of Bolivia wants to be a dictator and the government is currently trying to pass a new codigo penal that's basically going to make Bolivia communist. Which would make everything us missionaries do illegal, supposedly. So lots of protests and street blocking have been going down, mostly in other parts of Bolivia. Luckily, Riberalta is pretty chill, so nothing's really happening here. But we're all just like waiting for news on that. And wondering if we would just have to leave our mission behind in a couple weeks. But we're all pretty sure we'll be fine. Just that thought is kind of in the back of my mind all the time. I hate communism.

Literally just imagined Presidente Evo like Anakin; "I am more powerful than any Bolivian president who ever lived! This is the way to peace, in my new dictatorship"

and the rest of Bolivia; "YOUR NEW DICTATORSHIP????"

This week, I learned that people here really don't get the Sabbath day. Yesterday morning, Elder Quintana and I decided to go stop by the houses of like 6 of our investigators before church to remind them to go. Unfortunately, it was raining. Like really hard. Of course, that means nothing to us missionaries. luckily, I found a kind of crappy poncho in our house since I had accidentally left my umbrella and stuff in Santa Cruz a few months back. So I put that on and we headed out. Unfortunately, the hood on the poncho was way too small so my head wasn't covered. So my head got completely soaked. The rain even washed the freaking gel from my hair down into my EYEBALLS, and it stung really bad. We walked through a lot of mud, the bottom half of my pants got soaked and really dirty from all the mud, but we kept going. And even with all the effort we put in, and the tears from the hair gel stung eyeballs, none of those investigators wanted to come because of the rain. Pucha.

But despite all that, we endure. (imagine inspirational music in the background) We keep walking, and sweating, and swatting mosquitos, because this is the truth dang it!

We're part of the gathering of Israel! Christ is coming! And these people aren't ready for that yet! So we're going to keep on going. Even though this country might turn itself communist soon.

Pray for democracy

Elder Bingham

The rains came down and the floods came up

Oh i also had intercambio with Elder Millis that day. he's a pal

our ward mission leader has a motocar (like a motorcycle/tricycle thing) that 

he took us home from church in in the pouring rain. Us in our ponchos

dead Bingham walking

This week was probably one of the most physically exhausting weeks of my whole mission. And it wasn't even that hot! But I am just completely worn out. and we're about to go play soccer. Wish me luck.

So why am i so dead? On Wednesday, (is that how you spell Miercoles in english? Not even kidding, it's throwing me off and I'm not sure if its right or not. Freaking Spanish) we went to help an investigator carpir all the giant grass outside of her house. Some of the heavy rain had opened up a hole in the dirt canal in front of her house, so the water was running behind her house too and caused some damage. So we had to cut up all the giant grass with machetes so we could find the hole and close it up. We got it done in like 30 minutes with the help of a member. Riberalteñans really know how to work a machete. But it was hot that day and it got me exhausted. Thursday after lunch we helped our lunch pensionist move into the other house next door. So we were carrying a bunch of cabinets and boxes and stuff and i felt nice and manly. I do enjoy doing some heavy lifting every once in a while. And then Friday morning, we went back there to help take over the rest of the stuff that we hadn't finished. So those got me really tired.

Then to top it all off, we played soccer Saturday morning and started our fast Saturday after lunch. I literally just felt dead trying to walk everywhere Saturday and Sunday. But just had to keep putting one foot in front of the other. Which was basically all I could manage doing, since my brain was also dead. I may or may not have some problems staying awake when we're teaching certain investigators that talk a lot. Don't judge me.

Other that that, it was a pretty uneventful week. We do have one really cool investigator named Fredy. He's like 48 and has 4 hilarious little daughters. The dude's awesome, he came to our noche de hogar that we planned, came to church on Sunday, and wants to read the book of mormon. Buuutttttt, he's not married. And it sounds like he has some wife problems. I guess I shouldn't even say wife. His concubine. Which by the way, it's like completely normal for people here to say that they're just concubines.  OH how this place needs the law of chastity. But i feel like with lots of prayer and faith we can talk to his spouse some day and get them to get over their problems and keep a commandment. Wish us luck.

Thanks everyone for the emails, love you all

Elder Bingham

Last p-day we had the best activity ever. We were just playing sand volleyball, but then it started raining really hard. So it turned into mud volleyball! And my zone leader took some pretty dope pics with my camera.

Like this first one could be on the cover of sports illustrated probably. Send it into a photo contest or something. Caption: Elder Bingham mocks the short people on the other team

That was a whole year?

Well there goes the 19th year of my life. 2 months of sitting around waiting to leave on my mission, and then being on the mission for another 10. All things considered, went pretty well. Being in the full-time service of the Lord is a pretty good use of 5/6 of my year. I'm excited to use this year 100% in the service of the Lord! My only full year as a missionary. I hope you all enjoyed setting resolutions that you will quickly forget about. I'll try to set some meaningful ones.

This week was pretty uneventful, all things considered. It rained a lot, and it was really freaking hot, which is a combination that I hate. Sometimes you just get the rain and cloud cover and it's pretty cool, but then the sun comes out and you feel the heat from above and below because of all the humidity. Such is the jungle. Yesterday we were trapped by HEAVY rain for like 25 minutes. it took a lot of patience and 2 companionship prayers for the rain to settle down enough to get moving again. But hey, prayer works! That was a cool spiritual experience. I prayed by myself once for the rain to stop, and then a couple minutes later I prayed in English in case God didn't understand. And then we prayed like 3 different times as a companionship, and it finally settled down! Prayer works. Sometimes it takes a lot of faith and patience, but it works.

Unfortunately, the baptism we had planned for this Saturday fell through. Our investigator is named Jorge, he's 13 and has an older brother who is an inactive member. But Jorge is super awesome, and he was super excited for his baptism up until an hour before, when he got nervous. He basically decided he wasn't prepared yet and needed to learn a little more and read the Book of Mormon more. Which might be true. So it was sad, but we're going to have to postpone his baptism. But I'm glad we're doing it for good reasons. Pray for Jorge please, so he can read the Book of Mormon and get a testimony!

Happy new year everyone, thank you for not being the people who got way too drunk on new years eve passed out on the side of the road this morning

Elder Bingham

I had an intercambio with Elder Jorge on Wednesday so we decided to go out in flower ties together. Más eficaz

Some members had some puppies they were taking care of for a neighbor and I wanted a new friend