Elder Jayson Bingham : Elder Bingham becomes a local legend

Well, transfers happened. And to literally everybody's surprise, I'm staying in Belen for a FIFTH freaking transfer. Like what the crap. I have now joined the ranks of all the other missionaries the elders always talk about that were in Belen for way too long, like Elders Gabbitas, Villalobos, Cook, Francis, and Winger. All week I've been hearing jokes from the members like "They'll probably give you a calling in the ward soon" or "when are you going to buy yourself a property?" So I'm pretty sure everybody in Belen is going to remember me forever now. Hopefully for the work I've done here, but probably also for the fact that I was here for so long.

But hey on the bright side, I'm going to be able to see our investigators through to baptism! On Saturday we had the first of hopefully three or four this transfer. Our investigator Maria Fernanda got baptized! It was really stressful putting it all together. For some reason like nobody in the ward knew the baptism was happening until like the day of, and Friday a killer cold front came in. So Maria was super worried about cold water because Camba's are wussies when it comes to cold stuff. So we got to the chapel at like 5:00 (baptism was at 7:00) and started filling up the font. We loaned a propane stove from a member and a giant pot (probably like 30 litros giant) and started heating up pots of water while the cold tap water was filling the font up. Fun fact: the chapels in Santa Cruz don't have heated water in the fonts. Oh, Bolivia. We ended up throwing in like 5 or 6 pots almost full of burning hot water, and the font water changed from being cold to being what I would call "almost room temperature". Which was pretty significant progress. Despite all that, when she first dipped a toe in the water, she immediately started freaking out about how cold it was. Luckily we had a member there inside the font area persuading her to get in. Elder Buhler was going to baptize her, I was just standing outside silently praying that she would get over the cold water and just wash herself of her sins already. As soon as they opened the font windows, like three other members watching immediately started reassuring her like "its okay sister the water's fine" or "nothing is going to happen, you wont get sick" or "you can do it we've all been baptized the same way". Elder Buhler finished the prayer, I heard a scream, and then a SPLASH!!! Then she came up out of the water and started freaking out again. I let out a sigh of relief, did a little fist pump, and then went to the bathroom to wait for Buhler. It was a really stressful day to say the least.

And then Sunday she came kind of late to the chapel for her confirmation and I was mad stressed until she got there. Oh Bolivians.

Well that was my week. Hope you're not all sick of my stories from this area by now. Should have some more good ones in the future. Love you guys!

Elder Bingham