"Father, please bless Elder Bingham to leave Belén"

This week Elder Anderson and Elder Medina showed their charity by praying every night in their companionship prayer that I get a transfer here in a couple weeks. It went something like "heavenly father, please bless our district leader Elder Bingham so that he can leave Belén this transfer, so that he can get to know more of Bolivia, so that his mission doesn't just become the Bolivia Belén mission" It made me feel special.

Today I learned that I should not tell President that things are going well in my area after 6 transfers, because he responded back to me and said he thought he was going to have to take me out, but now he's going to ask the Lord again. Hopefully the prayers of my faithful companions will persuade God to take me out of here for my last three transfers.

Don't get me wrong, I've loved my time here, but I really could use a new area. another 6 weeks would drive me insane. But all things considered, this week has been pretty good. We started teaching a lady I contacted like 6 months ago with Elder Tuares (how the time flies), but recently we found her in a member's house, so we took advantage and taught her a lesson. She's a nice old catholic lady named Olga who also works in cleaning at the local catholic church. Seems like a dead end right? But I think hearing about the Plan of Salvation really inspired her. Poor lady has had a rough life. She has had 2 kids and her husband die, and a few days ago she got diagnosed with diabetes, which was a bit of a shocker for her. So she decided to listen to our message just in case it can help. Turns out it can.(obvio puej) Her member friend took her to church on Sunday and she love sacrament meeting! Says she's going to pray to know if she can get baptized again!!

But other than that cool experience this week was pretty basic. But things are going well! Love you guys!

Elder Bingham

pic 1: I learned how to solve a 4x4 rubiks cube all by myself. I felt really proud. I swear I didn't use internet how-to guides. Just a little help at first from another Elder

pic 2: In Bolivia you'll always find "inspiring" religious quotes spray painted on the walls. Here's a gem we found recently

pic 3: Its mango season baby! 

I learned how to solve a 4x4 rubiks cube all by myself. I felt really proud. I swear I didn't use internet how-to guides.
Just a little help at first from another Elder

 In Bolivia you'll always find "inspiring" religious quotes spray painted on the walls. Here's a gem we found recently

It's mango season baby! 

What language do we teach in?

This week was actually an awesome week. Lots of great spiritual experiences. On the top of the list would be the conference we had with Elder Dale G Renlund of the twelve! He was accompanied by Elder Enrique Fallavela, the president of the south america north west area or wherever we are in the world. To sum it up it was an awesome conference and I learned a lot, but it would take way too long to write it all down here. Don't worry, I wrote it down in my journal, so I can just tell you when I get back. Maybe I'll save it for the homecoming talk.

But this week has been a week of miracles and great experiences. We had interviews with President Cabezas which made me stop complaining about my 6th transfer here in Belen. A little fire from the Presi is always refreshing. He was also present in my district meeting on Thursday, which was a little intimidating. But luckily he loved my little class. Pretty sure Alma 18 has to be one of President Cabezas' favorite chapters in the LDM. Multiple times he raised his hand, "can I say something?" And then would talk very excitedly about how he loved that verse and explain how it applies to us. Its actually pretty funny how excited President Cabezas gets reading the Book of Mormon. It's an adventure.

Thursday I went on intercambio with Elder Sauceda Leon. That day we decided to take a little trip to Urubó, which is part of his area that's on the other side of the rio piraí. So Urubó is basically this super luxurious city they're building on the other side of the river that is full of giant condos, luxurious resorts and hotels, a world trade center under construction, and the 2nd largest manmade ocean/beach in the world called la Playa Turquesa! Who knew Bolivia had that much money right? Go look us Urubó on google, you'll be amazed. Its actually ridiculously nice. But as soon as you get past all the rich people stuff, you get to the houses of normal, humble, bolivian people that work in all the condos and stuff. Its actually a gorgeous place, I'll send some photos. It just feels like a little paradise in the middle of the jungle. Its really strange thing to have here considering the poverty they have in other parts of the country.

The other day we had a weird experience. We knocked on a door and a nice lady came out and talked to us, nothing special though. But then her 22 year old daughter saw us in the door and basically butted in front of her mom to talk to us. her name is Varinia and she's looking for some direction in her life and is actually super interested. She said she was really curious in learning about the purpose of life. So we happily set an appointment to return, and as we were about to leave, she asked "Ustedes hablan ingles?" to which Elder Kam responded "Yes, we do speak English". And then, to our great shock, she got really excited and started speaking to us in perfect English. Without an accent or anything. Turns out her family moved to Maryland when she was 3 and she basically grew up in the US, but a few years ago they moved back to Bolivia.  It was really weird, I'm way to accustomed to speaking in spanish. We speak English all the time in the house, but it feels a lot different when you do it out in the street with someone who isn't your comp. When we came back for the appointment, she said "Hi guys, come on in" and I have to admit it was a really strange experience. I've never taught the gospel in English before. I wasn't sure if I should speak to her in Spanish or in English so it just kind of came out as a sloppy mix of both. I was not prepared for that. On the bright side, she actually has a lot of potential for baptism! So it went well.

Wow long email. Lots of stuff happened this week, that wasn't even the end of it. But I don't have too much time. Love you guys!

Elder Bingham

Every investigator a missionary

In today's news, Elder Renlund is coming into Santa Cruz for a conference with our mission!! It should be a great experience. So we get pday cut short today, we're just going to write, eat lunch, and head to the chapel to be there like an hour and a half early just in case.

So all the missionaries in Beni had to fly into Santa Cruz for a couple days for this conference, so we how have 6 missionaries from Riberalta crammed in our house. 12 elderes in total. It's nuts. They're headed out tomorrow morning which means we're going to be doing super divisions tonight.

Other than that, this week has been pretty chill. Let me explain the subject line.

So last week in church this 12 year old kid comes up to us and says "hey, I want to get baptized, when are you going to come visit me?" His name is Andres, and he's been coming to church for a while during the week to play soccer with one of his buddies, who is a recent convert named Miguel, and recently, he came to church one Sunday because he wants to be like the cool kids and get baptized in the restored church of Jesus Christ. Its the new fad. We, of course, were happy to go start teaching him, he now has a baptismal date for the 29th of September. But Andres is a stud, he already shares the gospel better than his recent convert friend. He literally stopped by Miguel's house Sunday morning to pick him up for church. It should be the other way around, but Miguel is kind of lazy.

We also started teaching his sister's ex-boyfriend named Fernando who sometimes stops by Andres' house for some reason, but we couldn't find the guy in his house when we had an appointment. So Andres just walked outside and walked us over to Fernando's house to show us where he lives. Kid's going to be a great missionary 6 years from now.

In other news, we also put a fecha bautismal on a family of three (model #1 and her parents, if you remember my email from 2 weeks ago) but then they didn't go to church because someone just happened to show up and take the dad super far away Sunday morning for some reason. Ugh. Cambas sometimes.

So I'm still alive. still slightly bored in my area, but things are doing better. Have a good week!

Elder Bingham

 a member has a pet turtle named rayo! he's a stud. I love the way he sticks his little arms out. 

Sometimes I feel like the days here after 7 months go turtle speed so thought this would be a fitting pic. 

some giant apartments towards the center

All of Belen mourns for me

So transfers happened. But the weird part is that transfers didn't happen for Elder Bingham! I am staying here in Belén for a SIXTH transfer. It's nuts. I also got a new comp. Elder Buhler got sent to be ZL in another zone and my new comp is Elder Kam! He's from Idaho. He's a nice guy. We get along.

I have now been serving in Belen for 7 months, And I'll finish off with a little over 8 months here. Hopefully. I'm not sure if I could survive a seventh transfer here. All the members are either roasting me or feeling bad for me for staying in this area for so long. To be honest, it's really stressing me out. But with faith and hope I can make it through anything. I'll try to give you an idea of how it feels to be in an area for 6 transfers.

I've been here so long that I can be basically sleeping in whichever bus route and know almost exactly where to get off just by feeling the turns.

I've been here long enough to read the entire Book of Mormon cover to cover. And i'm in the middle of 2 nephi starting over again.

I've been here so long that I don't even have to look up at the podium during sacrament meeting to tell who's giving their testimony, I just recognize everyone's voice.

I've been here long enough for every area in the zone to get a completely new companionship. Twice. And I've had 5 companions

I'm sure there's some other examples but I'm too lazy to think them up right now. I hope those made you laugh at least.

Elder Bingham

Follow up from mom's inquiry about the knees: 

Oh did dad not tell you about that? a couple weeks ago my knee started hurting when we were playing basketball so we decided to go get it checked out. My right knee pops every time I straighten it and sometimes it hurts when we walk a lot. Which is most days lets be honest. Got an x-ray and according to the doc my knee caps are slightly off center or something. nothing serious. he ordered me some physical therapy. I went once on Friday but it was really lame to be honest. they showed my some exercises to do but I've tried those and they feel useless. I was supposed to go back this morning but I kind of forgot about it. Oh well.

But I'll be fine don't worry. It's not bad. I've just got weak knees

me and E' Sauceda got giant plates of pique macho together last monday after our date to the hospital
for my knee and his leg.

me and Elder Kam!

don't think this needs explanation

Elder Medina washing his clothes in a rain poncho for some reason in the bright sun.