Can I start saying "Adios" instead of "Chao" now?

Well, my time has come to its end.  I'm not even sure what to say. I have loved my time in the mission. There were times where I hated my time in the mission, but those hard times serve for learning experiences and I'm thankful for them. But we finished off strong, with a couple of miracles and lots of happy times.

On Friday a miracle happened! Remember how we were supposed to cram our baptisms in for today because our investigator Bertha was traveling? Well, Bertha called us on Friday and said "Elders, I'm already back in Trinidad! I'm ready for my baptism tomorrow!" I cannot even describe how happy and relieved I felt, because we weren't sure if we were going to be able to get those baptisms in on Monday. Thank you all for your faithful prayers, they were answered. :) 

So Freddy and Bertha got baptized on Saturday. I had the privilege of baptizing Bertha, and Elder Reynolds baptized Freddy (proud dad moment, it was his first baptism). It was a really spiritual experience and I couldn't have asked for a better way to finish off my last week in the mission.

But, I'm not going to bother writing too much more right now, because as it says in 2 John; 12 Having many things to write unto you, I would not write with paper and ink: but I trust to come unto you, and speak face to face, that our joy may be full.

Farewell all. Until Saturday :) 

Adiós Bolivia. Te amo mucho

Elder Bingham

my last zone!!

Freddy and Bertha's baptism

Raul and Blanca! (and lucas) Sadly, they won't be able to get married and get blanca baptized before I leave, but I'm confident that Blanca will get baptized this Saturday! they're the best

Elder Bingham tries to plan a wedding

OOOHHH getting people married is so stressful. It's way harder than it should be. We're trying really hard to get Raul and Blanca married so Blanca can get baptized before I go home, and we just might pull it off. But We definetly need many of your prayers por favor.

Wednesday we kind of ended up having a crappy day in which we learned that Raul didn't have the money to get the birth certificates they needed to get married. But then with the help of our awesome relief society president we've been able to organize an activity that we will be doing in the near future to help raise funds for their wedding, and a member was willing to lend them the 100 Bs they needed to get the papers going until the activity can pay her back! It was a miracle!! But then the next day when we were going to go in for the papers we get a call from Raul saying the guy he had a debt to came to him asking for the money and he was forced to give him the 100 Bs the ward had just lent him. So we were once again devastated. But hopefully today that guy will be lending him money again andwe can get the papers going today! If all works out well, they should be getting married and baptized on the 11th, my last day in Trinidad. Please pray for this miracle!!! Raul and Blanca are amazing and Blanca is super prepared to be baptized, we just need a little bit of good luck.

Other than that our week was alright. We somehow mananged to find 21 new investigators this week, which is a new personal record. Elder Reynolds and I are giving it all we got here on the final stretch. This next week we have chuck full of family home evenings with members to help out our investigators and hopefully next monday we should have 3 baptisms! Its all really stressing me out. I'm going to be exhausted coming home. 

But talk to you guys next week! for the last time...

Elder Bingham

ps sorry this computer is being stupid and not letting me open up my SD card to send pics. next week!

Return of the Dragon

Do you guys remember way back when from when I was in the MTC and I talked about our fight with the dragon? I'll be kind of impressed if you do. Well, he came back this week, but this time the double-headed dragon struck. Luckily, Elder Bingham is an experienced dragon slayer and was able to conquer his foe with the help of some Powerade and an IV: let me explain.

So on Tuesday I opened up a pack of oatmeal that I bought the day before, and noticed that it seemed a little old. But I decided to eat it anyway since the expiration date was still a couple weeks away. That would come back to bite me in the butt later.

Wednesday the dragon came in attacking strong but with the help of a faith filled prayer I was able to hold him off for all of the proselyting day and we got some good work done. 

Thursday we had our zone conference with President and an area seventy, Elder Camargo from Colombia! It was a great conference and at the end of it he asked me to get up and share my testimony about how I was able to learn spanish so well and to relate it to the savior. He also told me to share it in English. I guess the guy is worried about all the new American missionaries in the zone. It was the strangest testimony I've ever given. my english is terrible now. I'm pretty sure my homecoming talk is going to be a disaster of me trying to figure out how to say stuff in english.

Then after the conference the dragon decided he wasn't going to leave me alone and we had to stop by a member's house in the middle of our proselyting to go fight the beast. After a long time in the bathroom we called sister Cabezas to ask her advice and she told me to go to the clinic to get an iv stuck in me, which took the rest of the night. So that was fun. But I'm all better now, don't worry. 

But besides that story we actually had a really solid week! We found lots of great new investigators and we're setting up a few baptisms for the 9th! The pics will tell the rest of the story.

Elder Reynolds counseling me on my trunkyness

the clinic! I hate IVs.

Trinidad gets invaded by noobs

This week made me feel really old. That tends to happen basically every week now. But this week it happened for different reasons. 

On Wednesday I had an intercambio with Elder Lore. He's new, he has about 3 weeks in the mission. I have about 3 weeks left in the mission. Probably about the biggest difference in mission time possible for two people proselyting together. It was kind of weird.  And then that day about 15 newish missionaries flew into Trinidad because they had to do papers and boring legal stuff. So our district meeting on Thursday had double the amount of normal missionaries and almost all of them had at least a year less in the mission than I do. I felt so old and wise pitching in my experienced missionary commentaries. But the cool part about that is how much you can learn from the young guys. I am continually inspired by our 4th transfer district leader Elder Cahua and the other new missionaries' excitement for the work. So noobs are good thing.

The only other thing that happened this week was that our investigators finally came to church! We had 6 at church yesterday, which is more than I've had any other week in Trinidad. The work is progressing here and we should be able to dunk a few souls before I leave. But that is all. I bid thee farewell.

Elder Bingham

wilderness explorer elder Bingham with another great find! a tiny crab

also a parrot that can't fly so it's stuck in this tree

We are in love with Bolos (little homemade popsicles everyone makes here)

the nut sack a member gave us. I swear no immature jokes were made while we busted them open and ate them.

today we cleaned A TON and burned most of the trash. and somehow we accidentally threw away a smoke alarm with all this trash and it was beeping the WHOLE TIME

An old man gives me a coconut

So this week we had a couple of awesome experiences. While we were walking around one area contacting, Elder Reynolds spotted a very strange fruit on a tree outside someone's house, so we felt prompted to knock on their door, with half of our intention being to preach them the gospel and the other half being to ask them what the heck that fruit was. So we did, and a friendly old man came out and immediately let us in. His name was Felix. He is more than 80 years old (didn't tell us the exact number) and still works as a veterinarian (did i spell the word for pet doctor right?). He started asking us questions about our beliefs and told us about all these things about God that he's been meditating for years. Turns out, everything he had been thinking about was almost exactly what we believe about the plan of salvation! He was really excited to learn that we believe the same stuff he does and accepted the invitation to read our folleto and the Book of Mormon and pray about it. 

Then when we were leaving our visit with him he invited me to take a coconut off of his tree and Elder Reynolds grabbed the other strange fruit that was growing outside. Someone has since told us what that fruit is called, but I forgot the name. But turns out it's not actually edible and they just use the shell to make bowls and stuff.  So the rest of that afternoon we were carrying around obnoxiously heavy fruits everywhere and people were giving us weird looks.

We also put a baptismal date on a nice girl named Blanca. Her "husband" is a super less active member but they're both excited to come to church and for her to be baptized! Her date is for the 9th (the last Saturday of my mission) so wish us luck!

That's about it for this week. Or all I feel like writing anyway.

Elder Bingham

Wilderness Explorer Elder Bingham spotted this crane on a post and it led us into a longish conversation about panda babysitters. See if you can guess why. I will bring a prize home to whoever guesses correctly.

We baked cookies on an electric stove. Mission kitchen tricks

Walter B., the coconut. I drew him myself scraping with my fingernail

us with our large fruit. Elder Reynolds named his Keith

I ran into the Lujan family from Belen! they were up here organizing a giant mission wide efy type thing for the YSA!

Elder Reynolds wish comes true

So this week wasn't super eventful honestly. Oh yeah except for cambios! But nothing actually happened for me. I'm going to stay here another cambio in Trinidad and Elder Reynolds is officially my last companion. His only wish was to kill me and stay here in Trinidad longer, and looks like it's happening. So begins the end of my mission.

Amidst mildly trunky feelings at the start of the week, things actually ended up going pretty well! We had a solid week of finding with 16 new investigators this week. I got pretty fired up to work after a bomb district meeting from our new district leader Elder Cahua. Then Elder Reynolds and I went ham! We've found some pretty prepared people this week and a lot more people than normal have been willing to listen to us. Hopefully we can finish up strong here in Beni. 

Well I'm basically better already. I just have some random cough attacks every once in a while. But nothing to worry about, I can at least talk loudly again.

Interesting how many things are changing. I'm pretty excited to be able to go to the temple when I get back. We should do that in that first Saturday that I'm home. After I catch up on sleep, of course.

2 hour church was sooo nice. I enjoyed it a lot. especially since we have sacrament meeting first now. it used to be last in our ward. But I don't even bother with the whole Sunday school/elder's quorum trade off since us missionaries are just in gospel principles with the investigators every week.

But that's about it for this week. Hope you enjoy the pics. And happy 2019 everyone!

Elder Bingham

Elder Reynolds and I decided to see if we can tell the difference between Agua linda and agua purita.
Turns out we can't

The triny tree in the plaza! (a christmas tree made out of triny bottles)

This morning I found mushrooms growing out of our mop. I think we need a new one.

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