Sweater Weather

Uhh, what to write about this week? I feel like I suck at this. This week was pretty unexciting actually, but there were some cool parts. Highlights are as follows.

Winter has come. I'm surprised to say that I almost feel unprepared for how cold it can get. It rained for like two days straight and has been fairly chilly. It's a good thing I look so good in sweaters.

Today we're going to eat churrasco with the zone, which I guess is as close as you can get to barbecue here. So Im excited about that.

Monday we had a lesson with a new investigator named German. He's the richest person I've met in Bolivia. His house is super nice, and he's Chilean, so he automatically became Elder Urrutia's favorite investigator. We'll be visiting him tonight again. Also the Chilean food he fed us is delicious. His wife is a less active member and his mother in law is a member, so hopefully he should progress well. He went to church twice before we even had a lesson. So I'm really excited about this guy if I don't get transferred. Oh and we get transfer calls Tuesday. I kind of hope I stay here for a while, we have investigators I really want to baptize.

We are now also teaching a 54 year old member, and his future wife. Who is 19. It was the most uncomfortable looking relationship i've ever seen. But his future wife, Melania, is our investigator, and she seems like a future baptism. So that's cool, if not for the really weird age gap.

We had intercambios on Thursday, So I went back to Bajio for the second week in a row, this time with Elder McClune. That dude is trunky out of his mind, which makes things a little difficult. But we spent like the entire day contacting, and had no lessons. But I enjoyed it, mostly because its nice to talk to someone in english for a while.

On Sunday I gave my first talk in sacrament meeting! It was about la obra misional. I was surprised at how easy I found it to write the whole thing in Spanish, and then get up there and speak. It went pretty well all things considered, except our investigator Maria made fun of me after because apparently I looked super red. But I mean, I always feel like I sound really stupid, so that's kind of expected.

Speaking of Maria, she accepted a baptismal date for the third of June! It's been a long time coming, but she should be ready by that day. Hoping that goes well. 

But thats about all I can think of for this week, and I'm about out of time. will send some pictures as well.

Love you all, hope you're all doing great.

Elder Bingham

Our haircut options since Bryce wanted to see them. This is one of the posters with the more reasonable haircuts

lots of streets look like this when it rains really hard

Did a little service project the other day helping this guy move furniture and stuff.

my camera has a fish eye filter and this pic of elder Martinez brought me much joy

Dia del madre. Except not really

Well happy mother's day yesterday to everyone. Mother's day is on the 27th in Bolivia for some reason, but the second Sunday is better. So we skyped then. But I loved skyping to you guys, it was a ton of fun! And I didn't even get that trunky. Just happy.

But for everyone else who wasn't there, here's some stuff from this week.

The weather was perfect this week. I think it's getting into rainy season. It was overcast and cool almost every day this week, and it rained a couple days. Some really light rain, and some super heavy rain. So it felt amazing outside. I've never appreciated cool weather so much in my life.

On Saturday, we had our first baptism!! José finally got his interview in and was ready to go. So we spent Saturday morning cleaning the chapel and the baptismal font for a while, which I kind of enjoyed actually. It's nice to do anything that involves not wearing proselyting clothes.  But when we were draining the font, the sound of the water going through the drain was unusually loud and annoying. Elder Urrutia decided that was the sound of all the sins that were sitting in the water.  It makes sense, I like that explanation. But then we started filling the font again, and left to go eat lunch while it filled. We took longer than expected to get back to the chapel, and so the font was almost flooded. Five more minuted and we would have had to do a lot of mopping. But we got lucky.

But the baptismal service that night was awesome. Elder Llanos gave a good discurso about baptism and the holy ghost, and then Hermano Cacheti (probably not how you spell his name) gave a cool discurso about being a discipulo de Cristo. He's this super old and super white guy who has the most ear hair i've ever seen on a human being. He says a lot of wise old guy stuff. He's really cool.

And then I got to do the baptism! Turns out I've for sure gained weight, since my white pants were super tight. almost unbearably so. But Baptizing José was an amazing experience. Especially since he was the first person I had a lesson with in the mission! I only stuttered a little bit on the words of the baptism. Mostly on his name, since he has like 4 of them. Such is Bolivia.  But I felt the spirit so stong when I pulled him up out of the water, it was amazing. When he bore his testimony after I couldn't stop smiling. The Gospel brings happiness people. Hopefully we can baptize Maria next week! Now she's even more excited for baptism, its awesome.

Well, those were basically the highlights of this week. Not too much else to tell about, but there should be more great experiences to come!!

Hasta la próxima lunes

Elder Bingham 

first four pics are at the baptism

Skype

Elder Martinez has a batman action figure without a head for some reason, 

so we decided Elder Bednar's head would look good on it.

 nununununununun BEDNAR

Estoy cansado

Hello everybody!

Well, it's been another week already. Some good things have happened this week, but it's been a little rough too. It's been pretty hot lately, which seems to make me really tired like all the time. Its usually less hot out in the streets than it is in houses, since it's windy outside, but inside you just have to burn. I really like teaching lessons and visiting with people, but then I sometimes feel relieved to get back out in the wind.  Such is Bolivia. But it's all worth it for the good experiences. And there's lots of them.

This Thursday we had a big conference with a member of the Area presidency, Elder Enrique Fallabela I believe his name is. We were there from about 2 until 7:30, so we didn't get much else done that day, but the conference was great. And yes mom, it was all in spanish. Everything is always 100% in Spanish. But I'm usually able to get a general idea of what's going on.  Presidente Cabezas spoke first, and he talked about how the theme for this conference was being un mision de milagros. Elder Fallabela followed this up talking about what miracles are made of. He said the four pillars of miracles are faith, obedience, hope, and charity. If we have those four things, we can make miracles happen in the mission. So I'm going to work on those, since it's going to take a miracle for me to understand what people are saying here. Everyone mumbles or talks really fast, or both. But the spanish is improving. Elder Fallabela also talked about the atonement, and the importance of asking for references from everyone. All in all the conference was great. Plus they had these killer empanada things and donuts during the break in the middle. And I got to hang out with Elder Prince for a while. Good day.

On Saturday I had a cool experience with prayer. We were going to teach a lady named Yolanda, who was a recent contact, but as you know, we always need to have another man there when teaching a single woman. We stopped by a member's house to have Yolanda's friend, who is a member, accompany us, but only she could come. Not her husband. So as we were walking over to her house I just kept praying in my heart that there would be another man there so we could teach. And at the exact same time we walked up to the door, her 20 something year old son came home. Boom! Prayer answered! We ended up having a great lesson with her and her 3 sons. But it was great that the one son (his name is Diego I think) came at the same time as us, since he was the only adult. I think she has a strong chance of getting baptized in the future.

Honestly nothing else too exciting happened this week, or I just can't remember it. We had a great day yesterday, I think in part thanks to the power of fasting. We had I believe 5 investigators show up to church, and then got about 4 new investigators later that day. We also taught José y Maria that evening. Jose is on his way to be baptized this Saturday, but Maria needs more lessons and stuff. But then she told us that she wants to be baptized this Saturday with him too! She really feels the church is true and is going to ask her parents for permission to be baptized. She's really excited about it. And so are we. This Saturday should be an amazing day.

As always, your prayers and emails are appreciated. I love you all!

Elder Bingham

Conference with Elder Fallabela

This is elder prince and I at the conference. He's my nephew now. In other words, my trainer trained his trainer.
We're a big happy family.

A couple questions Jayson answered for me (mom):

Mom: So, is “winter” over already? Is that why it is so hot? or is it still winter and it is just hot and summer will be even hotter?

Jayson:I have no idea how the seasons work here. It feels like its gotten hotter, but supposedly the cold season is in June or July. It's very confusing

Mom:  Do you have a large area you cover? Are you walking long distances or is everything pretty close?  

Jayson:  My area is pretty big. Most of our appointments are in walking distance, but sometimes we take a bus

bendiciones, bebes, y bautismos (esperamos)

Wow this week. It was pretty insane. Really fun. Also very different.

On Wednesday, we did intercambios. So I went out with Elder Martinez to the Monterrey area for the day. The first half of the day, it was raining like crazy. I thought I was prepared for the rain, but I was wrong. I had some sweet rain boots that were here at the apartment, my water resistant jacket, which I though was waterproof, and an umbrella. Turns out thats not enough. I still got pretty wet. I need a completely waterproof jacket in the future, I'll probably have to buy one. But when we came back for lunch it stopped raining. The streets were completely flooded in some parts, it was really cool. But that day was mostly spent contacting, only taught like two lessons. But it was really fun to change comps, even if Elder Martinez doesn't speak any english. Somehow I wasn't too confused all day though. Went pretty well.

Anyway, bendiciones.  I have now given 4 blessings of health in my time here. Anointed the oil twice and gave the blessing twice. The first time was on my first Sunday here, when an older lady asked for one in church, so I anointed, elder Urrutia gave the blessing.. Then gave one to my comp when he was having some stomach issues. On Saturday a member asked us to come to the hospital and give a blessing of health to her husband, which we got permission to do. I anointed this time. And then Sunday, when we were teaching a less active family, The member asked us if we could give one to her friend, who was struggling with some stomach issues, headaches, etc. Elder Urrutia kind of forced me into giving the blessing here. So I tried to follow the spirit, and stumbled through it pretty bad. But it was cool. And that lady, her name is Rosa, isn't a member. So then we started teaching her, and now we have a new investigator! woot! Priesthood blessings bring all kinds of blessings. My oil vial is getting a workout.

I have learned this week that many ladies here don't care at all at what time they begin to breast feed their babies. Including while you're teaching them. We were teaching a lesson to an investigator named Alejandra, and then she just started feeding the baby while we were asking her a question. As you can imagine, this is a very awkward situation for missionaries. So we tried to keep teaching and ask her questions, but she was very distracted with the task at hand. So that lesson didn't go to well. We went back another day, and she was busy with her baby again. So we ended up talking to another guy there instead who's having some word of wisdom issues.

And, bautismos. Jose y Maria are both progressing great. Both of them came to church on Sunday without us reminding them, which was awesome. Both are keeping commitments too. Hopefully we can baptize them on the 13th! And Sunday night, we went to a member's house to teach her friend. Turns out her friend wasn't there, but her 11 year old sister was. And she isn't a member. But, she wants to be baptized. Her name is Andrea, she and her sister are super cool. The sister is 19 and wants to serve a mission. But Andrea's mother is a less active member, and isn't sure if she wants her to be baptized. So we are going to keep teaching her, and pray all that works out.

But those were the highlights of this week that I remember. Will send pics as well.

Love you all

Elder Bingham

The chicken restaurant "el solar" on pday. Fried chicken here rocks

view from the balcony at our apartment

our apartment

I look dang good in rain boots

Me with elder martinez the day after splits

My new friend walter the frog. I almost squished him walking home sunday.

I was tempted to take him home, but I let him go free

At the hospital we had to put on masks and coats and stuff to go in and visit the guy. Dr Bingham junior

No, Dr Bingham is my father. I'm Elder Bingham. Here to give a priesthood blessing.

enseñando a los lamanitas

Hello everyone! Its been an interesting week here in Bolivia. I don't really know where to start. Let's go with a little more description of my area.

So around here, basically if there isn't buildings or streets, there's jungle looking stuff. It's really cool. Bolivia is actually a really beautiful place if you don't look at the roads. all the dirt roads around here are pretty gross. And sometimes they smell bad. And there are lots of poor houses, but there's also some really nice ones. Like there will be a super rich looking house right next door to a tiny shack with clotheslines everywhere in front of the house. We mostly talk to the poorer people. I don't think we have too many investigators that are very wealthy. But the people around here are all super nice, I just don't understand what they're saying. A lot of times though you'll run into a guy who looks like he has a golf ball in his cheek. It's some kind of drug that's really popular around here, I can't remember what it's called. So you generally don't talk to those guys as much. But I really like it here. I would like it a lot more if I understood spanish.

I actually really like the food here. Basically here they eat rice with almost everything, no surprises there. But we have a pensionista who brings us our lunch and dinner, she cooks pretty good. The only unique food I can think of us called salchipap, which is basically sliced up hot dogs on top of a bunch of french fries with some sauce. Occassionaly when we go visit members to ask for referrals, or teach really nice families, like the familia Coré, who I really like, they'll give us some food. And almost always Coca cola. People love it down here, and for good reason. Its way better than coke in america. And I'm pretty sure they don't believe in diet soda down here, which makes me happy. All that is good comes from god, and that doesn't include diet soda. In my humble opinion.

There's also these things called salteñas, which are these little hot pocket looking things with delicious meat and broth inside. You have to bite a corner off and drink the liquid out of it so you don't spill everywhere. Which is really hard not to do. Pero salteñas son muy ricos.

There's one street in our area called Calle Lamanitas. Which is Lamanites in spanish if you couldn't figure that out. I discovered it on Saturday I think. So we spent a little time that day asking people if they knew what their street is called, and then showing them the book of mormon, and how it talks about the lamanitas. We now have one new investigator on that street, named teorco Alvarez or something. He's this 50 something year old guy who really really likes the bible. We had an interesting discussion with him about the restoration, but I think he's going to be really interested in the book of mormon. We'll see how he liked it in our next appointment. 

Our only other investigator who has made much progress has been José Matias. and his girlfriend, Maria. We've been teaching both of them together, and Jose is really excited to be baptized and clean from his sins. It's awesome. Both of them have a baptismal date for the 13th of may, and both are going to church. So pray that they can continue improving!

But, like expected, spanish has been really hard. Earlier this week I got pretty discouraged, since I don't know what's going on ever, and we haven't quite been meeting our goals. It's really hard to find people to teach. So I was feeling pretty useless, and a little sad and homesick. But then later I read Alma 26:27, which says something along the lines of "now when our hearts were depressed, and we were about to turn back, behold, the Lord did comfort us, and said, go among thy brethren, the Lamanites, bear with patience thine afflictions, and I will give you success."  There literally could not have been a more perfect scripture for my situation. We're even teaching on Lamanite street!! The book of mormon is amazing, I love it. So now I'm doing a lot better. Not really better with spanish, but better with my attitude. The Spanish needs a lot of work.

Love you all

Elder Bingham

I kind of never take pictures. I never think to when we're proselyting. Sorry. But there was this really cool building and an awesome tree. Don't know what the building is. But cool stuff. Lots of my area looks like this, but with either more trees or more houses.

I forgot to talk about p-days! Although to be honest there isn't much to talk about. we Clean the house in the morning, go to email, and then take a micro (these small bus things we ride everywhere) to a chapel to play soccer with the rest of the district. Pretty fun. Then we go to the Hipermaxi (Bolivian Walmart) to get food and stuff every other week. And then go chill back at the house until 6. I've been told that's the typical p-day around here. Hopefully in the future we can do something more exciting. But I'm bad at remembering what to write about, so if you have questions about whatever I'm doing let me know. 

Elder Bingham

Adios ingles

Well, I made it. It's been a while, pday. Haven't had one since before my birthday. But yeah, we're in a little internet place really close to our apartment typing away now. It's good to be back.

Well dang where do I start? Its been so long.  We left the CCM on Monday or whenever it was, our flight was at 12:45am, and arrived in Bolivia at about 4am Bolivian time. And then stood in immigrations line for about an hour. It sucked. But there's 3 hermanas that came here with elder Prince and I, plus 3 elders from the provo CCM, including Elder Samuels! (Cody Samuels, from high school). It was cool to see him. Anyway, the next day we had orientation and lunch at stuff at president's house, which was all in spanish. But luckily Elder Hale, the secretary, was nice enough to translate most of it for us gringos. The next day we had to go to interpol and get visas verified or something, and then we went and met our new comps, and then went off to our separate areas.  I'll miss Elder Prince. Hopefully we can meet up a few times later in the mission. My new comp is Elder Urrutia.  He's a really big Chilean who speaks pretty good english (haleleuia) (halleleuigah?) I have no freaking clue how to spell that word. Oh well. But Eder Urrutia is pretty great. He knows the scriptures better than I ever will in my life and he's a really good teacher.

Our area is Campa Rosa, in the Campa Rosa ward in the Bajio stake in Santa Cruz. We live in this really old and kind of gross 2 story house thing with two other elders from Peru, Elder Martinez and Elder Llanos. (oh, Kyla, elder Martinez says you're really tall). But there's a basketball/futbol court right outside that kids and teenagers always play on. Every road around here is dirt. You'll find these little shops on every single street called ventas where you can buy food and things. Lots of humble houses and people, lots of trees, lots of dirt, and lots of mosquitos.  I'm covered in bites since I never remember to use bug spray. Or I'm too lazy. It's a really cool area, I love it. The chapel is like the nicest thing in the whole town. But I actually haven't taken pictures of anything, sorry. I'm bad at remembering that.  It's not too hot right now, luckily. It will get hotter in a while. But I'm not dying yet.

As far as teaching goes, most of the time i feel about as useless as a fishing pole in our area. Which is pretty useless. I think there's like one canal. Probs no fish. Sometimes I understand a little bit of what people are saying, but for the most part it all goes over my head. So I don't say much either, since I don't know what they're saying and how to respond to it. Sometimes I can share a scripture or teach a principle, but thats about it. Elder Urrutia always has to come in and give more details, or teach something better in his flawless Spanish. Jealous. But, I'm learning. Slowly. We don't really have time to study the language, which sucks. So I just try to listen hard and contribute where I can. We had a few investigators when I arrived. The best one we have is this 17 year old names Jose Matias. I always think he looks like a Bolivian Yoda, but less wrinkly. don't tell him I said that though, it might offend him. He has a baptismal date for the 13th of may. My first day in the area we taught him the law of Chastity, of course. I barely practiced that in the CCM, and then It's my first lesson in the field. But he's progressing pretty well. We can just never seem to find him when we have an appointment, which is a problem. He's always with his novia or something. But we've really only taught a few lessons. Most of our time has been contacting, which kind of sucks. The people are really nice here, but after we set up an appointment for a visit, they never seem to be home when they said they would be. Which is really rude. But we've taught a few solid lessons and have got a few good investigators. So thats going pretty well.

Oh easter happened huh? Turns out they don't do anything for easter around here. I actually forgot it was a thing until i read emails. I heard a couple people say something about santa semana, (holy week) but that was about it. Sunday was just a normal Sunday. We have a pretty awesome ward. About 100 people in sacrament meeting. And like 3 investigators showed up! Hooray!

But I'm here. I'm doing well. Ish. The language barrier is really tough. But I was reading in Moroni 7, and in verse 30 it says something like "And christ said, through faith in me, you can do all things expedient in me." I probably butchered it. The last time I read it was in Spanish, I can't remember how it goes. But I just need to have faith I can learn the language. And love and charity, as it explains later in the chapter. Read Moroni 7 everyone. Its a pretty good one.

Thats about all for me. Ill send what pics I have. But I love you all, pray for me over here, I could use it.

Elder Bingham

me with elder Davis (my mom's missionary companion's son)

Elder Urrutia and elder Prince when we split off into areas

This is on the door of our bathroom, since it doesn't lock. I found it quite hilarous.

Mi Corazón

I've decided corazón and destruir are my favorite words in spanish.  Don't ask why.  They're just fun to say.

Anyway, It's been a great week.  Mostly because we had less classes and more General conference woot woot!  The MTC was able to broadcast it, all in english for us gringos.  Hooray.  And somehow, I managed to stay awake through every single talk in every session. You may say "that's the biggest load of crap I've ever heard in my life Jayson", but it's true.  Probably because I was taking notes the whole time and not laying on a couch.  But still.  Still can't stay awake in sacrament meetings though. 

Anyway conference was great.  Yo recibí mucho revalación por los profetas y apostoles.  No idea if that spanish is correcto or not.  We're just going to hope it is.  I liked President Uchtdorf's talk the most in the Sunday morning session or whenever it was.  The one about fear and stuff.  He talked about how the motivation we receive out of fear is often temporary and shallow.  The right way to teach and influence others is through love and Christlike attributes.  Christ didn't teach with fear, he taught with love.  Which made people follow him for the right reasons.  Which is how us missionaries should teach, with christlike attributes, so people can follow Christ through faith and repentance.  Or something.  He also said something about turning our fear into faith.  Which got me thinking about why I came on a mission.

At first when I started thinking about a mission I mostly wanted to do it out of motivation from fear.  What would my family think of me if I didn't serve a mission? What would my friends think?  What would happen to me? Would I stay active in the church or become a drunk hobo or something? Who knows? I also had a fear of the mission itself, and the difficulties involved.  But as I got closer and closer to leaving, and once I got my mission call, that fear started turning into faith.  Faith that the mission would bless me in ways I couldn't imagine.  Faith that I can do everything I've been asked to do.  And faith that the heat in Bolivia wont kill me after two days.  Still not sure about that last one but I'm still excited to get there.  But I'm thankful for my savior who has let me get to this point in my life, and hope I can share that joy with others.

Oh speaking of Bolivia, I should be headed there Monday night, for all you people who don't know yet.  I might miss a pday, since pdays here are on Wednesdays, and I'll be traveling on the mission pday.  So I might be a while.  But i'm so excited to get out of here.  It feels too much like college.  I hated college.  I mean I love it here, but I'm ready to go preach to la gente, you know what I'm saying?  Anyway, I love you all.  Wish me luck with the field.  I'm terrified but also excited.

Elder Bingham

All our favorite latinos.  Elder Supayabe in the front, Elder Peña and Rivas somewhere else.  I'm not sure I cant see the pic right now.

And Elder Prince looking like a hippie.