"solo estamos aqui por Satanás"

Elder Ferreira quote of the week: "Predicamos en contra de Satanás, pero realmente solo estamos aqui por él". Or in other words, we're only here because Satan makes people sin and we have to go teach repentance. Don't worry, we're not serving Satan.

We had some really cool experiences this week. Like the type people share in their homecoming talks. So I'm not going to tell you anything about them so I don't spoil my talk when I get home.

Kidding we'll get it over with now. So we were talking with Maria one day (recent convert) and her friend Saul walked past. We said hi quickly and shook hands with him, but then he went straight to his house. But Maria said she thinks he would be really receptive to our message, and we should go teach him. So we went over the next day, and he let us pass to talk with him. We taught the restoration, and he was really receptive and interested. And then when we asked him if he had any more questions for us, he just opened up. And started telling us about all his problems he's had in his family and personal life. I won't tell you the details because that's private, but he was at the point of tears. But we testified that the gospel is the solution to his problems, and he's ready to find out for himself. He also told us he wants us to teach his sister and help her out. Which we did gladly. She's also awesome. Only problem is her uncle is a pastor, and he just started a church in his house. And she decided to get "baptized" there. So we'll be working on that with them. But I'm really hoping we can get at least Saul baptized before transfers. Which are in two weeks.

We also had another multi zone conference this week. Where we got preached on about developing Christlike attributes.  And I remember only two or three things specifically. One is that I need to work on my humility. And my faith. And study christlike attributes more. The other is that Hermana Cabezas called me "Elder Clark Kent" when she was speaking. it went something like this "Elder, uhhh, *looks right at me* Clark Kent! *everyone laughs* Qué podemos hacer cuando tenemos un compañero disobediente?" and then I answered perfectly of course, as and Elder Clark Kent should.

Oooh and tomorrow we're changing houses into one that isn't super old and gross! I'm really excited about it. We'll finally have two bathrooms. This new house is super nice, I'll send pics next week.

But that's about all I have. Love you all, keep on, uhh, living.

Elder Bingham

"no debemos creer en Jesus"

"No debemos creer en Jesus, porque el predicaba su propio doctrina" -Elder Ferreira quote/joke of the week

Well, as far as proselyting goes, this week was relatively uneventful. Not much progress. But we had two really enlightening experiences this week.

On Wednesday we had interviews with Presidente Cabezas. That man is poderoso. But I went into this interview really bummed out. And came out of it really motivated. I basically told president that I didn't feel like I was progressing too much as a missionary, in my ability to speak spanish, be lider de distrito, help the other missionaries in my district, etc. And then he told me a lot of things that helped me out. And thanked me for what i've done so far. Apparently I've helped my comp change his attitude or something. And a few other things that helped me personally. Basically I came out of there with more motivation, a stronger testimony, and thankful that I have President Cabezas. He's the coolest.

And then Friday we had a surprise conference with Elder Godoy (a seventy from Brasil), the president of the our area. There were missionaries there from our mission and the Santa Cruz south mission. it was really cool. Lots of people. But he discussed with us a talk from Elder Bednar about the poder habilitador y fortalecedor de la expiación. Or the enabling power of the Atonement I think. It was an awesome talk, really changed my perspective. I would tell you to look it up but I don't remember what it's called. But he used a lot of examples from the Book of Mormon, especially Mosiah 3:19, to explain the enabling power of the atonement. But he emphasized again that the Atonement exists to make bad men good, and good men better. Making good men better uses the enabling power of the atonement. But basically we need to put off the natural man, and become as a child, submissive, patient, humble, etc. If we ask god to help us have the strength to face our trials, instead of asking for him to take them away, the atonement will help us.

I highly recommend looking up that talk. Don't know how you'll find it without the title though, good luck. I think its from 2013 or something.

Well, I actually have pics this week. figured out the card. I'll be sending those. But love you all!

ElderBingham

We had to construct a rain shelter on the fly in a lesson with Pedro. 

Typical Elder Ferreira shenanigans

me with pedro

Elder Ferreira convinced me that Máte is awesome. Estamos mateando mucho

The inside part of basketballs that you find in the street make for pretty good doo-rags

¡mire elder un pollo!

Elder Ferreira really likes pollos (chickens).

Well that was another week I guess. And to be honest, it was kind of crap. But on the bright side, the bad weeks get you really motivated to do well the next week. but as always, its kind of hard to have a week in the mission without some cool experiences. The only problem is if I remember them or not.

Primeramente, the limits of the mission are in the southern part of our area. Theres one street where one side is our mission, and the other is the mision sur. So Obispo Mendez talked to us one day, and said there was some confusion with the ward limits with this other ward in the south mission. Those missionaries had some investigators, and one recent convert, in the limits of our area. So we went to this house one day with Obispo and met the other missionaries and their convert, Katerina, to introduce her to our ward. She had been going to the other ward in the south mission for like two months, so it might be a weird transition for her. But she's an awesome convert. She instantly referred us to her siblings to teach, her aunt that we have yet to find, and we got one other free investigator from the area confusions. So thank you, mision sur. We appreciate it.

But other than that, our week has been pretty uneventful. Once again, our progress was slowed by Elder Ferreira's lack of a watch. He really likes to talk, and lots of times we stayed in lessons or visiting with members for too long. But he's planning on buying a watch today to fix this. But we've also had the unfortunate experience of people using their agency in a bad way and choosing not to have eternal life and happiness with their families in God's presence. Or in other words, mulitple investigators have told us they don't want to receive us anymore, or just stopped progressing in general. 

Oh we had a funny contact I remember now! we went to one house looking for an investigator, but they live in a lot type thing that has like 6 different houses, and probably about 30 people. it's basically a tiny town. But one guy came to the door, and we asked him if he could call our investigator. She came out, but her esposo wasn't there, so we couldn't come in. so we asked her if she could call this guy who talked with us so we could contact him. So, she sent her little kid, to call him, but he called the wrong person, and a woman came to the door. We asked her if she could call the guy, and she went to do so, and nobody came for like 5 minutes. So we were leaving, and two little kids in the door were yelling "chow", but we thought they were calling us back. So we came back to the door, and a different lady came. We asked her if we could share a message with her and whoever was in her house, so she went in and came back with 4 of her friends. So we ended up making a contact and talking with 5 snakes at the same time. We had a good laugh about that. The bright side of this weird transfer is that I'm laughing a lot. Because Elder Ferreira is hilarious. But a little weird.

Well love you all, glad you're all doing well. Siga viviendo el evangelio, yah?

Elder Bingham

Es chistoso pero es serio

Whoo cambios.

We had them again, as you can imagine. and they were crazy once again. Tuesday night we went out for Shawarma to celebrate the end of the cambio. Which also happened to be the 4th of July. And justamente, there was barbeque sauce with the shawarma. So that made me really happy and made me feel almost American. And then cambios happened and I was instantly extremely unhappy. Well not necessarily unhappy, but extremely dumbfounded.

So first off, Elder Moreno got transferred, and I'm staying here another cambio. I'm going to have my third comp in my third transfer in the same area. And elder Moreno is going to Paraiso, to be companions with Elder Prince. My comp in the CCM. I'm a little jealous. Elder Bastias, quite possibly my favorite Elder so far that hasn't been my comp, is going to Trinidad, probably to die there. And I'm staying here with Elder Ferreira as my new companion. He's from Brasil, and he's super cool, but he's also a little famous for being disobedient sometimes. Oh yeah and I'm going to be district leader this cambio. In my third cambio en the mission. Which kind of blew my mind and made me really stressed and humble all at the same time. I blame Elder Moreno for my new assignment. He told Presidente Cabezas multiple times in the weekly letters that "Elder Bingham está listo por cualquier asignación". Including this super dificult one. But I guess that's my life now.

So I now have a lot more responsibilites now including proselyting in this difficult area. It really isn't that bad, I just get a little stressed sometimes. I've been praying a lot to know what to do with my district and stuff. Because they just kind of throw you in there as district leader with only the manual misional and a little binder to train you. Im a little worried I'll be in a baptismal interview or something and not understand something really important the investigator tells me. And accidentally let a murder get baptized. Es chistoso pero es serio. Which is my new phrase by the way.

But the week has actually been pretty good as far as lessons go. The only problem is that Elder Ferreira likes to talk a lot, and we end up late to a lot of lessons. which is a problem. But one really cool lesson we had was with a couple called Jhonny y Nelly. We taught them the restauracion, and after we explained the first vision, Jhonny said "una pregunta. Ese realmente pasó?" Si hermano. Testificamos que si. The spirit was really strong in there. Teach and testify. the golden combo.

For a spiritual homework for you guys, I realized that 1 nefi 17 is a perfect analogy for missionary work. And anyone who's been in my class in church knows how much I love analogies.The story about Nefi building the boat. I'll give you the basis. Nefi is the mission president. his brothers are the missionaries. The boat is the church, and the tools are your converts. I'll let you go read it and find out how perfect it is for yourself. Es chistoso pero es serio.

Hey I'll make you a deal. You guys pray for me and I'll pray for you. Sound good right? Love you all

Elder Bingham

Vacaciones

This week was a little different. Really fun in some parts and really disappointing in others.

First of all, we had "vacaciones" for three days, On Tuesday, We had to go to the medico in the morning, because I had an ingrown toenail that needed removing. (cut your toenails straight kids!) The doctor put an injection in my toe to "numb" it, but it still hurt like crap. He had to cut part of the skin too and then the part of the nail that was going into the toe. And then he told me I had to rest in the house for three days, and walk as little as possible so it could heal. But, this doctor is also a returned missionary, and he knew we would feel bad doing nothing for three days. So he said we could go to our citas fijas (set appointments I think) and nada más. So we had lots of time to mess around. Our adventures in vacaciones included;

1: learning to make fat ties skinny. I'm a master now

2: taking hilarious photos in the chapel trying to look like bible preachers

3: little naps here and there

4: and reading scriptures. not much else for a missionary to do in spare time.

But those three days were nice, even if the reason for the break was stupid. Sea cuidadoso con sus uños. The lessons we went to those days were also really cool.

And we had the most disappointing baptism of all time on Saturday. Maria got baptized, which is great, but the bad part was that only 3 members in our ward showed up to support her. really disappointing turnout. kind of sad. Also sad, she hasn't been confirmed yet. since she had to take a test to get in to college Sunday morning. But I'm not too worried about that, she'll be confirmed next Sunday. She has a really strong testimony. She already read the entire book of mormon, which is basically just a sure sign of a golden investigator. I'm really happy for her and she'll be a great member.

As far as spiritual thoughts go, I really like Moroni 7. and what it says about charity. a high quality read, I recommend it to all. Basically it says if we don't have charity, we´re nothing, and a few other huascas. i've been trying to work on having charity for everyone, its something I really need to improve on. We're also trying to teach this to the members in the ward, because I think that's the best way to strengthen the ward. is more charity. amad a vuestro prójimo.

I love you all, sorry if this email is disappointingly small. But some cool pictures to come!

Elder Bingham

little sacrament cup sized miracles

Well this week has been pretty good. A whole lot better than last week. But I'll avoid giving you guys boring details of everything and just share the coolest experiences.

So the other day we contacted this guy named Pedro Salvatierra. Este chango es muy interesante. He basically lives in a pile of trash that is kind of shaped into a house with some shelter. The poorest living conditions i've seen in my area. But he came out and talked to us for a while, and was really interested. He has some mental problems he told us about where he has a hard time remembering information or something. But he's eager to talk with us because he feels like we understand him, being "profesionales espirituales" or something. Like the doctor is the mental professional but we're the spiritual professionals. I was very flattered. But we offered to come back Saturday morning and do some service for him, help him clean up his trash pile a bit. He accepted and we were excited to come back Saturday.

Unfortunately, we had a surprise multi-zone conference Saturday morning! Well, the conference was cool, but we were bummed out that Pedro would be waiting for us and we wouldn't make it. So luckily Friday night we passed him in the street as he was walking! And he called us out by name as we walked across the street ("Moreno! Bingham!"). Which is awesome. Literally nobody else has ever remembered my name. Instant golden investigator. So we told him we wouldn't be able to make it to serve him, but we ended up having a really cool lesson with him Saturday anyway. I appreciate the guidance of the spirit in these situations. Little miracles every day. 

We also had a cool visit with German, the rich Chileano we've been teaching. He said he had a doubt when we talked to him in church, so we asked him about it in his house during our lesson. And his doubt was just wondering if his uncle, who is a mormon, could come from Chile to baptize him! That was easily the best doubt ive heard from an investigator. So he should be a baptism in the near future, and Maria will be baptized this Saturday! I'm really excited for those two especially.  Except i might get transferred before German's baptism, Im kind of scared. But I also would not mind going to a new area. We're already in the last week of this cambio! Its kind of nuts, time really does pass fast in the mission.

Well that's about what I can think of this week. Some cool pics to come

Love you all, hope you're doing well.

Elder Bingham

Us in the famous plaza 24 en Santa Cruz.

I finally got my scripture cases ordered from the guy who custom makes them with different leathers. And they're awesome. The triple is the one with tiger and the tree of life on the front, and the back is snake with the scripture. And the bible has anaconda on the front and lagarto on the back. I feel más poderoso con estes fundas. I know Bryce said he potentially wanted some. But you would have to send me designs and money. Because they're a bit expensive. But I kind of just wanted to show off. But I can get you some someday if you really want.

¡Llame ******** por su salvación!

So this week kind of sucked. No voy a mentir (I'm not going to lie). But hey, that will happen every once in a while in the mission.

So our area has an extreme lack of solid investigators. So this week, we focused on finding new ones. Which meant contacting. A lot. And looking around for some of the people in our carpeta de area. But mostly contacting. which, we've now learned, is not the best way to do it. But ill get to that in a minute. 

In all our contacting efforts, we had to make it a little enjoyable. So many jokes were made like the one in the subject line. Except I can't write our actual phone number in there. Making the church sound like an infomercial is actually hilarious. Por ejemplo "Hola, soy Elder Bingham, y este es mi compañero, Elder Moreno. Somos misioneros de la Iglesia de Jesucristo de los Santos de los Ultimos dias. Usted, alguna vez, ha preguntado '¿cual es mi proposito en la vida?' '¿Porque hay tantos diferentes iglesias?' O, quizás, '¿Puedo tener más de una esposa?' Aqui en la iglesia, tenemos las respuestas a estes preguntas. ¡Llame ******** hoy por su salvación!"  (roughly translated: Hello, I am Elder Bingham and this is my companion, Elder Moreno. We are missionaries for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Have you ever asked "What is my purpose in life? Why are there so many churches?" or perhaps  "Can I have more than one wife?" Here in the church, we have the answers to these questions. Call *********today for your salvation!) Its funnier in person. And in my infomercial voice, which I can't use over email unfortunately. But in all our efforts contacting, we did find a few good contacts. But presidente Cabezas is telling us that we need to visit all the recent converts, less actives, and member families to find their friends or family members who aren't yet members of the church. This really is the better way. And much more enjoyable.

One good thing this week is that I think we peaked. As in, we found the más durisimo investigador posible. His name is Gustavo. We were in his door for about a half hour in the contact, where he told us basically his life story and how Jesus Christ and the bible changed his life, not "José de Smith" as he said. And that from his experience, the name of our church is a lie and Joseph smith is the center, not Jesus Christ. "Pero vengan mañana a las 3!" he said. So we came back, determined to preach about the book of Mormon and change that guy's life. What ended up happening is he sang us a song on the guitar, (not sure why), we taught and bore testimony about the book of mormon and Jesus christ, and then he proceeded to tell us his life story and testimony, again, only with way more detail and for way longer. And basically completely turned us down hardcore again. But in the nicest way possible. So super good guy, but he's sadly a little lost. We probably won't be going back there. Plus this experience really strengthened my testimony. That I really am sure of what I'm teaching to these people. I know the church is true with complete certainty, and no amount of preaching from anyone can change that. So thank you, Gustavo.

That's about all I can think of for this week. Here, have a spiritual thought. 

The Baptismal covenants took on a new meaning for me this week. Or more specifically, taking upon us the name of Christ. Mosiah 5: 8-9 says this:

8 And under this head ye are made free, and there is no other head whereby ye can be made free. There is no other name given whereby salvation cometh; therefore, I would that ye should take upon you the name of Christ, all you that have entered into the covenant with God that ye should be obedient unto the end of your lives.

9 And it shall come to pass that whosoever doeth this shall be found at the right hand of God, for he shall know the name by which he is called; for he shall be called by the name of Christ.

Taking his name upon us, we are literally promising to try and become like him. Be completely obedient unto the end of our lives, like Christ was. Only through this name can we gain salvation. But then if we keep our covenants, we will be found on the right hand of God, just like Christ. Which is super cool.

Well I guess I'll leave you with that. Not sure why there's like 3 different fonts here, and I don't know how to fix it. Sorry about that. And the spacing is weird.

But love you all! 

Elder Bingham