I'm Training!‏

Family and Friends,

This week has been great! It's flown by. Wednesday we had this great district meeting, partially about talents and did that awkward thing where we go around to every person and describe some talents. Well turns out this was prep for me for that night. After planning we got a call from our zone leader who told me, "you're having a baby! And it's going to be a girl!" (We refer to new missionaries as the 'babies' and the trainers as 'moms/dads') Yes, I'm training. It was a surprise, but I'm so excited! Between the district meeting and the meeting Friday we had for all trainers I'm feeling ready and excited and anxious to find out who I'll train. I'm extremely grateful for this opportunity. Today Hermana Vilariño left me to go to another part of Madrid and I'm with Hermana Rojas for the day until tomorrow when we get our new companions. I'm going to miss Hermana Vilariño a lot. We've had a great transfer together.

Wednesday we also had an amazing lesson with a new investigator, Dayana. She's 18, a member reference, and REALLY awesome and prepared. She came to church and loved it. I'm really excited to keep teaching her.

Sunday the parents of one of the elders, Elder Dampt, serving in the same ward as me were here since he's finishing his mission. As I saw them I realized I know his parents- worked in the same office as his dad about 4 years ago and his mom is the sister of my previous bishop in Mesa. It was fun to see them. Small Mormon world. We also got to see the missionaries from the MTC sing at the temple. There are so many of them! It was fun to see them all together. Some to Madrid mission, others to Malaga and Barcelona. And more coming from the Provo MTC. Our mission is getting 43 new missionaries tomorrow. A ton.

The missionary work has still been pretty slow this week, but we have a few new people that I'm excited to teach! I know as we work hard, are obedient, and follow the Spirit we will find those people who are prepared to hear more.

Hope you've all had a great week as well! 

Love,

Hermana Bingham 

Sweater Wednesday with the district. (pic to come)

Dominos. (pic to come)

Hermana trainers with Hermana pack.

Delicious food with the Guzmans. Yucca, carne, rice.

Missionaries from the MTC singing.

Bye to Hermana Vilariño 

8 Months

Dear family and friends,

Well the truth is this week was a little slow - we didn't even meet with most of our consistent investigators. It was a week of many people failing us, baptism dates getting dropped, and lots of rejection in the streets. Just one of those weeks. But we aren't letting ourselves dwell on it, today starts a new week! Also I received the email from my sister Maegan serving in Australia who told a story and reminded me of the importance of bearing our testimony and sharing what we know- the people then have the decision to accept or not. Even in the 'hard' weeks I am so grateful to be a missionary. There's always something to be grateful for. And learn.

This week we did have two more comidas with members. I love eating with the members, getting to know them more, and try all sorts of food. This week we ate with a spaniard family and ate all sorts of new food. I was pulling off heads of different seafood with eyes still attached to eat the meat. It was fun.

Hope you all have a wonderful week. Love you lots!

Love,

Hermana Bingham 

Last pday we had a birthday party, happy baptism, Mexican Independence Party with members of B6

Some days it's the chuches that help us keep going.

Giraffe Rice, Painting, and teaching in English‏

Family and friends,

This week I've been really grateful for the ward members. We ate with a member Daniel. He's awesome. We ate 'Giraffe Rice' with chicken. Delicious. Daniel is from Ghana and was baptized about 7 months ago. He's a great ward member and shares the gospel with everyone! And helps us in lessons. About every time he is with us he runs into a different friend and introduces us. He's just a super friendly, loving man. We're very blessed to have him here in this ward. We also helped paint Angela's (13-yr-old member) room this week. I had a lot of fun. The people they share a piso with our investigators right now and were helping too. There names are Reyda and Kedney- a couple from Peru. It was really fun and great to get to know them all a little better. I can feel our relationship with Reyda y Kedney growing. We had a great lesson with them yesterday and pray they will come to realize the significance and meaning of the Restoration.

This week I also learned that Hermana Vilariño speaks way more English that I realized. We had a new goal for her English where I speak in English in the piso at nights, but she'd normally respond in Spanish still. This week we taught two Africans, Jonathon and Kenny, who were both more comfortable with English. So WE taught in English. Hermana Vilariño did so great! Both lessons went really well. She's awesome.

Leo continues to progress, just little by little. School starts this week for him so we won't be able to meet as often unfortunately. He has a few doubts still, but is also looking forward to his baptism. It is set for 2 weeks. I know if he is reading and praying each day with the real intent to get responses to his questions, he will.

One funny thing that keeps coming up is people, usually from Peru or Ecuador, will recognize the name Bingham but not know from where. As soon as I tell them it could be because the name of the person who found Machu Pichu is Hyrum Bingham they light up and get so excited. They suddenly want to be friends and talk more. It's come in handy.

Each week I love this area more and more! I'm grateful to be here with Hermana Vilariño as a companion and for everything we are learning and getting to experience together.

Love you all tons! Hope your week is great!

Love,

Hermana Bingham

Hermana Vilariño had her first Oreo with peanut butter! She loved it.

We had a lesson at the temple this week and I couldn't resist taking a picture, the clouds were awesome.

Painting with Angela

You can't really see the city in the picture, but we walked over a bridge and it looked really cool

Buses...More time than I wished.

Almost saw toros this week‏

Dear family and friends,

This week has gone by so fast. I feel like I was just emailing two days ago. And I honestly can't remember a whole lot of last week right now. We did have a district meeting that was really good. Hermana Spencer gave a short lesson about revelation- for ourselves and our area. She related it to revelation with the prophets. Prophets are called of God, worthy, witnesses of Christ, and willing to accept and do the will of God always. All these steps apply to me as a missionary if I want to receive revelation for the people we are teaching and the area.

I also went on intercambios with Hermana Grenfell in Barrio 2. It's a little more north and central than where I'm at. It was a good intercambio, I learned a lot. When we were looking at photos of each other's families we made the connection that her sister was in one of my wards at BYU. Small Mormon world.

Hermana Vilariño and I were also finally able to meet with a less active of the ward. His mom is active and he even reads and prays with her. We had a really good lesson with him and he's really open to meeting more and says he's going to start coming to church. Hermana Vilariño and I have been working with a lot of less actives. Sometimes as a missionary I'm ready to find and teach and baptize but we discussed how cool it is to help one person come back to church and the affects it will have on future generations as well.

Hope you've all had a great week. Love you all lots!

Love,

Hermana Bingham 

Arganda, a pueblo in our area, has their festivals this week. Someone told us there was something at noon... It wasn't until 6:30 tonight so we missed seeing the toros.  Maybe at some point during my mission.  Here's where they'll be tonight though.

Street in Arganda decorated

We ate at an Italian buffet instead.  It was like pizza pie cafe in Utah basically.  Don't mind the walking man in the background.