First off, thanks to my family for the birthday package! I may have opened it already.. I did not want to wait. Sorry. Loved it though, love you all!
Well another week in the mission field has passed. Hermana Clements and I have had a rough time keeping our investigators and finding new ones, so that has been our focus this week. We did a lot of contacting. It wasn´t easy, but we saw little miracles. For instance, one day we had 15 minutes before medio dia so decided to go hard and set a goal of receiving 2 new contacts. We said a prayer, stopped EVERYONE in our path, and received 3! Wahoo! God loves us. We still have not been able to meet with Karen, but hopefully this week. One of our investigators, Cristian, we had to pass to the Elders to teach. It was super sad, but he is doing great and really increasing his faith. We are even meeting with his mom this week, which is a good sign since he is ready to share what he is learning. He is doing great. Nancy and Roger are still doing well, but struggling a little with comittment so we are moving their baptismal date back a bit. Maria is still awesome, her faith is really increasing. She lives far out in the pueblo so we only have time once a week to take the bus to see her, but she is learning and loving it. We met two new awesome people on the street this week that we have lessons set up for this week, so hopefully that goes well too! We are teaching a man from Palestine. It is super hard because he has basically no Christian background and speaks little english so we basically explain every single word very simply. But it is cool to think about the gospel terms on such a basic level. He is super interested in learning more about our religion, it is pretty cool. And I can now saw hello, thank you, and goodbye in Arabic. haha
Now for a few fun things I have done in the past week. Last Monday for pday all the missionaries of the ward went to lunch with Toni, a YSA member of the ward. He is super cool and it was really fun. We went to this pretty famous restaurant and ate all Spaniard food - ´tortillas´ (really like this thick potatoe cheesy things), ribs, pigs ears, squid, octopus, etc. I am not even a seafood person, but it was all good. I ate it all.
This weekend was great with general conference! Before I talk about it, funny comment. General is spanish is general - just pronounced differently - and great is genial. For a few days I kept saying, in Spanish, great conference instead of general conference. I mean, conference is great too so it kinda worked. haha. Anyway, I watched the womens, saturday morning, and saturday afternoon in English. They had another room in the church playing it in English for the missionaries. wahoo. Then I watched Sunday morning in Spanish and will have to read Sunday evening because of the time difference. Conference in the mission field is so different, but great. I learned alot to apply to my life now and had some insight on to help our investigators as well.
I got to eat at President and Hermana Jacksons house for Easter - being in the mission home area is the best! I am sure going to miss it when I have to leave. It was great to see them and eat amazing American food.
Another perk of living in the mission home area - sometimes the mission president comes with you on pday activities, like today. We went to this little pueblo way up in the mountains. We were going to do a little hiking as well, but did not have time. But President and Sister Jackson, the Chappels (senior office couple), and the 9 missionaries from Alcobendas all went. Super fun pday.
This week has been a great week of improvement for me. Following some zone and personal goals, leading lessons, being on the phone a lot more, and being more confident with myself have all really helped. This past week I have really noticed how much I have learned (both Spanish and spiritually) in a short time. I am very grateful for the opportunity to serve a mission.
Also, on a random note, I keep forgetting to tell you this, but my companion is an awesome singer and has a song on iTunes. You should go look it up. It´s called Arise, by Rylee Haviland Clement.
Love you all so much!
Hermana Bingham
pics:
1. our bishop gave us kindle eggs with princesses inside
2. lunch with Toni
3. some of the weird, but good, food I ate
4. the beautiful Easter table at the Jacksons (sorry I did not take one with people in it..)
5. delicious food with Nancy and Roger
7. pretty view from today
8. the cool pueblo
9. the sisters! (This photo did not make it with Hilary's email. Hopefully she will send it next week.)
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