A Week of Learning‏

Family and Friends,

First off, I want to say congrats to Kelsey and Isaac! I just found out I am going to be an aunt to a cute little niece!! I am excited.

I am not even sure how to express everything from this week, but it has definitely been one of learning for me. First of all, we had intercambios. I stayed in Alcobendas - Hermana Cabrera came. I learned a lot. First of all, Hermana Cabrera doesn´t speak much English so we spoke Spanish the whole time. And actually being in charge of an area helped me learn the importance of planning every little detail correctly, leading lessons and contacting with someone new as a companion. It is hard to explain, but it was a great experience. We also had zone conference on Friday (with all the zones in the Madrid area). The AP´s (Elder Ridd and Gentry) taught about the 5 covenants we make as members and as missionaries, we made another by accepting our call. We discussed what we must do and the great blessing the Lord promises us. President Jackson talked about the agents verse objects concept that we discussed in the iPad training recently. He gave lots of examples in our lives and in the scriptures (such as the liahona) when a simple object becomes a wonderful tool that brings miracles when there is an agent (us) to use it. Something he said that I love is ´´Conviction is worthless unless converted into conduct.´´ Actually acting on our decisions, faith, committments, goals, etc is a huge part of really living the gospel and becoming the person we have the potential to become. Hermana Jackson talked about boldness - it is necessary in each step of missionary work. I loved how she shared the example of Peter - who denied Christ, starting off not bold, but later in his life preached of Christ and died doing so. I suggest reading the story of Peter again, it is awesome! We also had a great lesson at the ward FHE by Cristina. She taught the plan of salvation and focused a lot on why we live where we live, have the parents we have, friends we have, and our purpose here. It was really interesting. It really made me think about how much I take for granted growing up in a home with the gospel (thanks mom and dad!) and how blessed I am with this, education, family, friends, etc. Cristina said something cool that I liked ´´Coincidences are anonymous miracles of God.´´ I know that was a crazy long paragraph, and I still didn´t explain half of my thoughts/things I learned this week. I am very grateful for the opportunity to learn so much from the Spirit. I am here to teach others, but in turn increase my knowlege and understanding so much.

As far as investigator updates go:

Karen, David (8), Alison (6) -  still doing great!!, Karen is super excited for her baptism THIS SATURDAY!, she still wants David to be older before he is baptized when he understands more of the committment he is making, David and Alison always want to pray and talk about being baptized and being missionaries like us, I love them tons!!

David - a man we have met with twice now, he is super intelligent, read all of 1 Nefi by the time we met with him the second time - about a week, he has been to church, has real desire to learn more

Ricardo and daughters Sofia and Stefy - awesome family, also very smart, have a baptismal date now, working on getting them to church Sundays, but doing well

I do not have exciting updates on the rest of the people we visit, but still working hard on teaching them and helping them in whatever ways we can.

The new senior couple is in the office now - the Larsens. I miss the Chappels a lot, but the Larsens are great too. We had a lesson where we needed a women to enter the home and found out 20 min before we needed someone. Hermana Larsen came and saved us! Elder Larsen went for a walk during it then came back with muffins for us. They are super cute and helpful. I am excited to have them here. Having a senior couple in the area is a huge blessing.

Hope you all have had a great week!

Love,

Hermana Bingham

1 - with Hermana Clements and Hermana Larsen

2 - at FHE with Simon and Mercedes and our ward mission leader Andy