I'm back in the field!

Dear family: 

I CAN'T BELIEVE THAT PEOPLE HAVE SEEN STARWARS ALREADY! I'm just here in Argentina wondering what the heck is going on. I have many ganas to see it. I'm going to make one rule though: ABSOLUTELY NO SPOILERS FROM ANYBODY. I can't know anything. Anyway though, how were your weeks? Everyone's on Christmas break now I guess! That's exciting. I think we've almost got our skype worked out here... I think I'm going to try and skype you guys at around 1 o'clock here which should be about 9 over there. So... I'm excited to see you guys! I'll talk to ya'll on Friday. 

So this week was very interesting! I don't know if everyone knows yet but I am officially back out in the mission field again! I got special transferred out of the office. There's been a lot of missionaries that have gone home this transfer, so President Goates needed some extra missionaries in the field. Me and Elder Benedict have gotten basically everything taught to our hijos, so President pulled us out early. I was kind of really sad and really excited at the same time. It stinks because now I don't get to spend Christmas in the office, which was going to be super dope. I was going to be in a pension with 8 other guys hanging out on Christmas, we were going to go eat breakfast at President's house, and I had the office to do my skype. Well, not anymore. But it's kind of cool being out of the office! It's kind of like starting the mission all over again except you don't have 2 years left to go and you already know the language. So you're just left with all the excitement in the world! It's brilliant!

So to tell you guys about the area: I'm in this barrio in Lujan de Cuyo. It's still in Godoy Cruz, so I'm in the same stake as before. It's a little far away, but I'm still close. I'm in an apartment with 3 other elders. My comp is Elder Gray, who has 19 months in the mission, and he's from New Hampshire. I'm filling in for his comp that just went home early. Then there's Elder Lillie and Elder Johnson, who have the other half of the area. They basically have all of Lujan itself, while me and Elder Gray have a little tiny part and this other part that's really far away called Perdriel that we have to always take a bus to. It's a super great ward though. It's probably one of the largest wards in the mission, about 100ish people. I think I'm going to enjoy this area a lot. We've got a decent amount of people to teach right now even, so we're pretty good. 

So I should still be spending Christmas pretty well! Tomorrow we've got our mission christmas party, and I'm going to be with at least more than just my companion on Christmas, so we should have fun. Plus (this is for Dad) Elder Gray has his own Dominion cards, so I think we'll be playing that on Christmas when we can't leave the pension :D

Basically, I'm just way happy to be out in the field again! Christmas miracles people! I'll talk to you all soon!

Elder Bingham

Here's our Harry Potter closet. Luckily nobody lived in here, cause it smells awful and there's obviously no room for a bed. But I have showered, pooped, and shaved all at the same time in there. Quite a feat

I doubt any of you have ever seen a man carrying meat on a bicycle before like this.

This picture is pretty much the coolest picture I've ever seen with the two coolest people ever. 

Best of luck to our hijo. We actually aren't sure who was the mother, 

because they were both my comp right before my hijo came. 

Things I had to take pictures of: Our pension. We have this giant collection of cereal boxes. One time I was asked a very thoughtful question: Would I rather be able to Skype my family 3 times a year instead of 2? Or have all those cereal boxes be full right that moment? I'll be honest... I answered the latter. 

Just the kind of cash I'm whipping out to pay for the Christmas party. Not a huge deal. 

I think I found a picture of our mission president! His name's Kevin as well! :D 

Well, it's actually just a brand of cologne down here. Kevin. 

SPECIAL TRANSFERS!!!

Surprise phone call from President today! We've had about a million and a half missionaries go home early this transfer for various reasons, and he needed some people to fill their spots. Well, he decided to pull me and Elder Benedict out from the office early and leave our hijos by themselves. I'm headed out to the campo again! I was kind of really sad it had to be right before Christmas, cause I really wanted to be here in the offices for it. But oh well, it should be good. Basically I was just writing you guys to let you know I won't be writing until Monday. I'm staying here pretty close though, I'm still in Godoy Cruz. It's this area called Lujan de Cuyo. The only thing I know about it is that it's a really cool ward in the middle of nowhere. Giant area out in the campo. 

Well, that's it! Love you all! :D

Elder Bingham

Random pictures we got this week

The colectivos we ride

The terminal

The ditches next to all the roads

It's Christmas time!

Hey guys! Sounds like a crazy week over there.... Gymnastics meets and choir concerts, decorating for Christmas... Blah. I've actually got to start helping prepare a Christmas party for the entire mission coming here soon... Speaking of Christmas. So that's fun. But I'm way excited for Christmas. We're already coming up on our third skype session! I'm excited. It should be pretty easy to do here from the offices.. And we probably won't have to worry about Internet problems, probably. 

And Jayson got invited to sing in Singers? That's cool. I suppose that means he sings pretty good. I personally never felt like doing that much choir, but it'd be way cool if he did! 

So first of all, I finally had Thanksgiving! Like last Sunday, but it was AMAZING! The Warners know how to make a really good Thanksgiving dinner. They even found turkey! And it was delicious. I have never enjoyed turkey more in my life, cause we don't eat it here! And then we had some mashed potatoes, stuffing, salad, fruit salad, and some homemade rolls from Elder Benedict. And then IMMEDIATELY after eating dinner and stuffing ourselves completely we ate the pie. Elder Cahoon made apple, Elder Hollis made pecan except with walnuts cause there aren't pecans here, one hermana made a sweet potato pie, Elder Ruesch made a trifle kind of thing, and I made 2 peanut butter pies. I'm pleased to say that my pies blew away the competition. They were INCREDIBLE. The problem was we didn't give ourselves any time at all to digest the dinner we just ate, and after eating my pie and a piece of the apple I was about ready to die. As was everyone else. But I am proud to say that everyone there ate a piece of my pie, and my 2 pies were gone before about half of any of the other ones were. I call that a win. 

So we're now in December! And we're coming up on Christmas! Have you all seen the new video from the church? I think it's "A Savior is Born" in English. Great video... We're working on sharing that message as a mission right now. I haven't gotten to do a lot with it yet personally, but we're working on it. And here in the offices right now we're just getting ready for the upcoming Christmas parties. We're splitting the mission into two days, cause there's 200 of us. We get to go to both, cause we're kind of the ones throwing the whole thing. The parties are on the 22 and the 23, so we've got a little while at least. I still don't know what we're doing yet though. Guess I'll find out here soon. 

And we had zone conference yesterday! It was one of my most favorite zone conferences, especially the training that President gave. First he told us something that I thought was very interesting. President believes, and all the leaders of the mission, stake and district presidents, and even Elder Soares that just came to our mission, unanimously agree that our mission has some of the most obedient and diligent missionaries that have been seen in awhile. And because of that, instead of talking about obedience and dropping cane on us about not being obedient this zone conference, we talked about something else: gratitude! President talked about having a better attitude in everything we do. With everything that happens to us, we either have the choice to laugh about it or to let it annoy us. So why let it annoy us? And so he challenged us as a mission to look for more blessings in our lives every day and to be more positive. In that way we can increase the faith and hope we have as a mission to acheive our goals. It was a pretty cool conference. 

That's about it for this week! It was great to hear from all you guys. Have a great week!

Elder Bingham

The meal! Delicious. 

Us enjoying the meal.

My peanut butter pie!

Me enjoying my peanut butter pie.

This is what we looked like after we were done eating..... 

I ate so much I thought I was going to explode out of my belly button pero en serio

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Everything looked way great! Especially all those 19 pies... I miss those good old Bingham Thanksgivings. Please write down all of the best ones so we can make them next Thanksgiving. Glad everyone had fun in California as well. I think I'd be down for going to Star Wars land some day in my life. 

I actually haven't celebrated Thanksgiving yet... It's kind of difficult to actually do it on a Thursday when you're a missionary. So we're doing it tomorrow, when we usually have dinner with the Warners. I'm pretty dang excited... It should be pretty big. We've got all 9 of us office elders, the Warners, and 4 of the nearby Hermanas coming. I'm going to be attempting to make 2 peanut butter pies, because my bottle of Jif peanut butter that Mom sent me should be exactly enough to make 2. So... Might as well right? Anyway, should be pretty good. The Warners are even going to get turkey, which is like the most expensive kind of meat there is down here besides fish. I'm going to love this holiday season in the office. 

So... This week was pretty great! We were pretty busy this week. It was just the usual kind of work we get, nothing too exciting, but it kept us pretty busy this week. I taught Elder Oveson stuff, we went to the bank and took out a lot of money to pay for things, starting to make our rent payments, blah... Yep. The usual. Elder Oveson's doing way well though... He's learning everything I teach him without a problem. I'll be pretty useless here in a week or two. I really tested him this week though... I had to make a trip to San Luis again with Elder Romero and Elder Benedict. That meant I left Elder Oveson by himself for a day to do work. And he managed just fine! I had to go up to San Luis to make some giant payments for some apartments we were opening up/closing. Elder Benedict had to go to do some legality work again. It was a way fun trip again. I fear I won't have many more of them though.

I'll actually be a real missionary again here soon though, so it's ok :) It's just sad I probably won't be with Elder Benedict and Romero anymore. We're like best friends here... I'll just tell you now that you will probably be seeing Elder Benedict and Romero after the mission. We'll get Elder Romero up here from El Salvador somehow. :D 

Interesting thing I've learned here especially this week, but it's been something I've been learning the whole time I've been in the offices. Sometimes, when you've got a lot of work to do, you make decisions, sometimes poorly, but you make them. And when you make poor decisions, or decisions that the Lord wouldn't want you to make, things don't always end up very well. But when we're obedient, and do his work in the exact way he wants us to, then things will always end up ok! Cause he knows exactly what needs to be done to get his work done. So just follow his lead. :D

Well, I'm going to get off now, cause I've got to go buy stuff to make pies! And I think the grocery store closes here soon, so I'm going to scramble. Happy week!

Elder Bingham

San Luis trip again! 

Happy Thanksgiving! I'm grateful for money. Oh, and my hijo.

We spent Thanksgiving lunch at Burger King. Dope.

Doing work. 

So... We found out the other day that Elder Hollis is an EXTREMELY deep sleeper. One minute I saw him talking to us downstairs, the next minute I saw him sitting like this on his bed sleeping. Like literally... 10-15 minutes. And after much doing funny things with him he woke up screaming at Elder Benedict, who was suddenly right next to him as soon as he woke up. And then 5 minutes later he was back to sleep, just as hard. And he didn't remember anything the next morning. It was HILARIOUS. 

Mi Hijo! And a visit from a General Authority. Dope.

Hello everyone! Happy Fall Break! Sounds like you're having fun at Disneyland. I'm jealous pero mal. Congrats to Jayson on the Sadie's date and also the ACT... Killing it over there. I'm glad to hear everyone's doing well. 

So... This week was hectic. It really started on Saturday night, as soon as we got transfers. Transfers were really WEIRD this transfer, I thought. First of all, I've got an hijo in the office! His name is Elder Oveson, from West Valley City, Utah. He's got two transfers less than me in the mission, he's super cool, and he's learning his job really well already. I'm teaching him how to do reimbursements and make checks and stuff, and he's handling it really well. Elder Benedict also has an hijo, his name is Elder Ruesch. He's got the same amount of time as Elder Benedict on the mission, which is weird, because that means Elder Ruesch will leave the office with only two transfers left in his mission. It's sort of weird, but it's fine I suppose. Elder Romero also has an hijo, which is the WEIRDEST one. Get this: Elder Romero's hijo is his DAD. Or his trainer, I guess you could say. His name is Elder Yalta, from Perú. He's got the same amount of time as Elder Benedict and Ruesch, but he just came from being zone leader to the office, and plus he's ROMERO'S dad. Also Elder Solomon finally left the office... Sadly. He's replaced by Elder Hollis, the tall skinny guy with brown hair that might be in some of my recent photos. I'm actually in a trio right now with him and Elder Oveson. It's kind of sad I'm not comps with either Romero or Benedict anymore, cause they're like my best friends in the mission, and I was comps with both, but it's my time to get out of here I suppose. It'll be fun. 

So... The craziness started Monday night. All the missionaries from all the far away zones came to Mendoza in buses and we had to rent hotels for them. We had to put the Hermanas in one hotel, and the Elders in another, from BOTH faraway zones. It was chaos... I was speeding (but not really) all over Mendoza Centro making sure all the missionaries got to their hotels with all their baggage. Cause we decided to do transfers on the same day as the meeting with the Genral Authority, meaning all transfers were going to happen after the meeting. I was literally outside of the office until 11:30, and when we came back we had to make sure all the missionaries going home had their documents and things they needed, which kept us in the office until 12:30, and then we made it home. It was CHAOTIC. 

The next day went well though. I prayed really hard that everything would, and God answered my prayer. It was still SUPER stressful, but it went well. We made sure everyone got to the airport and the stake center where the meeting was that morning, and then we had a DOPE meeting with Elder Teixeira from the Area Presidency and President Soares of the Presidency of the Seventy. Elder Soares basically talked to all of us about making goals and how we can actually accomplish them. Our mission has kind of struggled with acheiving our weekly goals, but he taught us well how we can actually accomplish them. I loved it... I'm trying to do my weekly planning here better in the office now as a result, because I don't really plan much here. We just kind of deal with whatever gets thrown at us during the day usually. Anyway though, it was awesome. I was also invited to sing a special musical number at the beginning of the meeting with some other missionaries. We sang a medley of "Be Still my Soul" and "Savior Redeemer of My Soul," translated into Spanish by some brilliant Hermanas, accompanied by the violin and piano by some other super brilliant Hermanas, all thrown together in less than 24 hours. I also basically made up the bass part by myself, cause it was needed, and the Hermanas didn't know how to. So I did, and it was awesome.

Also... The day later we got to watch an Area Broadcast to all the leaders in Argentina, presided by Elder Cook with Elder Soares and the Area Presidency attending. It was also very awesome... It basically focused on doing ward councils and how we should do them, with some cool plans that the Area is making for everyone in Argentina. Elder Cook bore a really powerful testimony at the end that was incredible.  

So... A pretty good week all in all. This week I'm going to just keep focusing on teaching Elder Oveson everything I know. He's a capo. He'll do well. I'm ready to go kick butt in the field again. But I'm checking out now... Have a great week everyone! 😁

So... I got attacked by a tiger last Saturday. It suddenly appeared in the middle of our soccer game and it made me mad so I had to fight it. It got swipe at my face, breaking my glasses, giving me a black eye, and giving me a nice scrape, but in the end I killed it. Actually that's all a lie... I just got hit in the face with a soccer ball. The broken glasses scraped my face. But, I fixed the glasses! Argentines have pretty amazing super glue.

Last pic with my office staff... Elder Solomon left this week.

I payed for a carwash for Jesucristo.... Pretty cool. I guess the guy didn't know how to write my name that he saw on my plaque, so he just wrote Jesus instead.

Just lining up for the photo with Elder Soares and Teixeira!

Photo with Elder Soares! I'm on the stage in the middle. 

Family Home Evening in my new ward! President transferred me from my ward in Godoy Cruz to be with my two new comps, Elder Oveson and Elder Hollis. It's called Trapiche! We share the ward with these Hermanas and the Warners. It's pretty awesome. There's Elder Hollis on the left, and Elder Oveson in the middle.

Busting Crime

Hello everyone! How were your weeks? Mine was okay. I'll tell you about it in a sec. So... It's cool that you guys are headed off to Disneyland this week! You know how I like pics... So make sure to take some! Also I want to hear a little bit more about this show that Charlie is in! Sounds cool. I'd like to hear about that as well. :)

Can I just say I'm way glad that Thanksgiving isn't this week? Thanks for the pie recipes by the way, but if I had to make those pies this week I'd die. :P This next week is going to be crazy busy. Lemme explain. No. It's too much. Lemme sum up. So like a year ago when Elder Christofferson came to our mission? Well that's basically happening again this year, on Tuesday next week. We've got Elder Soares from the Presidency of the Seventy and Elder Teixeira from the Area Presidency coming to visit us. This sounds great! I'm way excited actually. We as the office are a little stressed cause we have to make sure everything runs smoothly and stuff, but there's just one other problem: Tuesday, the day they come, is also TRANSFER DAY. What does this mean? Normally on transfer day any missionary that's switching areas will just take a bus to their new area while their old companion stays with other missionaries. But this transfer will be completely different, because the entire mission is coming to Mendoza! All 200 of us. So... We have to make sure that every missionary gets to Mendoza, and that every missionary leaving to a different area leaves with their luggage. We also have to rent hotels for people coming from far away areas to Mendoza. Also, before the meeting, we have to make sure that all the people going home make it to the airport on time with all their luggage. And we have to go get all the new missionaries that get there that day. So this week is going to be crazy! That was only a brief summary of what I get to do next week. I'm pretty sure I'm leaving a lot out.

So... You might be wondering how I busted crime this week. It's a long story, but it's basically the only thing I did this week. And I'm not sure if I'm supposed to be sharing this exactly, so I'll keep this very vague. If you guys want to know more you can talk to me over Skype on Christmas. I'll probably talk to you guys about it anyway, so don't worry. So... A while back, maybe a month ago, I was just doing my job, like normal. People send me things they need me to pay for, I pay for it. Well, I was doing my job one day, and someone sent me this receipt of something they had paid for, and I needed to reimburse them. Well, here in Argentina, many times the receipts you get from people are just a slip of paper that says whatever you bought or paid for and the amount in really crappy handwriting. The word we use here is "trucho," or fake basically. But many times that's the only kind of receipt that you can get, so we use them. Well I was getting these receipts from someone, and something seemed a little fishy to me. I wasn't sure what, but I decided to show the receipts that I had gotten to President. After much investigation, we decided that there was some fraud involved. These receipts were quite in fact "trucho," but like literally trucho. Like not real. Like this person was trying to steal from us. Upon further investigation, getting the Area Authorities involved, and actually interviewing the person involved, we found out we were right. In total this person had stolen about $6600 pesos from us, something like $715 dollars. Not too much when you think about the kind of money the church has, but still. For now, everything is out of my hands. The church/law has it under control now. But, it was an interesting experience all the same. Moral of the story: Don't steal from God. That includes tithing. Because God will have justice. One does not simply steal from God and get away with it. So don't try it. 

Anyway... If you have other questions you can ask me personally. 

Changing topics. So I'm finishing my third transfer in the offices, and what does that mean? I only have one more left. And what does THAT mean? That means next week I'm going to have a little financiero hijito! Or child. Yep... I'm training someone to take my place next week. I'll find out tonight probably who it is. It's crazy how fast time flies by here. And then in 6 more weeks I'm out of here! Into the field again. It's weird. 

So this is a really long letter. I'm out! Love you all!

-- 

Elder Bingham

First of all... Dogs are pretty disgusting here. Here's a good example.

And that's kind of a cool wine factory. 

Remember that green market pic from a few weeks ago? I liked this pic better... 

I couldn't seem to find the darn straw before we took the picture. 

Happy Argentine Mother's Day! We stormed the Goates' house to wish our Nanny Goates a happy Mother's Day.

 That was back in Octoberish...

All of us just chillin at the Goates' house. Well, I somehow didn't make it into the pic, but whatever. 

I think I was in need of some deodorant... We found this giant can though, so it worked out okay. 

Interviews...Aconcagua...Boredom...

Dear Family,

Sounds like this week was pretty good for everyone! I enjoyed the Halloween pics... Dad did well, although I think a Buddy the Elf costume would have looked a lot better on him. It's a shame you didn't wear that one. If you were wondering where I got that cow mask... We were walking through Walmart a weekish before Halloween and since it's Walmart, they had a nice little tiny Halloween part. And I just happened to find that cow mask! So it was a good Halloween for me. Plus Elder and Sister Warner bought us Halloween candy. It was the first Snickers bar I had had in a really long time... And plus I was at Aconcagua. So it was pretty great. By the way Dad... There is a nice lake on the way to Aconcagua. You COULD probably go fishing there if you wanted to. 

So... What has happened these last two weeks? Since I didn't really write anything last week. Well... I can't really remember what happened last week at all. It must have been a pretty boring week. Honestly the most exciting part was Aconcagua... The rest of the week I just did my job, which is like answering my cell phone and telling people how much money they have on their cards, and giving people money they need. That was what my job was like last week. And then we went to Aconcagua. I guess I'll tell you guys a little bit more about that trip. We left in a rented bus thing at 10 o'clock, and made the 2 1/2 hour drive up to Aconcagua. It was a beautiful drive, I decided to just post all the photos in my dropbox, so you guys can pull out the cool ones. We made it up there at around 1ish, and played around in the snow for a bit. I hadn't touched snow for like a year! As you can see in some of the photos, I literally embraced that opportunity. After a bit we went down a little ways to El Puente del Inca, this natural land bridge made out of this weirdly colored mineral rock that the Incas supposedly walked on. I think there are photos of that in the drop box as well. Then I bought a ton of cool souvenirs, because how could you not buy souvenirs while up at the tallest mountain in America? And then we made the drive back. It was way fun... I'd go back there someday if anyone at home is down. 

This week... We had interviews with President Goates on Monday! This one was one of my most favorite that I've had with him. It started off a little weird, he randomly told me this story about a returned missionary from our mission who was having job troubles at the moment because he yelled at his boss and got fired... And that conversation proceeded to advice about jobs, like not yelling at your bosses and stuff. It was interesting. Then we proceeded to talk about the only investigator me and Elder Benedict have right now, Ariel. It's been a little tricky to visit him lately, and I'm not sure why, cause we haven't even been super busy in the office lately. President gave me some useful advice on how we could help him. We've had Ariel for a really long time, and he hasn't progressed an awful lot. He has progressed, because he's reading the scriptures and praying and coming to church, although not every week consistently. But I wasn't sure if it was because he's just not progressing and we need to leave him, because his time will come later, or if it's because we're office elders and can't get out to proselyte like normal missionaries. But he gave me some useful advice there that we're going to try. And then lastly we talked about school again, because I've made a decision on that! I decided that the Lord isn't going to just tell me what to do, because that's not how he works. He wants us to make a decision first, and then if it's not a good one then he'll tell us otherwise. So I decided that I'm going to go to the Fall 2016 semester! Which means coming home a couple weeks early. But to me it sounded like the best option. The pros are higher than the cons, in my opinion. So I told President this, and we looked at the details, and we'll just say that my life is going to be super crazy when I come home. The earliest I can leave the mission is on August 25, a Thursday. I'll get home Friday, have the weekend, and then school starts on Monday. Crazy right? But even so I think it still sounds like a better option for me. So, we'll see if the Lord tells me otherwise. 

That was really the most exciting part of this week. I kind of got stuck in the office a little bit, because people left to go do work in far away parts of the mission, and not me, and we've got a new sick/injured person in the office. And when that happens, it means their companion can't leave to go to anything. His name is Elder Tejada, and he's got back problems right now and has to rest here in the office. So I got stuck here doing nothing a lot this week... It was really boring. But other than that I'm paying people's rent again. It's fun. 

I love you all though! I hope everyone has a good week!

Elder Bingham

The local Godoy Cruz Hermanas came and made Mexican food for lunch! There's like 3 Mexican sisters, so that helps. I like Mexican food. 

I made it out proselyting this week! We thought we'd take a picture to celebrate the moment.