Hastening the Work in the Argentina Mendoza Mission : 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