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