July 26, 2015

Dearest Family and Friends,

What an amazing week it has been!! Biggest miracle of the week... Nova and Libby both got baptized!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I was so happy to be a part of both of their conversions! We had a great time at both their baptism and confirmations and the spirit was SO strong! I feel comfortable leaving them in the hands of the Glenroy ward now because they are all awesome and I know they will take care of them so well! Right now Nova and Alex are planning on getting married by the end of the year and Nova continues to scold Alex every time he goes for a smoke, haha! Libby is also doing well with her changes and even said that she might want to get married in the temple someday. To a man!! I am going to miss them, as well as the Glenroy ward! I definitely left a piece of my heart with all of them!

Next bit of news for the week, I got to see Chris and Julie who are here to pick up Elder Cook. I have to admit, it is really weird to see family members as a missionary, but I'm doing pretty good with it all. We are hoping to go for dinner tonight and then I will see them all tomorrow at transfer meeting to say goodbye.

Which brings me to one of the most exciting things for this week......................

I'M GETTING TRANSFERRED TO TASMANIA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So yesterday Sister Delim and I forgot the phone at our flat and when we got back home we had four missed calls from the office. We called back and Sister Linder started talking to me about my flight to Tasmania. A little confused, I asked her what was going on. She explained that I was getting transferred to Launceston and that I will be flying out on Wednesday morning, so they were organizing everything for that day. My emotions overcame me and I started crying. I will be going to my fifth, and most likely last area back to the promised land, only three hours away from Glen Huon. AND it is very likely that I will be re-united with my daughter, Sister Tuhod there! I hope and pray as well that I will be able to visit Glen Huon at some point in time that I am there and get to see all the amazing people that I love so dearly!

God is real and He answers prayers! I know the church is true and I can't wait to GO HARD in the very land of miracles, Tasmania!!

Love yous heaps!

Sister Bingham

1. Dinner with our favourite neighbors!

2. Nova and Elizabeth's baptism

3. the family

July 13, 2015

Dear family and friends,

What can I say about this week... This week has got to have been the craziest week on my mission.

It started off pretty good last Monday when we went for a Sister's P-day to this random park that had kangaroos hopping around. Then Tuesday we did some service with the Elders for a less active member. We completely transformed her front yard in two hours. It was pretty legit. Then Wednesday we had zone meeting, taught Stephanie a really good Plan of Salvation/ Gospel of Jesus Christ lesson and she accepted the invitation to be baptized when she knows everything is true, and then we caught up with our investigators Stephanie and Sunny briefly as well. Thursday we had zone interviews and afterwards talking with my companion I realized that I really am just SO emotionally exhausted right now! Friday an incident happened that I can't really go into detail about any farther than saying that we live in a dodgy area and Sister Delim and I ended up going to stay the night in the mission home. Saturday we were allowed to go back to Glenroy to teach Nova and Alex with the Elders and have them give her a priesthood blessing for her back injury and that everything can go more smoothly for her to be able to be baptized on the 25th. She has such a strong desire, but everything seems to be trying to stop her from getting all the lessons and coming to church on time. After that we went and packed up our flat and moved an hour away from our area. Because Nova is getting baptized on the 25th and transfers are on the 28th, President is allowing us to teach and baptize Nova, but other than that we really won't be in Glenroy for the next two weeks. Luckily we aren't officially ET-ed, but for sure they will be doubling us out at transfer time.

So yeah... That was pretty much our week. Pretty crazy and now we have to drive HEAPS. But hopefully everything will begin to settle down soon.

I love all of yous!

Love,

Sister Bingham

July 5, 2015

Dear family and friends,

Talofa lava!

Our week here has been interesting. Starting off with Libby. So she told us this week that she is gay. Needless to say that has postponed her baptism for a while. It's the first time I've really had to deal with something like that on my mission. Ironic as well that it happened the same time that gay marriage was legalized in America. It is hard because I know that she has a strong testimony of the gospel and that she really has the desire to be baptized, but now she will have to choose between accepting the gospel fully and leaving that behind her or staying the same and not being able to be baptized. I really feel for her right now and I know that whatever decision she makes it will not be easy.

Nova and Alex are doing pretty good. They didn't come to church yesterday and we're not quite sure why, but Nova is still really excited for her baptism. The only thing we need to do right now is teach her all the lessons and get her interviewed before the 25th.

We're not really sure what to do with Felicity at the moment. She likes meeting with us, but she does not want to come to church because she says it's boring. Haha! Typical nine-year-old! Maybe it's just not her time yet. But it's good because she has her mother to help her along the way so that eventually she might have a stronger desire to come to church and be baptized.

We finally met up with Stephanie this week. Her dad, who is the only member of their family, just got back from Sri Lanka so they invited us to come over one night. She is also on school holidays at the moment so we are hoping that we will be able to teach her more this week. We also met her house mate Sunny. She is twenty (only two days older than me!) and from India. Her family's religion is sikh, but she said she isn't really practicing right now. We got her number and hopefully will be able to meet up with her this week also.

Last fun thing from this week. So we have the most amazing neighbor ever at our flat. Her name is Colleen and she has lived next to the missionaries for about three years. She is a born again Christian and she invited us to come to a youth ministry on Saturday night with her. Sister Delim and I didn't have any plans yet, so we decided to check it out. I will say that I respect their way of worship because growing up as a dancer I truly believe that dance can be a form of worship, and for born again's their form of worship is singing songs, clapping hands, and jumping up and down. However, I also feel that such forms of worship should not take place of a quiet, peaceful, reverent church service where the Spirit can truly be present. But overall it was a good experience!

Hope yous have a good week and enjoy your sun!

Love yous heaps!

Sister Bingham

1. Colleen and I with our s'mores

2. My year mark

3. we found this place with a really pretty view while tracting