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

June 28, 2015

Dearest family and friends,

Talofa lava! It's been another busy week in the mission field. Not too much has happened this week, but Sister Delim and I have still managed to stay fairly busy.

Libby is doing pretty well. We taught her the plan of salvation this week with the Elders and it was really good. The spirit was definitely there! She has the most genuine testimony in the Book of Mormon and the prophet Joseph Smith. It's so inspiring!

Felicity is doing pretty good as well. Our biggest concern with her at the moment is how to get her to church!! She didn't come again this Sunday, which was disappointing, but we will keep seeing her and do our best to get her to church so she can get baptised on the 25th!

We also finally caught up with our Hindu investigator, Stuti. We showed her and her husband the movie "Finding Faith in Christ". I like teaching her because we are helping her build a Christian foundation, whereas most people that we get to teach already have that, so it's something new and exciting!

We haven't taught Nova and Alex this week because Nova has been sick. This weather kinda stinks because nobody wants to go out and do anything since it's so cold, but it's alright because we keep going hard in the winter!

This week we also had zone conference. I always love meetings like that because it gives me a chance to take a step back and evaluate myself and decide what I can do better. Sister Delim and I both feel like we want to continue to help all the people we are already working with, but also focus on working really hard to keep finding new people. That can be hard here just because of the cultures and attitudes of many people, but we know that if we try our best that the Lord will provide!

Last thing for this week that's really sad. I am coming up on my year mark this week on Thursday. I really don't know where the time has gone! I remember in zone conference one of the things that was mentioned was when Jacob labored seven years for Rachel and the seven years seemed like just a few days because of the love that he had for her. I feel like my mission has been like that so far. Honestly some days it feels like the sun will never go down, but others go by way too fast when I am doing my best to work hard and lose myself in the work. Being a missionary is one of the hardest and best things ever. I have learned so much about myself and grown in so many different ways. I am so grateful for my Savior and the patience and love that He has for me. God could have chosen anyone he wanted to be His missionaries and He chose me! That is something that I will always be grateful for! The gospel is true!

 

Love yous heaps!

Sister Bingham

 

1. us teaching Libby at the library this week with the Elders

June 21, 2015

Dear family and friends,

This week has been pretty good! A few ups and downs, but a good week overall.

Nova and Alex are still looking really great for their baptism on July 25. We found out this week that Alex actually has his own place, so they won't have to rush everything to get married first before they get baptized! Nova is awesome! She is really determined to turn her life around and really wants to be baptized as soon as possible. She is also still helping Alex to cut down on smoking and drinking coffee which is really awesome of her!

Libby is doing great as well! Sister Delim and I got to teach her about the Restoration this week. It's so crazy because she seriously doesn't have hardly any understanding about the Bible, but her testimony about the Book of Mormon is so amazing! She has been through heaps of bad stuff throughout her life so far and the gospel has been able to touch her and make her a better, much happier person! We set a baptismal date for her for July 11 and she was so excited! I can't wait for her baptism!

Felicity is also doing well. We taught her about the Plan of Salvation and the Gospel of Jesus Christ this week. She's so cute! When we were teaching her about the Plan of Salvation she started asking about her baptism and if we could move it back a couple weeks because she didn't feel like she would be ready by July 4, so we moved her date back to July 25, which is fine because now we will only have to go over there once a week instead of twice.

I FINALLY got to see the Meet the Mormons movie yesterday!! It was awesome and really uplifting! I def cried during it...

Last thing for this week. My companion is seriously really great! I for sure have a testimony that there is a reason why we were put together. This week she was able to help me realize that sometimes I have a tendency to be a bit hard on myself. I have always been that way and have always had really high expectations of myself, but I was able to realize this week that sometimes that isn't very healthy. Lucky for me though I am in the best position being on a mission to be able to work on it. I love the gospel and I love my Savior. The church is true!

 

Love yous heaps!

Sister Bingham

 

1. we went to the city for p-day last week and went into a really pretty Cathedral

June 14, 2015

Talofa lava!

I will apologize in advance, this email might be a bit long this week, BUT that's because we had a smashing week! So many miracles here in Glenroy!!! :D

We did two different services this week. One was cleaning up a yard for a part member family's house. The only unfortunate thing about it though was that the mum made the Elders do all the outside work and then she dragged us in to do the 'women's work'... I hate that term, but it was all goods cause we got to help her make a really good feed for all of us. The other service we did was for an old Italian lady Sister Delim and I met on my first day here in Glenroy. We saw her outside doing some gardening and she accepted our offer to let us back to help her. Italians know how to maintain their gardens really well so there wasn't really much for us to do, but we gave her our number and she said she would call the next time she has some more service for us!

We picked up a few new investigators this week. One of the most promising is Felicity, a nine year old girl of a recent convert, Marie. We found her in our area book because the Sisters have taught her and her sister before, but they weren't able to get baptised at the time because their father intervened, but Marie told us she doesn't plan on telling him this time, so hopefully everything will be able to work out!

Nova and Alex are doing pretty great! We taught them this week about the Word of Wisdom and the law of chastity. Nova already gave up smoking and she doesn't have issues with anything else. Alex just has to work on quitting smoking and drinking coffee. We also challenged Nova to pray about if she and Alex should be married so that they can get baptised, which we plan on following up with this week. It will take a lot of work for us to help both of them get baptised on July 25, but we're going to do all that we can!

Biggest miracle of my entire mission happened yesterday. During Sunday School there was a new girl, Libby, in the YSA class. None of us really thought much of it because we all assumed at first that she was just a visitor from the other ward. At the end of class we had her introduce herself and found out that she isn't even a member, she just wandered into the chapel. Us missionaries kept talking to her after class and found out that she grew up Baptist, went Buddhist for three years, and through a couple life experiences heard about our church and decided to read the Book of Mormon online. As she read the Book of Mormon her life began to change and she was the happiest she had ever been in her life, not because of any outside circumstances, but just because of the spirit and power that comes from reading the Book of Mormon and changing your life for the better. The more she read, the more her testimony of the Book of Mormon began to grow, until she finally decided to find a church and see what it was all about. Seriously it is just about never that someone wanders into the chapel on a Sunday and tells you that they have already read the Book of Mormon and know it is true!!!!! I can already tell that Libby is going to be one of the best converts ever!

I am so happy to be in Glenroy right now. Seriously I have never had the work so promising in my entire mission! We have twice as many potentials for baptism this next month than I have had the whole span of my mission so far. July is going to be the best month ever! AND I will be here for the whole month with Sister Delim for this next transfer! I've never been so pumped with the progress of the work! THE CHURCH IS TRUE!!!!!

 

Love yous heaps!

Sister Bingham

 

1. Most of the Craigieburn zone

2. doing our gardening service :)

3. our ward mission leader made us and the Elders halo halo (Filipino dessert)

4. Sister Delim and I with the Glenroy Elders and brother Brown, the ward mission leader

June 7, 2015

Talofa!!

This week was seriously SO amazing! Heaps of miracles!!

On Wednesday Sister Delim and I taught Stuti, an Indian Hindu lady. She is interested to learn about Christianity and hopefully she will be coming to church on Sunday.

On Thursday we got a referral from our zone leaders. A former investigator, Jenny, called them and wanted the missionaries to stop by again. Sister Delim and I went through our area book and found her. She is an old, stubborn woman who just wants people to visit her and keep her company, but we went and visited her anyway. When we got there it was just the situation that I expected with her, but she had a South African man, Solomon, there cleaning for her. He has a lot of potential so we decided to keep visiting Jenny so we can teach Solomon. :)

Also on Thursday night we had dinner with an investigator couple, Nova and Alex. Nova is half Spanish half African American and she grew up in the Philippines. Alex is Aussie. It was really funny because Nova said that she would cook us some traditional Filipino food, which I was really excited to try, but then when we showed up she gave Sister Delim a plate of Filipino food and then handed me a plate of chicken nuggets and chips (fries) hahaha! We taught them about the Restoration that night too and it went really well. The BIG MIRACLE happened with them on Saturday. They gave us a call in the evening and Nova started telling Sister Delim that that morning she and Alex started feeling that they want to get baptised!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It is such an amazing miracle for them and us! We have set a date for them for July 25th for now, right before the next transfer after the one in a week, so we are hoping that neither of us get transferred so we can work hard to help them get baptised! :)

Saturday we had a couple youth come out with us for the whole day on a bit of a mini mission. They got to experience what it is really like to be a missionary and grow in their testimonies. It was a really great experience!

I think that's all the major stuff for this week. I am really enjoying Glenroy and I love being with Sister Delim! We get along so well, which is why I think the work is accelerating so quickly with us right now!

Love yous!

Sister Bingham

1. We digress a bit during our weekly planning...

2. buffet lunch with the Papali'i family (their girls are the ones who came out with us on Saturday)

3. We have the best comp unity :)

May 31, 2015

Dear family and friends,

My apologies for not writing yous last week. I can explain. Last Thursday Sister Dere and I got a call from President Maxwell telling us that he needed to move me, even though it is only half way through the transfer. I was pretty sad to leave Griffith, but ready to move on at the same time. They had a situation down here where they needed to get a sister who can drive, so President decided to transfer me. That weekend I said all my last goodbyes to everyone in Griffith, and then Monday right after I finally got to Skype my family we drove down to Shepparton where we were having our zone p-day to meet my new companion.

So my new companion is Sister Delim. She came out the same transfer as Sister Tuhod and Sister Dere, she is from the Phillippines, she is 23 and only 4' 11'', and she's a total crack up! We've only been together for a week now, but it already feels like we've been best friends for ages. I love it! :)

Our area is Glenroy, right next to the Melbourne airport. And NO they did not move me here because I am almost going home! I still have over six months. That's ages! :)

Glenroy is a fun area so far! The ward is about half Samoan, half palagi (pronounced bahlangee) so I'm happy that I still get to be around islanders. Legit I feel weird now visiting members that aren't islander. I just feel so comfortable around them now.

We have the option of walking, biking, training, or taking the car. It's pretty great! This week we even rode our bikes for a day because we were staying close, but I must say it is a VERY difficult task to accomplish in a skirt! I think the whole day I was pedalling really slow holding the handlebars with one hand and trying to keep my skirt down with the other haha! But it was still a fun experience. Glenroy is also great because there are heaps of suburbs that we cover that we can go tracting, and there's also a few really great shopping areas/train stations that we can GQ.

We have a few investigators that we are working with at the moment, but not heaps. I think the biggest downside of being in Glenroy is that people are always really busy with work or school or family. Our most progressing investigator at the moment is Stephanie. She is Sri Lankan and from a part member family. We were able to stop by and see her briefly this week and answer some questions she had about the Great Apostasy. We are trying to prepare her for baptism on June 27, so we are hoping that everything will work out for that.

That's about all the change/news for this week. Love yous heaps and I hope you have an amazing week! The gospel is true!!!

 

Sister Bingham

 

1. my old district in Griffith

2. Sister Tia taught us how to make cocoa Samoa!!

3. This is our favourite ysa Anome. She came out with us heaps because she is preparing to serve her mission when she turns 19.

4. The Tamala's, the Tia's, and the Saipele's

5. Sister Delim and I at President Maxwell's birthday party this week

6. Sister Delim and I at a park in Moone Ponds

May 24, 2015

Maegan did not email today because we were able to skype with her today!  She waited a couple weeks after mother's day so that Grandma Angle, Kelsey and Isaac would all be here when we talked to her.  It was great.  She looks happy and sounds Australian!  She is being transferred to Glenroy, VIC.  Back to the city, near the Melbourne Airport.  We are looking forward to her email next week that will hopefully tell us more about her new area and companion.