August 9, 2015

Dearest family and friends,

This week will be a short email. So most of this week was spent trying to see people who either weren't home or were busy when we got there. Not super exciting, but it kept us busy...

We started on a service project as well that will probably keep us busy until I leave Devonport. So a couple weeks ago we got a referral from a member for a lady named Shirley. She knows the member pretty well and has come to church in the past. We went and met her a while back and she was pretty nice. She seemed like a very busy lady, especially for someone who doesn't work, so we asked if there was anything we could help with. She replied that we could help her clean up her house because it is a mess... And man was she right! So Friday Sister Zhang and I went and helped clean her kitchen. We spent two hours doing dishes, vacuuming the floor, and cleaning off the table. Next time we go back we are going to help her start going through one of her rooms that is filled with so much stuff that you can't even open the door all the way.

Probably the highlight of our week was finding. We were really blessed to find some great people who are willing to have us back. One of them is Wayne. We knocked on his door and he just happened to be home sick. We started talking and he told us that one of his good mates from high school is from our church and he is pretty keen to learn more. He also started talking about how he plays gridiron and is planning on moving to America next year to play college football. So we had a fun talk about football and I also told him to check out the Meet the Mormons movie because it shows the head coach of the Navy football team on it.

Even though this week was a bit slow, we had a lot of great things happen. I hope that Heavenly Father continues to bless us and help us get someone here progressing!

Love yous heaps!

Sister Bingham

1. The Tasman Sea!!

August 2, 2015

Dearest family and friends,

G'day from TAS!!!!!!! It feels so great to be back at home!! So a few updates from transfers. First off, my area that I am assigned to right now is Devonport! It is at the very north of the island and it is where the Spirit of Tasmania comes in every day (ferry from Melbourne). My comp is Sister Zhang (pronounced Jung) and she is from CHINA! She and her younger brother and her cousin are the ONLY members of the church in her whole family! She comes from a branch of five active members. I feel so blessed to get to be serving alongside her this next transfer. It is very rare that we get missionaries here assigned to speak English.

Well I have had a very COLD welcome back to Tassie. I'm pretty sure it has rained on us every day, and it even started snowing this morning when we woke up. Everyone is saying this is the coldest winter they have had in ages. We are using our feet and push bikes to get around until this week when we go to Hobart for zone meeting and pick up our car from there. So the week has felt great jumping back into normal missionary work again and just going HARD! I'm a little tired physically and my thighs are SO sore, but I feel great!

In Devonport we don't have many progressing investigators at the moment, but we do have quite a few floating around in the 'other' investigators, so our main focus for this transfer is trying to see how many people we can bring up and help to progress more.

Hope yous have a nice, warm, sunny week.

I love yous heaps!

 

Sister Bingham

 

1. I saw my two favourite Filipina comps at transfer meeting

2. Goodbye Melbourne!

3. dying biking up all the hills here!

4. sweet as mural :)

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

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