September 27, 2015

Talofa lava friends and family!

This week has been great! We've been so flat out it's crazy, but it's great to be busy as a missionary!

Jemma is still doing pretty good. We stopped by this week and taught her and one of her daughters about faith. Last we heard a couple days ago it had almost been a week since she last smoked, which is really great progress!

We picked up a few new investigators this week as well. One is Tish, an Aussie lady Sister Rhodes and her last comp tracted into. She grew up Catholic, but thinks that church is really boring and also told us that she doesn't necessarily agree with everything the Bible says. Another one is Vin, a nine year old Sri Lankan boy. We tracted into their house and his mum answered the door. They are Hindu so she wasn't really interested, but Vin really wants to learn more about Jesus Christ so his mum told us we could come in and teach him. Another new investigator this week is Elisa. She is an Aussie lady who the Sisters tracted into almost a year ago. Her sister recently joined the church as well, but she told us that she doesn't really want to go anymore which is sad. Elisa is lovely though and really wants to learn more about the Bible and the Book of Mormon. Our last new investigator this week is Trinice. On Tuesday night one of our appointments fell through so we went over to their house with the stake president's daughter who had gotten home from her mission in Sydney the same day. Trinice is from a less active Samoan family and is the oldest of the four kids. She is nine now and really wants to be baptized, but the parents haven't gotten around to it yet because they don't have a strong desire to go to our ward. Luckily her mum is willing to let us teach her and hopefully prepare her for baptism soon.

Last cool thing that happened this week. So one of the families in our ward called us up on Friday wanting us to come over for dinner on Saturday with them and their non-member neighbors who were getting ready to move soon. Everything ended up working out with our scheduling, so we went over for dinner and to share a message with the family and their neighbors. We were stressing out before because we didn't know what to share, but we ended up getting to share a good message about prophets and general conference. I know it was a good seed that we were able to plant and I really hope that they watch general conference. I am grateful for a living prophet on the earth today and I know that Heavenly Father continues to lead and guide the church.

Love yous!

Sister Bingham

1. We got permission to go to Felicity's baptism in Glenroy on Saturday!! So exciting!

September 20, 2015

Dear family and friends,

This week has had some interesting ups and downs. We had some really busy days, and some really slow days, but overall it hasn't been too bad.

For starters, we saw Jemma and taught her about the Holy Ghost. We really want to help her to be able to recognize and follow the Holy Ghost so she can have a stronger desire to quit smoking and to commit herself more to the gospel. We realized during her lesson, however, that we are going to have to go back to basics and teach everything a lot more simply.

The most interesting thing that happened this week was with a couple we met tracting last week. They are born again Christians and had invited us in to explain a little to them (mostly so they could explain their beliefs to us) but we went back on Tuesday and had a really great lesson with them. They were polite and nice and listened as we taught them about the restoration of the gospel through Joseph Smith. The spirit was really strong and we KNOW they felt it too. Then they had their go at trying to convince us why the Bible is the only word of God. After our lesson they still had heaps of questions for us about the Book of Mormon so they invited us to come back again on Thursday. We left them a commitment to read 2 Nephi 31-33 and then went back and taught about the gospel of Jesus Christ. This lesson was exactly the opposite of the one on Tuesday. We taught them and I could see in them as we were teaching that they were just listening to find fault. By the end they looked at the five steps that we had laid out for them (faith in Jesus Christ, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end) and commented that they agreed with all of it except the fact that we didn't have a salvation prayer. They then proceeded to try to Bible bash with us and adamently come back to one scripture that they were so hung up on. Then they decided to completely turn on us and say things like the Book of Mormon is not true, Joseph Smith is not a prophet, our church is not true, etc etc. I got so frustrated and couldn't believe the difference in their attitudes. Not only that, but I was so frustrated because they weren't even listening to what we were saying anymore. They had made up their mind that we were wrong without even giving it a chance or a second thought. They were attacking everything that I hold dear to me and I couldn't handle it anymore. All I could do was bear one of the most powerful testimonies I have ever given in my life and then leave.

I know that the Book of Mormon is true! I know that Joseph Smith is a prophet of God! And I know that anyone who shuts the door before truly listening to us and honestly considering Moroni's promise is missing out on a multitude of blessings. The church is true, there is no doubt in my mind because I have pondered about the Book of Mormon myself and I know that God continues to affirm me that it is true.

Love yous!

Sister Bingham

September 13, 2015

Dear family and friends,

Talofa lava from Lynbrook! That's right... my sixth and hopefully final area is on the East side!! And it is mostly a Polynesian ward. I am loving it here on the east side so far. We get to do a lot of tracting (which I love) and we actually get the chance to speak a little about the gospel with many people. My new companion is so amazing!! Her name is Sister Rhodes and she is from Brigham City, Utah. She has been on her mission for one transfer SO that means that I am follow up training her! So exciting to have another daughter!! It's so crazy to me that she is my third American companion since being in Australia, the last two being my first transfer. She is so great and WAY ahead where I ever was my second transfer.

So a couple exciting things have happened this week. We have been so busy that I haven't even had time to unpack. We taught a Tongan investigator, Nana, this week. She has started reading the Book of Mormon and really likes it, but for whatever reason we couldn't get her to commit to a baptismal date yet. She kept saying that maybe after she finishes reading the entire Bible and Book of Mormon then she will think about it. Lol. But hopefully we will be able to help her see that she doesn't need to have a perfect knowledge before she gets baptized, just the faith and commitment to follow Jesus Christ.

We also taught an investigator Jemma this week. She has recently cut down on coffee, but still struggles with smoking. We taught her a lesson on the ten commandments this week and she was supposed to come to church, but she got busy.

I've been doing great recently. I feel like with this change of weather, I have also become a bit more sunny and bright myself. One thing I have started to do recently is to hold a Book of Mormon in my hand as I go tracting. I have always kept one in my bag, but I have noticed in the past few weeks as I have been doing this that it is easier to bring up the topic of the Book of Mormon and the restoration with people, and I have been able to give out more Books of Mormon. This in turn makes me more happy because it gives me the hope that these people will be able to enjoy the peace and blessings from the gospel that I have been able to enjoy in my own life. I love the Book of Mormon so much. I know that it is the true word of God and that it brings me closer to my Savior than by any other means.

I love all of you heaps!

Sister Bingham

1. me and my new comp today (at sand volleyball for zone p-day)

September 6, 2015

Dear family and friends,

First off, happy Australian father's day dad!! Hope you eat some cake or something from me to celebrate!

Crazy stuff happening this week... We FINALLY got a progressing investigator this week... Peta! We saw her and taught the gospel of Jesus Christ and then she accepted a baptismal date for September 26 and then she came to church! (just sacrament meeting, but that's okay because it was a really powerful testimony meeting)

Now the sad news for the week. Sister Zhang and I are both getting transfered out of Devonport. :( I am so sad that I have to leave after only one transfer, but I feel so blessed and grateful that I have had the opportunity to come back here to my home!! My heart will always be in Tasmania!

I have learned so much this last transfer, especially about patience and perserverance. We had quite a few days where we struggled to find productive things to do, but I learned to just keep moving and to be patient for the blessings to come. And they did! Finally during the last week of this transfer we were able to help Peta begin to progress again which is amazing! I can't wait to hear about how she does in the future.

Lucky me I received a bit of transfer news before transfer meeting tomorrow. I will be with an American Sister and I will be follow-up training!! Whoo hoo! Super excited to have another daughter! I hope it all goes well! Take care and I'll update yous more next week!

 

Love yous heaps!

Sister Bingham

 

1. tracting by the beach in Shearwater

2. guess who made spaghetti with kangaroo meatballs!

August 30, 2015

Dear family and friends,

Not too exciting of a week, but still a few updates on everyone here...

We taught a former investigator, Peta, this week and it went really well. She told us her experiences of reading the Book of Mormon and how she is starting to gain a testimony of it. She also said that she feels like she needs to be baptized, which we are really excited for, but not getting our hopes up yet because she has had dates before and dropped them really suddenly. She was going to come to church this Sunday as well, but ended up getting sick so she couldn't make it.

Melissa and Skye are good as well. They are a super lovely family and I'm really excited to start teaching them. We saw them this week on Tuesday and it went well. Mostly Melissa just asked us heaps of questions about our missionary work and what it's like haha. But this week we will dive right in to more teaching.

We also were able to follow up with a potential investigator, Diana, this week. She and her husband are from the Philippines and she is Roman Catholic. She gets visits from the JWs too and was hesitant to let us come back at first because she doesn't want to get too confused, but when we visited with her she asked us heaps of questions about our church and our beliefs about the plan of salvation. Then she would tell us what the JWs taught her and what she believes in her church. By the end of our visit with her she had come to the conclusion that our church is much more similar to hers than the JWs, which is very true!

We followed up with Pam as well this week. She had already started to read the Book of Mormon and asked us a couple questions about the resurrection, etc. so she is doing well so far keeping her commitments.

We didn't have very much else this week going on. Just still trying to get investigators to church and progressing more. We did have one funny story following up with potentials. We went back to this man, Paul, and he let us in to talk to him, but then before we walked in he looked at us and said, "But don't ever come back after this again" haha! We had a good chat, but he was pretty set in his ways. (typical Aussie, Catholic, doesn't go to church, believes as long as you keep the commandments and do good things that you can go to heaven)

That's all for this week. Hope yous have a good one!

 

Love yous heaps!

Sister Bingham

 

1. last p-day at the caves

2. DANGER

3. Cradle Mountain has snow!!

August 23, 2015

Dearest family and friends,

This week has had its good amount of ups and downs, but mostly ups which is good!

We started out last Monday by going on an adventure with the Launceston Sisters to find some cool caves and bush walks. It was fun, but we couldn't go inside of the cave we found because there was a stream in between us and the cave. :/

That night our STL's came up from Glen Huon and spent the night with us. Tuesday after district meeting we started our exchanges. I was with Sister Bennett for the day. We had a lot of fun and saw a few miracles, too. First, we contacted a potential investigator, Diana and set a return appointment with her. Next, we went to see Melissa (family we met tracting last week). She was home when we got there, but she had forgotten that we were coming and was rushing out the door. We got to talk to her for a bit and set up another return appointment and we also found out that she is keeping her commitments! She read the Family Proclamation we left with her and she said that she loved it! Then Sister Bennett asked her if there was anyone she knew who might be interested in our message and she gave us the address to her sister who happened to live in the suburb we were planning on visiting next. When we were walking back to our car I saw a less active member, Sister Redl, walking her dog. We waved and said hello and then went over to talk with her. Then we ended up walking with her back to her house and sharing a message with her. Then we went to contact Melissa's sister. We met her and she was really nice, but she couldn't give us a specific time we could come back. After that we went to go contact a referral from a member. We knocked on what we thought was the right house. We started talking to this lady and she invited us in. Then I asked her name and she said Kate. I got confused because it was not the name we were looking for, but I decided to just go with it. We ended up teaching her the entire Plan of Salvation right there. So cool!

After all our miracles from exchanges the week started to die down again. We basically did heaps of trying to contact less actives and potentials who weren't home. Then Diana and Kate cancelled our appointments. I was starting to get a little discouraged by Saturday and REALLY wanted to just take a break, get some ice cream, and relax for an hour. But something in the back of my mind kept telling me to just keep moving, so I did.

On Sunday after church Sister Zhang and I went tracting. The first house we went to we met a really nice lady. We started talking and eventually I handed her a Restoration pamphlet to read. When Sister Zhang started explaining about the Book of Mormon I decided to pull one out to show her. She looked at my homemade Cheez-It case and made a comment about it. That triggered a whole conversation when I found out that she is from St. Louis and grew up Baptist. When her parents passed away she started to lose touch with God. The more I listened to her, the deeper concern and sincere love I started to feel for her. By the end of the conversation I found out her name, Pam, the same name as my mother. I know it was not a coincidence that I met her, and I am confident that all my diligence and hard work throughout the week payed off when I met her. Heavenly Father is so good to us missionaries. He knows how we feel and He knows exactly what we need to lift our spirits and cheer us up. The church is true!

 

Love yous heaps!

Sister Bingham

 

p.s. sorry no pics today, I forgot my cord...

August 16, 2015

Dear family and friends,

G'day!! It's been a great, busy week. We started off last Monday going to Hobart for zone p-day on Monday and zone meeting on Tuesday. For p-day we did all the fun stuff I did last year when I was here, Mt. Wellington and the Cadbury factory. It was great to see the snow again and to buy heaps of chocolate. :)

After p-day was over we went down to GLEN HUON for the night!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was so crazy to see my favorite place in the world again!! We went and had dinner with Enid Woolley, dessert with Bishop Jury and his family (minus Amber and Conner who are both on their missions now) and Brock and Rae Watson, then the next morning we had breakfast with our favorite neighbor Lisa Watson. It was so amazing to be back! It seriously felt like it had only been last week that I was last there! I can't wait to go back again for the next zone meeting!

Zone meeting was pretty alright. The most important part of it though was that we FINALLY got our car!!! Whoo hoo!!!!! So we drove that all the way back to Devonport with us.

Wednesday we got to watch a special meeting from Melbourne at our chapel. Apparently some people had organized a Time Out for Women in Sydney, so Brad Willcox and David Archuleta came and visited our mission before they went home! It was really fun to get to watch it! David Archuleta sang Be Still My Soul and Glorious and talked about Alma 37:6-7 (by small and simple means are great things brought to pass) and then shared a story from his mission about how he was on the bus one day and felt prompted to talk to this girl. After the third prompting he finally went over and started talking to her. About thirty seconds later he had to get off the bus and he awkwardly handed her an invitation to a ysa activity. Later he found out that she had gone to the activity and was being taught by the missionaries. Later he found out that she had gotten baptized and her sister was taking the lessons. Later he got transferred back into the same stake and saw her at an activity. She was preparing to serve a mission, but was putting it off at the moment because she was waiting for her family to be able to get sealed in the temple. Now she is serving a mission in Colombia. Pretty legit stuff! That scripture is so true! Then Brad Willcox talked about the House of Israel and how it is our job as missionaries to gather the house of Israel in preparation for the second coming of Jesus Christ. It was really cool! He is a great public speaker.

After all our great meetings we have been focusing on trying to get around to more members homes. It is really great to be more mobile again. That's about all for this week. Hope yous have a safe, warm week.

Love yous heaps!

Sister Bingham

1. Mt. Wellington with the Launceston sisters

2. Cadbury factory

3. at the Jury's :)

4. watching the meeting with David Archuleta!!