Hello everyone!
So, it's been a pretty good week in Toledo. We have 5 baptisms coming up on Dec.8!! It's so cool! It's the Intanes family. These people are so inspiring to me. They live pretty far away from the church, and the dad/grandpa, Brother Felix, has one eye, 4 fingers on one hand, and makes bamboo banks and weaves roofs together out of palm tree leaves for a living. They have a lot of kids, but most of the kids living at their house are their grandkids because the parents abandoned them, left them there, and moved on with their lives. This is such an inspiring family to me because even though it costs 30 pesos each person to get to church, they haven't missed one week since they started taking the lessons. I think they go without food sometimes to have enough money to get to church. Brother Felix got baptized a couple weeks ago. His plan is to baptize his family. The baptism would have been this Saturday, pero, the branch president forgot to sustain him in sacrament, so they have to wait another week. This family's faith is amazing to me. They are so loving, and so great. I ordered 3 bamboo banks because they are super cool!
One day, we were walking to their house, and we were walking through a rice field (not really the best idea) and it started POURING. And of course, I forgot my umbrella, like I usually do. So, the branch missionary we were with grabs a really big banana tree leaf to use as an umbrella. So, we are like frantically running through this flooded field holding a leaf over our heads that wasn't really doing anything. It was crazy. So much mud! I was laughing so hard because I don't think I've ever looked that crazy in my life. And all the locals were filming us with their cell phones. Sooooo look for us on You Tube. I'm sure we're on there somewhere....
My new mission does this things called FTE (find the Elect.) That just means that we count the people we talk to, and have zone goals and such. The standard of excellence for our mission is 100 people a week, but the zone goal is 130 people a week. So, I have been trying hard to talk to as many people as I possibly can (while still having time for lots of lessons, too.) I've also never been rejected so many times in my life. I think rejection is funny. In every area I've been in, the people do it a little bit differently. My first area, no one rejected me, they just pretended like they were interested to be polite. My second area they told me no straight out. My third area they just said they were busy, but now, they just kind of laugh uncomfortably and walk away... hahaha It's funny.
But, I've had some super cool experiences because of it. I was talking to this lady on a motor, named Klarchin, and she told us we could come by her house that day. So, after we went to a different neighborhood for a few hours for some lessons, we went back. We ended up teaching close to 20 adults because their whole family either lived at that house or on either side of it or behind it. And, her mom was an investigator about 10 years ago and still had the Books of Mormon from it. I'm really excited about this family! Hopefully good things come from it!
I was reading today in Luke 7. It's a story about when Jesus is approaching a city and sees a funeral procession going on. The person who died is a young man, and only son to a widow. Christ had compassion on the lady. He said, "weep not" and healed her son right away.
I love this story. I love it because even though we go through weird, extreme, possibly sad, horrendous experiences sometimes, Christ still wants us to be happy. I thought it was a cute story because of all the little tender mercies I've been seeing in my life this week. I got my luggage back! Which... I don't really need the stuff in it anymore because I got all new things. But I'm happy because I got my Ipod and all my letters back. God loves me so much that he managed to get my luggage back, even though he knew I really didn't need it that much.
Weekly challenge: Find 3 people that you can share your testimony with. I know you can do it!
I love all of you! I'm thankful for the many blessings in my life! I hope you all have a great week!
Love,
Sister Bingham
Sister Lupien, my new companion
Bamboo Banks
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