August 25, 2013
Dear Everyone,
Thanks for all of your prayers; my lice is gone! Yay! Thanks for praying hard!
The beginning of last week I was feeling really sorry for myself. I had lice, my hair was falling out, some investigators moved without telling us, and just some other problems were in my mind. For my personal study that day, I was just reading about all the wars and contentions in the book of Alma (ok, not all of them.... like two of them) And my perspective changed. Because, even though sometimes a mission is really stressful, no one has tied me up and beat me, starved me, stoned me, driven me out of their town, plundered, or murdered, or wounded me. So, I realized that my "problems" actually weren't all that bad. Hahaha silly me.
Something super interesting happened! We were teaching this new investigator, and we were in the middle of the lesson, when suddenly, some Jehovah Witnesses came! The lady was like, "Oh no! everyone be quiet! I'm sorry sisters, they will be gone in a min." Then, she sent her daughter outside to tell them no one was home. They were like, "but we just heard voices! We know that she's home!" Then the little girl was like, "Oh, that's just my friends..." Then the other missionaries were like "teaching her to pray" for like 5 or 7 min and they just kept telling her she was wrong, and that her church was wrong. They were literally like so rude to her. After they finally left, we continued on with a spiritual lesson. We've actually encountered a lot of JW this week. They always like vehemently argue with us, and we always just try to leave and not bible bash. It's insane. I'm really happy we aren't like that. And I just really appreciate that this gospel really builds people up. We don't teach people why other churches aren't true, we just teach the truth. It's nice.
We had a branch Family Home evening the other day, and it was super successful! A lot of people brought friends that weren't members, and 5 of our investigators came! Yay! Also, some less active members came. It was a lot of fun! We were in charge of the games, so we played some American games... like musical chairs. They thought it was great. haha
We were talking to our Investigator getting baptized next week, and he just told us how much he loves the Gospel, and how happy he is all the time! And he said that even though his trials didn't change, he feels so much better about life. He said he never wants us to transfer, and that he wishes we could teach him every single day. He's so great! I'm so thankful I got to be a part of his conversion. He has even given us a couple referrals because he wants to share the gospel with everyone. He's a rock star!
We met and taught this guy named Francis this week. He is over 50, speaks perfect English, has been divorced for 20 years, and lives alone. When we got to his house, we found out that his brother died the night before. We had planned to teach about Joseph Smith, but decided to teach Plan of Salvation instead. The whole time he just kept saying, "yeah, you're right. Yeah, that makes perfect sense." He even took notes!! Then he said, "I will tell all of my friends about this! The Catholics don't have this, The Born Agains' don't have this. This just makes perfect sense." He's a really nice guy. I'm excited to teach him again. It's really cool how the Lord places people in our path.
I was reading in Helaman 6 today. It talks about how good at fellowshipping the Lamanites were. It literally says, "And they did much fellowshipping, and had much joy." I think sometimes we just think as "fellowshipping" as related to investigators. But, it's not. It's even more important to fellowship recent converts, less actives, inactives, and even people who are active. If we do our best to help everyone have a good time at church, we will have more joy.
Thanks for being great! I'm so thankful for all of your support and prayers!
Love,
Sister Bingham
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