Wow this last week flew by!! We had a lot of ups and downs, but we also had a lot of cool experiences as well!
We are finally moving in to our new place today! It took them all week to clean the carpets and all that. . . so we had to spend a lot of time de junking our apartment and deciding what we wanted to take with us! It’s surprising how much junk Elders acquire over the years. Haha We found Ensign Magazines from the 80's! I was hoping we would find like a really old original copy of the Book of Mormon, but it didn't happen. ;) Haha But all is well; our new apartment is really cool! It’s so big! It’s a house and I think President is going to move two more Elders in with us next transfer so that should be fun! I did get my package and letter from dad, so don't worry. I don't think I lost any mail--I hope!
We have been spending more and more time on the Radford campus lately, for some reason that’s where we have been finding all of our new investigators. And I am fine with that because I love teaching people my age. It’s a blast!
We had a very interesting lesson with a guy named Andre, We found him while walking around the campus and he looked really depressed so we decided to ITL him. He apparently was diagnosed with epilepsy when he was 14 years old. He is not talkative at all and you can tell he does not like life. Surprising enough, he was willing to meet up with us. We meet with him and we attempted to teach the restoration. We got through it and I knew that what we were teaching him wasn't what he needed. So I bore my testimony to him and told him how much God loves him and cares about him. Elder Williams did the same and we talked about the Godhead and why we are here. He didn't say much the whole time but when we were about to leave we asked him if he had any questions for us and he asked us, "What does the still small voice feel like?" It was a golden question! We explained it to him and taught him how he could feel it for himself. I hope we can meet with him again and I pray that we can help him come closer to heavenly Father.
I think I am starting to really find my strengths as a missionary. I absolutely hate knocking on doors and tracting. We have a good system that Elder Williams and I have come up with. We have decided to not knock doors and focus on finding people when they are out of their homes and in more casual places. We spend a lot of time walking around parks and grocery stores and of course the college campus. They give us pass along cards to give to people--they usually have pictures of the Savior on them or pictures of temples. That’s usually how we open up conversations with people. We call it ITL'ing it stands for invite to learn. It’s really fun. I used to be scared to start talking to random people but now I don't really have any hesitation! It’s a real treat to see my own testimony open up people’s eyes. Just a simple brief testimony of the restored Gospel can do wonders—it’s incredible. The Light of Christ is a real thing! And as a missionary, I have seen it in so many of God’s children that are coming closer and closer to the truth. I would say ITL’s are my favorite part of this work for that reason, to see “Pure Light” overcome darkness in people’s lives.
We
were able to watch all of conference including the priesthood session! It was
so great! How lucky are we to have the restored church of Jesus Christ and have
living Prophets and Apostles?! I have never enjoyed Conference so much in my
life. To missionaries I guess it’s like watching the super Bowl haha! But
really I learned soooo much in those two days. I took over 40 pages of notes
from all of the talks.... After it was all over I thought to myself, Who am
I??? I used to never even care about conference and sadly enough I never paid
much attention. It showed me that I
really am changing in a good way! I loved all of the talks! I think my favorite
one was the last talk by Elder Bednar. He really gave an amazing one about why
we do so much missionary work. I loved how he said "To all nonmembers of
the church, We as a church challenge you to bring all the truth you have and
put it up against our gospel to try to prove it wrong." How true is it though?
We do have the complete truth and I also loved how Elder Cook said "The
Restoration of the Gospel completely shattered the myth that God no longer
speaks to his children!" That was a really cool quote for me, I loved that
one!
I
love this church and everything about it. I have really started to develop a
true testimony of this gospel and I would never have been able to do it if it
weren't for the hard times and trials that I have been through on this mission.
I know our Savior Lives and that Heavenly Father knows us all by name and loves
us. I know Joseph Smith was the first Prophet of the Restoration and He did the
work his father needed him to do. I love this church and this Gospel and I
would challenge everyone to really ponder the things we believe and in absolute
faith Pray to have a complete conversion of our Savior’s church. I love you all
and thank everyone for all the support and helping me get where I am at today.
Keep
the Faith,
-Elder
Kaleb Bingham.
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