Sweet Summertime -- July 13, 2015

Hello Everyone,

So I have officially decided that being a missionary in the summer time is the funnest! This week we saw some great success. Elder Wilkinson and I have been rebuilding this area like a lot. It has been a blast. We set a goal to hit twenty lessons for the week and we totally got it! I have never worked so hard with a companion like I do with Elder Wilkinson. We have been putting in a lot of hard work and the coolest part is we have been having a ton of fun while doing it! It’s great--he is such an awesome missionary. 

This week we had a leadership council in Charleston and then we taught a zone meeting later in the week. This kept us extremely busy planning everything out and all of that. The meeting turned out very good. I feel like it was the best one I have taught or been a part of. I learned a lot from it. You can always learn from the spirit when you listen! 

We are still doing a lot of finding. It has worked pretty well! We found six new people to teach last week and hopefully many more this week. I feel like I have gotten a lot better at talking to people. I love meeting people and finding out how the gospel can connect with them. We had a few people ask some awesome questions this week like, “Does your church teach that we came from somewhere before we lived on earth?” It is just cool Heavenly Father is leading us to his elect and prepared children. 

Last week I mentioned a man we found by a miracle one rainy night right before our curfew. Well he is doing incredible! We have taught him twice since then and he is loving all of it. I have never seen anyone get so excited about our message. He stayed up till 5 am in the morning just studying the Restoration and prophets out of the bible so he can know if Joseph Smith was a prophet. We left him to start reading the Book of Mormon until we see him this week. It has been such a true miracle and blessing to teach this man! He has a family with a few cute kids and all I can think is that they will be perfect for the church! Keep him in your prayers please. 

We had one part member family that we have been working with, the wife of the family. We had a powerful lesson with them and they were in tears--it was cool. We even gave them blessings. Then we really wanted them to get to church so we decided to pray and to fast all day Saturday to help get them there. They were the first ones in the parking lot Sunday morning. It really touched my heart. All I wanted to do was thank my Heavenly Father.  

That's the report for this week! I love you all and hope this email does you some good.

Keep the Faith! 

- Elder Kaleb Bingham

Missionaries gotta love the "selfie" stick???

Am I even in America??? -- July 6, 2015

Hello Everyone,

Well the half a week I had in Pembroke went really well! I love my new companion! We get along great; we think the same and that goes a long way! He loves working hard and so do I, so we have been seeing a lot of miracles in this little area! 

Pembroke is a pretty place. A lot of people live here to get away and be just outside of Blacksburg where Virginia Tech is. It is a nice, smaller town where everybody knows everybody but that has been good because a lot of people know our members and that pays off. 

The Fourth of July was so odd. We thought that there would be all kinds of parties and celebrations in the towns, but there was really nothing. . . I have never seen that before. The city and the neighboring cities didn't celebrate the holiday either. It was just a normal day. Kind of sad, I was looking forward to a celebration of some kind.  They always are fun to meet people at and stuff. But oh well, I guess I will be home on the next Fourth of July! How weird is that??  

We have been doing so much finding here recently. It has been really cool--the people here are so much nicer than they are in West Virginia and they have more light! I have missed Virginia! It is good to be back. But we picked up five new people to teach! They all knew a member of the church and they were all from a Methodist background. Except one awesome lady, she declared herself agnostic, but that didn't last long. She had bad experiences with religion in the past. I love the Spirit of discernment! 

A cool experience, last night we got out of a lesson at about 8:30 and wanted to find one more new investigator very badly. It was pouring rain and we decided we would keep pushing through it. After praying on where we could go, we decided to head over to  the bishop of the ward’s house and knock a few doors. As we battled out the rain, with no umbrellas, we got to our second house and met an outstanding man. He expressed to us how he had Mormon friends in the military and he was kind of familiar with our beliefs. His heart was softened and we taught him the Restoration. He really enjoyed it and invited us back in the middle of this week. What I learned is that when we are truly diligent we will be blessed tremendously! 

I love this new area! Keep us in your prayers that we will continue to find and see miracles! I love you all!  

Keep the Faith!! 

- Elder Kaleb Bingham 

First companion picture!

Goodbye Princeton! -- July 1, 2015

Hello Everyone,

Well I guess I will first start out with the big news. I am getting transferred! But I’m not getting transferred very far at all. I'm going to Pembroke, VA. I have been there many times for meetings. It is where the stake center is in this stake. What happened is, our mission president decided to merge two zones together and make one giant zone. He asked me to stick around a little longer in this zone to make sure everything goes smoothly. 

I'm excited though! My new companion is Elder Wilkinson. He is from Utah as well. He has been out for six months and has never been a zone leader so I get to help show him the ropes!  I love him--we are going to have such a fun transfer! I'm looking forward to it.  The new Pembroke Zone is massive! There are almost 40 missionaries that are in it. It is going to be interesting. . . 

My new address is. . .  

517 Mason Court Dr. #4 
Pearisburg VA, 24134 

So it is always sad leaving an area! That is one of the hard things about a mission. We made all the rounds yesterday and said goodbye to most of the people we have been working with. It is a bitter sweet moment! 

We did go out with a bang though! This last weekend we were at the Miller’s for dinner. (I'm really going to miss that) and we decided to make plans and have a get together on Monday night. We were thinking of things we could do to invite less active members and such. So we decided to kill one of the Bishop’s pigs and throw him on the grill and have a pig roast West Virginia style! 

So we went over the next day and bishop shot a pig and we helped skin it and get it ready to be cooked. It was one heck of a job! The pig weighed 130 pounds! We were exhausted after all the work was done. 

It was a fun get together though. One of the funnest I have been to. We had a fire going and of course many grills and a lot of people from all around showed up, mainly nonmembers that the Millers invited. It was a blast, such a great way to end the transfer! It was very hard saying goodbye!  

I will miss this area. I have loved how I always learn a great lesson in every area I serve in. The Lord taught me patience while I was here! That was the greatest lesson I learned. To be patient with the work and with my companion and with some of the people we worked with. I loved every minute of it though and have memories I will never forget! 

I will talk to everyone next week! I love you all and Keep the Faith! 

- Elder Kaleb Bingham  

P.S. The pictures are from the Miller’s this weekend. We had a fun tractor ride and when we killed the pig. Sorry if this grosses anyone out!  

Awesome investigator!

Bluefield Missionaries