Tuesday, January 26, 2016

It's Great to Be a Missionary in December! -- December 7, 2015

Hello Everyone,

What a great week it has been! I love this time of year.  It is the greatest to be a missionary during the Christmas season. There are so many great opportunities!
I was able to go on an awesome exchange this week with Elder Williams in Charleston. It was such a good time; I have missed serving with him. It had almost been a year to the day since we were serving together in Radford as new missionaries. It was remarkable to see and compare the changes and the progression we have both made in the year that we haven't served with each other. I found so much satisfaction in seeing the ripple effect of what my trainers taught me and what I passed down and taught Elder Williams when I was his trainer and how much he is blessing our mission with some of those things. That was cool to see. It was a great exchange and one that I really valued!


On the exchange we were able to find three new investigators in that area. It was neat; we just started teaching with everyone we talked too. We taught a sixteen year old boy the Restoration and he loved it! He especially loved the story of the first vision. Later that night, we were tracting a street before dinner and it was a great time to be tracting--people were coming home from work and it was very successful. We knocked into a home where two men answered and they were foreign. They were so nice; they let us in and we started to teach. We got to know them by asking a few questions--they are both temporally living in town because they are contractors for a company in Charleston. We did our best to personalize our message to them. One comment one of the men made was outstanding. He said he does not belong to a religion because he is searching all of them and trying to take the good he finds and apply it to his life. There are so many prepared for our message. He loved the Book of Mormon and committed to read it with excitement!

We worked with the city of Roanoke this last week. They had a big Dickens of a Christmas festival. It is a big deal here! It is a three night thing, the first three Fridays of the month. The missionaries helped run and do little things for them. It was great; we had about ten companionships come and help with it. We passed out a ton of cards advertising the church’s Christmas Indicative video. It was a great way to share that with others.
While we were there, Elder Kropushek and I were walking and one of our favorite families, the Vogels stopped us and were in a big panic. They told us they lost their keys at the festival and they couldn't find them. There were thousands of people there. They wanted us to say a prayer for them that they could find their car keys. So we prayed with them! After, we had the impression to ask a local police man if he found anything and they radioed in and found the keys! The principle of faith and prayer really work! It was a fun miracle.

The Crosse family came to church again last week! They also had us over for a party for one of the kids. There was some real Mexican food! Carna asada and a bunch of other stuff I didn't know what it was, but it tasted good! Haha It was a blast--we love that family so much! They are making some big steps.
Okay so here is my funny story of the week. This month I have been really getting tired of paying for haircuts. . so I got confident and thought, you know, I could do this on my own. Well, I bought some fifteen dollar clippers and last night finally worked up the confidence to cut my hair. Bad Idea! My companion of course backed me, I started to cut my hair and I lost it and pretty much freaked out. Haha So Elder Kropushek stepped up to the plate and tried his best. After an hour of blood, sweat, and tears, we pulled through. Let’s just say my hair is a lot shorter now. . . Never doing that again!!!

Lately I have really been sinking into Preach My Gospel and trying to apply every little aspect of its teachings to my missionary work. I often ask myself, Am I that missionary that does that? I am finding ways to improve every day! Chapter one of Preach my Gospel really helps me feel the importance of our message. I am so thankful for this work! Another thing I have been working on is developing more charity. This is something I received through my sacrament experience recently, a prompting took me back to a verse you shared with us (Moroni 7: 48.) I have felt a big difference as I have been praying for that pure love of Christ. One day I truly want to be ready so when He appears I can be like Him. What a blessing that is.

I love you all have a great week!! Keep the Faith.
- Elder L. Kaleb Bingham

https://www.mormon.org/christmas



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