Letter #40 2/27/12 Culiacan & New (american) companion!

Good friends from the MTC!!  Elder Nordfelt!

Reunited with "dad" Elder Garcia!!

First baptism in Ahome!

Wow.. A lot has happened this week. First of all, it was a wonderful week. Everything started when we found out Tuesday that Wednesday morning we were going to go to Culiacan! We had a gian training meeting Thursday that lasted all day. It was AWESOME. I feel like i learned a ton. It was pretty much a full day of listening to Pres. Cantu, and eating. But i think the best part was that i was able to see a few Elders that i hadn´t seen in forever! When i got there i found out that i was going to be staying in Elder Nordfelt´s house, my compa from the MTC, and that Elder Ship was going to stay there too. I hadn´t seen then forever!! The picture i sent you is of all the Elders from my district in the MTC that came to Culiacan. We all had a great time catching up for the 2 nights we stayed together. It was the first time we´ve been together since we arrived here in Culiacan. I also was able to talk with Elder Garcia!! MY papa!! I love Elder Garcia. We talked for a while and he´s loving his area he has in Culiacan and is going to finish his mission in 5 months. He also wants Lexi and Mckell to write him if they get the chance... haha.

Friday morning we returned back to Ahome and despite not working in our area all week we had a baptism Saturday!! I was so incredibly feliz i can´t even describe it. We baptised a niño who´s 10 years old. His parents are members but inactive, but that´s going to change. He wants to be an Elder!! We told him he had to get baptised first so that´s what he did. After the baptism Saturday, we recieved the famous phone call from the Zone Leaders that we get every 6 weeks. I had almost forgotten that it was transfers, but they informed us that Elder Cardenas was leaving, and that i was going to recieve an American!! Elder Peterson. He´s from Brigham City Utah. I barely met him about an hour ago but i can tell we´re going to be great friends. I can tell he´s a hard worker, and likes Harry Potter and Star Wars!! We both have the same amount of time in the mission. He was in the other district in the MTC that came here to Culiacan. I¨m pretty excited to have an American Companion. So far we haven´t spoken any english, but i´m pretty sure we´re going to break that really soon... I feel pretty comfortable with my spanish so i´m not that worried. 

Well thanks for everything. I hope you all have a wonderful week and read the scriptures. I love you all, and i love the church and being a missionary. 

Elder Mecham

Letter #39 2/20/12 Motorcycle ride

Hola familia, sorry for writing so late, we had a huge zone activity in Mochis, it ended a little late, and the bus took forever to bring us back to Ahome. Thanks for all you´re emails!! It always makes me happy to see that i have a good number of emails. Hope you all had fun at the cabin!! I´m looking forward to seeing you´re pictures. Mom, i hope you were´nt too lonely at home when dad was in Sacramento but i´m excited to hear how the BYU game turned out!

This week was pretty good. No baptism.... Hermana T is awesome and everything but we´re considering dropping her because she hasn´t been to church for 3 weeks! She lives pretty far, but neighbors are members and she knows that they´ll give her a ride if she says she´s going to go. We actually had a pretty interesting experience yesterday before and during church. We haven´t had investigadors in church the last 3 weeks so this week we were determined to bring EVERYONE. And we litterally did everything possible in order to accomplish it. Sunday morning we did splits so that we could personally go and pick up 2 seperate families with rides. Elder Cardenas went to little ranch extremely far while i stayed somewhat close and went with another member in his car to pick up a niño who wants to get baptised. We both went, and neither of the people were in their houses, so we went to church, arriving just in time for our talks, and once we were done speaking we left again to hunt down our investigadors. We went with a couple more families, they couln´t go.. And then we went with a family that we just found last week. The mom was doing her laundry and told us she was really busy, so we helped her finish everything and brought her to church so she could enjoy the last 10 minutes of Relief Society. And she loved it!! I´d say it was a miracle that we were able to bring anyone so we were both very pleased.

We´ve had a lot of investigadors that have had a lot of trouble with their families. They don´t support their decisions to get baptised or don´t even want us visiting them. It´s tough because we talk all day to the people about how the family is most important and all God wants is that our families can be happy, and their own parents and husbands are keeping them from being baptised. Elder Cardenas and I have been focusing a lot in finding scriptures to help these people out but so we´ll see how it goes.

This week we caught our first ride on a motorcycle!! One 15 year kid and 2 missionaries all on the same bike. Wow would i love to have taken a picture. Speaking of pictures, sorry i haven´t sent any. We haven´t had much time. Well i´m going to go but thanks for everything. I love you all and i hope you know how greatful i am for all that you do. Oh and thankyou Aunt Marcie and Melanie for writing me! Love hearing from you guys.

Elder Mecham

Letter #38 2/13/12 Happy dia de amor y la mistad!!

Hey everyone! Yes.. they celebrate valentines day here, but its not called valentines day. The streets of Ahome are currently covered with little stands celling teddy bears and hersheys kisses and blasting mexican love music. Don't worry, there is plenty of love here. So i'm curious as to what your plans are for tomorrow. You'll have to let me know what you did. We had another somewhat good week here in Ahome. I would say it was a good week because i'm having a great time, but we haven't baptised here this entire change!! It's hard to be fully happy when you're not having baptisms... I'd definately say that there's a lot of pressure to end this change with a baptism. Our zone has kind of been going down hill the last few months from what i've heard. The last change the entire zone had a total of 5 baptisms. . But this last saturday we had an amazing zone conference with Presidente Cantu. He's an awesome guy and i feel like i learned a ton saturday!! If anything i just feel more ready and motivated to do everything possible to get our investigadors to church and ultimately in the baptism font. I feel like this change we've been a little to trusting in the investigadors and haven't done everything possible to get them to church. For example, when people have told us, don't worry about me, i'm going to go to church for sure, there's nothing that could stop me. We have trusted them and haven't gone out of our way to bring them. I've learned that that's not going to be enough. This week we're going find a way to personally go and pick up every investigador that we have, even if we have to do divisions with the preists to go get them.

We have also dropped a good number of investigadors so this week we're going to do a lot of looking for new ones. The good news is that Hermana T is still looking really promising for a baptism this week. She has started bringing friends to our lessons because she wants them to listen too.

We had a pretty good P day today in the city of Mochis. We celebrated valentines day by going to a Buffet!! I'd say it's comparable to a Mexican version of Chuck a Rama. I'm still getting along great with Elder Cardenas.  I know that if we can just focus ourselves, and do everything with the spirit that we're going to be able to end this change baptising and have people prepared for  the next change as well. We are lacking investigadors, but we have a ton of contacts and references. Since we're catching rides all day we take a lot of directions down and give out a ton of pamphlets. This week we're going to find everyone of them and pick out the escogidos. 

Well i hope everyone has an amazing week this week and stays safe. I also hope that you guys can enjoy a little Utah weather. Here it's slowly starting to get hotter.. Well i love you all, take care and read in your libro de mormon. LOVE YOU!!! 

Elder Mecham

Letter #37 2/06/12 Campfire!!

Hitchin a ride!

Roasting marshmellows!

Just like a scout campout!!  Love his backyard!

Hey everyone!! How are you all doing? Thanks for writing me! Hope alll is well in Utah. I recieved a christmas letter from the Ottosens today, make sure to tell them thankyou! I love getting mail.  We had another good week in Ahome. Well mas or menos. Were not having too much success right now, but our spirits are high and i now that the success is on the way. The problem is that we havent had investigadors in church the last 2 weeks.... A lot of our inv live far away and dont have cars. Yesterday we found a ride for 2 families were teaching that live far and we passed by their houses in the morning and they gave us lame excuses of why they couldnt go.. Its tough but were thinking were going to have to drop everyone and start from scratch.. We{ve bee praying a ton for help from above and i know that were going to start seeing results from our work. We still have one golden investigador who should get baptised next week. She basically just wants to wait until weve taugh her husband and kids everything so that they can get baptised at the same time, but her family isnt quite as excited as she is..

We had am amazing lesson with an investigador who has a ton of problems with the law of castidy but had no clue that he was sinning. His problem is big and its going to be hard to overcome, but it was so awesome to hear him say that he{s going to change and obey the commandment no matter what. He has a ton of faith. Unfortunately he wasn{t able to go to church because he owns a beer drive through and couldnt take off work, but this week we{re going to teach the word of wisdom and i have no doubt that hes going to do what he needs to in order to change.

This week we had a little campfire in our backyard and roasted marshmellows!! I think were going to make it a weekly ritual. I sent you a couple fotos so you can see our wonderful backyard. We also have a guava tree that has about a million guavas right now. Were thinking about opening a guava stand and giving them away for free along with a pamphlet and an invitation to church. Ill let you know if it works out. Mom, to answer your question, we still have a meal with a sister every day except sunday and it{s always delicous. And i still don{t have my luggage from Culiacan, i{ll have to wait until a pass through there to get it and that could still be a year in the future. I also had to leave a backpack in Cabo full of things that werent neccessary so that my pack didn{t way too much so right now i don{t have the majority of what i brought to mexico, but i have enough, dont worry. Well have a wonderful week!! I love you all muchisimo. Elder Mecham