Letter #44 3/26/12 Buenos Tardes!

Haircut time!!

Coconut/chili/lime!!

Hey familia, hope all is well in Utah! Thanks for the pictures mom, nice seeing the whole family together! In case youre wondering, it's getting extremely hot here.. I don't know if you guys would be jealous or not, but it's to the point where i sweat again! So quite a bit happened this week. First of all, we have worked a TON!! I'd say most i've worked my whole mission, and it's a little frustrating but we haven't really seen any progress in our investigadors and we haven't found anybody new that's looking promising.. There's a talk from Elder Holland that i love, he talks about how hard the life of a missionary is and about how hard it can be to actually have success, then he compares it to the life of Jesucristo and says that it's nothing compared to what he did for us. Whenever i feel a little down i always remember that and things start to feel a littl easier. It's incredible the impact that the Atonement has on us. It's literally everything, and we'd be nothing without it. I know that we're going to start having success if we relly on the atonement to carry us and keep working diligently.

So on a later note, we had a lesson in english this week! 100 percent. His name is I and he lived in Minasota for about 20 years and speaks perfect english. It was pretty weird speaking in english with an investigador.. I almos feel more comfortable in spanish but he refuses to use is native tongue. Also, i ate mantaray!! Yum, i didn't expect it to be so satisfying. I also bought a headshaver so i'm thinking i'm gunna sport the bald look the rest of my mission. Something a little strange happened when someone gave us a ride the other day.. We got in the back of the car and the first thing the girl in front did was wip out her phone and take individual pictures of Elder Peterson and me. She looked shocked to see us so far away from our home town. I didn't really know what to think.

That's awesome about BYU in their first game!! But too bad about the second.. Oh well, maybe next year. Well thanks for everything you guys do!!! I hope you all have a wonderful week. Love you all!!! Elder Mecham

Letter #43 3/19/12 Que Rollo Plebes?

Beautiful way to end a day of work!!

Is this a spider or a pet?  Who could sleep with that loose in the house!!

Looks like Landon still likes the food!!

A hole in the floor of the pickup bed... very safe transporation methods!!

Hey everyone! Como estan? Well this week was pretty average... No baptisms.. But everything else went well. I hope you guys all had a great week! Thanks for the letters. I´m glad to hear that you got the letters i sent as well. I kind of forgot who i all wrote but i have faith that they all got there without any problems. And you´ll be happy to know that the whole oreo thing didn´t distract me at all. Sad, but life moves on. But thanks Mckell for the pictures!! Brought back good memories.

So P and G still didn´t get baptised. I´m incredibly confused.. They say that they know they need to get baptised, they know the church is true, but they say they want to wait. And we ask why and they just say "we don´t know". Wow... incredibly frustrating. The forces of satan are powerful. But there getting married this friday so that should be enjoyable! I´ve literally groan to love their family. I´ve been able to see them grow since the first night we contacted them. I know they´ll get baptised pronto. 

So you may be thinking that it could be a bad idea to have 2 gringos walking around solo in Mexico, especially when we still haven´t mastered the spanish language, but we really haven´t had a single problem. We actually have plenty of people who want to talk to us just because they see that we´re not from Mexico. There´s also a load of people who refuse to speak to us in spanish and we only use the 5 frases they know of english; how are you? what´s up? etc.. It´s a little frustrating, but the people are all great. 

We had an interesting experience with a spider this week. Acutally, it was a torantula. We found it snooping around in our back yard and in the process of trying to kill it with a lighter and bug spray it ran for cover in the house!! And since then i haven´t seen it. I sleep with my bug spray and lighter by my pillow every night. 

Dear mom, still haven´t gotten the package yet, but don´t worry. I´m sure it´s on the way. And the CD player is working fantastic. Thanks a ton. I woun´t mind a couple more Alex Boye CD´s in the next package. I´ve heard a couple of his other Albums and i really like them. 

This week i finished Doctrinas y Convenios in spanish! So amazing! I have so much respect for Joseph Smith. I have been trying really hard to learn more about him and live to his example. He was constantly serving others and understood the importance of putting God above everything. And never got angry with him, even when he had incredibly hard challenges. He just accepted that it was all for his bien. Well love you all, hope you have an amazing week! 

Letter #42 3/12/12 Goodbye Oreo!

Hola familia! Wow... Oreo..... I'm basically about to cry right now.. But that's okay. I'm pretty confident that dogs go to the Celestial Kingdom, but i'm definately going to do some good scripture searching and praying this week to find a good answer. She was a good dog. Mom, i hope you didn't take it too hard.. I know you really loved her and was hoping she was going to live another few years. I know it's going to be hard but you guys should try waiting until i get back to buy a puppy.

 

Well other than the the sad news, i hope you guys all had a great week!! Thanks for the email Aunt Melanie, i love hearing from you guys. We had a decent week here in Ahome. We have been working incredibly hard and have been extremely busy. To tell the truth, after a long week of diligintly searching investigadors i can't really say that we found a single one that's going to progress. But the good news is that 2 of our investigadors we've had for a while are progressing a ton! P and G. They should get married and baptised this week!! They are amazing people, and even though we haven't had much success with the other investigadors it really feels good to see that they're growing to love the church and recognize the spirit. They tell us that since we've started visiting them they can feel a difference in there home. It builds my testimony that the families are literaly stronger  and happier when they're built with the gospel as the focus. So thanks Mom and Dad for always remembering that.

 

So this week i had my first little taste of Sinaloa craziness. We were eating dinner with a family of members last thursday when we heard about 20 automatic gun shots coming from right down the road. From what i hear, this happens about 3 to 4 times a week in Culiacan, but here in Ahome it's rare to hear it more than about once a month. The family just kept eating and acted like nothing happened. When we finished, we asked if we could have a ride home because of the possibilities that there could have still been more gun shots and the family started making fun of us... haha but the gave us a ride in the end.

 

We're going to keep doing everything we can this week to find new investigadors and keep helping G and P prepare for their baptism. I hope all is well Utah and that you recieve plenty of snow!! It's slowly getting extremely hot here.. But i love everyone of you!! Thanks for everything you do for me, until next week, Elder Mecham

Letter #41 3/5/12 The first house past the boat dock..

Is this possum dead or is it playing possum???

hola familia!! Had a pretty good week this week. Thanks for all youre letters that you sent!! This morning we had a zone meeting and i recieved the packet you sent mom! Thanks for everything, its perfect. I really like those rings you sent! And i plan on having a blast playing with the Hot Wheels!!! Haha, joke. Im going to give them to little niños who dont have toys and i cant wait!

So as usual, we worked really hard this last week. Weve changed a few things that we were last change, and i think were going to have a ton of success. Weve been going with a ton of unactive members and just teaching something small and simple and then asking for references. Weve had a ton. Sometimes they give us there friends and sometimes theyve told us of neighbors that were talking with the missionaries before but stopped for some reason or another. Weve also been working in a few of the Ejidos id never gone to before so im seeing places that i never saw last change. We also recieved a reference for somebody that lives in an ejido called Colorado. Ive never been there, but i hear all the houses all right on the beach! The direction actually says it{s the first house passing the boating dock. Im pretty excited to look for it.

We had a sweet experience with an investigador this week. He has been reading the book of Mormon a TON and knows its true. He isnt a big drinker, but always drinks a little on the weekends, but we still hadnt taught him the word of wisdom. One night when we were talking he said that since he started reading the Book of Mormon hes felt that he should stop drinking. He was able to have revelation about a commandment that he had never heard of by reading the book of mormon. I know that the LDM testifies truths to everyone!

Elder Peterson is a great companion. We get along great. Were different in a lot of ways, but we also have a lot of things in common.  Hes incredibly focused in the mission which is awesome. His last change he had another Gringo companion and he said that they rarely spoke spanish and that right now he{s really not too comfortable with spanish, but everyone understands him fine so it{s all good. I know that he graduated the same year as me, he played lacross, has a girlfriend that goes to BYU Idaho, and likes to be outside. He also like exercising so weve been running and playing basketball in the mornings!!

Well i hope you all know how much i love you. Thanks for everything!!! Until next week, Elder Mecham