Letter #92 2/25/13 Baptism!!

Querido familia,

This week went great. Hermana S got baptised!! She is awesome and super excited to perserverar hasta el fin (endure to the end). Her baptism service was great. We had a combined service with the other missionaries in our district. There were 2 baptisms. I have an awesome district here. We`re all incredibly old as far as the mission goes. We all have more than a year and a half! We also all get along great. Today we played soccer in the morning with a few of the members here in the ward. We`ve made it a habit to play soccer every p day and lots of times we´re even able to bring investigadors. It´s good for them to see that we´re not robots. 

The branch here is having a tough time. Yesterday in church there were only 42 people. We´ve been trying to get the branch to have the ward council and yesterday we FINALLY were able to convince them to do it. We ended up having a big turn out; the branch president, his councilor, the primary president, and the 2 of us. It was actually a good meeting. We´re planning a lot of good activities here to get the branch excited and to hopefully find new investigadors. We´re going to try something that i´ve never done before. Instead of teaching English classes, we´re going to be teaching reading classes. There´s a huge number of illiterate people here. We´re going to tell the members to invite there friends and neighbors who aren´t members to come and learn to read for free!! I like the idea. I think we´ve have more success than i´ve had in the past with english classes, and we´ll be helping the people with something that is neccesary in life and not just helpful, like english. 

We were able to find some really potential investigadors this past week. We found a family of 5!! We´ve only taught them twice, but they´re super excited! I know we were guided by the spirit to find them. We had been looking for a reference, but knocked on the wrong house, it was a man who wasn´t too excited but we asked him if he knew anyone we could teach. He told us that we could go with a man named sergio on the next street. We went with "sergio" but it turned out that he didn´t live there. The lady who answered the door ended up being someone who is looking the the true church, has 3 kids, and all accepted baptism dates!! We don´t always find people in the way we hope, but the Lord always guides us to the people he´s preparing if we listen to the spirit. I love being a missionary!! 

I hope you all have a wonderful week!! Love Elder Mecham

Letter #91 2/18/13 Letting go of investigators...

Hey everyone,

This week went pretty well. First of all, i´m still here in Costa Rica, there were hardly any changes. Elder Lopez and i are still together. It turns out that the missionaries that were going to arrive from out of country are waiting for their visas so chances are that as soon as they arrive we´ll be having special changes and it will probably affect a lot of missionaries since a lot are going to arrive. 

This week was a little bit different. I hardly worked with Elder Lopez. He went to Culiacan for a training seminary from wednesday till saturday. I stayed here in Costa Rica and worked with Elder Clark. He is fresh in the mission, has about 2 weeks, so i got to be daddy for 4 days!! It was pretty fun, kind of maid me want to have a kid, but i´m feeling a little old.. Normally they put the missionaries with less than 1 year to train so that they learn faster. 

We had a great week as far as the work goes. We have slowly been leaving several investigadores that we had. It´s always a little tough to make the decision to leave investigadors. There´s several reasons; we develop relationships with them, we get to know them really well, and the truth is that nobody likes to look for new investigadors. It means walking in the sun, talking with the whole world and being rejected several times every hour, and harder work. It´s much more enjoyable to be teaching. I LOVE teaching. But we knew that our investigadors were´nt going to progress. When you know that, and you keep teaching them, you´re waisting the Lord´s time. We took the decision to leave several people, and as a result we have found a TON of new people. We had a couple days of searching almost all day long, but we know have several new investigadors, aswell as a super long list of references and contacts that we need to look for. 

One of the people we found is names C. He´s a teenager and is awesome. He went to church on Sunday!! He´s super excited.  S went to church as well and payed her tithing!! She has as date to get baptised this Saturday. We´re hoping that everything turns out great. Pray for us!! 

I love you all and hope you have a wonderful week. Love Elder Mecham

Letter #90 2/11/13 New Companion!!

Good week, we had special changes!! Elder Knowles is no longer my companion. He went to los mochis, i´m a little jealous cause i LOVE los mochis, but the Lord has work for me here. I´m here with Elder Lopez. He´s from Mexico City and already has a while in the mission. I don´t know how long we´re going to be together for, but there´s a good chance that our time together will be really short since we´ll be having changes again on Sunday. Something interesting about Elder Lopez is that his parents live in Provo! He has 1 sister and she just entered the MTC. She´s 20 and will be serving in i San Diego, California. His family moved to Provo about a month after he left on the mission. I told him that my sisters live in Provo and that i was going to tell them to visit his family.

Elder Knowles left to on Wednesday. I spent almos the whole day Wednesday in the bus station waiting for Elder Lopez so we weren´t able to get to work until Thursday, but we had a good week. I´d say the highlight of the week was definately church. It was branch conference so Presidente Cantú came! It was incredible. He spoke for about 20 minutes in sacrament meeting, afterwards he taught sunday school, and after about 5 mintues of listening to the District president teach the combined preisthood/relief society lesson President Cantú felt that he needed to take over and ended up teaching the whole hour. He is an awesome teacher. I learned a TON and the whole branch is super excited to work. He talked about a lot of basic principals but did it in a way super powerful. He talked about faith. Faith is to know the will of god and afterwards make it happen. If it´s god´s will that we move a mountain, we can do it. If we have a lot of faith that something´s going to happen, but it´s not God´s will, it´ll never happen. Before asking for the blessing, we need to ask if it is really what God wants, and he´ll never reveal his will to us if we´re not living the gospel. Everything starts with obedience, it doesn´t matter how much faith we have if we don´t first obey. 

One of the small miracles we witnessed this week was a member that we gave a blessing to. He is dying from cancer and has months that he´s been in bed and hasn´t been able to go to church. The doctors don´t expect him to live much longer. We went to give him a blessing, more than anything so that he can be in peace for the rest of the time he´s here, and that he can have the strength to go to church at least one time. Yesterday he was one of the first people there and stayed for the whole 3 hours. He also arrived on foot, walking almost 20 minutes. The priesthood is the power of God!! 

I hope you all have an awesome week!! Love Elder Mecham

Letter #89 2/4/13 A reading race!

This week was pretty decent. We are working with a whole lot of investigadors, but very few are progressing. We are working with a ton of people who love to listen, but are afraid to commit to do anything. It´s pretty typical to have that problem in the ranches. Unlike other areas, we have absolutely no problem finding people to teach, we could teach all day long, but we need to ocupy our time teaching people who have a desire to follow Jesus Christ and not just listen about him. The good news is that C went to church again! She´s great, only that she learns really slow. Last week, for the first time, she prayed out loud and it was HUGE for her. She doesn´t know how to read and is incredibly shy. She doesn´t talk that much, but she´s slowly gaining confidence in us and opening up a bit. It´s getting tough with B. He still hasn´t gone to church. He says he can´t go because he has to take care of his mom who can´t walk. Honestly, i understand him, but there´s no excuses for not going to church!! If you want to go your going to find a way to go. We have told him this many times but he´s finding it hard to accept. We´re going to keep praying diligently. A is still deathly ill. We gave him a blessing last week, we´re hoping he has a miraculous recovery and is able to get baptised.

The mission is the best, i´m loving every second of it. We are working a ton with the branch here. We´re still trying to activate our mission leader. He hasn´t gone to church since i got here.. We watched "to this end was i born" with him to try and motivate him. He said he was going to go to church, but didn´t go.. It´s a little frustrating because every Sunday after church we go to his house to have our meeting and we usually find him asleep on the couch.. 

Elder Knowles and I are have a Jesus the Christ race! We´re going to see who can finish it first, but i already know he´s going to win. He´s reads like crazy!! It reminds me of Lexi when she reads Harry Potter. To be able to finish it quickly i take advantage of every second. I read while i´m cooking, eating, shaving, ironing... I love reading about the life of Jesus Christ. He literally was PERFECT in every aspect. I love that he and his fathers will were the same. I´m trying to become more like him, and it´s tough, but i challenge everyone to do the same! LOVE YOU ALL!!! Elder Mecham