Letter #77 First week in Culiacan!

Dear family. We had a successful week. To tell you the truth, i don't know what the missionaries were doing here last change because we started out the week with literally zero investigadors. We spent a lot of time going to the houses of the members to get to know them and ask for references. We've actually been teaching them lessons that we would teach the investigadors so that they remember there baptisms and feel the spirit, and once we have the spirit, we start to ask them about their friends. We had some really great experiences.

I'll tell the truth, when i heard that i was going to be coming to Culiacan, i wasn't too happy. Now that í've been here for a week, i'm really excited to be working here. The ward here is AMAZING! All the members LOVE us and are willing to do just about anything for the missionaries. There's a lot of members who are really excited to work with us. Several members have been going to lessons with us and taking us to meet their friends. There are also several members here that are return missionaries. Yesterday i counted the attendance and there were a whopping 115 members!! It's almost as big as my first ward in los cabos, the only difference is that we're the only 2 missionaries here! There's definately a lot of work to be done and i know i'm going to love my time here. Our area is in the outskirts of Culiacan. The majority of the neighborhoods are surrounded my forest or  hills so i really don't feel like i'm in the city. The sisters give us a ton of homemade flour tortillas and Frijoles puercos(pig beans). They're the 2 classic dishes that Culiacan is known for. 

Elder Aleman is a great Elder. We are different. He really likes things like action figures and japones cartoons so we don't have too much in common, but despite our differences, i feel like we're already great friends. He is 22 years old and just got baptised 3 years ago. The majority of his family got baptised with him so he has a little more support than Elder Roman. 

This week we had a surprise Zone Conference. President Cantu spoke just about the entire time. Something that really stuck to me was quote from Boyd K. Packer. He said in simple words, "you find what you look for''. If we're looking for success in the mission, and we put the progress of our investigadors before EVERYTHING, we're going to have success. At the same time if we look for excuses, we're going to find them. 

Hope you all have a great week!! I love you all and hope the best. Love Elder Mecham