Letter #31 12/26/11 Happy Holidays!!

Landon loved the dinner cooked for him on this fire!

Christmas Morning 2011!!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from Cabo San Lucas!

This is how they get hot water.  It does not look safe at all!

Hola famiy, I hope that you all had a wonderful Christmas! I imagine that you went to IHOP or Denny's, went and spent the rest of the day at grandma's. And i hope that talking to me on saturday wasn't too much of a distraction. I couldn't believe how fast the 2 hours went. Surprisingly, even with 2 hours there's a few things that i forgot to say. Question, how much does it cost me to use my debit card. Also, i'd like it if you sent pictures every once in a while. I can put them on my memory card and print them out in wallmart really cheap. I felt like i talked a little too much saturday and i realized that i had a lot of questions for you guys that never got answered. How was the Funeral? I was at a Funeral that same day for a sister in the ward that passed away. We song a lot of hyms and bore testimonies. The entire time i was thinking of Grandma Thomas. I didn't know her to well but i know she was an amazing women and that right now her spirit is in a really happy place. The Plan of Salvation is true. Also, what classes are Lexi and Mckell taking? And Mom, what do you do with all you're time when Lexi and Mckell are at school and dad is traveling? Did you guys do anything different for Christmas? And dad, have you been swamped with work since you starting covering the offices in Maryland?

So i talked with the sister about when lexi called in advance and she told me that she understood everything you said, she was just a little confused and thought it was a joke from one of her sobrinas that lives in Texas. haha, We had an amazing Christmas yesterday. There were'nt many people at church, but surprisingly there were still a couple gringo families to fill up the empty seats. Haha i was a little surprised to see tourists on Christmas day but it was nice to talk a little english with a family from Utah on Christmas. In the evening we went to San Lucas to sing. We didn't sing to well but it was awesome. There were a lot of people listening and i even got to see a few members from my old area. I was especially glad to see Bernardo, the last baptism that i had there. He is still doing great and we were able to talk for a long time while he gave us a ride home to San Jose in his Mustang.

It was awesome to be able to talk with everyone from the family on Saturday! I'd like to hear from all of them too. Rachel and Ryan were in Oregon i'm guessing? Would've been nice to talk with them too. Well i loved all the packages that you sent!! I loved everything inside each one but i want to especially thank Aunt Melanie for the Hym book, Marcie for the Adam's peanut butter and CD, Grandma for the sweater, and mom for the power bars and the mini Preach my Gospels. Wow those are amazing!! I was studying the lessons today on our busride. And Elder Garcia is incredibly greatful aswell. He me that when he saw me open mine he was going to ask if he could make a copy of every page so he could have one too.

Well thanks for everything. I hope all is well this week and that you guys enjoy the rest of your time together. We have a lot of plans to find new investigadors, we're probably going to start doing english classes so that will be interesting. I love you all. Elder Mecham

Letter #30 12/19/11 Christmas Phone Call!!

Love the Teddy Bear!!

Elder Garcia always has a smile on his face!!

Hey family! This week was pretty good. There was a lot of celebrating this week. Wednesday we had a huge Christmas celebration in San lucas. We had all the Elders in la Paz and Los Cabos meet in San Lucas nd we had some activities and had meeting of testimonies. It was a great day, we didn't get back to hour house until pretty late. I won't lie, i'm a little more than excited to talk to you guys on Christmas. We didn't really have a lot of options for houses where we can talk. Of the active members in our area there are 2 that have phones in there house. We talked with the family who's going to spend their Christmas here in San Jose and they told us that we could do it the 24 in the afternoon. So Saturday at 5 in the afternoon is when we're going to be there in the house waiting the phone call. You guys call the house, the number is   . You should call at 5. We're going to get there at about 430 so don't be scared to call 5 minutes early. The family of Elder Garcia is going to call at 7. I'm extremely sorry about the time. I know thats when everyone allways goes to Grandmas. It was literally the only time that worked out. I understand if you guys would rather go to grandmas.. But i'll be waiting there at the house either way. HAha. But seriously i'm sorry.. I tried to make it work out in a different time but it wasn't going to happen. But the good news is that the family is going to feed us tamalis afterwards!!

Well this week we have had very little success. We spent a lot of time visiting the less active members. It is incredibly frustrating trying to deal with them and all their problems. There are a TON of inactive members, and almost all have testimonies of the church, thier just lazy and don't want to get up early, or have been ofended by someone in the ward and refuse to go. Out of all the inactives we visited, not a single one went to church. I think this week we're going to dedicate a little more of our time to finding more investigadors. But we don't want to find any ordinary investigador, we want to find the escogidos. We know that they're out there, we just need to be obedient and do everything possible to find them, and once we've given everything God will put them in our path. Right now we have a few awesome investigadors that really want to get baptised, but have a big obstacle that stopping them. For all of them the obstacle is their family. We have a women who wants to get baptised but needs to get divorced from her prior husband and get married to her current husband who doesn't want to get married. Big problem, but nothing a little faith can't change. We're going to keep working hard this week. Well Love you all and i cant wait to talk to you Saturday at 5! And Merry Christmas to everyone. I love you all, friends and family. Thanks for you're examples, love, and support.. Elder Mecham

Letter #29 12/12/11 Baptism!

Hey everyone! I´m writing a little bit late once again. We had an incredibly long zone meeting in San Lucas this morning. The bus ride from our house to the Church in San Lucas is about an hour and a half to two hours so we just barely got back. But the meeting was great, i learned a ton and it was nice to be back in my first church building and see a few of the Elders from my old district. I´m loving San Jose, it´s a little different than my last area, but i love it. One of the biggest differences is the attendance during church. The Building is about 45 minutes on a bus from hour area, much shorter if you have a car, but the majority of our investigadors don´t have cars. This could represent a problem but it´s nothing that a little faith can´t change. There are also not nearly as many members that go to church. We have a TON of less actives. The majority of the people who give us our lunch every day our less active or completely inactive. We have a lot to do here. The good news is that we had 2 baptisms on Saturday! Its a younger couple, they got married Friday, baptised Saturday, and confirmed Sunday. They´re awesome! I was a witness in the wedding and had the priviledge of signing their papers. Getting ready for their baptism didn´t quite go as planned. We arrived at the church in the morning to prepare the font and found that it was full from the last baptism 3 weeks ago with water that looked like it had been the home to many living creatures, this wouldn´t be a problem because all we had to do was drain it, but the drainer doesn´t work. So we had to drain the entire thing with buckets! Great experience. I wasn´t mad because it was a great opportunity to do some much needen exercise. It took us a good 2 and a half hours. With this and another list of problems that we had with the water, we spent the entire day in the church building preparing for the baptism in the evening. But their baptism was amazing so it was all worth it.

Elder Garcia is a great Elder. He´s from the Cornavaca area. I don´t really know how to spell it but i know that´s it´s the mission that Brandon´s serving in. He is incredibly humble. He´s basically a perfect example of every Christ-like attribute. He also has a strong resemblance to the panda bear in Kung Fu panda. I´m really looking forward to working with him this change. We teach great together and get along great. He doesn´t talk a whole lot so i really don´t know to much about the rest of his life, but i know that he´s a great person and has a strong spirit. 

I have good news for hour Christmas day phone call. We can talk for 2 hours! Everyone was pretty shocked to hear that. I thought you´d be pretty happy too so i decided not to wait to tell you, but i´ll let you know more details later. Also, i got the packages from Aunt Melanie and Grandma today. Thanks a ton!!! You´ll be happy to know that they didn´t need to open them in the airport from Sinaloa to Cabo so it will all be a grand surprise. I hope the whole family knows how much i love them and that i pray for them. I´m greatful for the close relationship we all have and during with all the christmas lights and music  around here it brings back good memories at Grandma´s house. I be sure to work extra hard for you guys so you can get some blessings. Well love you all, especially dad because it was his birthday. Elder Mecham

 

Landon and Elder Garcia emptying that font!! Good Exercise!

Signing the marriage license- cool experience!

 

Letter #28 12/05/11 Transfer to San Jose!!

Hanging out in Cabo!!

Baptism!!

Landon the Alien!!

A little tower building time!

Hey everyone! A lot happened this last week. First of all, i'm not writing you from Cabo San Lucas, i'm in San Jose! It's 20 minutes from Cabo. Haha but from what i've seen from the 2 hours i've been here it's going to be a little bit different. For example, write now im writing in a trailer of some old man who has 4 computers that he rents. My area is a little more isolated from the all the stores and everything, but i'm super excited. I was pretty shocked when i heard i was leaving my area. With Elder Carrillo going home i thought for sure that i was going to stay. I won't lie, it was incredibly hard to say goodbye to everyone. I didn't think it would be so hard because i know that i'm going to meet great people in all my areas, but i felt really comfortable with the ward, and all the people in my area. I'm hoping that i'll be able to see some of them again before i leave the baja.

Probably the most exciting news of the week is that B got baptised! He's the friend of V and he was able to stay away from all the temptations of satan and his baptism was amazing! He wanted to do it at 7 in the morning because he wanted to have a clean mind walking in to the water. Him and V are both awesome. I was able to see them progress a ton in the 4 months that i was in Cabo. Saying goodbye to them was probably the hardest out of everyone, but i know i'm going to meet plenty more people and see a lot more lives change in the same ways that theirs did. After B got confirmed the first thing he did was pay his tithing. He's a Stud.

So my new companion is Elder Garcia, another Elder Garcia. He's extremely nice and i'm hoping that we have a lotof success this cambio. We're going to work incredibly hard. This ward has a few problems. The Bishop is inactive, that's probably the biggest one, but i know we're going to be able to have a ton of success if we just work hard and are obedient.

That's awesome that lexi got accepted into the study abroad program!! She's going to be speaking fluent spanish. And I hope everything is good at home. It's weird that it's December right now. It definately doesn't feel like December here, but i'm excited for Christmas! Thanks for all the Christmas music, that has made me very happy. Love you all, and Happy birthday DAD!!!

Letter #27 11/28/11 Baptism & Dolphins!

Hey family! Sorry for writing so late and probably scaring you a little bit. A lot happened this week. Ill start out with the best news, V got baptise! I dont know if you remember me mentioning V before.. He was one of my first investigadors with Elder Garcia. He lives with his friend who got baptised in Utah about 15 years ago and is incredibly inactive, but it turns out his friend has no record of getting baptised so if he keeps the commandments with week were going to baptise him too! But we stopped teaching V about 2 months ago because he had no plans of getting baptised, but last wednesday we were in front of his house talking with his friend when he arrived home from work, we started talking with him a little bit and mentioned how his friend is going to get rebaptised and challenged V to pray about it and see if he should get baptised as well. We returned Thursday and he said he would do it! He told us that the day before, while at work, he had been praying a ton for help in his life and when he got home and saw us he knew it was his answer. He got baptised Saturday! I was stunned, we had no plans of having a baptism last week, let alone this cambio, and now were going to have 2! Well if B can stay away from the temptations of Satan..

The reason that im writing so late is because our Zone completed our goal for the month and today we had a day long activity, approved by the president, in order to celebrate! In the morning we played soccer in a huge turf court for about 3 hours, and we spent the rest of the day watching movies! Nothing special, just some movie about football, singles ward, movies like that, but we had a great time. After i wrote you guys last Tuesday we were lucky enough to get to see Dolphins! Theres a member in the ward who is a dolphin trainer and she told us that we could come and watch people swim with dolphins one day if we wanted to. It was pretty thrilling, but a little strange walking around in the tourist parts of Cabo. For the first time since i arrived in Mexico i wasnt the minority. And you would be extremely surprised how many mormon tourists there are. Id say 1 out of every 5 groups of people were mormon. We know this because of course every single one wanted to stop and talk with the missionaries, and me being the only one who speaks english got to do all the talking.

More than anything id say that this week ive learned the God rewards us for our efforts, even if its not how we expect. We have been working incredibly hard to find new people, and weve found a lot, but nobody that seemed escogido. But after everything, we ended up baptising someone that weve hardly talked to the past 2 months. That was definately a miricle I hope everyone knows i love being a missionary!

Well i love you all! This is the last week of the cambio, it will be interesting to see if i stay or if i go. haha. Im hoping i stay. Please pray for me. I love you and i think about you a lot, but not too much, but i still love you an incredibly large amount and i hope all is well. Elder Mecham

P.S. Thanksgiving i did nothing involving thanksgiving, i almost forgot. But i love the pics!

Letter #26 11/22/11 Cabo Youth Conference!

Hello! First of all, im sorry that i couldnt write you guys yesterday. We changed our p day to today, only for this week, because yesterday we were helping out with a giant youth conference the whole day. All the youth from the Southern part of the Baja have been in Cabo this past weekend and yesterday we helped them with a missionary activity. It was pretty sweet, we taught them how to contact houses and after we split up into groups of 6 youths and 1 missionary and went out and contacted. I had a group of 6 boys who were between 15 and 17. They were all super excited and loved it. After that they had a giant Cultural dance that lasted 3 hours. It was awesome! It was held in a giant dance pavillion in Downtown Cabo and there were a ton of people. We brought 2 investigadors and they loved it. Its good for the investigadors that mormons have fun.

But thats why i didnt write yesterday. In case youre wondering, no, i didnt get to dress up like Santa Claus again... But were going to do it again in the near future. Everybody keeps asking us when Santa is coming to come back so we really dont have much of a choice. This last week we worked really hard to find the houses of the people and give them their pictures with Santa and share a quick message. Some of the people have been really accepting and weve made other appointments to return and teach them, but others were just really happy to have their free photo. But if all we get is one baptism, it will all be worth it. Right now we are still really struggling to have investigadors that are progressing. We have a lot of people who are super excited and potential for baptism, but have absolutely no time. They leave in the morning to work at 10 and get back at 9, which unfortunately are the hours that we work aswell. With these people we basically only can find them one time a week and that really isnt enough to get them to progress fast enough.

Ive been thinking alot about faith this week, and putting our confidence in God. This past week we had 2 investigadors who have already recieved testimonies of the Book of Mormon, and know that everything is true, but still wont get baptised because their afraid of what their families are going to think. We told them that they need to put their confidence in God; that he created all the planets and the sun and he can use that same power to make things in our life work out the way we want it to if we just have faith. Afterwards i was thinking about it and i realized that its not only true with our with our investigadors, its true with us aswell. This area hasnt really had much success the past few months, but im conviced that if we just put our confidence in God, are obedient to all the rules, and love everyone, that were going to find the escogidos and have baptisms by the end of this cambio.

I hope everything is good at home. Its crazy that its already thanksgiving, it still feels like summer to me because of the heat. But its starting to feel really good when the sun goes down. Lots of people are starting to wear coats starting at about 6 at night but im pretty happy with my short sleeve shirt. Well i love you all, were working really hard here and trying to get lots of blessings. I hope some of them make it back home to Utah. Thanks for all the emails, Love you all!!!!! Elder Mecham

Letter #25 11/14/11 Ho!Ho!Ho!

 

He knows Lexi and Mckell would love this!!

Hey everyone! Hope you all had an amazing, exciting, and spiritual week. Thanks for the letters! And thanks a ton for the packages! Don´t worry i didn´t open anything that i shouldn´t open. It was a little hard with the packet from Aunt Marci because the package was already opened (they have to open everything in the airport security) but i didn´t even take a peak. Thanks!!! And the music is amazing mother, thank you very very much.

This week was fantastic, but we didn´t have a baptism... But we are slowly finding more and more people. Our investigadors most potential right now are our neighbors. It´s a mom and her 2 daughters, ages 8 and 9, and they´re awesome! They went to a baptism last week and loved it and church on sunday. One of the daughters was feeling sick during church and we gave her a blessing before she went to primary and she basically instantly recovered and was fine the rest of the day. They´re going to get baptised for sure. They love to learn and love reading in the book of mormon. Allthough, it´s a little weird that their our next door neighbors. We don´t have blinds or anything in our apartment and they run past our window all the time playing tag and other games, normally around 10 oclock at night when we´re getting ready to sleep. And every time the run past they stop and talk to us, and they talk a lot... I haven´t had much time to get things done at night because we spend a lot of time talking.. There´s not much we can do. But i´m super excited for their baptism!! Should be the 25th of this month. 

So this week, in order to find more investigadors, we tried something a little different. We had planned that we were going to set up a table outside of the local market and hand out pamphlets and Books of Mormon with a few members of the ward, but our ward mission leader thought that that was too boring. He showed up with a full on Santa suit and a giant sign that said free pictures with Santa. And me being the only white guy got to wear the suit!! I spent half of saturday dressed up like santa clause shouting Hohoho and feliz navidad. Haha i´m going to try and send you some pictures but i´m having some problems with the computer right now. But it was a huge success. We have 25 new refrences. We told all the people that took pictures that we were going to deliver the fotos to their houses and share a message for their families. 

Well i hope you all have an amazing week. Oh and mom, to answer your question the spanish is fine. I´m thinking in spanish always and i´ve had dreams in spanish but for the most part their in english. It depends on the setting of the dream.. But i love you all!!

Good thing he's still wearing his tag!!

Ho! Ho! Ho!