October 26, 2015

Wow another week has flown by... I can just say I am exhausted yet energized to keep going in this work... This last week, we were able to leave with a lot of different members and find some new people to teach.

I am having a lot of fun training... It is hard, but I have learned a ton from elder Darrington. This week we had the first 3 weeks training meeting. It was fun because that meant we were able to go to Chiclayo and see a lot of my friends from the mission. Like always, president Williams gave a great lesson and his wife too. They always teach in a way that just invites the spirit to help us know what we need to do to improve. My highlights of the meeting was that Elder Darrington said the prayer to finish. The best part is that he did an amazing job...

Then we had the opportunity to do service in two different opportunities. First was Thursday in the morning, we had planned to just go out a teach, but when we passed by the church there were a couple members there to do some service. The coolest part was that a member of the ward Kennedy was there. It was really cool to see him again. He works for the church in the maintenance and fixing of all the church building in, what I believe the Chiclayo mission. So, we hurried and changed our clothes and worked. I felt like I was back in my first area working side by side with Hno Daniel. The project we did was we repainted the lines for the soccer-basketball court. It was actually really enjoyable. We put tape down, and then afterward we painted the white lines for basketball and soccer and then a yellow line for volleyball. At the end we took all the tape of which was a ton and rolled them up into huge tape balls. We started playing around with the balls throwing them like footballs and kicking them around.

The second opportunity was that we cleaned out the outside of the what they call the high school so that they could have a annual party for the school. IT was just a lot of sweeping and picking up trash.. but it is always fun to mix in service in the week.

Sunday we went to a multi stake conference of the area of Bolivia and Peru. It was cool... The only thing is the church we had to travel to had a lot of technical difficulties... The speakers spoke about temples, Christlike attributes... and a lot of great experiences. The speakers were elder Nash... elder Anderson... Elder Uceda.. and others.. They all were in salt lake city, apart from elder Uceda which pre filmed his talk...

I am really enjoying studying the scriptures.. I am learning so much and it is strengthening my desire to keep working and studying. I am reading the book of Mormon from the back until the front. weird, but I have found a lot of answers and I have received some great incites this way.

This week that will not be pictures... because this computer is really sketchy and I do not trust my pictures with this computer.

Well love you all a ton

Elder Mecham

Can you find Elder Mecham?   Hint  Look on the Left hand side

October 19, 2015

What a Crazy week

WOw,,,, all I can say a lot has happened this last week.

So first to start off the Peru, Chiclayo mission has a saying or slogan that goes Estudiamos por las mañanas, trabajamos por las tardes, y vemos Milagros por la Noche. 

Or if I can get it right. We study in the morning, we work in the afternon, and then we see miracles in the night.

I can really say that this is true. Right now I am doing my hardest to be the most obedient that I can. I have always been trying, I am just putting a stronger emphasis now... Especially since I am training again.

The first miracle I saw.....

Well, right before the change, two weeks ago, we had the pleasing surprise of the landlord telling us that we needed to move. Not, because we were dumb and broke anything, never would missionaries do things like that, but because the landlord s son was coming back from Lima. The land lord was sad to have us move because, one he is a member, and two he developed a great relationship. Anyway, that stressed me out a lot... Then I had the pleasure to train Elder Darrington... I say pleasure because really he is the only thing that is keeping me sane. The guy is chill. The funny thing is he went to my rival High School Lone Peak. Really to me, that does not matter at all. We have worked super hard together. I have learned a little more how to manage my stress in some unpleasant situations. Well now on to the point, our ward mission leader found us a house that was really nice. We went and saw it and they wanted to charge 400 soles for the month. That is a lot for here... haha... I do not think is dollars anymore it is quite sad. We sent the pictures to president Williams, and he called and told us to negociate with the guy... He said to get the guy to at least 300 soles a month. This is not an easy task... Especically since my companion is recently learning spanish,,, so we tried our best... then we got back up... Hno Guillermo Mejia really helped us out a lot. All in all we got them down to 250 soles a month rent then 20 soles for light and water. and then 3 soles for the trash guys to come. I felt accomplished and protected. The lord prepared a house for us. This guy told us after the he used to rent this house to his brother, but his brother was basically a bum and trashed the house. Afterwards, he swore that he would never rent the house out again... Well the Lord had other plans... I know he is protecting us... 

Second Miracle....

This sunday we went to church like normal... haha... And after the meeting Guillermo present us to a family of members from a city called Chongoyape. The thing about Chongoyape is that there used to be a branch there but it got closed down because it just did not work out. Chongoyape is 30 minutes from where we are which would be for the less 2 hours from Chiclayo. The thing is the family was of faithful members a mom, and 2 of her kids. One of her sons were not members yet. His name is Joel Guillermo Huaman.. Pray for him.. And the family Huaman... They will be our next baptisms.. I have faith that they will.

Well besides that we are doing fine... WOrking like crazy... I soo Tired..

Elder Joshua Leo Mecham,

Love you all.... See you all in about a year

Oct 12, 2015

This week is was a new experience and a lot of hard work. Elder Darrington is really willing to work so that is an amazing thing. Every since he came it is like my spanish just clicked in. I mean ya I still have to study my brain out, but It is good to see the progress. So far it has been me sharing most of the lesson and elder darrington testifying, but it has been an amazing combination. I have had scriptures just come to mind and questions too. I taught Elder Darrington to ask for references so that every person we speak with we can ask. Let´s just say references are more efficient than contacting. We were finding people like crazy. Thanks to the help of the members and the willingness to give us people. On the other hand we found a family THAT IS ACTUALLY MARRIED... what a blessing. They are farmers being in the Cria and sadly they do not know how to read. The thing is that they can still pray and attend church. Their names our Pedro pablo and Maria Luisa. Pedro shared a really good story about how god provided cows for him. I then shared malaquias 3. They will be good people. This next week we are going to try and put a baptismal date. They other great thing is this sunday a lady named Angela Marisol just came to church. We had a really good lesson about the word of wisdom in gospel principles, It all ended up with her having a really spiritual experience and wanting us to visit her. The funny thing is that I did not even know she was an investigator until she told us to come visit her.
We are close to have three rescues in the next coming weeks too. We are working hard and I can see the blessings. Now it will be contiuning on.
ohh... The other cool investigator we found this was a couple Named alejandro and elena. they are also married!!! A member gave us the reference and we made sure we visited the couple with the member. The dad is a really great guy that just had a tragic accident where he lost he leg in a car crash. It is really cool how God will put these people in our path.

The most spiritual experience though this week was that we went with a member named Guillermo to visit a list of windows and sick people. We visit a widow that was blind and almost deaf. In the end she asked for a blessing to comfort her. When I started the blessed words just filled my mouth... I could feel how much heavenly father loved this daughter of his. My eyes were not dry at the end of the blessing... I know that God will work through us if we work as hard as we can... That blessing was not my words or any thing of mine. I love this people.

Elder Darrington will do well, it is taking a bit of adjustment to change for clean states to here but he has an amazing attitude and is not afraid. It is a pleasure to work with him.

We are doing well out here, I was so tired this last week, but we worked like crazy. The other fun not really thing that we have to do is move... Lets just say looking for houses in spanish is not as easy as it seems. Bartering is really fun too.

I saw and killed my first scorpion, I guess those are common here... It kinda of scared me.. I was reaching for some of my books and I picked a a book and bam there was a scorpion. I was like oh snap kill it. But i decided to take a picture first. haha

This picture is of me and my step son Elder Torrez and my son Elder Darrington.

October 5, 2015

            11 MONTHS IN THE MISSION!!

This was the last week of this change but it was a week of surprises, adventures,good byes, and conference that was a great conference. As for my area the Cria, it is hard right now to find more families. So now what we are doing is looking like crazy for more opportunities of service. I am looking for the small things like carrying the bags of the cute little old ladys or anything to help out the people. My district leader taught of the preaching and service go hand and hand. Jesus Christ was the perfect example of this. He would be on his way to go help a friend or heal someone and he would stop and heal someone, but at the same time he would teach. He showed  this perfect love for them, and then he inspired his disciples to improve and live the gospel. 

With the current El Niño coming there is a lot of preparation and service to be done to help the people whose houses are not ready for the rain. And there are countless other ways we can help out even if it is really simple. Felix Castillo one of the less actives in the ward is getting closer to being rescued which is being reactivated. We are teaching him all the lessons and he has come to church. He even went to both sessions of Conference on Saturday and on Sunday which is rare for peruvians. It is really funny because many of the members here think that conference is just one session that they just play over and over so that everyone can come and see it at the time most convient.

For conference we were able to go to Chiclayo and I was blessed with the opportunity to see it in English. The funny thing is because my area is so far away there are not combis that come back later in the night, so we went to Chiclayo to the mission office and stayed with the office missionaries and the assistants in there really nice house. The best thing was my companion Elder Flores was ending his mission and he was there because he had to travel from Jaen to end his mission. We had a great time talking, telling stories, and visiting a few places in Chiclayo between the sessions. Elder Flores was in the office before so he knew the area of Chiclayo like the back of his hand. We went and saw some cool things like the picture of this scary loooking statue. It was so cool there was just a park where artists made sculptures about the history and folklore of peru. It was huge. We only had 20 minutes but it was so worth it.

Conference was great... What was cool is they called elder Stevenson, he gave us a visit with elder benson. The best thing was the spirit that was present. I cannot believe how fast it went by. Like I  said before it is like Christmas for missionaries. I felt that these 3 men were called by God. Now it is time to put all the we heard and felt into action.

The cool thing is my old pensionista hna. Deydi send me a package. SHe really was like having another mom in peru. She gave me a whole bunch of chocolate and a picture of her family.

I hope you guys are doing well. Ponderize haha, and learn to understand the promptings of the spirit. Also happy birthday Siena,

 keep you light shining