Aug 10

Another week has flown by in the mission, I cannot believe sometimes how fast the mission goes. My companion and I are doing well. One thing I still do not understand is why Peruvians think drinking cold drinks and water with ice makes you sick, It just does not have any logic.

This week Elder Flores told me that now that I have 9 monthes I need to be putting in more effort in contacting and improving my lessons. Since that day I have been doing to majority of the contacting and invitations to baptism. I am glad he was frank with me because it is helping me improve a lot. I have set goals to have more personal iniative so that I willl improve as a missionary and with my spanish. I am glad he is my companion. He has so much energy and drive to fulfill the work and accomplish high goals. He really is very inspiring. One question he had and I too was why he never had the opportunity to be zone leader. He would have had the best zone in the mission. But I can see that he does really well to strengthen and improve the district with his lessons and his personality.

This week our investigators Charles and Mari are not doing very well. After we visited hna mari with you we returned and talked about the gospel and repentace with Charles. Sadly they ended up fighting during the lesson. Elder Flores tried to have a Companionship inventory with them, like he had each of them say strengths about the other. Hno Charles could come up with strengths for mari, but Mari said that there are zero things she likes about Charles. They are really struggling with their relationship. Then we decided to have a family home evening with them to help them out. It started off nice and neat, but after the lesson the two had a huge fight. We were with members who tried to help them and calm them down but the two just kept insulting eachother. There is a lot of pride between the two of them. The fight was very ugly and very sad. We are going to leave them for awhile so that they can resolve some of their problems. We will be praying for them. What else can we do for them? Paty still is away for work so we visited Jose. We shared about the book of mormon and the importance to prayer and read. We are trying to do are best to share the WHY of all the lessons with him, so that he will see the importance of our lessons. We found a new investigator named Joel this week. He was a reference from the Hnas. He is divorced and living single, so we will not have to worry about getting him married. He is the cousion of one of the members in the ward, so this should really help with having a friend in the ward. We shared about prophets and then invited him to church. The next day he came to church with us the whole 3 hours. I am excited to start teaching him. He seems like the chosen investigator we have been searching for. This next week we will use the ward directory to find less actives that can progress. During the process we are going to search for pfs and new people to teach.

The area is improving with the help of the members. Yet we still lack a lot of investigators. 

August 3

This was another great work week. Elder Flores and I are trying to change the low numbers of the zone with lessons with members. For this reason we are working hard to leave with members and find more people to teach. 

This week I did I work visit with the zone leaders. It was nice to get to know the other zone leader named elder Otivo. He will end his mission in 2 weeks and he is excited to start life again. He is very wise though when it came to the scriptures. The thing I liked about the visit with him is we talked about the importance of teaching well and teaching to have conversos and not less actives. The cool thing is he could take any scripture from the book of mormon and apply it in a profound way in any lesson. He is a really great example of a great leader and an obedient missionary. The next week we will do any work visit with the elders of miraflores.

Also Elder Bednar is going to come and visit the mission. Now we have 3 talks that we need to study in depth before he comes. They all are about faith and conversion. Some of them are really cool. The cool part is we will get to travel to Chiclayo to see him. Also for the next multi zone next week we will also get to come down from Jaen to Chiclayo. It is a 6 hour and half drive but is really enjoyable to travel. Plus, usually the zone Jaen does not get to come down, but this time we get to see all the other zones and our friends.

President Williams and Hna Williams came and visited and interviewed all the missionaries. It was nice to talk with presidente again, and the best part is his wife always gives us cookies. The best part of his visit is that he came out with us on one of our appointments. The funny part is we had planned a certain lesson, but presidente likes to told so he changed the whole thing. Basically it was 40 mins of presidente and 2 minutes my companion 2 minutes me, but it was a really cool lesson. As almost every couple here in peru is not married, presidente talked about the importance of marriage, repentence, and forgiveness. He burned them harshly but in a lovingly way. It was really amazing.

This p day we saw a museum. Ate at a restaurant and chilled. It is sad there are so many cool nature places to visit, but we cannot because some other missionaries before did stupid things.... Well it is still nice to just relax though.

HOpe all is well at home

 

 Also this is what president wrote me after the lesson apart from his regular letters:

Just a quick note.. It was great to have an interview with you today. You are doing great and I appreciate your sincere work ethic and steadiness! I know I talked a lot in the discussion on Saturday.. but what you said was great and powerful and connected everything I was trying to say. thank you for your testimony and courage to bear witness of true principles... You are a great missionary. Thank you.

July 27

This Week
We are working really hard to improve this area to leave it better than we found it. This week we had the opportunity to go to Fila Alta which is a part of our area that is a little farther away. There are a bunch of less actives and members that live up there. There is also a really cool cementary that we went and took pictures. Surprisely this week one of the elders of my zone went home today because he had problems with his back. What was sad though was that president took out Elder Salas and closed the area. Also hermana Chandler finished her mission. As always, our pension and hermano antonio did a little going away party and ordered pizza. The best part of the going away send off is they always smash eggs on peoples heads. The funniest thing though is this times we brough eggs too. One of my eggs I let hno antonio secretly smash on Hna Chandlers head while we were taking a picture. The other Elder Flores smashed an egg on Hna Deydi and then 1 second later I smashed an egg on hna deydi. At the end we all had eggs on our heads.

Report of the area

This week we really worked hard to improve our lessons with members. We made sure we had a member with us as much as possible. It has been hard sometimes with the members failing but we always try to have back up plans. This week we had a huge improvement with lessons with members. Last week we had 6 but this week we improved to 18. Just one week of hard work and goals changed our outcome. Elder Flores and I are working hard. I still struggle sometimes but it is just part of learning and part of life. This work is amazing though. I was surprised though when Elder Llerena and Elder Salas left this morning. 

Investigators. Well The family Arnao Aguilar attended church for the second time. It was great seeing them show up. Teaching this week we found out a couple more of their needs. Hno Charles and Hna Mari do not really have a lot of love between the two. They are married but we are working with them to set a goal. It is just a little sad because sometimes the two fight during the lessons. During church in principles of the gospel the mentioned the word of wisdom and how we cannot drink alcohol and hna mari was so shocked. That same day we explained the word of wisdom and they will need to set some goals to overcome some bad habbits. Besides this the family is very interested in the gospel. They are reading the book of mormon as a family which I think will really help them develop more love and peace in the home, and it will help them strengthen their relationship. The family escajadillo is doing well they accepted the book of mormon well and they are going to read it. The only reason the did not come to church this week is because they went out of town to Mosefu. We invited them to attend church there but who knows if they did. The family delgado camacho has been super busy... Hna paty is on a business trip so we only could meet with hno jose one time. We gave him the family proclamation and talked about the importance of marriage. This next week we will be able to visit this family again. The family ramirez sadly did not make it to church. We have not been able to teach the wive about the family proclamation, but we talked to Hno Rosel about agency and the atonement. How we have the opportunity to change and repent. We need to be putting some baptismal dates but all of our investigators need to get married before they are eligible for baptism. The only investigator we have that does not need to get married is called Darwin. He is a reference from the elders in Laureles. He has gone to church more then 6 times. The only thing is that it was not in Laureles. We have invited him to come to Morro Solar but he has a girl friend that goes to Laureles. We will keep working with him. Also we found a family through the help of the hermanas that surprisely already had a book of mormon and had read much of it. We will continue working with this family for sure.

Well I am doing well

Elder mecham

 

 

July 20

Wow, another week down. I am here in Jaen, Peru enjoying the life of an missionary.

My report on my area and my investigators.

With changes there are always difficultities but there are always improvements and growth.

Investigators... Right now we have 4 families that are receiving us 2 of the famiies are fairly new but are excited to learn more. The other 2 have listened to many of the lessons and want to get baptized, the only problem is all four of them need to get married and one of them is living as I told you before a life of prostitution. The newer families are the family Arnao Aguilar and the family Esacadillo. The family Arnoa is charles, mari, and licans. We reviewed the book of mormon and they attended all three hours of church yesterday. They seem like a really good family that has a great chance to progress. When we reviewed the book of mormon they had a lot of great questions. I feel that the focus for this family will be the family proclamation. We are going to share it with them the next visit, it should help them realize the importance of matrimony and the family. The familly delgado camacho was on vacation this last week so we did not have the chance to visit them. We have started to review all the lessons with this family because we have taught all that is required and hno Jose still needs to gain his testimony of the book of mormon and of the church. Hna Paty is wonderful but we still need to help them put a date for their marriage. Each time we challenge them to put a date, but everytime we come to verify them always have some excuse. We will keep trying with the family because they have both told us that they have the desire to get married. What is even cooler is when Paty´s dad is in town he comes and listens to us. 

The family rameriz is doing well but we are in the planning of grand lesson of repentance and chastity for hna flor (prostitute) and hno Rosel. The family Escajadillo is a newer family that we have taught lesson 1 and the book of mormon. They promised us that they were going to go to church, but they did not show up. They key to them will be focusing on the importance of the family and the book of mormon.

The biggest problem though is every family we are teaching needs to get married.

The area is doing okay.To be honest I feel like I do not know the area really well. We have investigators but not enough to fill the schedule. For this reason We are in the grand search for more people to teach and baptize.. Elder Flores has taught me to challenge every person we contact to baptism which is amazing. At first I thought it was strange but it is much easier now.

I feel elder flores and I will be able to work really hard and well together. We will work hard in this area to develop and reap the harvest of our work. He is a funny guy that likes to work hard. I will be glad have this time to help him finish his mission strong. I am doing well having my first latino companion but I have a long way to go with my spanish. Elder Flores will help me a lot...

I am doing well, I miss you all.

Wish grandpa mecham a quick recovery.

Elder mecham

This is my zone now in Jaen. My companion is the one in the Argentina jersey

Looking out over the fields of freaking rice... so much rice.

So there is a old folks home here in peru in my area.
We went in and gave them a nice little visit.
My comp is a goofball, but it made all the little grandpas happy.

Us in front us the the board. Oh and he really likes one piece.
 Chango in Argentinian Spanish is friend. Everyone calls him chango.
And he calls everyone chango. Like Chango Mecham, chango elder..
He is a really funny guy.

July 13

This week

Well it was another hard working week. We had zone conference and I found out sadly that my companion elder Nordhoff has changes...So we spent the weekend saying good bye to all the people . I am kind of sad because he is leaving. I only had 6 weeks or one change with him. My next companion will most likely be a Latino which will be a new experience. I will be difficult, but it will help me improve my Spanish a lot.

It was cool though. Elder Nordhoff sent him a bunch of packages. 5 in total. The funny part is that the zone leaders called and said that they accidentally threw all the packages out when the garbage truck came by. We thought it was a joke, but they kept calling us back apologizing for the thing that they did. At night, they called again having been an entire day of calling and apologizing, and said that they would pay for the packages and the things that were inside. This made elder Nordhoff feel bad so he called them back then told them to not to feel bad about what they did. Then they just started busting out laughing because they had just been joking around. It seemed like a joke at the beginning but they just kept it going....

The cool thing though about the packages is that 3 of the five were all gifts for hna Deydi our pension. They gave her some cake mixes, brownie mixes, and cookie mixes. They also gave her a new triple in Spanish and a picture of jesus. Then some necklaces and earrings, and other girly things. I thought that it was really nice of elder Nordhoff's family to send gifts to her. 

Hna Deydi is really a great pension. She is basically like a second mom away from home. Their family is really nice and they like to joke around a lot. When she found out that elder Nordhoff is leaving she immediately broke into tears. Then for the mission correlation meeting with her husband they held it at their house instead of the church. Hna Deydi made cookies, cake, brownies, and ordered pizza, she also bought Inka kola. I was so full but it was sooooooo goood.

The only thing that surprised me was that the tradition this pension has is at every birthday, good bye, or anything that is worth celebrating, they smash eggs on the heads of the missionaries. So we watched as Hno Antonio came out slying and held two eggs over the top of elder Nordhoffs head. Then he pounded them down. The next thing I knew is people just started smashing eggs everywhere. I ended up with two eggs on my head to. Even the Hnas had eggs dripping from their head also Hno Antonio and Hna Deydi. It was nasty yet fun.

I am super nervous though for the changes... we will see what happens

Elder Mecham

July 6

Happy 4th of July

Well I kind of miss the festivities of the fourth which kind of sucked. The only thing that the peruvivans were celebrating was the day of the friend which is a day that was created by a beer company where they lower the prices for beer so there were a lot of drunks. Also the Copa America had the final which chile won. I know because during the times of the futbol games all the people will not let you in because the are "really busy". The only festive thing that I ended up doing was that we sang the national anthem with all the americans during the mision coordination. All the pervuvians laughed but I am glad I am part of the states.

I completed 8 months in the mission and elder Nordhoff completed 1 year this week too. It was kind of funny because the night he completed a year after planning he just sat there and stared at the ceiling saying how long a year is. I mean the mission is long but it goes by really fast. I was cool though because he burned a shirt. I want to burn a shirt for a year but I will probably just burn one of the shirts that other missionaries have left because I feel like a just have enough shirts to get me through the weeks.

I feel like I know my area okay now. I am kinda sad because we are pretty sure that elder Nordhoff is going to get changed next week. That means I will only have one change with him. Then I will need to lead the area and teach my next comp.

We have been struggling with a draught of investigators... It is hard. My last area we seemed to always have new people and people to teach. I mean speaking of my first area elder unruh was in the mission boliton with a baptism of a family that we worked so hard with. I am so glad that he met his goal... Now they have the goal to get sealed in the Trujillo which makes me so happy.

Well I hope grandpa heels well, And that you guys had a great fourth of july.

Love you all

Elder Mecham

Thats cool to hear about Joshua Mecham in the family history. What is funny is he was baptized on my birthday.

June 29

So this week was another hard week of work. We are searching, contacting, and working are hearts out but not with too much success. But that doesn't matter all attempts to find people are counted. The highlights for this week for me was the baptism of the sisters and the service we did for one of our investigators. For the service project we helped the family Ramirez dig a ditch for their water pipe. Sadly right now they don't have any water in their house. So we took out the picks and shovels to help him out a little. The only thing is that he has to make the little trench over two blocks long to tap in the water line. It is going to take a long time... but it is good work and long. Elder Nordhoff got 4 blisters on his hands that looked so painful.
The Hermanas had a baptism this week for the Hermana Michelle mi chel li. So elder Nordhoff had the opportunity to interview his first baptismal candidate. During the interview I sat and talked with Hno Fausto. The baptismal was nice too. The only sad thing was that a member was having a birthday party at the same time, so they were blasting music while we were trying to feel the spirit. Right when Hna Michelle went to get baptized the starting screaming happy birthday. ohh typical Peru.... The other funny part is hno Fausto and hna Michelle are engaged so they had a cake at the baptism too. It basically looked like an engagement party too.
Then yesterday during church we got a shock that the Hermanas have emergency changes and that they are all going to the other mission. IT was kind of sad, all the Hermanas started to cry, but man they get to go to the new Trujillo temple why would they be so sad.... just how the hnas are though.

Then today we said good bye and waved them off as the bus drove away. We also played soccer.


The picture is of my district before two of the sisters were leaving to Trujillo. Now I am in a district of only 4 missionaries which is kind off sad. but it is life. A

Also peru is in the semi finals of the copa america. Peru vs Chile this night. We probably wont be able to get into any houses tonight. I wish I could watch it.

Elder Mecham