September 28

This week was fun, but it was another just good work week. Besides a little cold everything was normal this week. It is hard in this area right now because we have a limited pool of people we are teaching. I should not be complaining because I received an email from my friend about her mission in europe and they have absolutely nothing. The most important thing right now for us is that we must find more people to start teaching. So we are talking with everyone in the streets. knocking doors (I have knocked every door in my area) the thing is every time we knock the door it will be someone else that opens. One day we left with a member named Guillermo, a really cool member in  the ward that called and asked us if he could leave with us to visit. It is such a blessing to have him in the ward, most the times we have to beg some people to come with us, but he called us. Anyway we were with and we went to the first appointment, but it fell through... then we heard some loud music in a house with someone singing karoke. Normally we would have just passed by the house because many of times there are people having parties in their houses getting drunk, but Guillermo stopped and told us that it was his friend. We knocked on the door, and a man named Santos camed out to greet us. After some talking, we were able to explain a bit about the book of mormon. And we were able to set up another appointment for this next friday. I hope that we can do our best to help hno Santos progress and build him up so that he will choose to come join the fold. THe funny thing is that he only accepted the next visit him if Guillermo and maybe us too sang karoke with him after the lesson. We will see what will happen...

I am super excited for this next general conference. We will see who will be called as the next apostles. I just hope I will be able to see it again in english because one I can understand it better and two I will actually here their voices. Once you know their voices it is just frustating to listen to translater. How can they match the voice of the prophet or the strong call to repentence from Elder Holland, or the wisdom and hilarilousness of Dieter F Uchtdorf. If not the meaning our still the same. I am just excited. Really excited.

This week the ward had a Luau which was really funny. The only sad thing was peruvians always start really late so an 8 o clock activity starts at 9 or 10. We took some pictures and had fun while we could before we returned to the room before the party actually started. But all in all it was fun.

For the Bitner family, Elder Anderson sends his love, Especially for Whitney. haha.

Love you all

Another week has flown by in the mission, it is amazing how fast it passes. This week we worked hard but right now we do not have a lot of members leaving with us to visit. The thing is that we just kept working and had a lot of lessons with members, and our contacts have not dropped under 120 since Elder Cusihuaman set the goal-punishment of the push ups. It really takes an effort to contact that many people when the area is a little bit smaller. I have contacted the same people twice or threes times on accident. A question, is it okay if we contact the same people over and over not every day but giving it a break. It gives them another opportunity to accept our message or have the chance to be served.

When it comes to investigators Lucio seems to be the next baptism because the other few are not completing with their committments that we have left them. Lucio has 16 years, and he is working on reading the book of mormon. He is reading the book of mormon for the first time. We will keep working on his parents they have not attended once, but I feel that he is mature enough to be baptized and continue in the church. The leaders and the young men support him well in the ward. Would it be okay to put a baptismal date on him but in a month or 2 so that he can advance more in the book of mormon. A baptismal date would raise his animo because he really wants to progress.

Elder Torrez is progressing well, he has a strong desire to learn english too. He always is asking me how to pronounce names in the book of mormon. He will learn english for sure if he continues with these same desires to learn.

Right now I have the goal to right all of the Old Testament, but in english. so far I in 1 samuel. It is really interesting how many times they fall into worshiping other gods than Jehovah. A talk I listened to recently said that the question is not why did they struggle with these things, but how do we struggle in our own life. Also it was not that they stopped worshipping Jehovah to worship the gods of the Philistines or the Moabites but the changed their customs to worship both at the same time. Maybe we do not worship Baal or Asheroth, but we worship other things like football or facebook. (NOt in the mission) but at home. But more that Zion struggles with is that we worship the world and try to worship the Lord at the same time. The talk gave an amazing example about water skiing. This person has skiied utahs lakes many times, but one year him and his brother decided to ski utah lake every month of the year. Even when it was really cold in the winter he took the chance to glide on the water. He joked that water skiing is basically that closest sport that we have to a celestial sport if we look and the experience of Peter and Jesus. The thing is over the many trips he was able to teach many people how to ski. He found the the most common errors that prevented a learner from experiencing the auxilarating thrill of gliding on water was that they would try to pull themselves up or they would try to stand up against the pull of the boat. Though these actions appear to help they end up doing the contrary and they pull their legs from out from under them. He assured the learners that the boat is strong enough to pull them up the just need to depend on the boat and be patient. The thing is at times the learners would not even notice that they were trying to pull on the the rope. How does this apply? He said at times when we try to worship God and the world we pull our spiritual legs right out from under us, and it leaves us there wondering why we have not progressed. We must not allow the world to set our standards or slowly but surely change our views of what God has made very clear what is right and wrong. I am enjoying the old testament..

This sunday I gave another talk. It was supposed to be ten minutes but I did not watch the time well so I spoke 15. It was on charity. I really enjoy 1 Corinthians 13. It explains the importance of Charity and how with out it

TOday we went hiking to what they call the white rock. It was a great little hike that left me burnt. It is nice to do more on P days to make them more enjoyable.

I am doing well, I hope all is well there

Elder mecham

September 14, 2015

I will do my best to write more this week because the s key is broken and I have to put in the s with the little poput keyboard. It is really annoying....

Today we did something actually really fun and enjoyable. Most p days we do not do to much the mete would be play eoccere and eat food and relax, but today we asked permission to  go a musuem called Señor de Sipan which is about thirty minutes away from my area. To get there we borrowed the moto taxi of our penscionista. Then we asked a member to help of out by coming with us and driving the moto. The member that came with us is named Guillermo. He is really cool. At first the moto taxi seems a little sketchy because it would not start and then it would die really fast. So we bought some gas and we were off. The funny thing was that every time that we drove over a speed bump the moto taxi would die. I was actually afraid that the moto would die half way to the museum and we would have to walk the whole way back. But we made it safe and sound. It was a really cool place. Senor de Sipan was a royal ancient ruler that they found buried in a pyramid like structure. It was really cool to see all the things that they found in these tombs that are basically in the middle of no where. The sad part is that the had some objects of pure gold that were stolen and later they were found in the customs of Miami. They are now posessions of the FBI, but still some pieces are missing.

This was the highlight of my week. Besides this we had a zone conference where They challenged us to learn all 100 of the scripture masteries and strive to use all of them in our teachings because they were inspired by the 12 apostles as the scpriptures of most importance of that are the clearest.

 

I want to send pictures but the computer is not reconizing my usb.

Dont you just love the computers here

Elder Mecham

My Companion

September 7

Another week down and i am just learning this new area and trying to do my best to set a good example for my companion. Really right now we do not have a lot of progressing investigators which is hard, but as always we will keep looking. The one that seemed to have a chance to progress named Jose Saavedra kind of annoyed me a lot this week. Why? Well during this week we set up an appointment to visit him and teach him more with his family. He is the only member in his family that is not a member. As usual he was late, but this is normal for the peruvians always be ontime and expect them to be late so that is not what annoyed me. We came in and started talking with him and about his life. He told us he had a cold but all would be fine. Sadly, he did not read the chapter in the book of mormon we left him, so we started to read the chapter with him. The thing is about after 5 verses and some explications he started getting sleepy. Then the lesson kept going on and the member with us shared his baptismal experience and then my companion felt that he needed to share a different scripture that was way off topic. He is new so I just wanted to see where he took the lesson because he is entitled to inspiration too. It was a really nice scripture about putting the lord first and putting things like work, school, and other aspects of life. It was a great scripture but my companion likes to talk a lot, a little too much during the lessons, so Jose Saavedra fell asleep. My companion is not boring in his talk and lessons it was really interesting what he said, but Jose did not pay attention to any of it...  It was just plain sad. I talked to my companion about focusing more on the investigator and asking questions after. The thing is that we did ask questions... I felt like I was talking to a wall... Maybe it just is not the time for Jose  or he was super tired and sick. I am just hoping other lessons like this dont happen.

Besides this we are doing well. Our district leader challenged us to do 120 contacts for the week.And to give a a little incentive he said if we did not hit 120 the companionships would have to do 200 push ups during the next district meeting. It is not a very good reward to do 200 in a white shirt and tie. So this week we made sure every day we did at least 20 contacts. Which is kind of hard in a small area like the Cria. We ended up talking to some of the same people more than once. the only thing is they got angry at us and told us to go away. The typical life as a missionary. At the end of the week we had 122 contacts. Just enough. It was nice to be able to say we accomplished the goal, now the hard part is maintaining 120 every week.

Life is okay here. I feel like this town is like a mini Aurora Utah. The only thing is here they hard "stores" in the homes and there are of course bars... But they are a lot of animals here. Many people have pigs. I know now why we can not eat pig. They feed them whatever they can find. I saw one guy feeding his pigs dead cats. The other thing that is common is that almost every house has cuys or guiena pigs. They raise a whole bunch of them just inside of their houses. All they eat is corn and other leaves. So basically they have two types of animals pigs and guinea pigs. The other thing is everyone knows each other.. And that is how their addresses our. Like in a contact, so do you live here close ? Ya for the house of Jose Hernadez. And what street. Ahh, there aren't any streets or house numbers... And the majority of the time we don´t know the person... it is a little difficult.

I am doing well. Solamente hay que trabajar.

Elder Mecham

Aug 31, 2015

This week I had changes

I hope you are doing well. This week I had changes. I went from an area that is really hot that rains a lot but is beautiful to an area that is of in the dirt again. My area is in the zone Pomalca it is called La Cria because the people raise so many animals here. The area is the smallest of tied for the smallest area in the mission. This will be challenge , there are no names for the streets so directions are lijke this 3 houses down to the left of Paul something like this. I was made senior companion and I am training a missionary named elder Torrez. I am finishing his training because his companion Elder Anderson had transfers. Elder Anderson is the boyfriend of Whitney Bitner dad´s cousin. The thing that is interesting is my companion came to the mission with knowing only a little spanish, he is from Cochabomba bolivia. He grew up in a city where they only spoke quechaua. 

Oh ya we had a baptism- Jorge Torres

 The area, I am getting to know the cria little by little.  One thing that shocked me was that there are not streets or numbers, so learning and putting directions down will be a whole new experience. This ward is the first ward I have been in where the ward counsel has a every organization present and the counselors too.  It is a loving ward.  The next goal we have is to establish more of a friendship and a schedule so that the members can leave with us. There are some members that will leave with us like the ward mission leader and a guy named Guillemermo but besides them there is a lack of support in this aspect.  The thing I love though is the first day here the ward mission leader handed us a stack of references both investigators and less actives.   It is amazing how a ward with a small boundary can have so many less actives.  This week my companion had the pleasure of baptizing hno. Jorge Torres.  Elder Torrez baptized hermano Torres it just seemed sight.  It was my first baptism as a senior companion and I made the mistake of not telling Jorge Torrs to bring a towel and a change of underwear.  Well its is a learning process.

My old campanion (Elder Flores) and I at the meeting with President Bednar

Saying goodbye hermana or Sister Deydi, my old penscionista.  I am leaving Jaen.  I was in tears when I left and so was she. She really has a sincere love for the missionaries

Elder Bednar

IT was amazing to have the opportunity to have elder Bednar come and speak to the mission. He came with his wife. the presiding bishop with his wife, an area president and his wife, and the 1st counselor of the north east south america area and his wife came. Elder Bednar promised us that we never have a opportunity to have basically a general conference like this again.

I learned so much and wow the spirit in the room was so strong. 

The most important things that I learned

1.   I have been taking notes wrong my whole life. Elder Bednar stood up an said this. People in the church have a horrible tradition of writing down everything the speaker says... He told us that we would probably never use or look at the notes we take again. He also said that it cuts us off from hearing the things which are not spoken which are the things that of most value. He encouraged us the listen carefully to the things that the speaker did not say, the holy ghost, and write on small plates. Like in the Book of Mormon is divided in to the large set of plates and the small set which has all the things that pertain to spiritually important aspects. It was a more spiritually fulfilling experience when I focused on my impression. It is hard but the things that did come really were of great value. It will take a lot of work to develop the gift of always having and ear for the things that are not said. It is a gift that is only given from god. The important part from this Is l need to learn how to teach the people I am teaching to listen to the things I don´t say. This means as missionaries teaching in a way where we are only the connection for the true teacher to teach. Sometimes this would be talking less and allowing pauses to let the spirit take his role in the teaching. The is a power in pauses and silence that i am learning. I am also learned that we have no reason to fear that we have all the answers when the third member of the companion ship is present.

2.  We talked a lot about learning in faith like the Savior. Faith is not a muscle that we can wor kand gain more but doing certain numbers of things or reading for a certain amount of time but a god given characteristic that comes only to us in gods time when he has trust with us to bless another one of his children. God will not just bless us with spiritual gifts especially if we wont them he will bless according to his will and after are trial of faith. The thing is a trial of faith is not a giant trial like contracting a terrible disease or a death it a just seeing if we are willing to put off are desires that natural man and obey and work and do the thing s that we know we should. It is also being diligent. This gifts all come through the atonement.

3.  Our prayers start when we stay amen. Going along with faith as a principle of power and of action. The whole process begins with our agency or the opportunity to act and not be acted upon. Ya There is a need to learn the language, or there aren't investigators, what are you going to do about it. God will work though us and bless us as we work. It is the whole 17 But it came to pass that I prayed unto the Lord, saying: O Lord, according to my faith which is in thee, wilt thou deliver me from the hands of my brethren; yea, even give me strength that I may burst these bands with which I am bound.

i LEARNED SO MUCH i PUT MORE IN MY NEXT LETTER

 

 

 

Aug 24, 2015

Well the biggest news of this week is that I have changes. I am really sad to leave this area. I have made a lot of new friends. I people I will miss the most are my companion elder flores, my penscionista hna. Deydi and Hno antonio and their family. They have been a family away from home. I have had two changes here which is actually a pretty short period of time. Elder Flores and I did not think that either of us were going to have changes so will just continued on working hard. Then saturday we were in a lesson teaching the family Arnao Aguilar about the book of mormon and we were watching the video the testaments when we got the call to know the changes of our district. Elder flores took the phone call in the hallway outside of the apartment of the family. I heard him say things like no your joking, no really, then he came in and told me that I had changes too. We then called hna deydi and hno antonio to tell them the sad news. They did not believe us either. To clarify the truth they then called the zone leaders.

It is really hard to leave the beautiful zone of Jaen Peru.

But most this family. I will miss them so much. I want to return and see them some day.

They tradition of this family when one of the missionaries has changes or is going to end their mission is to throw a lot of eggs on the heads of the missionaries. This Sunday it was my turn to go through this tradition. I sat there helplessly as the smashed 8 eggs on my head. The worst part is some of the eggs ran in to my mouth. That is a horrible taste. We had a little part and drank the tradition Inka cola. 

Besides this Joel is progressing really well. He attended church for his third time. I will not have tthe chance to see his baptism in september but I am more then content with the work I have done in Jaen in the ward of Morro Solar.

Oh yah I gave my second talk in spanish. My companion told me that it was really good and he learned a lot from it. 

I leave today at 1 pm Peru time to take a 6 to 7 hour bus ride to Chiclayo. Then tomorrow I will find out my new area and companion.

WOw... 

Another great work week down and almost another change gone from the mission. 

The multizone was very enjoyable. It was nice to come to Chiclayo again and see everyone and participate as a real multizone with more than 1 zone. I really enjoyed the lesson Hna Williams gave a pride. That talk is amazing and can be applied in any teaching situation. It is very clear that pride is one of the biggest sins we have as human beings. The thing is most people do not recognize that there is pride in there life because they define the word according to the worldly definition. Never would I have thought of the definition of enmity. Basically it is the opposition of the will of god in favor with the will of oneself or of man. Basically pride is the essense of the natural man, the trust in the arm of flesh. We have taught many investigators about pride this past 2 weeks. I really enjoy teaching about pride when we introduce the book of mormon because it is one of the underlying themes of the book of mormon.

My companion: He is constantly reminding me how many days he has left. It is kind of funny. The thing is that I admire about him is despite only having one more change in the mission he is working as hard as he can. He motivates the district to always improve and with him we are setting the example for the district of a great area. He always has a great work attitude to complete and pass the goals. The other thing amazing about him is his knowledge of the scripures. I want to become like a missionary like him. A strong leader, hard worker, who knows how to enjoy the mission while having success at the same time.

IT was sad to see him fall sick this week. He was not able to leave and preach. SO we did splits so I could continue working while he rested. The thing that was very honorable about him was that he told to work hard so that we could acheive our goals. I will be glad to have another change with him here in Jaen.

The area; Joel is doing great. He received the first lesson well and we even put a baptismal date on him for the 12 of september. It is a date of faith but I feel he will be able to complete it. He has his cousin in the ward who is helping him out a lot. We finished lesson one and before we taught the restoration, he already knew about Jose Smith because his cousin showed him the restoration video. He came to church again for the second time in a row. We are trying hard to complete the goal of having investigators with dates assisting. We visited Charles and Mari again. We are focusing on the book of mormon and the importance of reading and gaining a testimony. We read about Nephi in chapter 3, and the other time we read 3 nephi 11. The worked a lot of things out between the two but there is still a way to go. Hna paty finally returned. Sadly though she did not make it to church. We are going to visit her tomorrow!!