San Pablo, week 6 Week 30 Philippines

I can't believe I have already been in San Pablo for a whole transfer!! It is really so scary how fast time goes. 

We have had some more good lessons this week. I am amazed at how much I really have changed as a missionary and the things I worry about now compared to the beginning of my mission. I know I have gotten so much better at Tagalog and I am so grateful for that gift. I am also very grateful for the improvement I have made as a teacher and in being able to teach clearly and have the spirit there to testify of the things I say. It is very neat
.

This week we had a really good lesson. It was with a ward member and his wife. She belongs to the Catholic church. The guy is actually from Puerto Rico but was in the army for like 17 years and is retired now.His wife is Filipina. They found the missionaries in the SM one day and then we followed up with them a couple weeks ago.

  The first few visits with them were awkward and she didn't seem interested at all. On  Wednesday we taught the plan of salvation and it was a VERY spiritual lesson. We were using Taglish for the lessons , so it was a lot easier to explain things to them, and the spirit really was so strong. She told us that the other day when her husband's dad called (his whole family is still super active in the church in Puerto Rico) he told her that if she chose to be baptized, he would fly out here to be the one to baptize her!! It was so cool! During the whole lesson too, she kept saying "Oh, I didn't know this" or "I've never learned this before". It was so cool to see the spirit work in her!! It felt even better to know that we finally found something to spark her interest in the church. They were out of town this weekend, so we are hoping they can come to church next week!!

The rest of this week has been good too. I love the people we are teaching, and of course I want all of them to be baptized tomorrow, but I know that when they are ready, they will be baptized. I just need to keep being patient.

Any way. The work is good. The church is true and we are all lucky belong to it and have the knowledge we do about the gospel.

Mahal ko kayo!!!

Love,

Sister Mecham

P.S. this week we (well sister Cox) killed a spider the size of my hand. it was in our bedroom. First she poisoned it with permatox and that slowed it down a lot, then she smashed it. It was horrifying. I totally know how Ron Weasly feels. I hate spiders! 

The street for the fiesta a few weeks ago. It was really really cool. They were getting ready for the street parade. But we didn't watch it because you really couldn't see anything because there were so many people!!

Sister Cox's favorite purchase. It works great on papaya!

Service we did a few weeks ago.

sister Vaipou

These are my boyfriends! They only like me though because I give them candy and take their pictures, haha oh well ;) 

Our new roommate!

This spider was the size of my hand!

Spider problem solved! Thank you permatox! 

Walang CR, squished bananas, and Zone interviews Week 29 Philippines

Well this week has been interesting. We have been doing SO well with our investigators and we have had a lot of success in teaching lots of lessons. 

The past 3 weeks we've taught 60 lessons. It is crazy how good this area is. It definitely comes from having such a good ward and so many members that want to work with us and give us their referrals. I love this ward!!

Our lessons are actually really good too and it is the most beautiful feeling in the world to feel the Holy Ghost testifying to someone through you in a totally different language. I love the progress I have made here on my mission and I am SO glad I still have 10 months!!!!! I love being a missionary. I read through some of my journal from the beginning of my mission and I had to stop because it was giving me major stress again. I am so glad I am where I am now.

In other news. Our toilet got pretty clogged this week. So yes. We had no CR from like Tuesday night through Saturday morning. It was annoying. Luckily we live really close to the grocery store here, so we would have to go there to take care of our big business. But Filipinos don't use toilet paper. They just provide a bucket and some water and a smaller pail thing to wet yourself. Ha. Good one Philippines! I'll just bring my own roll of toilet paper, thank you. We got it fixed though luckily. They just needed a bigger plunger.

Friday we had zone interviews at our chapel in Mabini. It was really really good to see president again and talk to him. He is the best. Some of the things he told me was "we don't have the agency to control other people's agency" that was a hard truth, but it is true. I am working on that one. He also said that I am a lot stronger. And I totally agree with that. I am not the quiet, scared, culture shocked Sister Mecham anymore. I can teach people the gospel of Jesus Christ in Tagalog, while there are rats running above my head on the beams in a house or while I am sitting on a little stool 3 inches off the ground or while a mom nurses her child.  I can do hard (sometimes rather uncomfortable) things.

 I am definitely not as scared as I was when I first got here, and I can't wait to see the progress I will continue to make here.

I wanted to send a lot of pictures home today but the computer I am using doesn't like my card reader so hopefully next week. This morning we went to a members pineapple farm and made banana mush stuff. It was really good. The pineapples were not ready to harvest though :( but it was absolutely gorgeous!!!

I love you all!

Love,

Ate Barbie

(the little girls that live on our street always call me that. Ate means "older sister". I think the only reason they think I am Barbie is because I have white skin and my hair isn't black...)

Tatay is the sweetest man! He is a member of our ward.

A member of our church owns this pineapple farm.

We love boku!

I Love All The Babies!

"Pineapple Fields forever.."

Fresh Pineapple anyone?

Banana Mush!

Rice field

We were teaching a lesson to someone that was referred to us. By the time we fished the lesson 14 people had gathered to listen. Some had been playing cards and turned their chairs to listen. I am pretty sure they were more intrigued by an American speaking Tagalog than the lesson.It was really fun though!

Ang Linggo na ito Week 28 Philippines

This week has been great!

 We have 8 new investigators and we had 4 investigators at church yesterday!!!! It was SO great!! We really have such a great ward here and all of the investigators had someone they could sit by during church and not just us.

 It was so good to be able to know that the investigators we bring to church will be taken care of even if we won't always be here. I just love this ward. And it definitely is a plus that they want to feed us ALL the time (and it's not always blood). 

We had a really funny experience on Saturday. We went to teach one of our referrals. To get to their house you have to walk through a couple fields of banana and coconut trees as well as fields of pineapple plants . It is absolutely gorgeous. Well, when we got to their house, they weren't home. The member that was with us thought they might be at their parents house, so we walked through another field of pineapples to their house.

 There was like 7 or 8 people there playing cards, but they stopped and turned their chairs around to listen to us. So as we are teaching, more and more people keep coming to listen to us, so by the end of our lesson, I counted and there were fourteen people there!!!! Ha it was actually really funny. I am 99.9% sure the only reason they were there is because an American was there speaking Tagalog to them. haha! it was fun though. I will have to send a picture of all of them sometime

.

This last week and all of this week they are having their "Coco Festival" (coconut festival). They have the streets decorated and every night we can hear music playing in the streets. Plus there are TONS of people here. We are doing our emails earlier today and doing all of our shopping earlier too because they are going to be closing the main road for a big parade today as well. There are lots of vendors here too. I am really not sure everything else they are doing for this festival, but the kids have another 3 day break from school for it, so I am sure these next few days will just be lots of partying. Filipinos like to party.

Life is good here though. I am getting a lot better at Tagalog and I am understanding a little bit more of it everyday. I love the gift of tongues! I love the Philippines and I love San Pablo! 

I have a goal to get back to the Philippines as soon as I can because I love it here. It is hard of course and the streets are stinky and there are naked homeless children and litter everywhere and rats in our investigators houses that run right above you during lessons, but I love it.

 I am so grateful I am here. I am learning so much about the gospel and the love of our Heavenly Father everyday, but I am also learning how to live with less and be happy for the spiritual blessings we receive each day.

I love you all!!!

Love,

Sister Mecham

Week 27 continued - Photos of Zone P-Day, Bamboo Rafts, Monkey's, Gilligan's Island?

We all rode on these bamboo rafts across this lake and you had to pull the rafts along this huge long rope. It was absolutely gorgeous!!!

This place is perfect!

Me with sister Wilkes

Me with sister Vaipou

Sipping coconut milk

"For some must pull and...

some must pull?!"

"Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale... here on Gilligan's isle"

Monkey See!

Monkey Do!

New Years, Zone p-days, San Pablo 3 (new area) week 27 in the Philippines

Well I kinda have already spent most my time sending you pictures, so I will just write a little. 

1. New years in the Philippines is CRAZY!!! Literally at 11:30 there were constant fireworks, and no, not the little ones you do in your front yard, but like the giant loud ones in the sky. Then at midnight it was nuts. We had a great time standing out front though and watching all the fire works. Plus our neighbor was lighting some off too. Ha it was fun.

2. The members here are wonderful. They feed us all the time and its always good. I definitely enjoy that. I have also eaten some interesting food too...Plus we have really good sister training leaders here too that we were able to work with this week and they helped us visit some members as well.

3. We had zone pday today and it was heavenly! I definitely want to come back here!

4. We had some really really awesome lessons this week where the spirit was SO strong and the people were so willing to read the Book of Mormon. It was amazing what the spirit can really do to touch people. 

5. We started teaching a man a few weeks ago, but he has been gone a lot. We finally were able to teach him this Thursday and we asked him how is Book of Mormon reading was and he said he had read 115 PAGES!!!!!! It was SO COOL!!! The better part though too was that he understood a lot of it, our next challenge though is to get him to church...But we have a lot of hope in him :)

Any way...my time is about up, but I love you all and hope everything is good:)

love,

Sister Mecham

Guess What I ate?

Dinuguan. 

It's pigs blood. They boil it for a long time then they put the intestines in with it as well as tomatoes and other random spices. It kind of has the texture of dirt, but it actually wasn't too bad. I won't be eating it again though.

Some of our festivities. and yes. more buko. It is SO good!!!! The couple is our stake president and his wife (The Maligon family) they had us over for Christmas day lunch and new years eve. they are SO kind! we are very lucky to have them in our ward

New Years Eve eating buko (young coconut), the brother in our ward ALWAYS works with us and gives us referrals and buko but he totally reminds me of Gilligan