Electric fans, Mission Tour, Rain, and Miracles Week 62

I think the days are getting longer but the weeks are getting faster! 

This past week was good! We went to Lipa for our Mission Tour on Tuesday with Elder and Sister Bowen of the 70 and he pretty much told us to step up our game and increase our expectations. He said there is no such thing as a hard area and that we can be doing a lot more in all of our areas. It was a really good wake up call I think for all of us. He told us not to put 'false limitations' on ourselves, the areas, the wards, and the investigators, but to put more trust in Heavenly Father.

 The Thursday after Mission Tour though was really a test of our faith (Ether 12:6) and all day Friday till about 4 p.m. We were punted the entire time. It was so frustrating and so disheartening for me because we had nothing. Only OYM's (open your mouth) and I was just really upset.

 I know that that was just the trial of my faith though, because from Friday, 4 p.m, onward till last night was my witness. We got 7 new investigators this week and we had 2 investigators at church and maraming (many) lessons. We had a lot of time to visit the members and ask  for referrals. We got a couple referrals to go contact this week! It was SO rewarding to be able to have had those successes. I am very grateful for Sister Moimoi because that Friday after being punted and walking around in the hot sun and having a little break down, she pretty much gave me a pep talk and told me that even though we kept getting punted over and over and over, the fact that we kept trying was a witness to Heavenly Father that we were still working and hadn't decided to just go home because we had no appointments. She is really great

2 of our new investigators are mothers (Lisa and Alicia) and they have listened to other churches before, but as we were teaching you could see it really working in them and they were really pondering what we were saying to them. We will be going back to them this week to give them each a copy of the Book of Mormon and to continue sharing the gospel with them. I am really really excited for the progress we are seeing here!

Another investigator we have is June. He is 24 and not married, but he works with one of the members here. we haven't been able to teach him very consistently because we have to have a female member present to teach, but despite the fact we haven't been able to teach him, he has come to church the last 2 weeks in a row and is still reading the book of Mormon

!

I am so excited for all of our investigators. We also started teaching a boy, Dave, his grandma is a member and his sister got baptized last year, so we are hoping we can get his lessons finished up so he can also be baptized!

As for the electric fan, this morning after we finished cleaning I had my oatmeal and was ready to sit down and eat and read a talk at my desk. I reached my arm over to blow the fan on me, but didn't notice that the metal cover was off because the other sisters were cleaning it, so my thumb went right in the blades. I hurried and moved it and just looked at it and then yelled "why is the cover of the fan off?"  I think I went into shock. I  just laid my head on the desk and started crying and my thumb started throbbing. Once I could pull myself together a bit I started to walk out to the kitchen with bright red sticky blood coming from my thumb.  Sister Miranda was my nurse and just took me over to sink to put it under the water, and I just stood there looking at it and still crying because it hurt SO bad. The more I looked at it, the overwhelming feeling of throwing up washed over me so we went into the bath room.  I stood over the toilet about ready to lose it, but really didn't want to.  The nausea made me light headed and I started blacking out on my way back into the kitchen to sit down. Holy cow. I have never felt that awful! It was not fun at all. Then Sister Moimoi and Sister Miranda cleaned it for me and put hydrogen peroxide on it to clean it a little.  I  broke out in to sweats. I'm pretty sure it was shock. It was not fun at all. I doing much better though and am just so grateful it was only my thumb and it only has a few cuts on it and wasn't chopped off! 

 I think this pretty much confirms to all of us that the medical field is NOT for me.

The church is true, the miracles of missionary work continue, and electric fans are still blessings, only when they have the cover on them though. So my advice for this week....DON'T PUT YOUR FINGERS NEAR RAPIDLY SPINNING OBJECTS.

Mahal ko kayo!

Love,

Sister Mecham

Ward Members

District

More pretty sky!

This is a sweet lady we are teaching

jeep ride

Cora. She is so cute!!

Grefaldo family

12 Week! week 61

Starting with this week I only have 12 more weeks. Or 2 transfers. Or 2 planners. I don't know the days though. That's too much math!

 I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY!!!!!!

 It is kind of awful all the ups and downs, but I have learned SO much. It's like a roller coaster. Sometimes it's not fun. Sometimes it's scary, but then other times you have pure joy. Then you get off and realize you want to go again. 

That's how I feel every Monday. Monday is the day you get back in line for the roller coaster, then you leave your apartment to go shopping and email and then the ride starts all over again for the next week. 

Two weeks ago we were at the Plangke buying our groceries and this guy also shopping sees us and just starts firing questions at us. I HATED IT! The spirit is so different at those times. It keeps us standing there and gives us the words we need to say because those people who try to fight us and "confound" us just throw up a wall. Those are the parts I hate about being a missionary because the persecutions and confusions are SO REAL! 

I know the setting apart we have though as missionaries is real. And we left that conversation with our own testimonies strenghtened and a man left standing there with all his unanswered questions because he wouldn't accept the truth. 

Any way,as for this week, we had transfers on Thursday. They called Tuesday night and told Sis. Woodruff she was being transferred to Santa Cruz. Thursday we went to the mission home to get our new companions. Mine is Sis. Moimoi from Tonga. She is only six weeks behind me in the mission and Sis. Woodruff now has a Filipina companion!

Tomorrow we are going to Lipa for a mission tour and I am so excited!! 

I'll tell you all about it next week!

Mahal ko kayo! (I Love You)

Love,

Sister Mecham

Beautiful Skies and Sunsets of the Philippines Week 60 continued

Beautiful Skies and Sunsets of the Philippines!

Lice-2, Sisters-0 Week 60

You guessed it. Your's truly got  headlice this week! Companions share everything! 

Thanks to the power of the Priesthood and the power of Permethrn (pesticide) WE AREN'T ITCHING TODAY!!!! Success!

Other than our small lice hiccup this week, we saw miracles! Big miracles! 2 families to teach, for a total of 8 new investigators! One family of 4 accepted baptismal dates in October. The other family, which is actually just cousins and sisters in law living all together, were very interested both the times we were able to teach this week. I could feel the spirit so strongly as we taught them.  There was one other lady we also found. 

I really feel like this point in my mission I can finally discern and understand the investigators,and that every lesson is always a good lesson.

 One of the favorite things I am learning though is that the spirit usually comes the strongest into the lessons when I follow the simple promptings to teach about prayer, or God's perfect plan, or eternal families. It is the most unique, but the most "masarap"(delicious) feeling to have the spirit increase my own testimony and work through me to touch the hearts of others. I love where I am right now!

I am so excited for the work here! We also had an investigator at church yesterday. Her daughter and son in law were baptized last December and we finally have been able to teach her, Delia. She is a hoot! She believes she's a healer. She also believes in the Black Nazarene. Aka black Jesus. She has the hardest time accepting the priesthood. BUT, you could literally see and feel the spirit working on her the entire time during church. I can't wait to go back to follow up on her experience. We are really making huge progress with her! 

There is so much progress here now and I can't even wait to see these investigators we have progress!! 

I hope you have a good week, I love you all!!

Love,

Sister Mecham

A cutie at church!

Our Bishop and his wife, the ward clerk, and some of our favorite Nanays (mothers)

Our church

Sunday August 24th at church

Another cutie!

our church

my cooking!

My nasty feet and awesome tan lines!

lice, lice, baby...da da da da dadadada Week 59

Well this week has been a little bit more back to normal. 

We are finally moved in and more settled into our house and we are really liking our new location. 

The only hiccup we had in the work this week is that Sister Woodruff got lice. Don't be shocked at this. Everyone has lice in the Philippines. It was only a matter of time before me or one of my companions got it. So we had to spend some extra time when we got home and one of the mornings searching for some lice shampoo and removing lice eggs.

 We are having some true miracles with our investigators.

My favorite story this week is about Oscar and Mina. They are a retired couple and are pretty well off. They welcomed us in and said they always let different faiths in to share just so they can increase their knowledge. The second time we taught, we left a Book of Mormon and Oscar said that he really wasn't sure how he felt about Joseph Smith yet, so he said the first thing he wanted to read was Joseph Smith's testimony, then the other intro pages.

 When we went back, he had read a lot and had looked up in some encyclopedias more about Mormonism and Joseph Smith. And that info was spot on. So we had a really interesting discussion about Joseph Smith and then tied it into the Book of Mormon. We also had a really really interesting lesson about the plan of salvation. It was probably the best plan of salvation lesson I have ever had with an investigator and you could see the change in him. They are out of town this week, but hopefully by the weekend we can go back to teach. 

I have been reading "Our Search for Happiness" from the missionary library and I am really thinking about leaving it with them next time. It just lays out so clearly the Restoration. I really can see them progressing, we are really going to focus though on helping them get a spiritual witness that it is all true. I think that one of the things they are lacking...

Our next is Delia. Her daughter and son-in-law got baptized last december and we are finally teaching her and she believes she is a healer. The first few lessons were rough because she has some very strange beliefs and thought that we were talking about E.T. (extra terrestial) when we taught about the kingdoms of glory during the plan of salvation. She thinks  that the Garden of Eden is in Turkey, and she had the hardest time accepting that her baptism was not like Jesus Christ's. Those were rough lessons. But. She has been SO diligent in reading the assignments from the book of mormon plus she is already to 1 Nephi 16 in her other readings. We have finally seen the change in her and that she is finally understanding this message. She has a big concern because she keeps saying she has already been baptized.The last lesson we had with her, we really focused on the priesthood and Christ's example of baptism by immersion and it FINALLY clicked. She asked us "Am I allowed to even be baptized again?" Sister Woodruff and I about jumped out of our chairs and shouted "OPO" (Yes!), but actually we just testified to her that she can. It would be the best way for her to continue to follow Christs example. It was a great lesson.

And our last miracle I want to talk about is Cora. She had a stroke and has had just a hard life, We've been teaching her for a while and she just is so overcome with the spirit every time we teach she just thanks us over and over for visiting her and just cries and pours her soul out every time she prays. It is very humbling to teach her. She told us she has started exercising. And honestly she has had the biggest change. Her countenance was so full of light. it was a perfect setting to teach her the plan of salvation. 

I love the progress we are having here and I know that the next step for all of our investigators is to get them to just pray alone and really ask if these things are right. I know that if they do this, accepting baptism and church attendance will be the next step for them.

I love you all SO much and hope you have a good week! The advice this week...AVOID PEOPLE WHO SCRATCH THEIR HEADS A LOT AND HAVE SMALL BLACK MOVING CRITTERS IN THEIR HAIR. Also. Lice Shampoo makes your hair fall out. I used it because   I was freaked out and I combed a lot more hair than I would ever like to pull out again. It was not a pretty sight...

And on that note...The church is still true. 1 Peter 4:12-19 - the reason we have 'strange/firey trials'.

Love,

Sister Mecham

Zone pday in Las Banos

Sister Mann is in my zone! 

lice shampoo

Week 58 continued House Hunting and Moving!!!

The old house

Donuts for dinner!

Standing room only on the bus

The Beautiful Mission Home!

Huge cockroaches!

The Hansen's (office couple)

The Elders helping us with our moving adventures!

The old House again

The old street

Getting ready to leave

One last lunch in the old house

cleaning the new place

Thanks Elders!