A Letter from Kennewick: Monday, November 25, 2013

Subject: Thanks for Thanksgiving!

Hello family! So I hope this email gets to you all. My email isn't letting me compose an email so I had to do some little tricky things. Haha

 

This week has been so great! We had Elder Richards from the second quorum of the seventy come and talk with us! He spent 3 days in our mission going around and teaching. It was so wonderful! We were able to receive a lot of council and direction in how we can be more effective instruments. He focused on teaching truth and teaching truth simply. He told us to get rid of our anologies and our gimmics and focus on what the spirit is telling us. Sis. Davenport and I have been working really hard on at that this week and it has helped us to be more direct in addressing the needs of our investigators. I am loving it! We still have a lot to learn but we are already seeing the difference that it is making.

 

I'm so sorry that this email has to be so short! haha We have such a great week ahead of us and some really great lessons planned. I will have to explain a little more next week in my email.

 

I love you all so much! Thank you for your support. It means the world to me. The Lord lives and loves us. He has created a plan that is perfect for us all to be be able to return to him again. I love you all!

 

Love Sister Mecham

A Letter from Kennewick: Monday, November 18, 2013

Subject: And...the wind is here.

The wind is crazy here!! It blows all the time. haha I thought I loved the wind.. I'm starting to re-evaluate my feelings toward it. Despite the wind, I am still loving Kennewick! People here are just great! We are working hard with the members in the ward and enjoying their enthusiasm for the work! People are really catching the wave and it is inspiring. 

We have been given a lot of opportunities to work with the members. On Friday we have a FANTASTIC church tour with the Cortina's. Brother and Sister Cortina are a young married couple in the ward. They came to do a church tour on Friday night with Sister Davenport and me. We had Sister Cortina pretend to be the investigator and Brother Cortina was the member that brought her down to the church. They did awesome! It was so cool to see how they reacted to the challenge. Sister Cortina asked a lot of really cool questions! Brother Cortina was able to bear strong testimony on the sacrament and baptism. It was a blast! 

We met with a semi-active family this week and shared with them the Doctrine of Christ. It was a really neat experience. They have a son with Down Syndrome and Autism, James is his name. He is so sweet! He sat and listened to the whole lesson and did really well. I'm really excited to work with this family and be apart of their growing experience that they are going to have. James is a very big blessing in their family. 

We have this women that we are helping to learn English. Her name is Inhyang. She is from South Korea. We have a program here called Daily Dose and they help people in learning English and communicating. They are called as missionaries. It is a really cool experience for non-members to be apart of! They get to learn and better their language skills. It also offers them an opportunity to learn more about the gospel and eventually take the lessons from the us Full-time missionaries. We have an appointment on Wednesday with her and two of the Daily Does missionaries to help her. We'll hand her off to them and then when she is ready to receive the Gospel we will teach her :)

We are working on finding new investigators! Something that Sis. Davenport and I are working on is a challenge/promise that Elder Ballard gave to us when he came, if we talked to 10 people each day then our baptisms would double. We need to put our faith in that because that is where is all starts! Opening you mouth. The Lord promises us that they will be filled as we do that. Believing him is a step a faith that we are taking more seriously now then ever before. It is going to be s blast! 

We have Elder Kent Richards coming to us tomorrow to talk to us. We're really excited!! We have some really awesome meetings with him this week that I just can't wait for! 

Well my dear family, there is so much more but not enough time to tell you all about it. I know this church is true and I know that our Savior lives. It is through his Atonement that all things are made possible. I love you all!! 

Love Sister Mecham 

A Letter from Kennewick: Wednesday, November 13, 2013

Subject: Hello Kennewick :)

Hi family!! So I'm in Kennewick and I am loving it!! It is so wonderful here! There is a different feeling here than anywhere else. The temple is so close and being so close to President and Sister Ware is so fantastic! We've had a lot of opportunities already to be around them more and it is such a strength to me. 

Sister Davenport is my new companion and she is so fantastic! She is so good at listening to the spirit and discerning peoples needs. She has helped me to better understand and fulfill my purpose. I really feel the change that is happening in me and it is so cool. The word cool doesn't even do it justice. I feel like that is such a lame word to use but it is more like empowering. It is empowering to feel the spirit change me and work within me. I love being a missionary. Sis. D is from St. George and she is the 4th of 4 and the only girl in her family. She loves cameo and working so hard. She is such a blessing. 

We've been able to teach some lessons in the short time that I have been here and met a lot of the ward council and the ward and getting me connected with them. The Leslie family is a family that we got to teach on Saturday. They had referred themselves on Mormon.org. Sister Leslie is has watch a YouTube segment on a Mormon family and she loved how they are so family oriented. This family talks about what they believe and share their testimonies. Sister Leslie loved it so much that she wanted to learn more! So we went over for their second lesson on Saturday and taught them the plan of Salvation. They loved it! We were explaining our purpose here on earth and what happens after we leave this life and they really loved that! They took so much comfort in what we were saying. Brother Leslie grew up Jehovah Witness and didn't really agree with some of the things that he was taught. We have a return appt. with them tomorrow! 

We had some really cool training's that we were apart of this week and it was a blast! We got to learn so much from President and Sister Ware. They talked about internalizing the Doctrine on Christ, goal setting, building a strong base in the Doctrine of Christ. It was inspiring! We had a training last night all on working with our ward council and the ward mission plan. If there is one thing  that we learned there, is that the gospel is simple and so our plan needs to be simple too. I really love the way that missionary work is now going and changing. 

Well my dear family, I love you all! Have such a wonderful week!  I know that Jesus Christ lives and I know that this church is true. 

Love, Sister Mecham 

2 Nephi 31:21 

A (Last) Letter from Naches: Monday, November 04, 2013

Subject: Kennewick here I come!!

Transfer calls came and..... I'm going to Kennewick!!! I will be serving in the Kennewick Zone and serving with Sister Davenport! I have met her and boy is she the sweetest person that you will ever meet! I will tell you more about her next week after I get play 20 questions with her. :)

 

I'm really sad to leave Naches. I love this place! I love the people and the scenery is absolutely beautiful! All the orchards and the mountains. For the first 8 months of my mission I had never served where there were mountains or what I call a mountain and then I come here and these are more like mountains than rolling hills. BUT! I'm so very excited to Kennewick! I have wanted to serve there so bad! It is beautiful there too and I know that I am going to love it.

 

This week we got to meet with lots of the members and have some really cool experiences inviting them to embrace missionary work and knowing they are called to serve too. It is really cute to see the little kids love it when we give them a mormon.org card to hand out or invite their friend to church or hand out a Book of Mormon. They get excited and start thinking of all the people they know and who they want to give it too. It is such an example to me of how we really do need to become as little child, humble and meek and submissive. It is so fantastic to watch and be apart of!

 

Finding new people to teach has been a struggle this week but I know the Lord will bless us as we are bold and have charity in our hearts for those that we are inviting to come unto Christ.

 

We got to see Lisa a lot this week. It was sooo good!! I really just love her so much! She is so solid and I'm so proud of her and her diligence to being continually converted to the gospel. She is such an example to me! I am going to miss her terribly. But I know that it is what needs to happen. 

 

We had a great halloween! We got to teach a new investigator named Geobany. I think I told you about her last week. She is so darling! We got to teach her using the Restoration pamphlet. You teach them with the pamphlet and you teach by the pictures. As you do this it always leads to the invitation to baptism. I have come to understand the importance of commitments and invitations. I invited Geobany to be baptized and right aways it brought us concerns that she has and ways that we can help. It also let us see where is was at in her commitment level. She right now isn't really commited BUT she is still being prepared and she was invited so she was given the opportunity to repent and change. It was a really cool experience! I love inviting people to be baptized! I didn't realize how much I loved it untill I just did it on faith. We were on exchanges that day and the Sister Training Leader in our zone helped me to understand that. I really needed that exchange to help me gain a testimony of that. So cool!!! 

 

Well my dear family, I love you all!! I am so grateful for you all and I can't wait to hear from you all next week. Have a fantastic week!! Love you!! 

 

Love Sister Mecham  

A Letter from Naches: Monday, October 28, 2013

Subject: "Lucifer is raging in the hearts of men. We are living in the last days. They are being swept away. WE'VE GOT TO BE GOOD AND WE'VE GOT TO BE BRAVE!"

This was something that Elder Ballard told us on Saturday when he came to speak to our mission. It was amazing!! I was standing about a foot away from an Apostle of the Lord for about 3-4 hours. Literally sitting at his feet and listening to the council he had to give. Knowing that the whole time he was speaking by the spirit. It is something that I will never forget. We got to also hear from Elder Maynes and Elder Risenmay. Everything that they said to us was so inspiring!! Some of the things that I learned from our conference:

• The power of diligence and the power of a testimony.
• The power of my calling as a missionary and as a member of church.
• Talk to EVERYBODY
• We've got to be good and we've got be brave.
• Don't let anything dampen your enthusiasm or desire to serve.

Something he also said about our work and the gospel is: " Anxiously engage in giving it away" I LOVED THAT! So good!! As you sat and listened to him you could feel that love of the Lord has for all of his children. I want so badly to repeat that day!! It was amazing! At the end of our conference as he was finishing his remarks he left of blessing on us. It was so powerful! I can't even describe the feelings that I felt. It was truly life changing.

 

This week we again weren't able to get in with Amanda. We sent her a text and never heard back from her but we are going to call her today and try to get in with her. We talked to the ward about it and ask for some assistance in helping her and fellowshipping the family. I'm really excited to see the way that this is taking the ward and how they are going to be more involved.

 

Stacey is doing great! She had a lot of homework this week and so we didn't get to teach her but we did have dinner with her on Monday night and it was so great!! She was the cutest! She made us real authentic Mexican food!! It was delicious! We got to chat with her and got to know her better. It was most definitely needed. Her husband came home after we had finished dinner and we got to finally meet him! It was really good. We were laughing and talking and just helping him see that we are human too. Really wonderful experience. She then came up to Camp Zarahemla on Friday night for the Relief Society retreat. She got there and Sister Pratt and I had been there for about 2 hours and had to go. We thought she would be up there sooner but life happened and it pushed her schedule back. She got there and just cried. She had a math test that didn't go well and she was just stressed. We talked about how this was going to be something good for her and Satan knew it so he was putting everything in her path to make her not go. But she made it! She pushed through and did it! The women welcomed her and it was wonderful!! We left her and knew that those women would take really good care of her.

 

We've been having a really successful week in meeting with the members and helping them with their missionary work! They all have responded really well to the invitations and the challenges that we have left with them. It is great!! Lisa and Brother Moore are really catching the vision and always make sure that when they have us for dinner that they have someone there for us to teach and help. It is wonderful!

 

Well my dear family, Things are going really well and they are starting to pick up. Transfer calls are on Saturday night and I just have a feeling that I will be leaving Naches. Sis. Pratt will be done with her training at the end of this week so she will need to spread her wings and fly. ;) haha It will all work out the way it is suppose to. 

 

I love you all!! Have a great week!!!

 

Love, Sister Mecham :)

A Letter from Naches: Monday, October 21, 2013

Subject: "Faith in the Lord is always faith in his timing."-Elder Neal A. Maxwell

Hey there family!! The little quote above is a quote that Sister Ware shared with us at zone conference this week. I loved it so much! It is so true! When we have faith in the Lord that means that we trust is Him and we have faith in His will that it is what is best and we wait patiently for his promised blessings.

 

This week was great! We had some rough spots but it was really good. When you have challenges it makes you appreciate the really good times. I told you last week that we had just gone to the Temple. It was amazing! Loved every minute of it!! We then had the opportunity to have Zone Conference last Thursday and hear from President and Sister Ware. The training that they gave us was amazing and so inspired! I had fast last Sunday to know how to best help the ward here and to be able to influence them in their missionary work. Pres. and Sis. Ware talked all about member work and how to help your members in their missionary work and how to teach them and open the way for them to be successful. It was so powerful!! I know that that training was so inspired!! I left there feeling so spiritually uplifted. It was fantastic! We are starting a new key indicator, member lessons. We are going to be reporting each Sunday how many lessons that we are able to share with members and teach them. It is fantastic! He gave us a lot of different tools to use to help the members and support them. I'm so excited to see how this helps and changes missionary work! Pres. Ware also talked to us about a 40 day fast. He told us about an experience that he has had since he has been here in the WKM. He said that he was being distracted by things. Things that necessarily weren't bad but just wasn't bringing him an added measure of the spirit. He read this little talk about fasting from our distractions and gave it to each of us. He said that he wanted each of us to participate in this. We start this process with a fast and while we are fasting we and and ask Heavenly Father to help us in knowing what we need to fast from so that we can have the spirit with us more fully. As we fast and pray and with the Lord come up with the things that we need to eliminate from our lives, we promise him that we will work with him to remove these things so that we can be the missionaries that he needs. It was amazing when Sis. Pratt and I started this! We started Thursday night and I knew that night that it is something that is going to change me. Satan starts to work really hard on you when you start to shove him out the door. It has been hard but I have already seen the blessings from acting. 

 

We were given the opportunity to teach Elders quorum yesterday. haha It was a different experience that is for sure. It was really fun though! We got to talk about missionary work and teach out of the Lorenzo Snow book. Sis. Pratt and I thought a lot about how we felt the lesson should go. Being able to teach the fathers and priesthood holders about the blessings of missionary work and helping them fulfill their priesthood duties. It was so great!! The spirit was really strong!!  

 

We didn't get to teach Amanda this week. She had some family stuff come up on Friday and wasn't able to meet with us. We got to see Stacey this week but not Yesenia. Stacey asked us some more questions on our beliefs and we had a really great discussion. She invited us for dinner tonight! We are really excited!!

 

Things are starting to pick up around here. As we continue to teach the members and help them and they help us the Lord is going to bless us and miracles will start to happen.

 

Lisa is doing great!! She has been so great at studying her scriptures and everything. Brother Moores mom passed away this week and Lisa said that reading her scriptures gave her so much peace and comfort during it all. She is so solid!! I do love her so much!

 

Well my dear family, I love you all!! I know that this church is true and know that our Savior stands at the head of it. I so grateful for the power of the Holy Ghost and the direction that it brings into our lives. Again, I love you all!! Have a great week!!

 

Love, Sister Mecham :)