Megan's 3-7-10 e-mail

I was reading in Alma 36 about his repentance, and I thought of the judgement-and how real it is! I just started to cry thinking about how kind Jesus Christ is and how He will plead our case if we have repented of our mistakes. Our choir sang Beautiful Zion last Sunday and I love the lyrics, "He who was slain on Calvary, opens those pearly gates for me."

Megan's Plea: Go to the Temple!

It's weird, but I have been missing being in the temple like I haven't eaten for months. I can honestly say I YEARN to be there...!! I want to be there soooo bad. I don't know why I have been missing it so bad. I start to cry every time I think about being in the temple.I want others to yearn to be there too-I want to help them get there. Please go the temple for me-and when you do, soak it all in!!!!!!!!!!! Look at the lights, and the carpet, and soak in how absolutely completely infinitely spotless it is!!!!!!!! Cleanliness is TRULYYYY next to godliness. Look at the big picture of Jesus Christ. When you're sitting on those big comfy perfectly clean sofa chairs, look down at your white dress and think of the sacrifice that our elder brother made so that we can wear that beautiful white-so that we can be clean. Please go to the temple for me. When I get home I want to spend a whole 3 days there.

By Simple Things...

I want to ask for all of your help. Please pray for me. That I will have more courage to speak to people. That I will learn at least 15 words in Cebuano every day. That I will love my companion more.Satan knows that these things are tools for me to be successful. I do not want to give in anymore. They are simple things-but by simple things come great things!!! It's a simple thing to open your Book of Mormon and read ONE verse every day- at least!! It's a simple thing to kneel down and pray for 1 minute!!! We are all soo busy-but if we do not do the simple things-we will have big problems.

Love from Megan

I'm kulang time(lacking) karon (right now). Pero(but) I just wanted to say that I love you all so much. More than all the pot pot drivers in the Philippines. Now that's love! I had to put in my 2 cents-since Josh loves you more than all dogs in Argentina-I'm adding my love to the pile gihapon(also).

Argentine Ingenuity!

In case you can't read his 'note', it says "WE HAVE POWER" Did he mention it has been six weeks since they had electricity in their pension? (apartment).

Now, look at the ingenuity used to restore electricity to the apartment. I wonder who figured that out. Does that coin have to be copper to conduct electricity? Is that even safe? Have you all seen e-mails with the likes of this ingenuity?

Fun Pics from Josh

Elder Heddinger, Dante and his pet armadillo which Josh says squeals when you hold it!

The duck and the armadillo are pets. The Pomo family are my favorites! Their names are Imanual, Daniel, maria-jose, Sophia, and Josefina the mom. They are so much fun! I don´t wear my rugby shirt on p-day, I wear my blue one with the words bwin on the front.
Melanie's comments: These are all quick answers in response to questions I ask Josh from pictures he sent. The Pomo family are the ones in the 'Fanta' commercial.

Josh's Inspiration from Robert Louis Stevenson

We had zone conference this week and a quote that was powerful was , "You cannot run from weakness. You must sometime fight it or perish. And if that be so, why not now and where you stand?" by Robert Louis Stevenson. Isn´t that great? Truly we can conquer anything with Christ on our side.

Answers to Prayers

From Josh:
This week we passed by Lusie and Facundo. Lusie was only there and told us something that I thought was pretty powerful. Every time Lusie prays to find the truth, we arrive on her doorstep. This has happened at least six times she said. We have not being going to her without guidance. A goal for us is to have her baptized this transfer. Lusie also fasted and got a job the next day! She is having spiritual experiences all the time!

Luna and Wanda

These are the little sisters of Sol, who was baptized. I assume this is their home that Josh mentioned in his e-mail.

Josh's 3-8-10 e-mail

The Lord blessed us with a baptism this week! Her name is Sol and she was baptized in three weeks! For an investigator without attending church before this is the fastest they can be baptized. The Lord truly blessed us and Sol was truly ready. Sol is 12 and her mom, Elizabeth is a member. She has three younger sisters, Mikela, Luna, and Wanda. They live in one of the most humble houses I have seen. They are always so much fun! They always ask me to say one of the prayers, as it is a game for them to try to guess what I said! I also had the blessing of confirming Sol and I messed up the first time and had to do it again! When we asked Sol to be baptized she took a very long time….and Elder Heddinger had me talk with her alone! I could tell she was nervous so I asked her if she wanted to say a prayer. We prayed and afterwards we talked and then I asked if she wanted to think alone and she agreed. She was alone for probably thirty minutes and then asked to talk with me again . She asked if her mom could baptize her, I told her no and explained the priesthood. She then asked about the Bishop and what he does in the ward. I explained what the Bishop does and afterwards she told me she wanted to be baptized by the Bishop. It was so precious!

Love from Josh

Wow family and friends, I love you! I love you more than all the dogs in Argentina, now that´s ton! Haha. I absolutely love the mission! This right now is the time of my life!

Choclo in Argentina

I ate the hardest thing this week and it happened to be on our menu twice! It is called choclo and it is this yellow thing. When I first heard it I thought it was like chocolate! It was really hard to eat! I would stick in my mouth and then drink soda and swallow. I nearly gagged more than once and drank about half the bottle! Haha. The worst thing was it turned out two members gave it to us this week!! Haha.

Melanie's comment-so I googled Choclo and other than a popular latin song written by Angel G. Villoldo, an Argentine musician meaning "The Ear of Corn", all I could find was a recipe for something you bake with creamed corn which would account for 'yellow thing'. I hope he is brushing after drinking all that soda!

Megan's 2-28-10 e-mail

I don't have much time! But I wanted to tell you about ...my life as a missionary:) I'm still in Palompon, and my companion is Sister Malicdem. She is from the Philippines-forget exactly where. Our attendance went up this week-from 94 to 107. We had 13 investigators-one family in particular we were happy because they all came-three little boys, a mom, and a baby. Her husband left her about 8 months ago and she doesn't know where he is. We were lacking a lot of less active families. It's hard feeling so responsible-like your work wasn't worth it-but it's not true-no effort is wasted. We thought so many other people would come to church-but they didn't show. I almost appreciate more when people say "Dili ko saad.."(I can't promise) rather than "oo, moadto mi didto." ("yeah, we'll go there." because then you have less disappointments. But it's ok, everyone has their own agency so if we know we did our best then we shouldn't be sad. Cebuano is still a big struggle for me-and I often feel so overwhelmed that I feel Satan's influence on me to stop trying but I must keep going!! I only fail when I give up. There is so much that I want to know and learn, and I feel so overwhelmed, that I end up not accomplishing a lot because I am just...I don't know! The waves are big!! But the Book of Mormon always brings me back-I am in Alma 2 right now and the wars are so relative to me right now-I feel I am in the middle of one-I know that Satan knows what we can all do! He knows our abilities and he will try his hardest to get us to be LAZy and to not keep trying and to not Set Goals! and to not make the most of our time and especially to not PRAY with our WHOLE hearts! But I must keep going because there are people that I will meet in my short time here that will make my struggles all worth it!

Newsflash:Miley Cyrus inspires Megan!

My companion needed to buy some shoes earlier and so we went to a shoe store and the radio was playing, and 'The Climb' by Miley Cyrus was on...and yeah, it sounds so cheesy but if I would have been alone I would have lost it!!! hahaha! That made me laugh inside just reading what I just wrote to you!! But it's true-"It's all about the climb!!

Melanie's note-by coincidence, I was actually getting ready to send Megan and Josh the lyrics to this song. I had never heard it until Rick was watching the Hannah Montana movie one night (yes, he likes 'chic flicks') and I walked in the room at the very end and Miley Cyrus was singing this song. (Rick had a little tear in his eye). Anyway, so I looked up the lyrics and in Megan's situation (any missionary would relate I think) these words are perfect! I bet Miley Cyrus never knew these words would inspire an LDS missionary. I say we send her a Book of Mormon!

Miley Cyrus-The Climb

I can almost see it-that dream I’m dreaming.
But there’s a voice inside my head saying you’ll never reach it.
Every step I’m taking, every move I make feels lost with no direction
My faith is shaken, but I got to keep trying
Got to keep my held head high.

There’s always going to be another mountain
I’m always going to want to make it move.
Always going to be an uphill battle
Sometimes I’m going to have to loose
It ain’t about how fast I get there.
Ain’t about what’s waiting on the other side.
It’s the climb!

The struggles I’m facing, the chances I’m taking,
Sometimes might knock me down, but, no, I’m not breaking.
I may not know it, but these are the moments
That I’m going to remember most
Just got to keep going
I just got to be strong
Just keep pushing on.

Keep moving, keep climbing, keep the faith
It’s all about the climb.

Familia Pomo

Fhe with the familia Pomo. They are awesome and one of my favorite families in Manantial. We ate really awesome pizza with them!

Earthquake in Salta, Argentina

So the earthquake! We felt it here. It was not very big, I thought someone bumped the table. (We were in the house of Norma) All the missionaries are fine in Salta, it didn´t do very much damage in Argentina. In Chile it was horrible, as you know. All the missionaries from Chile from our mission had permission to call home to make sure that everything is okay. As far as we know all the missionaries familias are safe.
Melanie's note: The earthquake in Concepcion, Chile was around 3 a.m. on Saturday, Feb. 27th and was 8.8 on the richter scale. Then an earthquake hit Salta, Argentina later that day and was 6.3 on the richter scale. You can see from Josh's comments above that it didn't cause much damage.

Josh's 3-1-10 e-mail

We had some awesome spiritual experiences this week! So Karla and Miguel, I know I talk about them alot, but they're my life right now!! So they have agreed to be married! We just have to have them sign a few papers and they are married! Yesterday we went to their house and help them put stuff on top of their house. Their house is very ¨ humble¨ you might say. :) Afterwards a huge rain storm came and it was so loud! The thunder and lightning were also very scary and very close. We could tell they were un-comfortable so we blessed their house and sang "Peace, Be Still." Afterwards we gave Miguel a priesthood blessing because his head hurt. I had the privilege of giving the blessing and during the blessing I felt prompted to tell Miguel one day he will receive the priesthood and he will be able to bless his family. It was very powerful. Only Miguel came to church this week because Karla needed to take care of her kids, but next Sunday she will come so they will have enough Sundays to be baptized. While we were picking up investigators Miguel was left alone in the car with the Taxi driver. The Taxi driver began to talk not very well about us and began trying to confuse Miguel. Miguel stood strong. He bore his testimony to the taxi driver and how we worship Jesus Christ. I was so proud of him when he told us this! He will not fall when he becomes a member. He is so strong! Karla and Miguel are willing to do whatever God asks of them.