Not long after my trip to the mission home, I was transfered to Tepic, Mexico. We lived in Tepic but I was called to be the branch president in a little town about two hours away from Tepic, Santigo Izquintla. Both Tepic and Santiago Izquintla and seen better times in the church. There was only one active family in the church in Santiago Izquintla, the Carvajals. Hermana Carvajal was a widow sister with six or seven children. She owned the little newspaper that was published in town and also a small printing business. I really liked her and her family. All of her children were active members except for her oldest daughter who had left of college before the missionaries had showed up to teach them the gospel.
I soon became her favorite missionary. I only served two weeks in Tepic before becoming the Zone Leader over the Guadalajara Zone. As Zone leader I came back often to see the Carvajal family.
After serving three months as Zone Leader I became a district leader in Guadalajara. One day while walking back to our apartment I was stopped by a young mother who asked us if we were Mormon Missionaries. She turned out to be the oldest daughter of Hermana Carvajal. I was the perfect missionary to teach her and her family and they were my last baptisms on my mission.
Monday, December 24, 2007
Christmas at the Mission Home
We found out that we were going to have all the mission get together for a Christmas dinner and interviews with the Mission President. On December 24 we got up super early and took the bus to Guadalajara and then a taxi to the mission home. We supposed we were going to eat, see the mission president and then return home late that night.
Well the dinner took longer than expected and the mission president wasn't up to interview us and asked us to stay an extra day. We hadn't brought any clean clothes or any shaving stuff. Plus we didn't have any where to sleep. Everyone was up and partying all night long. I was not in the mode to party much because I had just had my bout with the Amebas. I finally crawled behind one of the couches in the mission home and fell asleep on the carpet. The next morning we finally got some breakfast and then headed back to the mission home. The mission president was still busy and told us to wait. The day dragged on and finally we headed off to an apartment of Elders in Guadalajara who let us spend the night there and once again I fell asleep on the floor.
The next morning we headed back to the mission home where I was finally interviewed by the mission president. I must have looked a sorry looking elder that hadn't shaved in three days. He told me to go upstairs and borrow his raisor and shave before heading back to Leon on the Bus. I did and then we took a bus back to Leon. I still remember having a long shower when we finally got home.
Well the dinner took longer than expected and the mission president wasn't up to interview us and asked us to stay an extra day. We hadn't brought any clean clothes or any shaving stuff. Plus we didn't have any where to sleep. Everyone was up and partying all night long. I was not in the mode to party much because I had just had my bout with the Amebas. I finally crawled behind one of the couches in the mission home and fell asleep on the carpet. The next morning we finally got some breakfast and then headed back to the mission home. The mission president was still busy and told us to wait. The day dragged on and finally we headed off to an apartment of Elders in Guadalajara who let us spend the night there and once again I fell asleep on the floor.
The next morning we headed back to the mission home where I was finally interviewed by the mission president. I must have looked a sorry looking elder that hadn't shaved in three days. He told me to go upstairs and borrow his raisor and shave before heading back to Leon on the Bus. I did and then we took a bus back to Leon. I still remember having a long shower when we finally got home.
Amebas
One day when I was at Leon, I suddenly got real sick. I couldn't even stand up I was so sick. Elder Butler took me to the district president who happended to be a pharmicist, doctor, salesman. He knew right away what the problem was, I had the dreaded "Amebas." He gave me medicine to help be get better. After improving he asked me how much longer I had to serve on my mission. I told him nine more months. He gave me enough medicine to cover the rest of my mission with out charging me a cent.
I took the medicine the rest of my mission. I continued to improve but I was never felt very strong and healthy much during the last nine months of my mission. When I got home I weighed only 120 pounds and was very weak. I was near 180 pounds before coming to Mexico.
The kind district president now servers as a General Authority of the Church in the Second Quorum of Seventy.
I took the medicine the rest of my mission. I continued to improve but I was never felt very strong and healthy much during the last nine months of my mission. When I got home I weighed only 120 pounds and was very weak. I was near 180 pounds before coming to Mexico.
The kind district president now servers as a General Authority of the Church in the Second Quorum of Seventy.
Cought red handed poaching golden investigators
Early in January another new family showed at church. These were the new investigators of the sisters in our district. It turned out that the sisters were working in our area when they discovered this family eager to hear about the church. We decided to work with the sisters and so we both showed up to teach this new family. They were new to Leon where he was an agronomist for one of the banks in town. They had just moved from Mexico City where their old next door neighbors had given them a Book of Mormon as a going away present.
They were reading the Book of Mormon when the sisters knocked on their door. They were soon members and good members too. Before I left to go home he was the Elders Quorum president on the branch. He also became the first bishop of the first ward in Leon.
They were reading the Book of Mormon when the sisters knocked on their door. They were soon members and good members too. Before I left to go home he was the Elders Quorum president on the branch. He also became the first bishop of the first ward in Leon.
Frozen Delight
One Sunday at Leon a new person showed up at church. He was the nephew of the Branch President and he wanted to hear the missionary discussions and get baptized. Great, but we had only one problem. We didn't have any water to baptize him in. During the summer we baptized people in a swimming pool behind one of the nice motels in town, but now it was winter and all the swimming pools were drained. We didn't have building with a baptismal font of our own. One of the members got a bright idea that we could do the baptism in the reservoir that provided the drinking water for town. It was located up in the hills above the town. It was my turn to do the baptism. We all met at the rented building that served as our chapel and scrunched into a few cars and headed up into the hills.
When we got to the reservoir we discovered that it was frozen over with ice and I was doing the baptism. I got out of the car went down to the lake and discovered that the ice was only about two inches thick. I could brake the ice and we could do the baptism if we wanted to continue. The nephew of the branch president was eager to be baptized and said lets do it now. So I walked out on the ice breaking it as I went until I got deep enough to do the baptism. I was careful to only get the lower part of me wet becuase it was so cold.
Greg, was so eager to get baptized that he came running out into the lake splashing cold water all over me. Burr, when I did the baptism I felt like leaving him down long enough to freeze him solid. But it went quick and we both ran back up to the shore with waiting towels and warm cars. I didn't mind the scrunched up warm ride back to our branch building.
Today Leon has several stakes with many wards, it's own mission and temple. I am sure Greg helped fuel the growth of Leon.
When we got to the reservoir we discovered that it was frozen over with ice and I was doing the baptism. I got out of the car went down to the lake and discovered that the ice was only about two inches thick. I could brake the ice and we could do the baptism if we wanted to continue. The nephew of the branch president was eager to be baptized and said lets do it now. So I walked out on the ice breaking it as I went until I got deep enough to do the baptism. I was careful to only get the lower part of me wet becuase it was so cold.
Greg, was so eager to get baptized that he came running out into the lake splashing cold water all over me. Burr, when I did the baptism I felt like leaving him down long enough to freeze him solid. But it went quick and we both ran back up to the shore with waiting towels and warm cars. I didn't mind the scrunched up warm ride back to our branch building.
Today Leon has several stakes with many wards, it's own mission and temple. I am sure Greg helped fuel the growth of Leon.
Friday, December 21, 2007
Elder Butler again
While I was at Leon I was given Elder Butler to be my companion. Elder Butler was still struggling. Soon after he became my companion he disappeared on me. I thought he might be trying to leave for home. So I left our apartment, cought a cab and headed straight for the bus station. Soon after I showed up there in walked Elder Butler with all his suitcases. He was surprised to see me there. I knew the city better than he did. He listened to me and came back with me to our apartment to finish out his mission. I didn't try to contact the mission president and tell him about our troubles because he didn't seem interested in what we did. I had only seen him briefly once or twice before that.
I didn't baptize many people while I was companions with Elder Butler but I talked to him lots about life and the church. About a year after my mission, one afternoon while I was at BYU, in walked Elder Butler to my apartment. He gave me a big hug and told me that he probably deserved to be strangled. He told me that he was getting married in the temple in a few days to a wonderful young lady. He told me that she would never had considered marrying him if he had left his mission early. He thanked me and thanked me that I had talked him into staying on his mission and finishing it faithfully. The last time I heard about Elder Butler he was serving as a stake president back in Utah.
I didn't baptize many people while I was companions with Elder Butler but I talked to him lots about life and the church. About a year after my mission, one afternoon while I was at BYU, in walked Elder Butler to my apartment. He gave me a big hug and told me that he probably deserved to be strangled. He told me that he was getting married in the temple in a few days to a wonderful young lady. He told me that she would never had considered marrying him if he had left his mission early. He thanked me and thanked me that I had talked him into staying on his mission and finishing it faithfully. The last time I heard about Elder Butler he was serving as a stake president back in Utah.
Leon
After spending three months in Zamora, I was transferred up to Leon, Mexico. Leon was large city with over 400,000 people. We had three pairs of missionaries in the city, four elders and two sisters. I also met up with Elder Smead (my first trainer) again. He as the district leader in the city. I grew to love Leon. They had city buses in Leon and we didn't have to walk everywhere like I did in Zamora. Plus we had lots of members in Leon in comparison to Zamora. My first baptisms in Leon was a family who made cows feet or menudo for a living. Of course being the missionaries who baptized them we got to eat lots of cows feet. They were poor but so sweet and special.
Leon was going through there 400th year aniversary when I was there. This was back in 1975 a year before we celebrated our 200th year aniversary as a nation. Leon is in the middle of cow country and everyone did something with cows. They made a lot of shoes in Leon from cow leather. I got a nice pair of shoes while I was at Leon. I later gave them away to one of my green Mexican companions who didn't bring a shoes for his mission. I quickly learned the layout of the city which was a blessing later on while I was there. I got to know the district president of while I was there. He was a young father with a young family but was very much converted to the church. Today he sits in the second quorom of the seventy as a general authority of the church. He sold drugs to doctors. While I was Leon I got very sick with the Amebas. He let me buy the medicine I need to get well from him with out any markup. He was great.
We grow our Branch
While at Zamora we baptized a young couple who were the brother and sister-in-law of the branch president of a neighboring branch in Uruapman (about three hours away.) I also got my very first green missionary the second month while I was at Zamora. Elder Flores came straight from Mexico City to Zamora to start his mission. He hadn't met the mission president and neither had I yet. He just showed up one day on the bus and anounced that he would be my new companion. My old companion was transferred back to Guadalajara. He was great to work with because he was so excited to serve a mission. But he didn't have much a clue what a missionary dressed like. We had to buy him his first white shirts. Plus he had a large bushy mustash on his face. I was pretty sure that it had to go and he agreed with out any fussing on his part. He loved small children and spoke perfect spanish.
Together we decided to grow Zamora. We tried tracting but the people we too nice. We got in every home and got fed at every place. They weren't very interested in the gospel but we sweet and nice and loved to listen and talk to us. We would tract in the morning and only get to three of four houses before we were too full to eat any more food and needed to do something else with our time.
We visited a splinter group from the Catholic church but they only invited us back twice because they were too "Born Again" and didn't like to hear about repentance or the need to keep comandments. Plus they lived way out of town and we would have to walk several hours one way to just get to their meeting place.
Then one Sunday out of the blue showed up a sister and her three children. They were visiting from Chicago, USA where she was a maid. She wanted her oldest two children baptized. She said that the elders back in Chicago wouldn't baptize them because they were all wetbacks. She was from a little place about a half and hour from Zamora. How she ever found us I don't know for sure except one of the people we contacted must have told her where we lived. We gladly baptized her two older children and wished her the best of luck getting back to the States. Before she left she introduced us to her brothers and sisters and parents. This was the break we were looking for. Before I left from my mission about a year later. I returned to Zamora as the Zone leader in charge of the work there to see that the branch in Zamora had grown to over thirty people. Most of the new converts were relatives of this good sister from Chicago.
Today Zamoa has a thriving stake located there. In fact it has been a stake for over then years. One of the members of the stake president was one of the small children who attended our first branch meetings.
Together we decided to grow Zamora. We tried tracting but the people we too nice. We got in every home and got fed at every place. They weren't very interested in the gospel but we sweet and nice and loved to listen and talk to us. We would tract in the morning and only get to three of four houses before we were too full to eat any more food and needed to do something else with our time.
We visited a splinter group from the Catholic church but they only invited us back twice because they were too "Born Again" and didn't like to hear about repentance or the need to keep comandments. Plus they lived way out of town and we would have to walk several hours one way to just get to their meeting place.
Then one Sunday out of the blue showed up a sister and her three children. They were visiting from Chicago, USA where she was a maid. She wanted her oldest two children baptized. She said that the elders back in Chicago wouldn't baptize them because they were all wetbacks. She was from a little place about a half and hour from Zamora. How she ever found us I don't know for sure except one of the people we contacted must have told her where we lived. We gladly baptized her two older children and wished her the best of luck getting back to the States. Before she left she introduced us to her brothers and sisters and parents. This was the break we were looking for. Before I left from my mission about a year later. I returned to Zamora as the Zone leader in charge of the work there to see that the branch in Zamora had grown to over thirty people. Most of the new converts were relatives of this good sister from Chicago.
Today Zamoa has a thriving stake located there. In fact it has been a stake for over then years. One of the members of the stake president was one of the small children who attended our first branch meetings.
Zamora
I was excited to get to Zamora. But when I got there I found out we only had eight members in the branch. We had mostly just two families and a few others. The town was small we could walk from one end to the other in under a half an hour. That was fine because we didn't have a car or bikes just our two feet.
We met for church in a small house that we rented from one of the active families in our branch. We lived in one of the bedrooms of the house. Like most houses in Mexico it had a flat roof. I liked going up on the top of the house and just looking around the country. Zamora was in Volcano country. I could count 20 volcanoes from the top of the roof of our house. While I worked at Zamora I visited the Paracutin volcano twice and the Colima volcano once. The land at Zamora was very fertile because of all the volcano ash. The rainy season was just ending when I got to Zamora which was good because there wasn't a lot of paved roads there and just a month before we would have been up to our knees in mud.
I was the branch president of the zamora branch. We tried to visit all our members at least once a week to see how they were doing. I especially remember visiting an old widow sister who lived out of town a bit. we would take a cross country bus out to her place and then get off near her place and walk the rest of the way to her ranchita. She was always so happy to see us and she always made a super lunch for us when we came out to see her. She had lots of fresh fruit, fresh farm eggs and bacon and lots of lots of love. I always wonder how the missionaries ever found her because she lived so far out of the way. Truely the Lord must have guided them to her.
We met for church in a small house that we rented from one of the active families in our branch. We lived in one of the bedrooms of the house. Like most houses in Mexico it had a flat roof. I liked going up on the top of the house and just looking around the country. Zamora was in Volcano country. I could count 20 volcanoes from the top of the roof of our house. While I worked at Zamora I visited the Paracutin volcano twice and the Colima volcano once. The land at Zamora was very fertile because of all the volcano ash. The rainy season was just ending when I got to Zamora which was good because there wasn't a lot of paved roads there and just a month before we would have been up to our knees in mud.
I was the branch president of the zamora branch. We tried to visit all our members at least once a week to see how they were doing. I especially remember visiting an old widow sister who lived out of town a bit. we would take a cross country bus out to her place and then get off near her place and walk the rest of the way to her ranchita. She was always so happy to see us and she always made a super lunch for us when we came out to see her. She had lots of fresh fruit, fresh farm eggs and bacon and lots of lots of love. I always wonder how the missionaries ever found her because she lived so far out of the way. Truely the Lord must have guided them to her.
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