Lorenzo practicing the Organ

This is short video of Lorenzo practing the organ up at Center City on the big three manual organ.

Fourty Days in the Wilderness

When I got to Quertero, I discovered that I didn't have any companion. Nobody there knew beforehand that I was coming and nobody was prepared for me. There were two missionaries in Quertero, but they weren't interested in working with me. I didn't have anywhere to sleep or to live. The missionaries lived in a small house that served as the chapel on Sundays. I took up residence in one of the small bedrooms and tried to sort things out. I didn't know where the new mission home was or who the new mission president was or how to get hold of him to tell him that I was now in his mission. I worked with the branch president when he was available or with any other young man or adult who could or would work with me. Otherwise I just went by myself around the town. Like I said the other two missionaries didn't have much to do with me. I wondered if I was destined to waste the rest of my mission trying to find a permanent companion who would work with me.

Finally fourty days after I showed up in Quertero, the new mission assistants showed up in Quertero and discovered me. They didn't know that I was in the new mission. Sensing my frustration with not having a companion or an area or place to sleep or bed to sleep in. They loaded me up in their small car and off to Guadalajara we went. (I didn't have a bed to sleep in while I was at Quetero and I didn't have a bed lots of other times during my stay in the Guadalajara mission.)

I liked Quertero, especially all the polished rocks they had for sale in the town. But I was glad I was going somewhere where I would get a real area to work in.

Mission Split

After spending a few days back in the mission home. I was well and rearing to go back to work. The big news was that our mission was going to be split into two pieces. Guadalajara and all the area around it was going to be in a new Mission. I didn't think that I was going to go out to the Bajio (The lowlands around Guadalajara) but that I would probably stay in Mexico City. I really liked President Whetten and I was very familiar with Mexico City. Plus, I didn't like my experience out in the country in Tula very much. However things were going to change. The very last day before my mission was split apart, President Whetten called me into his office and told me that he had just received inspiration that I was supposed to be in the new mission. He said good by and I was taken to the main bus terminal and go on a bus going to Quertero, Mexico just inside the new mission boundaries.

I was scarred a bit but off I went. It was on this bus ride that I saw the land I had seen during my dream before my mission. This helped me know that I really was supposed to go to the new mission. This was good becuase things were going to be really different in the new Guadalajara mission.

My first Transfer to Tula Mexico

My first transfer was to Tula, Mexico about 50 miles north of Mexico City. Tula had some neat ruins that we saw ever day we worked there. We actually lived in San Marcos about five miles south of Tula with a widow member sister. The ruins were interesting. They fit together like tinker toys. One P-Day we took off into the hills surrounding Tula just to dig around and saw lots and lots of pieces of pottery and little stone carved figures. There were lots of evidence that once the place was covered with houses and people. Tula when I lived there had only about 20 thousand people in it. But when it was the capital of the Toltec Empire it probably had 500,000 people living in the area.

The missionary work in Tula was difficult and slow. When it got dark everyone went to bed and didn't want to be bothered by us missionaries. We didn't have any late night discussions like we used to have all the time in Mexico City. There was no bus service. We had bicycles to ride. I had three companions in Tula during the two months I worked there. My first companion was transfered to the office after about two weeks with me. I was sent a missionary who came out with me as my companion. The transfer said that we were supposed to be co-junior companions. Essentially I was the senior companion. Two to three weeks later, I received a new companion, my last senior companion. He was a mexican elder from up north. He was going home soon and was the trunkiest missionary I ever had as a companion. He wasn't interested in working just visiting the members, especially members with young women in their families. He made me sick and and I litterally ended up in the hospital in San Marcos. From the hospital I was taken by the assistants back to the mission home in Mexico city to recouperate.

After getting better I hoped I wouldn't have to go back to Tula.

Mom's favorite Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe

Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup shortening
2 eggs
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon soda
1 teaspoon vanilla

Beat the above ingredients altogether.

Add 2 1/2 cups flour. Stir in 1 pkg. chips (optional 1 cup chop nuts).

Bake at 375 for 10 to 12 minutes.