Santiago Izquintla

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.