Just a pretty flowering tree near Piedras Negras. It is springtime and lots of plants are blooming. The rain hasn't started yet, though, so the fields and hills are very dry and brown. Rain starts in June. Floods start in September and October, and end in November. Hurricane season starts in October and runs through January. Snow? Not a snow shovel to be found. That's the weather.

On May 26, Elder Oscar de Jesus Ortiz Bustamonte was set apart to serve a full time mission in the Mexico Cuernavaca Mission. It is the top baptizing mission in Mexico. Elder Ortiz is from San Andres in the Los Tuxtlas District. He has been serving as branch clerk and will be a blessing to his mission president. He is pictured with his aunts, mom, sister, and dad. The family is basically not active, but have returned to a degree of activity as Elder Ortiz has prepared for his missionary service. The women all wept in the short testimony meeting we held before the setting apart, and could not talk. The dad was brave and the missionary tried to be. His mission is a long way away to these folks. They have no car and don't often leave Los Tuxtlas. Cuernavaca is about 8 hours from their home, but that is two years and one world away. He is the first missionary from the family and is a convert of about 3 years. The other young men are friends from his ward and Elder Page, North Carolina, who served in the area.

Elder Reidhead from Arizona and Elder Maya from Mexico are sitting in front of the baptismal font in the Hidalgo Ward in Minatitlan willing someone into the font. I don't think it worked. Hidalgo, a neighborhood, is named after the famous Catholic priest, Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, who is credited with starting a revolt around midnight September 15, 1810 which led to a long war and eventual Mexican independence from Spain. He is believed to have cried, while imprisoned, "Long live Our Lady of Guadalupe, death to bad government, and death to the Spaniards!" while ringing a bell. So, that's why the missionaries are sitting in front of an LDS baptismal font in an LDS chapel named Hidalgo who was a Catholic priest 200 years ago. Huh?

Elder Rodriguez is scootering in the pueblo called Moctezuma in the State of Oaxaca next to the city, Tuxtepec. Tuxtepec is about 10 kilometers from the San Antonio, Texas. That is the real name of a very tiny pueblo, no paved roads, and about a million miles south of the place where the Spurs play.

Ciudad Isla. This remote pueblo is hot-hot and humid. It is pineapple growing country--miles of open, sun-drenched, quite unattractive pineapple fields in all directions. Then, somewhere near the town is a river. The branch has a building with a baptismal font. But, sometimes they baptize in the river. What a happy gathering they are! Click on the picture to really see their smiles. Elder Sereno from Mexico and Elder Minetto (his trainer) from Oregon reactivated these two families and were able to baptize these two little girls, as well. Elder Minetto is carefully leading one into the river and instructing her, one last time, on how the ordinance will be performed.

The pesquisa was mentioned earlier. The clue-giver is demonstrating what he wants done with the scriptures while the clue is being given. These missionaries will do almost anything for a chance to win free chocolate. Nice double-chin, huh? Too many handmade tortillas will do that to you.

At that zone conference, the Foraneos zone did a skit. I am not sure what the point was, but it was funny. Part of it featured Elder Moyar from Payson mocking the mission president. Oh, I remember. This skit was a "silent movie" depicting the president calling the zone leader to tell him that we were not to wear ties because of the flu. The word got passed from missionary to missionary and at the end of the chain of telephone calls they were wearing t-shirts, no socks, no pants (they wore gym shorts). It was clever. Now, what did that have to do with the work and the glory??? I don't know either. I also don't know why he has that pillow under his shirt.