New zone leaders, 31 July 2009. We hold zone leader council in the mission office council room every six weeks on the Friday of transfer week. It is a great meeting. This is where we set and reset the direction of the mission each six weeks. We look back at fotos of these young men and weep while we marvel at all the good they have done as faithful missionaries. Standing are Elders Barrio, García García, De La Cruz, Bowen, Rodriguez, and Bada who was filling in for Elder Rusk. He was in the hospital suffering from dehydration as a result of lots of fluid loss. Get it? Sitting are Elders Minetto, Page, Nieves, Norcross, Morales, Collins, Perez, Solesbee, Ficiur, Martinez, Stojic, Eduardo, Lindsay, and Esquer.

I had a baptismal interview with this wonderful man, Martín Jaime Guevarra de Castillo. He lives a couple of blocks away from the Estación Chapel in Xalapa. For years, he told me, the people on his street would say, "Here come the Mormons" and he would hide not answering the door when they knocked--kinda like I do when the TJ's (Testigos de Jehová) knock on our door. Kinda exactly like that.

A few months ago he noticed people coming out of the church. They were clean, happy, smiling, families, and he wondered why. He wife drank too much. They were struggling because of that. He would take her out of the house on Sundays to watch people leave the church. He would say, "Look. Why can't we be happy like they are?" They had discussions about these things, but their family problems got worse.

When the missionaries came by the next time, he let them in. His wife hid upstairs. They began to share with him a brief message of the Restoration. He became very excited and asked his wife to come down. Hestitating, she did.

He asked the missionaries to tell her everything that he had heard. They did. She started to cry. The missionaries asked if she was okay, if there were something they could do for her. She said that she was fine, but that she had never felt anything like this before in her life. She said that she had a drinking problem and now knew that she would never drink again in her life. That was all in the first visit. She begged them to return. They did. The family of four was baptized on 18 July 2009. A month later, Bro. Martín baptized his 20 year old son, rescuing him from the streets.

This is that joyful July generation just before they passed through security to fly home. It was a hard moment for the two of us. We have some eternal friends in this group. They are Elders Hernandez, Garza, Lopez, Blanco, Carmack, Ling, Sierra, Bangerter, and Sister Ramos.

On July 30th we bid farewell to some outstanding missionaries. Here they are standing in line trying to get through the red tape of getting on the plane. They are Elder Carmack, Sis Ramos, Elders Garza, Lopez Balderas, Sierra, Bangerter, Ling, and Hernandez.

In the second picture you can see that Elders Ling and Carmack are searching. Elder Carmack's family was in Veracruz and he could not keep his eyes of the doors just in case they showed up at the airport. They didn't, but it was a joyful reunion later at the mission office. Elder Carmack´s dad serves as his stake president. He released Elder Carmack from missionary service in the mission president's office and then they toured for a few days.

Sis. Ramos was one of our most successful sister missionaries. At the end of her mission, someone gave her a turtle. They are illegal to possess without a license--protected species. She returned from the temple the last night of her mission. She stayed in the mission home. Sheepishly, she came out of her room and said,"I can't find my turtle." Turtle??? We didn't know she had it. Thankful we are that she found it.

She packed it in damp toilet paper, put it in her purse, and carried it onto the airplane. Yes, her purse went through the X-ray machine. Either security didn't notice it or they are used to seeing bones in purses.

On 4 May 2009 we sent these two missionaries, Elders Villalobos and Eduardo to the Baxcaxbaltepec (Cerro de las Iguanas or Iguana Hill) Branch in the Los Tuxtlas District. There were 12-15 people regularly attending, no men. The date of this foto taken after Sunday services is 26 July. There are now about 30. We see the little elderly lady with the cane everywhere that there is a church activity in the district. She has no car. She has very little money. She mostly walks, slowly. She is a 100%-er. More good news to follow!

Right before the previously mentioned Xalapa bautizona, it was my privilege to interview two people for baptism--a husband and wife. The elders had told me that the woman had an abortion. Her interview was very smooth and she was authorized to be baptized. The man had told the missionaries that he had killed someone. That is a tougher interview and these folks have to receive First Presidency approval to be baptized.

The man told me that he lived in Galveston, Texas a little over a year ago for 9 months. While there, he was taught the gospel by sister missionaries. He bore his testimony to me and expressed disappointment that he was not able to have been baptized there because he was not married. He returned to Mexico and told his wife about the Church. He told her that they needed to find the Church, find the missionaries, get married, and get baptized. They went to church in Acayucan, 4 hours away, and Catemaco, 3 hours away. Finally, they found a chapel in Xalapa where they live. The missionaries taught them for a long time. The wife was slow to decide because of family pressure. The children were baptized a couple of weeks before. When she made the decision, the missionaries helped them get married which they did on Thursday. It was Saturday evening. Now all that was lacking was this pesky homicide problem.

Bro Maín had told the zone leader in his baptismal interview that he had killed someone about six years ago. Normally, the zone leader doesn't ask a lot of extra questions, and in this case they asked none. I had interviewed the wife afew minutes earlier. Her abortion was six years ago. As I interviewed the Bro. Maín, I simply asked him if he had helped his wife get an abortion six years ago. He hesitatingly and very emotionally said that he had. I asked if that is what he meant when he told the elders that he had committed murder. He said that was it. That was it! He considered the abortion a murder. ¡Wow! I have never had an experience like that.

He committed to never be involved in an abortion again. What a joy it was for me to tell him, "I have good news for you. I authorize your baptism today with your wife. It will take place as soon as you can change your clothes." We embraced and off he went to prepare himself for the waters of baptism.

The missionaries are Elders Castro and Zárate.