After the conference we learned that the choir director was a roommate at Ricks College with the mother of our missionary, Elder Goodworth who is from Shelley, Idaho. That's Churchworld for you--shrinking the planet. His companion is a new missionary, Elder Solano.



As we were leaving a young woman, whom we have never before cast our eyes upon, ran up to Mom and gave her this muffler. She said that she had made it especially for her! It was great timing on that cold March day. Wait, it was about 75! Well, I guess that is kinda cold. Must have been. Lots of people were wearing their ski parkas inside the chapel.

Why does that girl have her hand on Mom's stomach?

Stake conference in Minatitlán. We were met at the door by these handsome little guys. They were all ready to sing in the choir. Lots of things here are like performances. Exactly like performances--very fancy and dramatic. The choir was seated. The stake presidency and guests were seated on the stand. The presiding Seventy was seated. The congregation was visiting loudly. Suddenly, the door were flung open and in marched the children's choir, including these future missionaries.


The choirs here always dress up for conference. Elder David Brown of the Fourth Quorum of the Seventy was the visitor. He is from Colonia Juarez. He didn't sing in the choir, but he surely loved them.

This is a mega-grocery store called Mega. They sell lots of food there. Some of it is actually fattening.


This is a sign in the Mega grocery store parking lot. It says, "If you eat too much it could give you a heart attack." That makes sense. But, in the parking lot of a food store?

They have a weird tradition here. When it is someone's birthday a cake is provided. That is not the weird part. That is normal. The weird part is they sing "Happy Birthday" (not weird yet) and then when the birthday boy leans down to blow out the candles, someone smashes his face into the cake. That is weird. That is what happened to Elder Collins. Oh yeah, then everybody eats the cake that formerly held close to it the face of the victim. That is also weird. The helpful missionaries are Elders Cifuentes, Collins (the victim), Sosa, Brandt, Hernandez Loyola, and Ricks.

On March 16, 2010 it was my blessing to set apart Jonny Diaz Espinoza as a full-time missonary leaving from the Santiago Tuxtlas Branch. He has been called to serve in the Mexico City North Mission. He is a sweet young man and is the very first missionary ever to be called from that branch of the Church which we organized on March 22, 2009, a year ago. Mom sadly pointed out is likely my last setting apart, too, because the Los Tuxtlas District will now belong to the Villahermosa Mission. But, in these months, our numbers of missionaries in the field from the district has increased from 1 to 12. We have five more preparing their paperwork which should be submitted in June.


There is a lot of love in the branch. As you can see about half the branch came out to the little house of prayer for the setting apart.

At the zone conference in Coatzacoalcos, we delivered Elder Hollander, Phoenix, a huge box of stuff sent by his uncle and another from his mom. Inside one of them were some official All-American Girl Scout Cookies. He shared (what a good missionary, huh?) and then ran to hide the rest of them.

We ran down to La Venta, Tabasco on our way to zone conference in Coatzacoalcos. I needed to talk with the branch president about assigning missionaries there. His eyes filled with tears as we discussed the option. It has been over 6 years since they last had missionaries there. The time is now. As we left, we stopped at the convenience store for drinks and chips. Elder Collins and Ricks stand outside. You guessed it. The store is owned by a member of the Church.


Then we got to the freeway. Villahermosa is the headquarters of the new mission and is about 90 minutes, we think, to either the left or right. Problem--we were headed to Coatza and there was no sign indicating which way to go. So that is the direction we went. Villahermosa is actually to the left. You can get there by going right but you would have to cross the Pacific and several other oceans and a few random continents. We really aren't authorized to go quite that far out of the mission.