In the middle of all this, actually earlier in June, we went to Cuichapa. There I had a final interview with this good brother. About 37 years ago he was working in the citrus fields up by Martinez de la Torre. He returned for breakfast to his mother's house where he lived with his "wife," but they were not married. He found his wife in a, shall we say, compromising position with another man. Enraged, he took his machete and hit the man twice. He told me that he wanted to kill both of them, but his mother intervened and told him to leave. He did and never returned. Now, all those years later and a few hundred miles away, he was ready to be baptized. His legal wife and all their children are members. I first interviewed him in December, I think. He has continued in his activity for all that time and for months before. Salt Lake approval was required.



Here he is in the official one-size-fits-all baptismal overalls. The Cuichapa Branch has a nice little house of prayer with a baptismal font built right inside the chapel--just in case someone get the urge, I guess. The missionaries are Elders Hill and Gonzalez Poot.

In Lerdo the missionaries have been teaching a man and his wife. They live at the edge of a sugar cane field. Years ago, the man's grandfather owned the field. There was a large pyramid shaped hill in it. After he sold the land, the cane growers bulldozed the hill. It is now a barren spot of ground which will soon be cultivated. The man was out there poking around one day with a stick. The stick suddenly went into the ground with no resistence. He dug around and found this huge burial urn. He keeps it in his house and plans to put a plastic tree in it. It is an incredible find and worth who knows how much money . . . It is priceless. We have seen one almost exactly like it in a museum. It is definitely Olmec and is at least 3000 years old, maybe 4,000. It sits in their kitchen. They put a piece of masking tape around the top because there is a crack and they want it to hold together.



Elder Brandt is one of the missionaries. The man finds little artifacts all the time and he gave these to Elder Brandt.

On March 17, 2009 this couple who are Margarita y Manuel from Sihuapan were legally married. They had a little service in the house of prayer later that day and the following day Manuel was baptized. The missionaries are Elders Bowen and Lopez.


Now, after conference on June 13 a year later, they came in to be interviewed to go and be sealed in the Veracruz Temple with their little boy. That is why we do missionary work.

After our final conference of the Los Tuxtlas District, we gathered the missionaries of that zone for a photograph. They are Elders Moeller, Coronado, Brandt, Gumeta, Valencia, Luna, Gutierrez, Rosales, Elrey, Degollado, Munson, Bowen, Carpenter, Christlieb, Rivera, Deal, Ruiz, and Antuna.

We also took a picture with the Los Tuxtlas District Presidency. They are Presidents Moguel, Hernandez, Vazquez,Exec Sec Melchor, and counselor to the mission president Mauricio Morales.

estoy seguro de que no es una despedida para siempre pues asi como tenemos la seguridad de que nos conocimos antes de nacer, asi podemos estar seguros de que nos veremos despues de esta vida, tenga por seguro que usted será el primero en enterarse de la creacion de la estaca, no lo dude, estamos empeñados y completamente enfocados en ese objetivo
con mucho cariño, PDTE. HECTOR E. HERNANDEZ VAZQUEZ

"I am sure that this is not a good-bye forever because as surely as we have the assurety that we t knew each other before we were born, we also can be sure that we will see each other after this life. You also should know for sure that you will be the first know of the creation of the stake, do not doubt that. We are engaged in and completely focused on this objective. With much affection, Pres. Hector E. Hernandez Vazquez"

We love our little friend, the pueblo Santiago Tuxtlas. We stayed there in a hotel as we were going to the district conference. This would be our last official business in Los Tuxtlas before the creation of the new mission.

This view is of the Hill Vigia from our hotel room at daybreak.

These are town square views.



OKAY.  WE WILL NOW GET BACK TO ADDING POSTS CHRONOLOGICALLY STARTING WITH WHERE WE LEFT OFF.  THE ACTUAL DATE OF OCCURANCE OF THE LAST POST WAS JUNE 12, 2010, I THINK.

Huracán Karl

You will need to be patient while this video loads. It will take about 45 seconds.

We are way behind on our postings, but Mom created a nice video of Hurricane Karl which we are posting out of order. Karl dropped in on us on Friday, September 17, 2010 at about 11 a.m. He was supposed to have first touched land near Tuxpam which is 5 hours north of Veracruz and was to have arrived after 2 p.m. Instead, he took a hard left and hit our fair city full-force, winds at 120 mph, machine-gunning us with 5 inches of sideways-blown rain in 90 minutes over a very large area. More rain fell in the mountains west of us. One city, Huatusco received 9.2 inches. All that that rainwater runs downhill picking up dirt along the way. Downhill is Veracruz and other beachside communities.

The video includes photos during the height of the storm as we tried to drive from the office to the mission home, a normal drive of 10 minutes which took about 40--and it was a nail-biter as we dodged falling trees and downed power lines, all the while blinded by the driven sheets of gray water. Waves were 16 feet high. On a calm day, they are about 2 inches tall. Following the "Riders on the Storm" (Doors, 1971) shots are others taken right after the storm ranging in time from one to five hours later. The pictures inside a church building were the Sunday evening after. About 100 men, women, and children lived in that church for many days. Two weeks later, most had found other places to live.

As waters collected in lower elevations, complete colónias (large geograpical and semi-concentric neighhborhoods) floundered in more than 2 meters (6 feet) of runoff. In the video you next see some of those areas, pictures taken five days later after the water had receded a great deal. The Floresta Chapel shown had a couple of inches of water inside and throughout the building.

Finally, eight days later, we took 40 missionaries through the tiny and completely destroyed pueblito, San Pancho, to the town of Cardel. Cardel is 20 km north of Veracruz and it was storm central. On that Saturday after the hurricane, members of the Church from as far as four hours away came in on rented buses to help dig out homes and help people they have never known. Heavy mud and stinky water still rule many areas of town and will do so for weeks and weeks.

The government is necessarily opening dams to release water thereby preventing bursting, but the result is that many riverside pueblos, such as Carlos A. Carrillo, Cosamaloapan, and Tlacaoltalpan, are completely inundated. 150,000 people have been evacuated throughout the state. Six missionaries are still relocated, but all are 100% safe.

Just say, "¡NO!" to huracanes.