At the base of the other pyramid is this one-stop shopping health business. You can go to the dentist, get a medical consultation or have your health evaluated, or you can go around the corner of the building and buy diapers at the pañaleria, which is a diaper and diaper supply store--baby supplies. Judging by the snappy, yellow Ford Peekup (that is what these are called here), Dr. Julius Caesar Baltazar Matus is doing okay for himself.

One of the areas most remote in the mission is San Juan Xiutetelco in the Teziutlán Stake. It is a pueblo higher up above heat and humidity. It is on the edge of the dry Pueblan plain, but there is still a lot of citrus, bananas, and much foliage and flowers. Many of the people look different, and dress differently than in the coastal cities and pueblos, more kind of . . . hard to describe. . . Indian-y, I guess. The missionaries up there freeze at night in the wintertime. There is a ward which gets lots of help from the elders. There are also three pyramids in town which date back to 1200-1500 A.D., we are told. We are standing on one of them taking pictures of the other two. The predominant religion has build altars and prayer houses on the top of two of the pyramids. At the base of one is a tire shop. There is an agency which is supposed to safeguard the antiquities, but . . .

Erick Francisco Maza Aguirre is a young man from Isla in the Los Tuxtlas District. He was an interview back in July, 2008. He needed a little work to prepare for his missionary service and he really got serious about it. He finally received his call to serve in the Mexico Guadalajara South Mission. I set him apart for his missionary service in the president's office. An hour or so later he flew to the MTC in Mexico City. I learned an interesting story later. Around 1993 a missionary in Isla was attacked by a man with a machete. He was very severely wounded. A member named Bro. Maza saved his life. Ten days later, the missionary was back on the job. Bro. Maza's grandson is Elder Maza.

On March 22nd, we went to San Andres in Los Tuxtlas and organized the Santiago Tuxtlas Branch by dividing it off of the San Andres Primero de Mayo Branch. This has been a long time coming. It was work well worth it. Pictured are the members of the new branch who made the trek to San Andres for the division. Pictured are the new branch president, on the left, and other leaders and missioanries. There are also 5 investigators in the picture, all of whom have now been baptized. The missionaries are Elders Page (Kernersville,NC, who served in Stgo Tuxtlas for 9 months) Castro, Collins (from Centerville, UT), and Rangel (who served in San Andres for many months).

We went to Xalapa for a special interview with Leticia, the lady walking with Mom. They are walking down a very steep road from her very humble home chatting away in Spanish as they go. She was a wonderful sister. The second photo is her son who was baptized a year ago. He is walking down the road with Elder Moyar from Payson, UT and Elder Llanos, his Peruvian companion. I want to share with you Elder Moyar's story which took place a couple of weeks after Leticia´s baptism. The missionaries stopped by on Easter Sunday.

"We hadn’t eaten all day, and we were hoping to make it quick and get over to the house of the member with whom we’d planned to eat earlier, because we hadn’t been able to go for appointments and the meetings and everything that happens after church. So we got there REALLY hungry. They invited us in, we talked a bit, Jose’s boss [José is Leticia´s husband who was also baptized.] is on vacation so he hasn’t been paid in a while, they didn’t even have enough for them all to take the bus to church that day, they’d only been able to send their son, Alan. So, when she invited us to some tortas we were like, "No, sister, seriously, we’re good." But she never listens when we say that, and went ahead and used the last of their bread, cold beans because their gas ran out, and two pieces of ham to make us tortas.

"Then, we gave them The Lamb of God DVD and she wanted to watch it then and there. We were eating, so we were like, "Cool, put it in." But she couldn’t sit still! She was up and down and up and down, in and out of the little one-room apartment. Then she turned the microwave on and brought us some chicken and tortillas. "EAT, Elders!" So we ate, but she still just wouldn’t sit still!

"I ate two small tortas, one chicken-rib, and 6 or 7 tortillas and was as full as if I’d eaten a three-courser. Then, the movie got over and we were taking turns sharing our testimony. My companion ate the same, or less than I had, and there was still chicken and tortilla, but we couldn’t eat any more.

"Leticia, when we told her we were seriously too full to eat any more, got really emotional and bore us her testimony that God listens and answers our prayers. When she was getting up and down and first, she was going all over in the hall, to the door, thinking in a frenzy what she could possibly give us to eat. As Alan showed us later, they had nothing. But seriously nothing. There were empty glasses, a dish of salsa, and a thumb-sized chunk of cheese in the fridge. But, thinking and praying she remembered the left over chicken from the day before that was still in the microwave. [Yikes! Day-old chicken stored in the microwave?] Warming it up and serving us she prayed and prayed that God would bless the food so that it would fill us, she didn’t care if she had to be hungry the next day, she wanted to treat us well.

"Then, after having served us, when she started getting up and pacing all around again, she told us, that when she was there sitting on the mattress watching the movie, and when we started to eat, she was sure she’d seen out of the corner of her eye, a dove come down above and behind us. But so sure that she thought maybe a bird had seriously flown down the hall, (the building’s missing a few walls.) She was sure though, as she was telling us, and I’m sure too, that her Heavenly Father was telling her she could relax and enjoy the movie, He was going to take care of everything.

"It’s sort of silly, but I really felt it when I thought about how Christ, seeing a group of hungry people prayed that His Heavenly Father would bless the bread and fishes to fill them all, and the prayer was answered, there was even extra afterward. Leticia had made the same request to the same loving Father in Heaven and He’d answered in the same way, smaller scale, but Elder Llanos and I ate until we were full and there was still chicken and tortillas left over afterward.

"It was a really good Easter."

Elders Rangel and Reyes were headed for home. So, we invited the office elders over for a little beeksteak estilo Grandpa Hansen. It was quite the feast, as you can see. The best part is always Mom's homemade rolls which the elders eagerly dipped in the "dook" or drippings from the meat. The best phrase I could come up with to describe it for them was jugo de vaca, cow juice. But that doesn't really work because cow juice is really milk. The missionaries are Elders Lopez, Blanco, Reyes, Page (Kernersville, NC), Rangel, Judd (Mesa, AZ), and Eduardo.

After a special interview in Orizaba, we gave the elders a ride to another appointment. It was at the home of a little man named José Luís Amezcua. We met him and we heard his testimony. His story is really something special.

The missionaries had a referral from the bishop to look a less active for a named Luis. They had a bad address, but people seemed to know him and they were directed to a pink house on a back street. They found the house. The lady of the house invited them in. She said that Luis was not there, but that José Luis was. They offered her a message. She brushed them off but pointed to little José Luis and said that he is always talking about God. So, he invited them into his very humble little home which was next door. The missionaries are Elder Galvan from Acapulco and Elder Hunter from Riverton.

They sat down and began to visit. José Luís told them that his mother died about a year earlier. No one helped him. The churches didn't help him find solace. He had prayed often and cried in the night. In desperation he prayed again one night, not knowing what else to do. A voice came to him and said, "No te preocupes. Te mandaré lo que necesitas. No me pides más." "Don't worry. I will send you what you need. You don't have to ask me again." Then he dreamed a dream and saw a man, a gringo.

While we were in his little house, he recounted the story for us, pointed at Elder Hunter and said, "That night I his your face in my dream. He was wearing that brown tie and those brown pants." They taught him the gospel. His baptismal date was set for March 28th.