Three of these six missionaries are those we sent from our mission office to the Villahermosa Mission office. They emailed us this foto from a major ruin in their new mission which is called Palenque. which translates palisade. My dictionary says that it could also mean Indian ranch, pandemonium, or hitching post. Is that why these missionaries are there on their preparation day? Our former Veracruzanos are Elders Campos, Jimenez, and Yebra, missionaries 1, 2, and 4 from the left.

We were on our way from Veracruz to Teziutlán and we stopped in José Cardel because I needed to interview the missionaries there. While I interviewed one of them in my mobile office, Mom jumped out and went to work with Elder Gutierrez Luna contacting people in the town square. She is not afraid to talk to anyone.

In Carlos A. Carrillo there was a bautistrito on August 7th. The missionaries from Carrillo and neighboring Cosamaloapan, where there is no baptismal font, are Elders Linares, Gardner, Coffin, and García García. Elder García was studying to become a Catholic priest when we joined the Church a couple of years ago.

This letter is from Sis. Flores, an amazing sister missionary who doesn't know how to quit. She comes from Mexico City, has lived in the USA (legally), works and works, believes and does--a great missionary. She is the one on the right in the foto. This picture was taken with her new missionary, Sis. Carrizales, who had 10 days in the field that day. This is her letter.

"HELLO¡
This week was great, we found an Escogido¡¡
La semana pasada, el sábado para ser precisos, soñe con Carlitos y su bautismo, algo que se me hizo muy raro fue que vi a un señor de edad, también vestido de blanco, tomandose la foto con Carlitos, se me hizo raro porque busque enntre el repertorio de investigadores y no había nadie con esas características, Se me hizo muy raro ese sueño y estuve meditando mucho al respecto, sin embargo, esa duda se despejó el miércoles, ya que al llegar por error a una casa, aprovechamos para contactar al dueño, y HE AHI EL VIEJITO DE MIS SUEÑOS¡¡¡¡¡ JAJAJAJA se escucho chistoso¡¡¡¡
El es un escogido, se llama MArcos y se bautizará, es genial, a pesar de su edad el lee muy bien, el respondio a todas nuestras preguntas de verificacion, puso mucha atencion y adquirió un testimonio, nos acompaño este domingo a la Iglesia y hasta fue a casa de su hija a enseñarle del Libro de Mormon, me parece tan genial que en tan solo 4 dias el haya podido hacer tanto, y más a su edad, tiene 64 años¡ Es bien bueno y claro¡¡¡ Asi que ya estamos trabajando duro con eso¡¡¡ Y más contra el enemigo, tenemos a DIos de nuestro lado¡¡¡ Y no importa cuanto esfuerzo requiera, lo haremos¡¡¡¡¡ Y estamos bien animadas por eso¡¡¡

Les amo mucho
Hna Flowers"

"Hello! This weef was great. We found a 'chosen.'
Last week, Saturday to be exact, I dreamed of a man and his baptism. Something which I thought was really weird was that I saw a senior citizen, and that he was dressed in white, and we were taking a picture with him. It was strange because I began to look through our area book and there was no one matching his characteristics. [The man was not yet in teaching.] The dream was odd to me and I pondered it a lot. Nevertheless, the dream was cleared up on Wednesday. By error, we went to a wrong house looking for someone so we contacted the landlord and there I saw the 'old man' of my dreams!!! Ha, Ha! That sounds funny, huh? He is one of the chosen and his name is Marcos. He will be baptized. It is really great and in spite of his age he reads really well. He listens closely, answers all of our questions, and has aquired a testimony. He went to church with us on Sunday and after we went to his daughter's house to teach her of the Book of Mormon. It is really amazing that in just four days he has done so much, especially considering his age because he is 64! He is so sharp! [This should be giving all you senior citizens hope.] We are working hard at this and even more against the enemy. We have God at our side! It doesn't matter how much effort this will take, we will do it! We are really excited."

I just wish we could get these Mexican guys to quit looking so dang happy about their baptisms.

Elder Brito is from Ecuador. He has been in the field for six weeks and three days. He is shown in this picture with his trainer, Elder Peña. On July 26th Elder Brito wrote:

"Elder Rojas esta sirviendo en la mision mexico-cuernavaca... el fue mi compañero en CCM... pues... Elder Rojas es el unico mkiembro de la iglesia de su familia..sus hermanos estan enojados.... su papá no quiere escucharnos... pero la mamá... ha progresado mucho... muchisimo... al principio... sentia nostalgia y tenia mucha tristeza.. por su hijo ,Elder Rojas, tanto asi q lloro.. en la 1ra visita... luego al conocerla un poco mas la visitamos por 2da ves en esta ocacion fue totalmente diferente enseñamos... pusimos fecha para este 31, q leyera el libro de mormon... y pues la 3ra visita verificamos si leyo el libro de mormon.. y pues si lo hizo... desde la 1ra visita hasta hoy lunes el cambio ha sido abismal.. esta muy feliz... hemos enseñado... las lecciones 1.2.3 y mandamientos... asisitio las 2 veces a la iglesia.. entiende Y comprende el libro de mormon.. y !ESTA SEMANA SE BAUTIZA¡"

"Elder Rojas is serving in the Mexico Cuernavaca Mission. He was my companion in the MTC. Elder Rojas is the only member of the Church in his family. His brothers are mad at him. His dad doesn't want to listen to us. But the mamá, she has really progessed, a really lot. At the beginning she felt nostalgic and was very sad for her son, Elder Rojas. She cried so much in the first visit. Later we came to know her a little better in the second visit and this time she was totally different. We taught her and invited her to be baptized on July 31st and asked that she read the Book of Mormon. In the third visit we verified that she is reading the Book of Mormon. The change in her from the first to the third visit is something very humbling. She is very happy. We have taught her lessons 1,2,and 3 and the commandments. She has been to church twice. She understands the Book of Mormon and this week she will be baptized!"

Sis. Rojas was baptized on July 31st. Another miracle.


Sis. Rojas was baptized in a bautistrito in the Veracruz North Zone. Two married couple were baptized along with Sis Rojas. The missionaries are Sisters Carrizales and Flores, and Elders Ahlstrom, Pena, Melchor, Luna, Gutierrez Luna, and Brito.

Click on the photo to enlarge it and see some beautiful people in white.

Mom and I attended a baptismal service in Poza Rica. The elders told us that they hade some investigators attending. One was named Felicitas. We were about 10 minutes late for the service which made us about 30 minutes early. One of the missionaries noted that Felicitas had arrived. They said that she had been going to church for 4 years (the elders kept contact with her but she was not being treated as an active, progressing investigator) and had been to at least 4 baptismal services. Her adult children are members. Her pretext for not joining is that she is waiting for her husband who keeps saying that he will join someday but that he can't get off work to go to church. He works for Pemex (Petroleum of Mexico) as a supervisor of some type. So, I walked over to Hermana Felicitas and struck up a conversation. Wanting to demonstrate for my new missionary how to invite someone to baptism and how to be direct in doing so, as is taught in "Preach My Gospel."

I told her that I had heard she was about to be baptized. She said she was. I asked her if she would invite me to her baptism. She smiled broadly and said that she would do so. I then asked her when it was scheduled. She said in a few weeks. I told her that the missionaries were planning a service for the following Saturday. I invited her to be baptized on that day. She laughed and said, "A ver," which means "We'll see." Trying to make a clever rhyme, I responded, "No hermana. A ver, no; hacer, sí." Loosely translated, "We'll see, no; do it, yes." She giggled, but quite nervously. Then, she sort of half-way committed to being baptized the next Saturday. Having done all the damage I could, I went to the other side of the room and sat down by Mom.

About 5 minutes later, Felicitas got up and left. She had a badly misbehaving granddaughter with her and I was hoping that was why she walked out before the service started. Mom said, "Nice job. She left." Now, it was my turn to giggle quite nervously. Felicitas did not come back.

The next day we attended church in that very ward. When the meeting ended I was up front talking with a young man from Brazil who is working on contract for Pemex. I saw Felicitas sitting in the back of the chapel. She left for class before I could go talk to her. Probably a good thing.

Friday morning the zone leaders called. They had just finished interviewing Feliticas for baptism! WHAT??? I asked to talk with teaching missionary. He said that they felt that they should go teach Felicitas the story of Naaman in 2 Kings 5--the story of explicit obedience required by his bathing himself in the River Jordan 7times to cure his leprosy. After that they invited her to be baptized on that same Saturday. She accepted. I talked with her on the phone. She was almost giddy with joy. I asked what had changed her mind. She said that as they prayed in the lesson that she continued to have doubts. But, as they prayed, she said that every one of her doubts and questions were answered. She said that it was made clear to her the exact time and date that Heavenly Father wanted her to be baptized. She said, "He spoke to me." So, at 10 a.m. on that same Saturday, Felicitas, which kind of translates "happy," was joyfully baptized into the Church.

So, life is good in Mexico for Felicitas and her baptizing missionaries, Elders Berrett and Quintero.

On August 1, 2010 we went to church at the Volcanes Ward. That means volcanoes, but there aren't any. But there are cement telephone/power poles that fall over if a car runs in to them really hard. The ward is big attendance, well organized, pianist (very rare and they are almost always men-- that would be 7 out of the eight times we have seen a pianist in two years), mostly on time, good meeting. The weird thing was what we saw on the way into the parking lot. Foto 1. What you see here is a cement power pole. It was knocked over by an errant driver in the night. It is being held up by the power line. When we went into the meeting, the red tape was not there. A church employee had just finished string it up. Someone was good enough to hang the red flag on the end. Don't see any power trucks or emergency personnel, do you? The Church took care of it. The city or power company will get to it mañana. Foto 2: There is room for the bus to drive by with fractions of an inch to spare.