Solo

I told him that our twins say that I’m the worst driver ever.  Before he got in, “He” is a Mexican man, a leader in our Church, we call him an “Area Seventy” and he’s over me.  Anyway, he asked for a lift to his home after our meeting last Sunday.  About halfway there, he turns to me and says “your twins are right.  Do you know I’ve had two heart attacks? I don’t want a third.  If you die, the Church can replace you in a day or two.  But if I die, the Church will have to wait until the next General Conference to replace me.  And that’s not ‘til March.”  He didn’t look like a man who’d had two heart attacks when he jumped out of the car at his home.  Not sure how he’s going to get home from our next meeting.

Some things are different in Mexico.  The Dr. Pepper cannery overfills its soda cans, so you get showered in DP when you pop the top.  Makes no difference if the can sits first, or you go slow.  And every 5th or 6th Whopper candy has no center, just a deflated chocolate ball.  Kinda disappointing.  There are 82 speed bumps on the way to my office.  164 round trip. Every day.  Yeah.

We struggled a bit getting the English speaking missionaries to mix with the Spanish speaking missionaries on their first day, and vice versa.  Until yesterday.  Instead of picking them up in two groups, we rented a bigger van and picked up the Spanish speaking missionaries at the mission training center in Mexico City, then swung by the airport to greet and pick up the North Americans.  Neither group speaks much of their counterpart’s language, so it can be a bit awkward on the 1.5 hour trip back to the mission office.  Yesterday, we got ‘em all laughing with language bloopers.  Like when I told a local leader that Janna is a “slut” when I meant to say that she’s “prepared.”  Or when my North American assistant, on his first day in country, asked in Spanish for a “beer” instead of a “napkin.” Or when my Mexican assistant was struggling with the word “focus” as he read the English edition of the missionary manual out loud in his room and found his North American companinons rolling on the ground laughing in the adjacent room.  Brought back memories of my first mission, 39 years ago, when I conjugated the word “member” and instead of asking a beautiful teenage girl if she was a member of the Church, I asked her if she was my girlfriend.  Same scene back then in the adjacent room.  Anyway, the trip back to the office flew by and they’re all pretty good friends now.

Janna’s been in Utah for a few weeks with hip replacement surgery, so it’s lonely at home.  I attended a seminar of all mission presidents in Mexico last week, the only single man there.  It helped that the seminar was in Huatulco, a beach resort in the southern part of Mexico, so I swam and body surfed between sessions.  It was all inclusive, so I ate some too. Oh, and I found a new taco place on the road to our home.  Better than “Super”.  By the way, if you’re a friend, stop writing me to tell me that when you’re at VG’s, you think of me.  For at least two reasons.

I have envied my dad and his baseball coaching career for years.  But now, near the end of my working years, I get to be a coach, sort of, of 120 incredibly unselfish young people.  I thought about Dad when I played catch with one of them a few weeks ago, a Dominican who was abandoned and homeless before his mission.  He’s a pitcher, with the hope of playing professional baseball when he gets back.  I “clocked” him at around 90-95 mph.  More than a year into his mission, no workouts.  There were only two gloves, mine and dad’s antique one.  Since I had to catch his fastball, I took mine and tossed him dad’s.  Dad had to be loving those 20 minutes.

Yesterday, I was teaching the missionaries about developing Christ like love for the people here.  One of them, a brand new one from Colombia, a 19 year old girl with “salsa,” the only one among her mom and 8 siblings who joined the Church after the missionaries knocked on their door in Colombia, serving here in Mexico without any family support, jumped up in tears.  We could feel her passion as she shared her life story, the love she feels from Christ, and the love she feels for the Mexican people.  She gets it, and when she was done, we were done.  The other missionaries got it, too.  No dry eyes.  This is an incredible journey with these young people.  I pray every day that time will slow down.

Janna and Hayley are recovering, for which we are very grateful.  All our family and friends are in our prayers.  Thanks for your support.  Looking forward to receiving Elder Tadeo from our Stake back home in just 6 weeks!

90 Mexican Days!

Mexican's celebrate Independence Day on the 15th, even though the actual date is the 16th, but they start sending up huge earth shaking fireworks from their backyards beginning a week before and keep at it, sometimes in the middle of the night, for at least a week afterwards. Janna was in Utah having her hip examined, and members of the Church and neighbors told me it is too dangerous to be out celebrating the holiday, so I bought a Mexican flag, hung it from the wall surrounding our home, and hunkered down in "Harper's" room to watch our neighbor sending up fireworks brighter and louder than any the Del Mar Fair sends up. And not one cop showed up. What a great country!

We recently received 18 missionaries, 8 from Mexico and 10 from the USA, and sent home 10 who finished their 2 years. It's a busy three days because the new ones come in from the USA and from the Mexico missionary training center, so that's a trip to a very busy airport in Mexico City, return, then a longer trip to the training center to receive the Mexican missionaries, all in one day. They have to be trained, fed and assigned to companions, who also must be trained. Then the departing ones have to be interviewed, fed and housed until we head back to the airport for their flights home. It's exhausting, but one of the most fun things we do. The North Americans are so nervous when they arrive. 9 of the 10 we received from America are Utahns, and they peppered us with questions about the water, food, danger, water, food, the members, water, food, and how the missionary efforts are going. The ride home from the airport with them is really fun, watching their wide open eyes as they look out the windows of the combi. It's got to be a sobering moment for them. It's been a week now, and we saw them today, and they're all speaking Spanish and smiling, so that's a good start. 

I had three "special interviews" last week that I will never forget. The missionaries interview most of the people who want to be baptized, but I interview the people who have tough things in their backgrounds. Like murder. And other things. 

One young man in his early twenties, heavily tattooed, sat across the desk from me and recounted to me how he had joined a gang in America a few years back, that he killed two people to get into the gang, and then killed six more "in defense". In defense of what? His gang's drugs, prostitutes and territory. He and I both wept when he told me of his childhood, life in the streets, and the light he sees from the missionaries who are teaching him. They were already teaching his mom and sister a few months ago when he returned to Mexico, fleeing for his life from the gang, and at first he didn't want anything to do with them, but he changed his mind as he listened to the lessons from an adjoining room in the house. It was interesting to sit so close with someone so young who has walked in such darkness, the darkest sort, crossed over really, but who now craves light. He's the second murderer I've interviewed. Like I said, some folks here don't think life's worth much. I never interviewed a murderer as a Bishop or Stake President, so this is new territory for me. Sad that this country is in the grip of so many Book of Mormon sorts of secret societies, killing for gain. Troubling that his killing was exported to the USA. 

A young woman came to see me yesterday. She'll be baptized this Saturday, along with her husband. She was abandoned by her father and mother before she was 10, left to raise her younger brother in the streets, worked in a bar at age 12 to support them both, co habited with her now husband at age 15, pregnant at age 18, and very, very angry at life and pretty much everyone in it...except for the missionaries, who smiled and greeted her every time they saw her and her brother in the streets, beginning with Elders Olson and Soto more than 5 years ago. She never really spoke to them, but she remembers their names from the name tags. No matter how bad things got, she never forgot those missionaries. And when things couldn't get worse, in the late stages of pregnancy two years ago, she walked a couple of miles to the nearest church building and stood on the curb for 3 hours, hoping the missionaries would pass by, which they didn't that day. Every day for the last 2 years she's looked for missionaries, until two walked by her window 3 months ago. She grabbed her baby and screamed from her doorway that she wanted them to teach her and her family. They've been going to church for 7 or 8 weeks now. She's a fighter, still angry about a lot of things, but starting to let go with the help of the Lord, the missionaries and the members. Janna says she'll be a great Relief Society President. 

Finally, a young woman came to see me who left a bad marriage, moved in with her parents, and found the missionaries at her door a few months ago. She was ecstatic to be baptized two weeks ago, wants her young son to be a missionary one day, and asked me through tears in her interview "why didn't my LDS girlfriend ever talk to me about the church when we were young? I could've avoided so much pain".

Our lives are a whirlwind of people, and we love it. I could not do this without Janna. She's amazing with these young people. Won't deny that we miss our family and friends every day though. Dan Sieber, know you're reading this. How's it goin' big fella? 

This Week

Hard to think of anything but Hayley this week. And we still don't have a diagnosis. She has an amazing friend in Sarah Thrasher, that much we know. And family and friends who love her. And great missionaries who decided on their own to pray for her.

On a lighter note, the longer our days, the more grateful we are that we can get our hands on Coke Zero down here. Oh, and I lost the first mission wide arm wrestling championship. In the first round. To an Elder who is half my size.

So much going on. The missionaries here have been in the habit of teaching the 3rd lesson first, and we decided to teach the first lesson first, unless the Spirit dictates otherwise, which is consistent with the missionary handbook. That's the "Restoration of the Gospel" lesson. And we want them to teach it with the pamphlets provided by the Church. Some of our missionaries are struggling with the change. But one decided he liked it when he taught the Restoration first and the woman he was teaching, recognizing the picture of Joseph Smith's vision, said "hey, I was baptized into your Church when I was a girl. But we moved and I've never been able to find the Church again". Now they're teaching her husband, son and brother, none of whom are members of the Church. And the missionary reports that the connection never would've been made without teaching the first lesson first. As Harper would say, "weird, follow the rules and things work out."

I am trying like mad to get the English speaking missionaries to teach English to the Spanish speaking missionaries. There's a certificate program for those who learn sufficient English, and it helps lift them into better schools and jobs after their missions. In a twist, I learned yesterday that two Spanish speaking missionaries who are companions make each other do push ups if either of them speaks Spanish in their apartment. That's how bad some of them want to learn English. And I can't get some of the English speaking missionaries to slow down enough to teach what is so easy for them? Gonna keep working on them.

We never feel threatened, probably because we're with the missionaries. Our missionaries don't think it's any big deal to be robbed, happens all the time. And they shrugged when I told them that yesterday authorities found 13 dead bodies near our mission office. It's a tragedy, but life here is tragic for many people. The Lord sent some tough young people here.

That's all for now. The storms have backed off and the days and evenings are pleasant, the countryside very green. We wish that we could get to the missionary training center in Mexico City to greet some of the young people from back home who are arriving there to prepare for their missions. But it's too far, and too much traffic. Neat to see their pictures, though, and to hear about them greeting each other.

Praying that we get some good news on Hayley today.