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?