Yesterday, the President and the assistants traveled to the Grajales Branch, which is Southeast of Puebla.

Elder Gonzalez

Elder Tate

Elder Wennerholm was along too. This was the area where he was serving when he got sick and had to come to Puebla to have his appendix taken out. He is still living at the Mission home while he recuperates.


President wanted to determine if we should put new missionaries in the area and so they traveled to see what it was like first hand.

This is President, Elder Rubio and Elder Gonzalez.

Elder Wennerholm was training Elder Petersen when he got sick.

No, this is not where the members meet for church, this is a Catholic church in the city.

This is Mount Orizaba and it is 18,000 ft. high. It is one of the three volcanoes that surround Puebla. This one is not active and is actually just outside of the Mission.

Preparation Day!

So what do missionaries do on their P-day? Among other things they wash the car! We have a missionary who is staying in the Mission Home, recovering from a recent appendectomy, and so the Assistants are staying here with him while he recoups.


Today they washed the car after we went shopping for Thanksgiving dinner.
It's so fun to have them here!

We love new Missionaries!

Has it been six weeks already? It seems like we just had our transfers!

On Sunday afternoon, the elders who are going home gathered at the Mission Home for interviews, dinner and a devotional. I love these meetings because the missionaries are so excited to see each other and they are anxious to see loved ones again after serving so faithfully.

We had a long night, and our devotional didn't end till midnight,
but it was good to be together and share our testimonies.


We will miss these missionaries!



On Monday we received three new missionaries... Elder Colmenares and Elder Galan
from Mexico in the morning and Elder Leifson from Utah in the evening. Elder Leifson
actually shared a Book of Mormon with a family that he met on the plane. Way to go Elder!

After picking up the Mexican missionaries at the bus station, we went to the Capu
(bus station)where all the elders who are being transferred come to meet their new Zone Leaders and head out to their new areas. It was our first time going to the Capu and it was
a lot of fun to see all the missionaries. There was a lot of excitement in the air as they
met and headed out with their new companions.

On Tuesday morning, our new missionaries came to the Mission Home for a yummy
breakfast and training. After that, the new missionaries were introduced to their
new companions, we took some pictures and they left for their areas.
Good luck to our new trainers, Elder Nielsen, Elder Foster and Elder Mendez...

In the mission, we have a program where each of our Native Spanish speakers are encouraged to learn English. Many of them learn English in school and speak English quite well. The Church has implemented a program where each of the missionaries can take a test to show their proficiency in English. These missionaries recently took the test before they were released and headed for home. They did very well on it. This will help them to get a job in their home country of Mexico where the employer is hoping to hire someone who has the ability to speak English.

Elder Nepomuceno, Elder Zamora and Elder Martinez

Bien Hecho Elderes!

I also have to mention that today is my birthday and we have the sweetest elders in the mission! I received many good wishes and the office elders and the President went and got a cake.


It was covered with fruit on the top and was beautiful!

There is a tradition here that the birthday person has to take the first bite
of the cake and usually someone else pushes their face in the cake...
the elders were very nice and skipped that second part!

As you can see, I did take the first bite and it was delicious!

We didn't have a knife, so yes, I am cutting the cake with a ruler...
at least we had plates! We enjoyed it a lot. Thank you elders for a great birthday!

Mission President's Seminar

This past week we had the opportunity to spend five days in Villahermosa, Mexico, at a Mission President's Seminar for all Mission Presidents in Mexico. President Johnson, President DeHoyos and President Tenorio, the area presidency, and their wives were there and they trained and instructed us, in addition to Elder Duncan, our visiting general authority.

This is a picture of the inside courtyard of the hotel we stayed at.
It was beautiful and the weather was perfect while we were there.

the view from our room window

This was the dining room where we ate all of our meals. Elder Duncan is on the left, President and Sister Hicken, President of the Mexico, Mexico City East Mission, are next to us, Daisy, (President Johnson's assistant) and President Tervort of the Mexico, Mexico City Northwest Mission is on the right. We thoroughly enjoyed visiting with the Hickens and also getting to know all of the other Mission Presidents. Those of us who aren't quite able to understand Spanish yet, were supplied with earphones and Daisy would translate for us. It was wonderful. We were also able to renew our friendships with the Presidents who were at the Mission President's Seminar in July at the Provo MTC. On Tuesday we flew to Villahermosa, then on Wednesday and Thursday we had training.

On Friday right before we left for Palenque... they handed out hats and bug repellant!

We all loaded onto two buses to visit some Mayan ruins.

A couple of cute little stores we passed on the way... I love seeing the tiendas, as they call them, here. They are on just about every street and you can buy just about anything to eat.


We also had the opportunity to buy some souvenirs, which was interesting!
They are very persuasive and the deals are so good, it makes it hard to say no!
(notice the baby wrapped up on the mom's back in the first photo...)

a map of the area we visited...


It was so interesting and reminded us a lot of the ruins we have seen in Cancun and Tikal.

The palace


Inside the palace



In the courtyard of the palace.
























These are original carvings from around 600 a.d.

I spent some time talking with President Johnson, who knows a lot about the ruins and the history of the Mayan people. He was able to answer some of my questions.
It was wonderful to get to know his wife also, who is on the left.

Some of our group at the top of one of the buildings

in front of the river and heading down the trail back to the buses.


The river that was winding through the site ended up turning into this beautiful waterfall.

When we arrived back in Villahermosa, we stopped at Rodizio Grill for dinner. It was really good! How did we end up in the same group for dinner? I promise, we did eat with other people during the week. On Saturday morning we had a presentation on security in the mission. Then we loaded up the buses and headed back to the airport for Mexico City.

A shot of the hotel as we left on the bus

In the airport, waiting for our flight. Elder Duncan, President Johnson and President Call, Mission President in Mexico, Tampico Mission. It was a wonderful week full of insights, principles, doctrine, practice and testimony.

Another picture of Abigail... it's amazing to me how much one little baby can change in one month! She definitely is starting to get her own look and what a beautiful smile!