September 2010

The August Change lasts till the end of September

There's never a dull moment at the mission home. Look what the CCM in Mexico City sent to us...7 wonderful native missionaries all ready to preach the gospel to the people of our mission area. They arrived at 2:30 in the afternoon so we fed them, interviewed them,and sent them to work with the elders in the areas near the mission home with the companionships already serving here. That evening, we went to the airport to pick up 7 North Americans to join them and we had a great evening of visiting and eating. The next day woud be the change meeting. (luckily, there are exactly 14 beds in the casita behind our home so everyone had a place and hopefully they slept.) Shown here: Elders Juarez, Davila, Avila, Garcia, Curiel, Duran and Ramirez. Gifts from the north...Elders Harman, Butterfield, Rasmussen, Holder, Alexander, Lunt, and Myers.

A week later we got word that Hermana Mamani from Peru, had received her visa and would be with us on Saturday night. She is a delightful sister and ready to serve. Here she is shown in front of her assigned apartment in Madero where she would serve with Hermanas Lopez and Garcia.

We then got notification that 5 more missionaries from North America had received their visas and when would we like them to arrive? We were in Merida all week for the mission president's seminar so we arranged for our assistants to pick them up at the airport Friday night at 8:40 and we flew in at 11:40 and the next morning we all enjoyed breakfast in the mission home together! Here are Elders Gollner (Canada), Wahl, Ogden, Bickmore, and Young.

A week later we got word that the 4 missionaries who had entered the MTC on May 19th had finally received their visas. They had been temporarily assigned to the Salt Lake City Mission so that they could work while waiting for their clearance. Here are the famous lost missionaries...Elders Lyon, Belnap, Burgin, and Scothorne. We are still missing Elder Lambert who should have arrived with the earlier groups. Hopefully we will have word of his arrival soon and our change of August which lasted till the end of September will be complete.

Welcome to the Torreon Mexico Mission--one and all!