Visiting, baptisms, and missionaries

This has been a week full of visiting members and less-active members, and spending time with the young missionaries.  

Each Monday the 4 local missionaries come to our home to do their laundry and have lunch. We love spending this time with them. They, along with the 2 elders in Santa Maria Huatulco, are almost like our own sons.  We give them rides when needed (although they rarely ask), we attend meetings with them, inspect their apartments, help with small health issues, and even teach them piano.  Elder Martinez from northern Mexico wanted me to teach him to play his favorite hymn, “How Great Thou Art” (¡Grande eres Tú!), on the piano. He has no musical training at all. So after meetings he would ask me to teach him. One hand, single notes, but he can now play that hymn and “Nearer My God to Thee” which I taught him Tuesday morning.  He is a remarkable missionary with a remarkable life story. 

This past Monday we had our first interview with our mission president, President Madsen, here in Huatulco. He is very supportive of the missionary work we are doing and asked us to continue looking for ways to help strengthen the church in this area. We always enjoy our visits with President and his wife.

Last Sunday we went to church in Santa Maria Huatulco, which is a small town about 30 minutes north of us.  They have a small branch there with great potential for growth as there are actually about 300 members on record. The branch president and his wife have four young children and we offered to drive them home after the meetings. Oh my, what a ride. Brent said afterward that even he was nervous on some of the roads where parts were washed away or had little gullies across them. But we were glad to help. The family is quiet, sweet, and faithful.

After church, we went to lunch at the home of the Contreras family. We haven’t eaten at members’ homes very often and you never know what will be served. But the food was delicious, chicken and rice, and we had a nice visit in the typical open air dining room.

On Saturday we were able to attend the baptism of Manuel. He and his sister, who was baptized a few weeks ago, live with their grandmother here in Huatulco. They both have many friends in the branch to support them and help them learn the gospel.

The members here are giving us more and more people to visit, which we really like to do. Among the people we have visited this week are the DeLaO family, Hermana Marta Pon and her family, Hermana Alejandra whose husband died just a few weeks ago at the age of 49, the Santos family who we did another Family Home Evening with, and Hermana Carmelita, who will not let the young missionaries into her home but, for some reason, welcomed us old people and said we could return.

Hermana Carmelita’s son is Chava. He is a handsome returned missionary who has a snorkeling business. He took us out snorkeling in his dingy, a blow up raft which he and Brent had to pump up while we were riding around. Chava is awesome and we were happy to hear that he is getting married in the next few months.

Chava served his mission in Guadalajara, Mexico. Brent and I went on vacation to Guadalajara a few years ago and visited the small sea village of San Blas where my nephew’s wife is from. We became good friends with her mother while we were there. The interesting thing is that Chava lived in the upstairs apartment of her house when he was a missionary. Such a small world, even in Mexico.

More visiting and two baptisms coming up this week, along with another boat ride. Life is good here.

No Sunday leftovers for lunch so we bought pizza. These 4 elders easily finished off two whole pizzas Not the pie-shaped ones; these pizzas are square and fill the entire box. It was a lot of pizza!

Outside the church in Santa Maria Huatulco after District Meeting.
Elder Martinez (yellow tie), who serves here, is the district leader.

After District Meeting, we did a house check with the Elders in Santa Maria Huatulco.

Who says you can't workout while on your mission. A homemade barbell works just fine.

New missionary Elder Pelicó from Guatemala received his first haircut in the mission--and it was free.

This is outside the Elders' house in Santa Maria Huatulco. I love pictures of missionaries walking along a dirt road. They are so dedicated.

Baptisms: Above--the cute family whose 8 year old son was recently baptized and whose parents will be baptized soon. Below--Manuel and his sister, Arantza.

People of Santa Maria Huatulco: Above--Presidente Luna and his family who we drove home after church.  Below--Hermana Contreras and her daughter, Andreli, where we ate dinner in the upstairs dining room.

This is Presidente and Hermana Cruz. They have a store just around the corner from our apartment. He is a counselor in the district presidency and she is the district Relief Society President. They are so strong in the gospel. Hermana Cruz has taken us to meet with several less-active families. Presidente Cruz really loves Elder Johnson and we have become good friends with their family.

Family Home Evening with the Santos family, playing another silly game.

Teaching: Above--teaching Elder Martinez.  Below--I have been helping these two cute girls, Diana and Jazmin, study English in preparation for their college entrance exams.

Presidente and Hermana Madsen

Snorkeling with Chava in his blow-up dingy

Chava caught a blow fish and gave it to Brent to hold, who proceeded to squeeze it too tightly and it puffed itself up so the spines poked into Brent's hand. It had a very cute face though.

We have a lighthouse and a blowhole just minutes from our house.

One of 5 beautiful beaches within 20 minutes of us.

Every time Brent looked at this darling baby she would cry.  This is not a first!

Our green onions!

             This is one of our favorite street foods, tacos al pastor with pineapple.

When you hear this bell, it's time to panic if you need the garbage truck. It stops at our corner every weekday morning between 10:30 and 11:00.  It's quite comical to see everyone running out to the street with their garbage.  (I've been wanting to share this video with all of you. Thanks, April, for helping me.)