Week 41 from Mexico

Our week started out with attending the setting apart of Berenice Covarrubias Montalvo as a missionary.  I felt very honored to have been there.  Besides Lynn & I there was only her friend who went with her to the temple when she took out her endowments, another friend, President Cantu, another man who I think was her bishop and President Taylor, who set her apart.  There were no members of her family. I think she is the only member of her family who is a member of the church.  I'm so glad that she is now beginning her service as a missionary. It's been a hard journey for her to get to this point, having had to deal with Visa issues for the last few months.  She left last Monday for the MTC in Provo.  She will start out her mission serving in the Oakland Temple Visitor's Center.

Monday was our farewell party for the Spencer's.  We are going to really miss them.  There was a family at the party, the Jimenez family, who I haven't met before but who the Spencer's have been working with and befriending. Angel & Falina Jimenez have two children: a son,Armin, who is about 2; and a daughter, Hennessy, who is about 8 months old.  As we got to know them I was really touched by their sad story. They are new converts to the church and they both speak very good English.  They have been in Monterrey for just about seven or eight months, moving here from Mexico City.  Falina was born in Washington State to Hispanic parents.  That is where Angel and she met and were married.  Angel was born in Mexico. When he was a young child his parents moved to Washington state.  His parents obtained US citizenship but, for whatever reason, Angel was never naturalized.  About two years ago he was deported to Mexico city.  Falina came with him and they have been here in Mexico ever since, trying to make a go of it but not doing very well here.  Their daughter, Hennessy, was born three months early.  She is a darling baby, but a little behind in her development because of her early start, but seems to be pretty healthy otherwise.  Falina is expecting another child. When I asked when she was due they said they're not sure because they haven't been to the doctor.  I was really surprised because she looked like she was pretty far along. They said that it's really hard to go to the doctor because, when they find out that Falina is a US citizen they figure all Americans are rich and they want payment up front.  They are making plans to try and get back to Washington state, where both of their families live.  Their children are US citizens because of their mother's citizenship status, but it's a long, hard battle for Angle to get permission to go back and to get his citizenship. I hope that eventually their story has a happy ending, but right now things are pretty tough for them.

Elder Spencer's position as the medical advisor for the Mexico North Area is not going to be filled with a missionary couple from the US. The church has decided that they want to use someone local as a service mission calling.  The one replacing him is Doctor Juan Ricardo Lopez, who just happens to be the obrero (male temple worker) coordinator on Wednesday nights at the temple.  He has also been serving as the bishop of his ward but will be released from that calling.  They're not sure right now whether he will be able to continue in his service at the temple.  This is going to be quite a challenge for him because he doesn't speak English and will have to communicate with the missionary department in Salt Lake  and the paperwork he has to turn in as part of his duties are all in English but, Sara, his wife, told me that they are taking English classes to learn.

We found out this week that we will be getting another temple missionary couple, the Clarks, who are scheduled to arrive the first part of October.  They will be a real asset to the temple.  He served a Spanish speaking mission and  her father was a mission president in South America (I can't remember which country but it was a Spanish speaking mission) when she was young.  They are from Arizona and he is a patriarch in their stake.  They are presently serving as temple workers and  are coming  a bit more prepared to serve here then Lynn & I were since we had not been temple workers before coming here. They are also presently working with a Spanish unit in their stake.  We look forward to having them here and having their help in the temple.  Even though we have over 250 set-apart temple workers on record most of those are excursion workers and are only here once a month on Saturday and are still in need of training, which is a difficult task when they are only here once a month.  And, also, many of the local workers are not very consistent with when they come and some have just quit coming, for what ever reason.  I've heard that those who serve in the Jordan River temple  and some of the other temples are expected to get someone to replace them if they can not serve on their assigned shift or they are released as temple workers. If they did that here they would probably end up with very few workers.   It's quite the challenge.