School bells ring! Are you listening? We are so excited to start early-morning seminary tomorrow! We have been moved to the north Laredo building, where we will have about 15-20 students daily. That will be quite different for us, and we will miss the students on the south end. When you are in one small stake, but it is stretched over a sprawling city of 250,000 people, it is almost impossible to teach a group of students in a close proximity to each other or one of the two church buildings. A new teacher has been called to teach the other group. Brother Lambert is a retired teacher/principal who most recently served in the TMM presidency. He will have to drive from the north to the south every morning, and we will have to drive from the south to the north! We will probably be passing each other on the Bob Bullock Loop!
This last weekend we welcomed Greg (YSA) and his mother Monica into the Church. They are amazing. (Picture) We are expecting 30 baptisms in Laredo this month. Jim is out teaching with the missionaries right now. It is exciting to see the church growing so fast.
Sunday we went to three wards. In 4th Ward (English) we heard John, a newly-returned missionary, and his mother speak. John served in Colombia. He told about heading off to a meeting when he and his companion spotted a fire on the mountain. They thought they had better warn people to evacuate and began hurrying from house to house, knocking on doors. People would not even listen to them, and, seeing that they were missionaries, closed doors in their faces with the excuse that they already had a church, etc. Finally, they grabbed yard hoses and began filling buckets. As the fire raged closer, people still refused to leave their houses and insisted that they were fine and the fire department would take care. Panicking, the missionaries dumped buckets of water on the fire and doused roofs with garden hoses. When fire trucks arrived, very few people had joined in the efforts to save the homes. As John and his companion hurried off to their appointment, they passed a man with a child on his shoulders. The man pointed to the elders and told his son, “See those two men? They are the heroes.” It was a truly a metaphor for the people who refuse to recognize the dangers of ignoring God’s watchmen on the towers. John said he wanted to be a hero for bringing souls to Christ in preparation for the Second Coming.
John spoke again at the seminary open-house later that day and at YSA FHE. Welcome home, Hero John! Jim and I also spoke at the seminary meeting. I also played the organ and accompanied a couple of our YSAs to sing “If the Savior Stood Beside Me.” I was relieved when it was over, but it WAS a great meeting.
Have I told you how grateful I am to live on the USA side of the border? We have many students who have family in Mexico, and they live in constant fear. One student was very upset this week because an aunt and uncle and their family were kidnapped last week in Nuevo Laredo, just across the river. Somehow they got free, and then her cousin was kidnapped. They still haven’t found him. I can not even explain what local news is like here. Terrifying.
We only have a little over nine months left in Laredo. It is a blessing to be here, to learn Spanish better, to go to church with humble new converts, to give rides to meetings to those with no transportation, to teach with the young missionaries, to learn and teach the gospel from all books of scripture and modern revelation, to bring music into meetings, and to depend on each other. This is the gospel of Jesus Christ. We love Him. We love you!
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