Mexico Mission 2023

On Wednesday we took a bus to Pachuca in the state of Hidalgo to participate in a protocolario event the next day. I was able to book the bus and hotel on-line with my new corporate church credit card, simplifying project expenses on my end. Previously, I would pay for everything and then get reimbursed which would take about three months.  We are grateful the trip was uneventful as being anywhere on a road comes with significant risks. Sister Schlachter saved the day when we started out by pointing out I had chosen the wrong bus terminal but were able to redirect the Uber en route. We had asked a different Uber driver on Sunday what foods we should try while we were in Pachuca. He suggested three things barbacoa (meat slow cooked in hole in the ground, escamoles  (ant eggs sautéed in butter) and pastes (pronounced past  ays, British-origin pasties/pastries but with Mexican fillings) and we were able to try all of them. The pastes are a remnant of English miners who worked in Pachuca&#

We left home on September 4, 2023, to serve a full-time mission working in humanitarian aid here in Mexico. It's been a tough couple of weeks pondering the respective outcomes of resigning myself to the status quo (i.e., being acted upon) or continuing to try to lead from the bottom (i.e., taking action) in the work we have been assigned to do.  Looking for answers, I took a closer look at Elder Bednar's April 2024 conference talk entitled,  "Be still and know that I am God"  (Psalms 46:10) as well as Elder Rasband's conference talk from the same conference event entitled, " How great will be your jo y". The title/invitation of the first talk came clearly to my mind in answer to my prayer for help and in a miraculous way, immediately calmed the turmoil in my anxious, almost breaking heart. What I was looking for in the second talk was to understand why more full-time senior missionaries are needed in this great work of gathering Israel, specifically why