Manzanillo Branch Conference

We were so thankful to attend the Manzanillo Branch Conference last Sunday.

There was just a sweet feeling there. Very few members were there when we began. Just six people were sitting in the chapel.  But slowly people started coming in. President Rios and his wife came and then the Branch President came out from an early morning meeting.  He looks so young, bless his heart.  As we had driven up, I saw his darling wife and three children getting out of a taxi in front of the chapel, those sweet children impeccably dressed for church, those two little boys in white shirts and ties and their darling little girl in a pretty pink dress and pink back pack all packed and ready.

Both his counselors came separately in, late and hurried up to the stand after the meeting had started. President Garcia told us that many of his members are late or cannot come to church at times, because they are so dependent on the buses.  Sometimes the buses do not run at all on Sunday's, and often the buses do not run on time.  They get off schedule and off their routes, with no warning, so the members who are so dependent on them cannot get to church, even if they are dressed and ready and waiting, if the buses don't come, or are late, the members miss out.
Boy, what a reminder to count my many many blessings.

But President Rios told President and I that this Manzanillo Branch always has the highest attendance at the Temple each month.  They will rent a van of some sort and come together as a Branch.  They gather together and come to the Temple.  They bring their families to wait for them outside the Temple gates, and they come, and that makes me smile.  Good for them. But their Sacrament meeting attendance is low and quite variable because of their lack of dependable transportation.

Here is President Daniel Antonio Pedraza Garcia in the center, with his 1st Counselor Gustavo Jimenez Rodriguez on the left, and his 2nd Counselor Luis Gilberto Damian Robles on the right.

President Clayton with Manzanillo District President, President Rios 

The Manzanillo Branch Presidency with
 Manzanillo District President Rios and President Clayton

President and Sister Rios 

   I loved sitting by and visiting with Sister Rios.
   What a genuine and lovely woman she is.

I am trying to take a quick picture after each conference 

for our mission history

Our Sunday School class.  

We talked about the Lamanites burying

their weapons of war. 

A quick picture with our two dedicated Elders

 serving in both the Manzanillo and Las Brisas Branches 

Elder Guerreiro, and Elder Sanchez. 

Great Missionaries both of them! 

New Zone Leader Training

Last week, our assistants brought all of the zone leaders to the mission office for an all day, overnight training.

Elder Kotter and Elder Manriquez wrote about their training.

The purpose of our training was to unite all the zone leaders together in brotherly love, to train them in their duties, and to establish a plan to carry out the vision that President Clayton has set forth. So we started off the meeting Tuesday night with a little family home evening. We had a spiritual thought, and we opened up a discussion between everyone on how we can get to “New Heights” as leaders. It was a very inspired meeting and what was felt by everyone was that, for the mission to get to new heights, we as leaders would have to, first. We each felt that the most effective way to do that was to be better followers of President Clayton ourselves, and to be more worthy in our callings, and more like unto the Savior. We compared this effort to “spiritual muscles.” Just like our body has its respected muscles that must be able to perform their functions as a whole, and they must be strengthened to magnify their purposes, our spirit is like unto a muscle as well. Our individual Christ like attributes are the muscles that we must exercise to be strengthened. Like the head of knowledge, the twin arms of faith and humility, the legs of diligence and determination, the core of desire, and the heart of love. We finished the night each pondering, and with Fanta ice cream floats.

Wednesday, with President Clayton’s approval, we started the day early with the 1st ever trimestral world cup of soccer for the Mission Mexico Guadalajara. We had four rotating teams: the north (Vallarta, Santiago, Tepic); the south (Colima, Manzanillo, Guzman); the city (Independencia, Lomas, Union); and the offices (us, and the 4 secretaries). It was a blast and we all finished very excited.

We then started talking about the “To New Heights” paper, that we had given to you and President a few weeks ago, and that we had given to the zone leaders as homework for this meeting. We talked about those focuses of Worthiness, Work, and Doctrine, and the goals that President had laid out for us about responsibility, efficiency, and training of missionaries. With those thoughts we read through the new zone leader manual with them answering any and all questions that they had about their duties. We also talked of their importance as zone leaders in the creation of this new vision for the mission.

After finishing the manual we started another council based on what plan we could make as leaders to carry out more specifically what President had taught us. The leaders put goals for themselves as zone leaders regarding the 3 focusses (responsibility, efficiency, and training of missionaries) to bring to pass the correct way of reporting daily, weekly, and monthly, to actualize the area books, member lists in their areas, and to have a district leader training in their own zones; not to the same scale that we did it, but with the same focus.

They set forth the plan to achieve all that before the next meeting that we would have in 3 months before the next zone conference.

Many of the zone leaders commented that they loved the meeting and that it was a great motivation for them to take their zones to New Heights of teaching Repentance and Baptizing Converts.

Training our new missionaries!

We had a wonderful day today training our newest missionaries.  They are a fabulous, they are prepared, and they are ready to begin.

Here are some highlights of our day today.

We met early this morning at our mission home for a quick breakfast and then we started our training, while President Clayton interviewed each new missionary.
We talked about our daily schedule, missionary health, our missionary apartment, and for those who do not speak English, we set goals to learn English during their time on the mission.

(After awhile, we stepped outside to stretch and get some air, and to wake up a bit )  :)

We are impressed with this new group.

We are anxious to have them join us!

Today, we had some of the Elders ride with us back to the church.

Here we are, new missionaries, trainers, and our assistants.

The time has come to introduce our new missionaries

to their trainers!

Here they are. Called by the Lord to help 

guide and train our newest missionaries.  We have

great confidence and trust in them.

Such anticipation.  Please note, we are thrilled to welcome

Elder and Sister Ortega, in the front right, 

our new matrimony couple, who will be 

serving for their first transfer in Ameca.

trainer Elder Galindo with Elder Gutierrez

 trainer Elder Albrechtsen with Elder Diaz

Sister Vega with trainer Sister Ramirez

Elder and Sister Ortega

Sister Rodriguez and trainer Sister Marciano

Elder and Sister Loza who work with the self reliance center.

trainer Sister Madrid with Sister Lanuza

trainer Sister Calixto with Sister Ramos

Sister Hernandez with trainer Sister Cordova

trainer Elder Pacheco with Elder Ramirez

trainer Elder Coronado with Elder Flores

Sister Barnette with trainer Sister Lyman

Elder Schank with trainer Elder Hutchings

Elder Novak with trainer Elder Montan

Here we are on the steps of the Mexico Guadalajara Temple!

                                           We love them already!

...and they're off!