Mission Back Again!

Congratulations to President Nicolas Castaneda and his wife, Blanca Estela, from the Gomez Palacio Mexico stake. He became the president of the newly reformed Mexico Villahermosa Mission as of July 1, 2010.

Though much smaller than our mission, the new mission was formed from a division of the Mexico Tuxtla Gutierrez Mission.

Reunión en abril 2011

Estimados amigos y ex-compañeros de misión,

Estamos organizando una reunión para la conferencia de abril del 2011 con el Presidente Lozano. Sería fabuloso el poder saber si ustedes tienen contacto con alguien más y si me pueden mandar sus e-mails nuevos o de alguien más que sepan. Cuídense. Les mantendremos informados. Un saludo cordial para ustedes y sus familias.
Recuerden que el Presidente Lozano ya tiene más de 80 años y no sabemos cuánto tiempo más estará con nosotros.

Gustavo Inzunza

Las Santas Escrituras

During our time in the mission, this was what our scriptures looked like. The Book of Mormon was in paperback, as was the Doctrine and Covenants (not shown) and the Bible was available in various leather or hardback covers. The Bible was not published by the Church, but was the standard Casiodoro de Reina revised by Cipriano de Valera, generally referred to as the Reina Valera version.

We often ran out of copies of the Book of Mormon and gave away our personal copies. Even though the Book of Mormon is the main tool used by missionaries, we had difficulties in receiving sufficient supplies in the mission. Individual companionships paid for the books we gave to our investigators.

Pictured above is my last copy of the Book of Mormon I had on my mission and my Bible I used throughout the mission and ever since. We were told in the LTM to maintain our mission language. To that end my personal scripture studies and prayers are still in Spanish, in addition to a college degree and day to day conversations.

It was a joyful day when the Church announced the leatherbound Spanish edition of the triple combination. Some missionaries in the Mexico Villahermosa Mission would take the paperback versions and have them bound into a single hardback, but it wasn't the same. Since purchasing my original Spanish triple combination, the Church released a revised Spanish edition with clarifications of translation and corrected typos.

Another joyful day arrived in September 2009 as the Church began filling orders for the new, Church published edition of the Bible in Spanish with the footnotes and other formats already contained in the English Bible published by the Church. Many of you have probably already ordered your own new Bible. I will soon be ordering my own.

Presidente & Hermana Lozano

Thanks to Pres & Sister Lozano's son, Ulises for this current picture of his parents taken July 2009.

Temples

At the beginning of the mission, there were no temples in Mexico. Here are pictures of the 2 temples that were later anounced and built.

Mexico Villahermosa Temple




Mexico Merida Temple

Cambios

In the states it seems that missionaries remain in an area 6-9 months at a time, but in our mission it was common to get a letter to "cámbiese inmediatamente" to whatever the new service location would be. Most looked like the one above, but could also come in the form of a visit from the APs. My longest transfer was from Tapachula to Valladolid, a trip of about 22 hours.

In the mission where I now reside, a mission van travels around picking up missionaries for transfers and they ride together. I remember riding with another missionary halfway to Valladolid. Sister Perez, was the other missionary. We talked during the day and she got off at Villahermosa while I travelled on. I don't know how many other elders and sisters travelled together, but I'm sure it was rare, but travelling alone was the norm.

It didn't matter a lot if you didn't know where the new apartment was, the taxi drivers could usually take you there for about 10 to 30 pesos, depending on what city you were in.

Money, the Root of All Purchases

When the mission began, the value of the peso (old) was $12.49 pesos to one dollar. It enabled missionaries to afford life quite easily. The average cost for a month was usually around $125.00 US dollars. Most apartments had a maid that did the cooking, cleaning, washing and shopping.

Even in 1975, the bills shown here were outdated. The 5 and 10 peso notes were soon replaced by coins. The 10 peso coin was octagon shaped. The 20 centavo coins, solid copper, were also soon replaced by much small coins.

Before long the peso was devalued against the dollar and missionaries received up to $30 pesos to the dollar and we all went shopping for souvenirs. It was always easy to tell if the exchange rate was about to change by the big wigs at the bank changing their money to the direction that would best benefit them.

Since the days of the mission runaway inflation caused Mexico to cancel all the old currency in issue new pesos. All our old bills and coins have more collectors' value than they are worth at the bank now.