Mexico Guadalajara Mission 2012-2015: Our Mission Tour!

Each year we are privileged to travel the mission with a church authority. This year, we were so blessed to have Elder Lester Johnson and his wife Debra with us for four days of training. Elder Johnson is from Colonia Juarez, Mexico and served as president of the Veracruz, Mexico Mission. He is currently an Area Authority in Mexico.

We began the tour by picking them up at the airport late Tuesday night. On Wednesday we met with all our missionaries in Guadalajara. When we finished the training we jumped in the car and drove to Colima where Elder Johnson did training for the local priesthood leaders. The next morning we met with our missionaries from the Colima, Guzman and Manzanillo zones. When that training finished, we returned to Guadalajara and Elder Johnson did training for the local priesthood leaders here. The next morning we drove to Tepic, where we spent the day with our missionaries from Tepic, Santiago and Puerto Vallarta. That evening Elder Johnson once again conducted training with the local leaders there. The following morning we returned to Guadalajara where we met with our mission council for training before taking the Johnsons to the airport.

So it was a crazy week, but we loved every minute of it and were so glad to have the Johnsons with us. Not only did we all learn a lot of ways to improve missionary work, but I also learned the best way to ripen a papaya! (Thank you Sister Johnson for that tip!)

Here are some of my favorite quotes from Elder Johnson from our training.

"Love is the motivation behind all that God does. Love is what he expects of us."

"If I truly love myself and care about my salvation, I will do all that I can to love and serve others."

"If we truly love our investigators like we say we do, we will do everything possible to make sure they receive the five lessons after baptism."

"Don't go to the bishop and tell him there is a problem. Go to him with a solution."

"Every night we should be planning better than the night before."

"If we don't leave a branch or ward stronger than we found it, we have failed."

"In planning we should always seek the will of the Lord since He knows our investigators much better than we do."

"The real reason missionaries don't take the time to plan effectively is because they don't have sufficient love for their investigators."

"We don't want 'super missionaries'--the ones who do it all themselves. We want missionaries who teach the members how to do it."

"We need to always be diligent in our work and each day we should ask, 'What more do I need to do?' 'What more do I need to change?'"

"I want to be very clear that Satan has no interest in your happiness, or your success. He only cares that you fail. That is his only desire for you."

"When you really desire to accomplish something, you will find a way to do it"

Along with that quote was a story of how he woke up sick one morning and decided he felt too ill to go to work. But later in the day his friend called and invited him to go play basketball and he went

"Querer es poder!"

And a few pictures . . . the first three are from the three different conferences. We sure appreciate Physical Facilities for all their work in setting everything up!