(There is at least a glimmer of truth in every story.)

I read much of Sister Marshall's mission history. I guess then one of the duties of the mission president's wife was to keep such a history. She did a good job and the mission was much bigger. One story I remember her telling was when one of the General Authorities came to Veracruz they discovered live frogs in the cistern at the mission home and had to clean it out. We lived in that same mission home from July 1993 to May 1994. About the time we moved out we let the Discovery program from Ricks College use it for three nights with about 40 students. Mattresses and hammocks everywhere. We had a testimony with them and some of our missionaries who were in the office at the time.

But the building was old and the pipes rusting, the electrical system failing, the location noisy (down the block from the Rotary Club where many wedding parties went on all night.) So a new one was purchased in the Costa de Oro area. The location was better, but the home not a big and it had its own construction problems after we moved in that Central Services kept repairing. One of our elders, Reed Haws, was attacked by a man wielding a machete in Ciudad Isla. He lives in Mesa. That happened on our 14th day in the mission and we learned how much the Lord would be there for us. He was back from Mexico City, where we sent him to see a specialist and any follow-up surgery that may be needed, in ten days and became one of the greatest leaders we had. Ciudad Mendoza was still a branch and not too strong. There was a stake in Orizaba, one of our strongest. The Stake President (Ricardo Noriega) and his family were among our best friends.

Donnell W. Hunter (May 1999)

We have been home two months. The missionaries are planning a reunion for Saturday evening after the priesthood session of General Conference. We plan to attend that. I don't know how many others are holding them other than our group. And the old Ex-Mexican Mission Reunion that has been held for about 50 years. It is at the same time, and I want to drop in on it for a few minutes before everyone dies off.

The only ex mission presidents I saw were Arturo Mijangos, Jack Beecroft, and Tomas Santana. There may have been others. The Mijangos were in the first session of dedication in the Celestial Room with us. President Beecroft is a counselor in the Temple in Chiapas. President Ramirez teaches in Mexico City, but I didn't meet him.

Someone asked Nita to write an account of the rest of the story to tell of our visit to Veracruz, so I am going to give you my version and let her tell her part.

For me it was in many ways the perfect way to end our experience in Central America. We rented a car from Avis at the airport, drove by the Temple on our way to the hotel, saw so many friends as well as some current missionaries, and were right back home again. The stake president in charge of the dedication arrangements gave us our reserved tickets. We stopped by the mission home, thinking we could follow the example on the Ball Park Franks TV ads and say, "We used to live here." We rang the bell and asked for the maid, but the mission president came out to greet us. Nita thought he was too young and that he was a missionary. They were having a party in the backyard, their daughter's 13th birthday party. He
invited us to share, but we didn't want to intrude. So we visited some. He is doing well, even better than President Mijangos who took our place. The addition to the mission home in the backyard corner of two bedrooms and a bath looks good. Our banana tree is still there, though the bamboo and mango and one coconut palm had to go. The maid Juana still works there.
Magdelena left during the time of the Mijangos because they did their own cooking and had four children with them.

We checked into the Hotel and got a late night call from Elder Dixon who had come down the day before with two others, Elders Grames and Glade. We made arrangements to meet after breakfast and when they came the next day we walked to the mission offices. The same custodians were there, things still looked good. The dormitory we used for transient missionaries had been refurbished. It is no longer called Spirit Prison, but has been named Hotel Kolob. Back at the hotel we made an appointment to go to the great seafood cafe we had been to before for some "mariscos." Elder Bodily and
wife, and their friends from Mexico City who are studying as part of a Harvard Law School program, showed up and went with us. Afterwards we went up to the Temple to get the tickets for the missionaries. President Carillo asked if he could have my tickets back in exchange for two with seating in the Celestial room. So the example the Savior taught about not taking the front seats on your own was coming to pass. We were invited to move up.

The mariscos were great also.

We saw more friends. That night it rained hard in the early morning. The street by our hotel was a river making its way to the beach. It was like the storms we remembered of five years ago. It had stopped mostly by the time we went to the Temple next morning at about 8 in order to pick up tickets from another stake president, President Noriega of Orizaba, who had
saved a pair for the Bodilys. He had an assignment himself in the second session, one of the prayers, I suppose, and was singing with his stake choir outside for the sealing of the cornerstone ceremony. Our names were on two chairs on the second row of seats in the Celestial Room, right behind Sister Perry and Sister Pratt, wives of the visiting General
Authorities, and right beside the Temple Presidency. The Mijangos were on the row behind us.

Finally it began, right on time. President Monson acknowledged that we were there and that the Mijangos were there and that the first missionary assigned to Veracruz was also in the audience. His companion was Rex Lee who died recently when he was still president of BYU. It was hard to hold back tears, so I let them take their own course, like the river to the sea.
More friends to greet after the session was over. The meeting had been an hour and a half. People were queued up for the second session. We said hellos and gave abazos. We had talked to the Temple Presidency about getting into an endowment session the next day. He said they would stay open as long as necessary for those who wanted to come. The first session
was at eleven. We had heard rumors that it was reserved for stake presidents, but those were just rumors, just as a rumor that my branch president when I was a young missionary in Tierra Blanca had died. He was there. We greeted him between the sessions. He had served in the Mexico City Temple Presidency as a counselor at the same time the new Temple
President of the Veracruz Temple had been the other counselor.

We went back to the Hotel, ate lunch. President Noriega and his family stopped by in the afternoon for a visit. Around 5:30 we returned to see if we could give our missionaries a ride back to their hotel. More friends to greet.

Next morning we went to the Temple about 9:20, expecting the line to stretch clear back to the beach, but we were the first ones. The officiators were receiving their final training. No one else was there. At 10:30 we were still the only ones waiting and presented our recommends, the first to do so in the new Temple. We were the first to get the new name. My former counselor and later mission president in Ecuador, Pablo Fernandez, was conducting the session. At eleven a few others had arrived, including the Temple President's son and his wife and two current stake presidents from Veracruz. The Temple President came to welcome us to the first endowment session in the history of the Veracruz Temple. He introduced the officiators. Some of the audio visual equipment, the light dimming module, hadn't yet been installed. The lights were dimmed
manually. We began with no one in the usual witness chairs. At the first opportunity after the session began Sister Fernandez indicated to Nita that she should take the witness chair and her husband nodded to me, so we became the first witness couple in the history of the Veracruz Temple. We were getting so much more than we bargained for. It was almost as if the
mission to Guatemala had been timed so that we would be in Veracruz for this occasion. We probably wouldn't have felt we could have done it if we hadn't already been so close.

Donnell W. Hunter (Sep 2000)

Veracruz Presidents Alumni History