Farewell to Beecher's and Rubalcava's and Welcome to Lyon's, Packard's, and Castameda

The Beecher's will be leaving tomorrow on October 28th.  They decided to leave this mission early. They have served also in Kenya and in the Philippines. It was time for them to go home and be with their family. Actually they were scheduled to leave on Friday but Neal's brother died and the funeral is on Friday so they will fly all day on Wednesday (tomorrow) and get home at 8:00 PM then have one day to recover before the funeral on Friday.

President Rubalcaba and his wife Sandra have finished their two year term as a counselor at the CCM.  He used to be a stake president here when it was a school.  President Lyons will replace him.  He and his wife are from Queretaro, Mexico.  Then Nicolas Castaneda is going to be the new CCM director, a paid position to replace Shawn Cates.

There are a lot of changes and so we had a dinner last night.  I made two big green salads to go along with the menu.

Elder Rubalcava had arranged for musicians to come in and play while we ate.  They played very classical dinner music.  Jacki Beecher is talking to Nadie Cates.  

Jody and Bruce Packard, (she is in red) came on Saturday to replace the Beechers.  

Dr and Hermana Stevens bought our home in Holladay when we moved to Virginia.   Elder Castaneda on the end will replace Shawn Cates.  He is a member of the 4th quorum of 70 here in Mexico as well as the associated director for the CCM.

The two men in the middle are brothers.  They are from the Mexican colonies.  President Rubalcava has been the mission counselor and Elder Ruvalcaba is the executive secretary.  At birth Elder Ruvalcaba's name was misspelled and the process to change it very difficult so he never was able to do that but they are full brothers.  Sandra and Patty are sisters in law.  President Rubalcava is a doctor, scientist and helped with research that resulted in a Nobel prize.

Elder Lyon will be the new counselor at the CCM.  Hisw wife is a quilter and he was born in Idaho.  Dr and sister Montoya are a legend here in Mexico for their service in the church.