was Father Francisco Palou, life-long friend and co-laborer of Father
Junipero Serra.

But why did these heroes choose Mexico and California as the vineyards
of their labors? Why did they not go to Africa or other heathen shores?
Here is the answer: Spain and all Europe were filled with stories of the
New World since the discovery of America by Columbus in 1492, and
several other Spanish discoveries in later years, among which must be
remembered that in 1521, Hernando Cortes, one of the great Spanish
explorers of the sixteenth century, explored the hitherto unknown land
of Mexico, and as Spain always accompanied her conquests and
explorations with her missionaries to evangelize the heathens, at the
time that Father Junipero Serra set sail for the New World, which was in
1759, there were in Mexico an archbishopric and several missions
conducted by Spanish priests, among them a well established Franciscan
College in San Fernando, a settlement in the northern part of Mexico,
which the Spanish explorers and missionaries so decided to name after
Saint Ferdinand, a King of Spain, who lived in the thirteenth century.
And to this College, Father Junipero Serra and his companions came after
a perilous voyage of nearly one year; for the date of their arrival was
January 1, 1760; and here they began their labor! Of the nine years
which Junipero Serra toiled in Mexico, six were spent in Sierra Gorda,
some distance north of San Fernando, and one of the wildest and roughest
of those half explored regions. And what marvels attended the labors of
Serra and the other self-sacrificing sons of Saint Francis here! With
Junipero Serra at the helm, the good priests learned some of the Aztec
dialects in order to convert the savages. Then what followed? With the
greatest patience the missionaries acquitted themselves to the task of
teaching the classic, cultured language of Spain to these poor
aborigines, whose languages like those of the still cruder California