It took Father Serra almost twenty years, from the time he was first summoned to come to the New World and serve in the missions, before he got to his first California Mission in San Diego, in what is today the State of California.
Those twenty years prior to arriving at San Diego were at times a painful prelude, filled with joy and sorrows, readying him for his biggest challenge, setting up missions a day's walk apart up the coast of California. The missionary who worked furtively his last years on earth was tired and more dead than alive. When one of his companions begged him to stop, his legs so badly swollen and in pain that he could not celebrate Mass standing, Father Serra refused saying,
"Please do not speak of that, for I trust that if God will give me the strength to reach San Diego, as He has given me the strength to come this far, I shall not turn back. They can bury me wherever they wish and I shall gladly be left among the pagans, if it be the Will of God."
It had taken him almost three months to reach San Diego from Baja California. Half dead, most of the time, he never turned back!
December 26, 1770, Father Serra performed his first baptism in California. In addition to San Diego and San Carlos del Carmel, Father Serra went on to found San Antonio de Padua in July, 1771; San Gabriel in September, 1771; San Luis Obispo in September, 1772; San Francisco in October, 1776; San Juan Capistrano in January, 1777; and San Buenaventura in March 1782.
Our little missionary goes Home, at last!
August 28, 1784, with no more to give, his last ounce of blood shed for the Church he so passionately loved and brought to the natives of the Americas, Father Serra, died in the arms of his former student and dear friend Father Pal