La Semana Pasada (The past week)

We are tired, but a good tired. This week has been a whirlwind and we are still adjusting to a new and very different life, but we love it. We are slowly learning our duties at the Centro para Visitantes (Visitors ‘ Center) and hope before long that we can function with a little more confidence in what we are doing. I find it frustrating to not be able to speak the language and am very motivated to learn. Larry, on the other hand, impresses everyone with his command of the language and has a great camaraderie with the Mexican missionaries that I hope one day I will achieve. The sweet, young sisters are very patient with me though and try to help me understand as best they can.

When we arrived in our neighborhood, it was similar to what we had known from previous trips to the border town of Agua Prieta, near our home in Arizona, and from former vacations to Puerta Vallarta, Mazatlan, and Cabo San Lucas where we saw run-down neighborhoods, graffiti on the walls, and little make-shift stores, among other things. Our neighborhood here is pretty much the same. It is not a slum area but it is in the less affluent part of the city.

The Manzana del Templo (Temple Square) stands in stark contrast to the surrounding neighborhood. It is a large gated compound consisting of the Mexico City Temple (now under extensive remodeling), the visitors’ center, the missionary training center, the San Juan de Aragon Stake Center where we attend Sunday services, housing for senior missionaries, and other Church facilities. With all of the remodeling going on the landscaping has taken a hit but I am sure that it will be restored for the Temple rededication.

The temple is closed until October. Here are the workers working on it.

Our culture shock came this week when we went to the Mexico City East mission office on Wednesday to work on our immigration papers and on Friday with a trip to Chapultepec Park to see the National Museum of Anthropology. We saw a very different Mexico in these parts of the city. We were now looking at beautiful buildings, streets lined with large trees, lots of flowers, upscale restaurants, five star hotels, and smartly dressed people.

A tree and a home near the mission office

buildings in downtown Mexico City

Our trip on Friday to the museum was with Cornell and Marlene Thomas, the mental health advisor to all the missionaries in Mexico. Chapultepec Park is truly lovely and the museum and the grounds around it are done so well. We spent 4-5 hours in the museum and only saw a portion of it. We can’t wait to go back on another P-day. We also enjoyed a good lunch in the courtyard of the museum. Afterwards we returned back to our digs in the Manzana which we truly love.

Us and the Thomas' at the museum

Museum favorites

Lunch with the Thomas'

Saturday morning we piled in a van with the driver/technician, Paul and Ellen Garvin (the Center director and his wife), and four sister missionaries. The back of the van was stuffed full with boxes of posters, TV monitors, speakers, and other equipment. We drove to the Anahuauc Stake Center, some 20 minutes away, to conduct an open house. These open houses were started when the Visitors’ Center was closed for 9 months for remodeling. They were originally conceived as an activity to keep the missionary couples busy during the downtime. The plan they came up with is really quite wonderful and has been very successful, so successful that Salt Lake has requested it be continued even though the Center is now open.

The Christus and setting up for open house

It is very interesting to observe how the open houses are conducted. Missionaries from the host stake, both elders and sisters, bring in any investigators that they are working with. They also go out on the street and invite people in to hear the message. The open house tour begins in the chapel with a large poster of the Christus. All of the tours are conducted by the sister missionaries. The recorded message given at the Christus statue in the Visitors, Center is played. The sisters bare their testimonies and then move into the cultural hall where there are 18 posters in sets of six relating to Christ, the Restoration of the Gospel, and the Plan of Salvation. They explain the posters and then take the people to two interactive screens with pull up menus where they can watch video clips about the Book of Mormon and the Bible on one screen or teachings about family life on the other. As they conclude the tour, they are invited to fill out referral cards, note comments about their impressions of the tour, and request missionary visits and a copy of the Book of Mormon. They are also given pamphlets, a picture of Christ, etc. to take with them.

The sisters and some investigators watching

With very little advanced advertising, 111 people attended the open house yesterday, of which about 80 were non-members. We received 149 referrals from members and investigators attending the open house and from other people contacted on the street who did not have time to attend the presentation. One elder and his companion brought in 34 people from invitations on the street. This included a group of teenage boys who were leaving an all night celebration of a Quinceañera (a social event celebrated when girls turn 15). They looked a little sleepy but were still interested in the presentation. Some of the referrals that we received seemed really golden.
Our impressions of the day confirm that the gospel is true. It makes us so happy to see some of these beautiful families come in and get so excited to hear the message.