July 2004 Ensign - The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Opposite page, left to right: Amalia Estrada Catero, Mexico
City; members of the Noriega family on their farm near
Guadalajara; two staff members at the Church’s employment
resource center in Monterrey. This page, top: Students from the
Church’s Benemérito School in Mexico City prepare wheelchairs
to be given to people in need. Above: A class at the Missionary
Training Center in Mexico City.
Church. Before, Bishop Rodríguez says, they were running
after the common things of life. Now they see with real
depth and spiritual clarity. “I feel like our life is beginning
to come together,” he says.
The Way It Used to Be
Latter-day Saint pioneers from different areas of Mexico
share stories of similar experiences: years of isolation,
sometimes persecution, slow growth, and more recently—
as Church members have become more visible in Mexican
society—acceptance and respect.
Francisco and Estela Magdaleno of Las Aguilas Ward,
Guadalajara Mexico Moctezuma Stake, were baptized in
the mid-1960s. The area where they live is strongly traditional
with regard to religion. At first, neighbors wanted
little to do with them or their faith. The Magdalenos continued
to live their religion and tried their best to maintain
good relationships with those around them. They and
their three children have all served missions in Mexico.
The Magdalenos have lived to see the day when neighbors
turn to them for advice on questions of faith.
Sixta María Martínez of the Aeropuerto Ward, Mérida
Mexico Centro Stake, was already 62 when she was baptized
in 1974. She quickly learned to love temple work and
made several long trips on temple excursions from southern
Mexico to Mesa, Arizona, in the United States. She
delighted in a later opportunity to visit the temple in Salt
Lake City. Over the years Sister Martínez has completed
temple ordinances for her own family back five generations.
She has lived to see a temple built just a few kilometers
away in Mérida. At 92, she tries to go there once
a week. “It is my joy. It is my life,” she says.
Amalia Estrada Catero of the Narvarte Ward, Mexico
City Ermita Stake, grew up as a member of the Church.
Her grandparents joined in the late 1880s. But in her
youth, she and her family were the only members in their
small town. Sister Estrada was not able to be fully active
in the Church until she moved to Mexico City in 1956, in
her mid-30s. She first went to the temple on an excursion
to Mesa in 1963. Now she goes to the nearby Mexico City
temple as often as possible. A teacher by training, Sister
Estrada has taught in all of the Church auxiliaries and has
been Relief Society president. In her early years in that
small town, there was pressure for her to follow the dominant
faith. Now she too has lived to see the day when
neighbors come to her with questions on how to live a
better life. As one young man in the neighborhood put it
after a visit with her, “I talked to the teacher.”
Strengthening the Stakes
“I was telling my husband just a short time ago
how blessed our children are,” says María Hernández
de Martínez of the Huitzilzingo Ward, Chalco Mexico
Stake. As a convert, she is grateful for a temple sealing
and all the blessings the gospel brings to her family.
Isaías Martínez, her husband, says, “Every time I look at
the pictures of my grandparents, I’m filled with gratitude
for what they did as members of the Church.” They were
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