Miracles!

Hey everyone! 

I didn’t write an email last week, but we’ve been doing well here! The highlights were that we had the baptism of Antonela, and so many members came! It was a really cool experience for us and for her.  

 

Then this week we went to a town called Santiago, which is another ward we are in charge of because there aren’t enough missionaries to cover it, but it takes like 1.5 hours to get there so we hadn’t gone yet. But we ended up going Saturday and Sunday last week. It was super fun! The ward there is crazy strong. The town of Santiago is actually super small, but like half of the population are members so they have two wards in this small town. Also, we have to leave the mission to get there. kinda funny. But we had a really good time there, found some new people to teach, and we got to meet some really cool members. I also forgot to take a picture, but they have a really old chapel there. It was one of the first towns in Hidalgo to have missionaries and a chapel, so the chapel is super cool and old. We’re going there again next week so I will take a picture.  

 

We also had an actual miracle this week with our friends going to church! Normally in the Presas ward where we usually are, we have maybe 2 or 3 people come to church that are in teaching. But this week we had 7! And like 3 less active members we have been talking with came as well! That was really awesome and was so cool to see that the work we’ve been doing is paying off.  

 

Also, I found out a really cool story I would like to share with you guys. We are close to a bigger city in Hidalgo called Tula (shoutout Sister Blackwell), but it’s outside of the mission. Anyway, it was one of the earlier places in Mexico to have missionaries and the gospel. Some of those saints went through some crazy persecution there from the other citizens in a town close to Tula called San Marcos. They were kidnapped, tortured and two men were eventually martyred. And some of the members from that area are the grandparents of a member here in Tezontepec! So the sister told us this story and then we found out it’s in the new church history books called Saints in the gospel library. If you want to read a little more about them you can read in Saints, Volume 3, 172-76, 186-89. 

 

Super cool stories and crazy to think that all happened here close to where I am! Also, something else cool is that this sister’s parents were members when they were young and living in Tezontepec, and they walked several hours to go to and from church in San Marcos because there wasn’t a chapel in Tezontepec yet. Crazy to think missionaries back then got people to walk hours to church, and now it’s hard to get people to come when they live 10 minutes away. The faith of those members was incredibly strong!  

 

Anyway, that’s all for today’s history lesson. I hope you all have a good week and can use examples of people in church history (San Marcos saints, pioneers, etc.) to help you think about if you would do the same, and if the things you believe are that important to you.  

 

Love you all!  

Elder Stevenson 

 

Pictures at the bottom: Baptism, me asleep on various buses, Santiago, us with the corn field

Here is the story from Saints that Spencer talked about in his letter (Saints, Volume 3, 172-76, 186-89).

By the summer of 1915, the Mexican Revolution no longer posed much of a threat to the Church’s colonies in northern Mexico. Many families had returned to their homes in the colonies and were living in relative peace. Meanwhile, some of the colonists, including Camilla Eyring and her family, chose to remain in the United States.

But conditions were different in San Marcos, where Rafael Monroy now served as the president of a branch of around forty Saints. On July 17, a group of rebel troops overran the village, set up headquarters in a large house at the center of town, and demanded that Rafael, a prosperous rancher, provide them with beef.

Hoping to appease the troops, Rafael gave them a cow to slaughter. The rebels were Zapatistas, or followers of Emiliano Zapata, one of several rebel leaders vying for control of Mexico’s government. For months, the Zapatistas had been battling the forces of Venustiano Carranza, or the Carrancistas, in the area around San Marcos. Following the counsel of mission president Rey L. Pratt, Rafael and his fellow Saints had tried to stay out of the fight, hopeful the armies would leave them in peace. Until the rebels arrived, San Marcos had been a haven for Saints displaced by the violence in central Mexico.

Among the Saints in San Marcos were Rafael’s mother, Jesusita, and wife, Guadalupe, who had both been baptized in July 1913. President Pratt, who had left for the United States, continued to assist the branch from afar.

After Rafael delivered the cow, some of his neighbors began talking to the rebels. One neighbor, Andres Reyes, was unhappy about the growing number of Saints in the area. Many Mexicans opposed foreign influences in their country, and Andres and others in town resented the Monroys for leaving their Catholic faith to join a church widely associated with the United States. The fact that the oldest Monroy sister, Natalia, had married an American only made the town more suspicious of the family.

Hearing this, the soldiers followed Rafael back to his house and arrested him just as he was sitting down for breakfast. They ordered him to open the family store, claiming that he and his American brother-in-law were colonels in the Carrancista army who were hiding weapons to use against the Zapatistas. 

At the store, Rafael and the troops found Vicente Morales, another Church member, doing odd jobs. Believing he was also a Carrancista soldier, the troops arrested him and began ransacking the store as they searched for weapons. Rafael and Vicente pleaded their innocence, assuring the troops that they were not the enemy. 

The soldiers did not believe them. “If you do not give us your weapons,” they said, “we will hang you from the highest tree.”

When the Zapatistas forced Rafael out of the house, his sisters Jovita and Lupe ran after them. Jovita reached the soldiers first, but they ignored her entreaties. Lupe arrived just in time to see the rebels seize her sister. “Lupe,” Jovita cried, “they are arresting me!” 

By now, a crowd had formed around Rafael and Vicente. Some people were holding ropes in their hands and shouting, “Hang them!” 

“What are you going to do? My brother is innocent,” Lupe said. “Tear down the house if you need to, and you won’t find any weapons.” 

Someone in the crowd called out to arrest her too. Lupe dashed to a nearby tree and clung to it as tightly as she could, but the rebel soldiers grabbed her and easily tore her away. They then returned to the Monroy house and arrested Natalia.

The rebels took all three sisters to their headquarters and held them in separate rooms. Outside, some people told the soldiers that Rafael and Vicente were “Mormons” who were corrupting the town with their strange religion. The soldiers had never heard the word before, but they took it to mean something bad. They brought the two men to a tall tree and slung ropes over its strong limbs. Then they placed nooses around their necks. If Rafael and Vicente would abandon their religion and join the Zapatistas, the soldiers said, they would be freed. 

“My religion is dearer to me than my life,” Rafael said, “and I cannot forsake it.” 

The soldiers pulled the ropes until Rafael and Vicente dangled from their necks and passed out. The rebels then released the ropes, revived the men, and continued to torture them.

Back at the store, the rebels kept up their search for weapons. Jesusita and Guadalupe insisted there were no weapons. “My son is a peaceful man!” Jesusita said. “If it weren’t so, do you think that you would have found him in his home?” When the soldiers again demanded to see the family’s weapons, the Monroys held out copies of the Book of Mormon and Bible.

“Those aren’t weapons,” the rebels said.

In the afternoon, at the Zapatista headquarters, the rebels put the Monroy siblings together in the same room. Lupe was shocked at Rafael’s appearance. “Rafa, you have blood on your neck,” she told him. Rafael walked to a sink in the room and washed his face. He looked calm and did not seem angry, despite everything that had happened. 

Later, Jesusita brought her children food. Before she left, Rafael handed her a letter he had written to a Zapatista captain he knew, seeking his help to prove his innocence. Jesusita took the letter and went looking for the captain. The Monroys and Vicente then blessed their meal, but before they could eat, they heard the clatter of footsteps and weapons outside the door. The soldiers called for Rafael and Vicente, and the two men exited the room. At the door, Rafael asked Natalia to come out with him, but the guards pushed her back inside.

The sisters looked at one another, their hearts pounding. Silence settled over them. Then gunshots split the night.

As war raged throughout Europe, the revolution in Mexico continued unabated. In San Marcos, the Zapatista troops who had occupied the town one year earlier were gone. Yet the memory of their violence still scarred the Monroy family and their Church branch.

On the night of the Zapatistas’ invasion of San Marcos, Jesusita de Monroy had been on her way to speak with a rebel leader, hopeful that he could help her free her imprisoned children, when she heard the fateful gunshots. Hurrying back to the prison, she found her son Rafael and fellow Latter-day Saint Vicente Morales dead, victims of the rebel bullets.

In anguish, she shouted into the night, her cries loud enough for her daughters to hear in the room where they were being held.

Nearby, someone said, “What a brave man!”

“But what did they find in his house?” someone else asked.

Jesusita could have answered that question. Zapatistas had searched for weapons on her son’s property, and they had found nothing. Rafael and Vicente had been innocent. 

The next morning, she and Rafael’s wife, Guadalupe, persuaded the rebel commander to release her three daughters, Natalia, Jovita, and Lupe. The women then went to retrieve the remains of Rafael and Vicente. The Zapatistas had left the bodies outside, and a large crowd of townspeople had formed around them. Since no one seemed willing to help carry the bodies back to the Monroy house, Jesusita and her daughters enlisted the few men who worked on Rafael’s ranch to assist them. 

Casimiro Gutierrez, whom Rafael had ordained to the Melchizedek Priesthood, conducted a funeral service at the house. Afterward some women from town, including some who had spoken out against the Saints, appeared guiltily at the door and offered their condolences. The Monroys found no comfort in their words.

Jesusita had struggled to know what to do next. For a time, she contemplated moving away from San Marcos. Some of her relatives invited the family to live with them, but she declined their offer. “I cannot resolve to do so,” she told mission president Rey L. Pratt in a letter. “We will not be well looked upon for the present, as in these little towns there is no tolerance nor freedom of religion.”

Jesusita herself wanted to move to the United States, perhaps to the border state of Texas. Yet President Pratt, who was overseeing the Mexican Mission from his home in Manassa, Colorado, cautioned her against moving to a place where the Church was not well established. If she found it necessary to move, he further counseled her, she should find a place among the Saints with a good climate and a chance to earn a living.

President Pratt also encouraged her to remain strong. “Your faith,” he wrote, “has been one of the greatest inspirations of my life.”

Now, a year after her son’s death, Jesusita was still living in San Marcos. Casimiro Gutierrez was the president of the branch. He was a sincere man who wanted to do what was best for the branch, but he struggled at times to live the gospel and lacked Rafael’s talent for leading people. Fortunately, other Saints in the branch and the surrounding area ensured that the Church remained strong in San Marcos.

On the first Sunday in July 1916, the Saints held a testimony meeting, and each member of the branch bore witness of the gospel and the hope it gave them. Then, on July 17, the anniversary of the killings, they met together again to remember the martyrs. They sang a hymn about the Second Coming of Jesus Christ, and Casimiro read a chapter from the New Testament. Another branch member compared Rafael and Vicente to the martyr Stephen, who died for his testimony of Christ.

Guadalupe Monroy also spoke. After the Zapatistas had been driven from the region, one of the rival Carrancista captains had promised her that he would seek revenge on the man who was responsible for her husband’s execution. “No!” she had told him. “I do not want another unfortunate woman to cry in loneliness as I do.” She believed that God would serve justice in His own time.

Now, on the anniversary of her husband’s death, she testified that the Lord had given her strength to endure her pain. “My heart feels joy and hope in the beautiful words of the gospel for those who die faithful in keeping its laws and commandments,” she said.

Jesusita likewise remained a pillar of faith for her family. “Our sorrows have been grievous,” she assured President Pratt, “but our faith is strong, and we will never forsake this religion.”