We wanted to go to church one last time with the Jimenez family who live in Jalostotitlan, just outside of San Juan de los Lagos. Bob wanted to talk to the Jimenez family in person about what the area presidency has decided for this little group.
We drove to San Juan de los Lagos on Saturday afternoon. We stayed in the tiny hotel Rincon de Cielo. We were up on the third floor. We rested from our drive and then decided to walk the streets and visit the cathedral and little shops for the evening.
This tiny city is crammed tightly with Bob says probably 100,000 people in it. Today was of course a festival… who knows why, there are so many festival days, it is hard to keep tract of them...but, we have never seen anything like what we experienced walking through San Juan de los Lagos before with such a menagerie of different kinds of people there visiting, we assume to pay homage to the virgin they pray to. The city was just packed… no absolutely crammed with people buying and selling and eating everything imaginable. It had not been like this the last two times we have come.
What an experience!
There were open vats of caramel with swarms of bees all over the top of them, and huge pots of melted chocolate and piles of packaged sweet candies that looked like Christmas fruit cakes. The smell of roasted corn permeated the air, and it sort of smelled good, but in the already hot afternoon air and with the multitude of other smells, it was heady. You could get a whole ear of corn lathered with mayonnaise and chili pepper, or they would cut it off the cob for you and roast it again with your choice of spices and hand it to you in a paper bowl. There were different kinds of meats roasted and piled up high on platters to choose from. As people bought corn and meat and tacos or stews they would sit right down on broken and dirty plastic lawn chairs or along the sides of the crowded streets, or cathedral steps and eat mostly with their hands and fingers licking and licking the dripping excess.
There were venders selling fried pig fat in different shapes and sizes, and venders with taco chips with squeeze bottles of different kinds of salsas and spicy toppings to drizzle all over them. There was ice cream and shaved ice, and jellos and pudding cups, fruit drinks… jamaica and various flower drinks poured in baggies and tied up tight with a straw coming out of the top. There were sweet breads with grandmas standing there swishing the flies away, and all kinds of fruit leather and jerkies to choose from.
There were multiple parades marching down the already over crowded main street that was so crammed with people talking, laughing, children crying and begging for this and that, people eating, spilling and not being careful who they were bumping into that it was just craziness. Honestly, the air we were breathing was so filthy, combined again with the evening heat and just all of the bodies all in one small place, I actually felt that my clothes and skin were absorbing the filth.. our eyes were burning with the incense from the little shops, and the fires grilling the meats, and the ever present cigarette smoke.
The evening we were there, there were political parades and marches with people banging the drums so unbelievably loud as they yelled whatever they were supporting, it was hard to know what they were marching for...and then there were other parades with people carrying huge tall puppet heads and bodies that young people walked inside of waving their puppets in the air.. the faces of the puppets were oily and grotesquely painted, and throughout all the confusion... the church bells would ring… now that was awesome to look way up high up to the bell towers and see those men twirl and twirl those huge bells to keep them ringing.
We saw a pilgrimage of people carrying long stemmed lilies going into the huge and ornate cathedral doors. I was hoping to see some priests and nuns, but they were not to be found on this trip. We did see several nuns just inside one side door of the cathedral.
Surrounding the cathedral steps were people genuinely maimed and begging and others drunk and mentally not right who were doing strange things. Those people were avoided and stared at, some were laughed at, and no one wanted to be near them and they just wandered aimlessly around.
There were tiny crammed shops with all kinds of clothes and beautiful handmade linens, lots of baby clothes, jewelry and idols… All. Kinds. Of. Idols. There were small tables covered with all kinds of bones made into jewelry and Gothic mementos and souvenirs. The Mexican skull was ever present and intertwined on shirts and bags and jewelry and such. There were men walking around with small suitcases open displaying all of their gold and silver necklaces, earrings and bracelets, and other men with necklaces all up their arms begging you to stop and look at them and buy them… others with watches and earrings and lots of leather belts and purses and Mexican blouses and shoes. Dad found an awesome cowboy hat and got it.
It quite honestly got more and more nauseating as we walked. At one point as we tried to find the exact spot where they say the virgin actually did her miracle… we asked a man sweeping around the filthy steps where the exact place was, and as we walked to it and found the sign, there was not one soul there. No one person was there. They were everywhere else. They were buying things and selling things and celebrating, but not anyone was by where she did her so-called miracle.
Around the big and gody church there were drunks asleep on the steps and we saw one sad old lady picking through the garbage and an old man sweeping the filth from one place to another. It was just flat nauseating. It reminded us of the movie the Nativity, when Mary and Joseph went to the city Jerusalem and how there were all kinds of people buying and selling right outside the temple.
Anyway, the whole experience was only topped by us having a bite of dinner. One vender who we met and was anxious to speak english with us recommended a restaurant and said tell them I told you to come and ask for Manuel. We went It was less than good. Bob had enchiladas and I had what I guessed would be harmless pancakes. I was wrong. At one point the owner, Manuel came to our table and asked why we asked for him and who gave us his name…we told him a shop owner had recommended his restaurant to us, and he nodded...and as he left to walk away, we were convinced he was probably a drug lord or gang king… he looked suave and scary… oh my... but he did come back to our table and ask how Bob spoke such good Spanish and if we were Jehovah Witnesses. We assured him that we were not, that we were missionaries for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.. the Mormons. What an experience. Uck.
Journal entry for Sunday May 20, 2018 Jalostotitlan
We drove to Jalostotitlan to the house of prayer and were a bit late. Elder Stubbs and Elder Jimenez came out to meet us. We walked upstairs and there sat the Jimenez’s and their 3 little boys.
We had a nice meeting. The spirit was very strong as we partook of the Sacrament. Bob and I were both looking forward to it after our experience yesterday in San Juan de los Lagos. As it was my turn to speak, I felt to talk to her three boys and I pulled up a chair and told them the story of David and Goliath and then about the little boy who helped his dad know how to pray.
Bob was trying to take pictures without being obvious
The first clip I was looking at the pretty lacy
table runners, which he hardly showed. :)
This shows the crowds and vendors.
The church bells
The parade
This is the place where the virgin was
to have done her miracle.
