Benjamin Jones and Dr. Mark Grover, Harold B. Lee Library
In preparation of my trip to Mexico for my project I participated in a field study prep class through the Kennedy Center. This class helped me plan how I would carry out my project, taught me investigation skills, and helped prepare me culturally for Mexico. This planning helped me budget my expenses and resources. The majority of my ORCA funding went towards my plane ticket, with the remainder being used up in rent, food, and travel. While there remained some expenses after applying the ORCA grant, I am extremely grateful for that help that I received and recognize that this project, as well as the life changing experiences that I had while seeking to complete it, would have been impossible without my generous benefactor.
Also during this semester before my travel I was also working closely with my mentor, Mark Grover, who taught me how to conduct a proper interview and helped me plan to make my time effective while I was in Mexico. Mark also guided me in my preliminary research and was very helpful with any questions that I had then, and throughout the project. Through our conversations before, during, and after my trip I have come to view Mark as a personal mentor. I have greatly appreciated his advice and counsel with matters that don’t even relate to my project. I am grateful for the chance that I have had to work with him and have him help guide my life.
On May 1st, 2012 I boarded a plane to Mexico City on an excursion to find out the history of the LDS Church in Irapuato, Mexico. After the plane trip and a bus ride up to Irapuato, I had to first set about finding a place where I could stay. The first few days I was in a hotel, and spent my time desperately trying to improve my Spanish skills. After the first Sunday I met with many members, including the stake president and his family who provided me with a place to stay. The president, along with many of the other members that I met that first week, was some of my biggest resources for my project.
My plan was to obtain the history through personal interviews with the members, and so those first set of members were really helpful in both providing me with their own stories as well as referring me to other members that had been in the church for many years. As time moved on I continued working on my Spanish skills as well as setting up interviews with these members. I would attend different wards to get to know the members and potential interview candidates. I even visited the neighboring town of Salamanca which was part of the same Irapuato stake. I gained many friends throughout my visits and conducted over 20 interviews with members excited and willing to share their experiences with their comrades.
In my daily living, and striving to find people to interview, I had the wonderful opportunity to become acquainted with many people who have become dear friends of mine. One day after visiting the Museum of Irapuato I stopped in a bookstore to look around and met the Serrano family. Although not members of the LDS church they had some friends that were that I was able to interview, and they even provided me with a book concerning the history of Irapuato that was useful to me in my research. However the best part about meeting the Serrano family was the friendship that we formed. I was over at their house at least once a week, and through this friendship I was able to learn a lot about Mexican culture. I learned to know the culture. I learned to love the culture. The Serrano family is just one example of the wonderful hospitality and open hearts shown to me by the people. It is no wonder that I consider my experiences associated with this project to be a life changing event.
As I continued to make my rounds among the different wards it occurred to me that there were many members that were unavailable for interviews but still had experiences that they could share. I had the idea to pass out surveys as I visited the different wards and with some support from my mentor, Mark Grover, I wrote a short story that allowed the members another outlet to share. The survey was quite popular and by the end of my three month stay I was receiving a lot of valuable stories.
Towards the end of my three months I was invited by the stake presidency to present some of my collected history at a stake youth conference. There were going to be two other speakers presenting on some of the history, and so I included in my presentation a training and encouragement for the youth to participate in their own personal, family, and church history collection. The whole conference was a success, but I felt that personally, the conference was a capstone on my experiences for the project. Personally, the opportunity to stand in front of a group of native speakers and hold their interest for 20 minutes felt to me a testament to my grasp of the language, but perhaps more importantly was the fact that this conference gave my project an explicit outlet from the scholarly to the practical. I was able to speak with the youth of the church and encourage them to continue on in the work that I had started. It was a special experience to me and I hope that the people of Irapuato will step up and participate in the collection of their personal, and church’s stories.
I had originally intended this project to be a written history of the growth of the LDS church in Irapuato, Mexico, complete with facts, dates, and names. The plan was to interview many of the current members of the Irapuato Stake of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints so that I would come to know of its history. However, as I began my interviews I also began to realize two things. The first was that a complete and accurate collection of the facts, dates, and names behind the history would be extremely difficult to find, and second, that those who I was interviewing had very remarkable, personal stories that I felt were quite a resource to the LDS community.
It was with this second realization that I began to form what is now the outcome of my summer’s work: a collection of the stories and experiences of the members of the Irapuato, Guanajuato Stake. The current, although incomplete, publishing of this collection can be found at historiasudestacairapuato.blogspot.com. It is my hope that this website will continue to grow not only as I continue to transcribe and publish the interviews that I recorded while in Irapuato, but as the members of the Irapuato stake seek to add their own personal experiences to the blog.