Fields of very tall corn surround us for hundreds of miles
in all directions. Corn has been the staple of the Mexican people’s diet for
countless generations. It’s planting and harvest are a time for celebration.
Though ears of corn are eaten, it is found more commonly in a range of foods
from soups to tortillas and pastries. There are also a number of varieties of
corn grown. Here in our own little lane, our neighbors have planted what they
call black corn. The stalks are more than fifteen feet tall and its fruit are a
delicacy used for making a deep blue colored tortilla.
We live in history. Villages, towns and cities all bear pre-Columbian
names like Ozumba, Zentlapan, Zoyetzingo, Cuautla, and Xalco, to name just a
few. Many of the people we meet have lived in the same area and even some in
the same village for many generations. They still bring their products and
crops to market every week like their ancestors did before them. When I talk to
people about the ruins such as Teotihuacan, which is not too far from here, they
politely show interest in what I’m saying, but to them it’s part of life,
something that has always been there.
When I teach these people the gospel, I can’t help but think
that I am looking into the faces of someone who could have the blood of those who
witnessed Christ’s coming to the new world. If John Sorenson is right in his
book, Mormon’s Codex, that event took
place just a couple of hundred miles from here in southern Veracruz. Nephi,
Jacob, Alma, and Mormon lived in this land and I’m part of fulfilling their
prophecies, taking the restored gospel of Jesus Christ to their kindred.
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