I am the third of a four sons family, my childhood life was peacefully, my Mother was a religious woman, I learned from her the first christian steps, my father was a physician and my mom was chemist, she worked in a laboratory at a leprosy hospital, sometimes she used to take us to the lab where there were microscopes, flasks, beakers, Petri dishes and this made me happy.

I attended to an elementary school directed by nuns where I learned stories from Noah, Abraham, Moises, Sampson and Jesus as well. As I grew up I entered the secondary school, at that time I used to attend Sunday´s mass service with my family. At the age of 16, I studied the bachelors degree (bachillerato) where I learned about the scientific way of reasoning which made me question the religious stories I had learned in my childhood, so my faith decreased to the point that I no longer attended services. At that time my father passed away.

At the age of 19, I entered the University, there was two options for study a career, I wanted to be a physician like my father or become chemist as my mother, finally I decided to study chemistry, I wanted to follow my mom´s steps and dedicate my life entirely to the leprosy research. By that time my faith was so weak thinking that the stories I had learned in my childhood were just fairy tales. There at the University I had fellows who were involved in drugs, they were light drugs but anyway when they invited me sometimes I accepted them. My life was not as righteous one at that time, I felt evil ways was surrounding my life. I remember that once at the University one of my fellows commented that he had been approached by some people dedicated to the traffics of drugs dressed like students proposing him big money if he or anyone else decided to worked with them in a clandestine laboratory hidden in the mountains where they had specialized equipment and raw materials for synthesizing drugs, all they needed was chemistry students nearly to graduate to perform the synthesis. I never knew if somebody accepted it.

I was living hard moments, my school notes became low, I felt that evil was sourrounding me. My mother became aware of this situation and talked to me and she decided to take me to a priest whom she knew from her youth.

I remember one night I was alone in the dartk of my room and started to reason “Well I have no doubt that evil really existed, then why not the goodness should exist as well and so God should really exist” then I remember I close my eyes and said a prayer “God if you really exist let me know you, I want to feel your presence” after that I felt an inner peace all over my body, something which I had not experience in such a long time, this was the day of my conversion to Christianity. All of what I had learn from my childhood now took sense, all the bible stories I had heard in my childhood felt down from my memory to my heart as true stories. I began to attend mass services again, praying the rosary, attending to bible courses and attending to spiritual retreats, all was renew within me.

Now my life ran in two directions. for one part there was the scientific way of thinking and on the other hand my new religious life, both of them running in parallel ways separated from each other. Then I remember in one occasion my bible´s teacher invited the whole group to a lecture on the Shroud which we all attended, I had never being aware of the existence of this relic. After it finished, I was convinced that the Shroud was authentic. In that lecture I leaned that the scientific method was not against faith, instead I realized science could support the religious belief, they were not against each other. Then my two ways of thinking which at that time ran in parallel directions made a click and they got together becoming as once, the goal of both of them was the searching for the TRUE. The same happen when I knew of the Eucharistic miracles and the Tilma of Guadalupe which is also a cloth supported by scientific research.

At that time, I had an inner feeling to became a priest or a monk living in silence praying in a monastery. By that time my mother became ill and we all brothers took care of her, her illness last several years until she passed away, then I was free to fulfill my desires. I remember in one of my bible course I met a monk who invited me to spend some time with the monks at their monastery. So I went with him and spend a week during Christmas time, I had not talked with him about the possibility of becoming a monk. The first day as I arrived to the monastery I went to the chapel, and there at one side, I saw the tabernacle where the Eucharist bread was inside covered with a cloth and the face of Jesus on it, but it was not a normal face, it was the face of Jesus obtained from the Shroud of Turin which made feel at home, thinking to my self “Oh

Lord this could be a sign that I could spend the rest of my life in this monastery”.

The next days I did not say any word about my desire of becoming monk, finally I decided to talk to the monk who invited me about it, he looked at me and started explaining me that there was rules to fulfill in order to be admitted, he told me that they had an age limit, at that time I was 40, so he told me that there was no possibility for me to be part of his community, it felt like a ice cold water shower upon me, I remember I left the room sadly and walked toward my cell (room) where there was only a bed, a bathroom and a desk, once inside, I felt down on my knees crying and saying out loud “Oh Lord why have you forsaken me, you know I wanted to follow you here in this monastery and became a monk, why have you forsake me why why?” I remained on my knees crying for about 15 minutes or so, then I lifted my face and realized there on the desk was a bible, which I grabbed and opened it randomly and read the next text “But Zion said, the Lord has forsaken me, my Lord has forgotten me, Can a mother forget her infant, be without tenderness for the child of her womb? Even should she forget, I will never forget you”. I closed the bible I did not believe what I had just read, I feel my self surrounding with joy and happiness and started crying again, this time was tears of happiness and thankfulness, whispering JESUS THANK YOU SO MUCH THANK YOU.

Later, I tried benedictine life and the cistercian monastery as well, but the answer was the same. By that time around 1990 my older brother who is a chemical engineering wrote a book on chemistry, one of the chapters was dedicated to the study of Isotopes, there, he mentioned that several radio isotopes were useful in the scientific research like chemistry, medicine or physics, there he mentioned that C-14 was a method to determine the age of fossils which once were living organism. To reinforce this aseveration, he mentioned in his book that the Shroud of Turin had been proved to be a fake, because the C-14 test had concluded that it was a medieval forgery made between 1260-1390 AD. As I read that, I knew this could not be true, I was sure that the Shroud was authentic, I was convinced it was the burial cloth of Jesus. At that time I had not the arguments to contradict this conclusion, so I decided to approach the Centro Mexicano de Sindonología (CMS) which is a group of people dedicated to the study and diffusion of this relic: the Shroud (Sindon). The answer I obtained from them was that the Shroud had been contaminated with bacteria and fungi which formed a bio-

plastic film on the surphase of the cloth which increased the amount of C-14 shifting the age of the Shroud appearing it to be younger. Today, I know this is not the correct answer, but at that time this answer satisfied me, so I commented this with my brother and all he did was to add a comment in his book explaining that there existed Shroud researches who did not agree with the conclusion that the Shroud was medieval forgery.

From then on, I became a member of the Centro Mexicano de Sindonolgía CMS, and began attending the monthly lecture on the Shroud (they still have it) and started reading books on the Shroud. In 2010 an Italian friend Giulio Fanti invited me to Franscatti, Italy near Rome as a speaker to conferences on the Shroud and the tilma of Guadalupe which I accepted. Once the Conferences ended, the whole group including me, traveled to the north of Italy to see the Shroud in a exhibition that was taken place. We arrived to a hotel in a town called Savigliano about half an hour from Turin because there was no rooms available in the city of Turin, many people were there for the Shroud exhibition. The next day we moved to Turin, the bus parked next to a park, as we approached the Cathedral, I realized that in order to see the Shroud there was a big line of people waiting to see the relic. This situation instead of making me upset made my self to look to my interior I decided to make silence within me, this made me remember the details of my whole life, remembering the many the situations I had lived in the former years thinking how the Lord granted me the opportunity of being here to see the Shroud. After 2 hours of waiting in line, we entered into the Cathedral, the lights were dim, the environment was holy which invited for meditation. Once in front of the Shroud since I was in completely silence I could feel the presence of the Lord, I was in completely gratitude for this opportunity, it was one of the greatest experience in my life. The time allowed to be in front of the Shroud was only five minutes, then I went out of the Cathedral, but because I had plenty of time I decided again to make the line and so I did it. It was a great experience on my life which I will never forget.