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This work presents the case of the seismic instrumentation of the church Nuestra Señora del Refugio, built in the eighteenth century and located in the city of Puebla, Mexico. The church has been damaged by the earthquakes of 1864, 1973, and 1999, so it has been structurally intervened. After the 1999 earthquake, an environmental vibration was recorded, and the acceleration records were processed with specialized software to calculate the Fourier spectra and the Transfer Function. Through the spectral ratios in the horizontal and horizontal over vertical directions, it was determined the frequencies and vibration periods of some structural elements. Subsequently, a range of vibrating periods estimated in colonial temples was proposed, with which it was observed that the percentage of periods of the entire structure, applying the Floor/Free field technique that are within that range. It is higher for the transversal component. X (flexible), that the percentage for the longitudinal component Y (rigid). The files corresponded to those used by another researcher in his doctoral thesis, which does not show the signal processing procedure and modeled the temple with finite elements to determinate its vibration models. The vibrating periods obtained with both methodologies were very close. The finite element method requires data on materials, geometry, dimensions, etc. The environmental vibration only records the internal motion of the structure; therefore, it is suitable for monitoring the seismic behavior of temples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]