July 2004 Ensign - The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

RIGHT: HISTORICAL PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY OF EL MUSEO DE HISTORIA DEL MORMONISMO EN MEXICO, A. C.
sharing strength with their family, their ward,
and their neighbors. There have been great
blessings in learning how to be a better
couple and in serving others, Brother Vega
says. The gospel “changed our way of thinking,
our way of living.” Their children have
grown up learning and living the gospel, and
now grandchildren are enjoying the same
spiritual opportunities through Church activity.
“I’m proud of our children because we’ve
never had to worry about people knowing we
are members of the Church,” Sister Vega says.
Their four children respond that they live the
way they do because of parental example.
Sharing the Blessings
Eleven-year-old Samuel Briones of the
Primavera Ward, Guadalajara Mexico
Moctezuma Stake, helped interest his schoolteacher
in the gospel by inviting her to the
open house for the Guadalajara temple. After
her visit, she began meeting with the missionaries.
The man who taught karate to Samuel
and his 12-year-old brother, José Julio, became
interested in the gospel because of his association
with the two boys; he was baptized and
now serves as stake executive secretary.
Roots in Mexico
As early as the mid-1870s, President Brigham Young sent emissaries to
Mexico looking for places to colonize, both as a refuge from persecution in
the United States and as a way to introduce the gospel in Latin America.
The first Latter-day Saint colonists arrived in 1885, and eventually seven colonies
were established on the Casas Grandes River in northern Chihuahua and two
more on the Bavispe River in northern Sonora.
Despite the hardships of pioneering in the desert, the colonies thrived in
peace for some years. In 1895 the first stake in Mexico was organized at
Colonia Juárez. Anglo colonists were driven out of Mexico during the revolution
that began in 1910, but some later returned to reclaim their homes and lands.
Most of the colonies faded away, but Colonia Dublán and Colonia Juárez in
northern Chihuahua are still home to many descendants of the early colonists.
Many names of the Anglo colonists are well known in Church history:
Bowman, Brown, Call, Eyring, Hatch, Ivins, Romney, Smith, Taylor, Turley,
and others. President Marion G. Romney (1897–1988), First Counselor in
the First Presidency, was born there. So too were siblings Camilla and Henry
Eyring, respectively wife of President Spencer W. Kimball and father of Elder
Henry B. Eyring of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. Those early settlers
performed well their duty to implant the gospel, and today the descendants
of Anglo pioneers are outnumbered in local congregations by members of
Mexican ancestry.
Colonia Juárez is now the home of one of the Church’s temples in Mexico;
the Colonia Juárez Chihuahua Mexico Temple was dedicated in 1999. ■
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