GUATEMALA CITY, Guatemala — Guatemala's national slogan El Pais de la Eterna Primavera (Country of Eternal Spring) works fine on a travel pamphlet. But prior to the gospel's arrival, many from this fecund Central American nation say they endured a winter-like spiritual chill.
Take Udine Falabella. In the 1950s, Udine and his wife, Leonor, began searching for a religion that taught families could be together forever. They bounced about from one denomination to another. None accepted the Falabellas' notion that the bond between a husband, wife and children should and could survive mortality. Then Leonor died, leaving behind a widowed husband and four small children.
Udine said his wife's passing made him a cold, bitter man. Why, he asked, had his companion been taken even as they searched for God? Unexpected comfort arrived when two young men knocked on Udine's door. He wasn't interested in what the LDS missionaries had to say. Still, he wanted his children to have a spiritual anchor in case he, too, died. So he allowed the young elders to teach and later baptize his older children.
Later, he came across a Church pamphlet about temples and eternal families. He read the pamphlet over and over, committing its words to memory. The search he began with his beloved wife years earlier was over. He was baptized. Brother Falabella would go on to become Guatemala's first stake president and an example of the Church in the area. His son, Elder Enrique R. Falabella, is an Area Authority Seventy and the former president of the Central America Area.
"I don't know who has done more for me — the parents who gave me life, or the missionaries who changed my life," wrote Brother Falabella, who has remarried and continues to serve as the Church begins to enjoys its own Guatemalan spring.
Simple Beginnings
The Church in Guatemala became a congregation of one in 1942 with the arrival of John Forres O'Donnal, an LDS American working for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In the absence of fellow members, Brother O'Donnal found spiritual support via the scriptures and writings on the life of Joseph Smith. He traveled to Salt Lake City, Utah, in 1946 and secured an audience with President George Albert Smith.
"(President Smith) asked me many questions about Guatemala and Central America, and about the people," wrote Brother O'Donnal in his book Pioneer in Guatemala. "He listened with great interest to what I had to say, and to my plea that missionary work be initiated in these lands, which I was certain were ready."
Convinced that Guatemala was indeed ripe for the gospel, President Smith and his counselors in the First Presidency arranged to send full-time missionaries. On Sept. 4, 1947, four elders arrived in Guatemala and began proselyting. The next summer Brother O'Donnal was called to preside over the Guatemala District. The young district welcomed its first convert a short time later — Brother O'Donnal's Guatemalan-born wife, Carmen.
"This was a joyous day for me and the beginning of a great opening of the Lord's work, not only in Guatemala, but throughout all of Latin America," wrote Brother O'Donnal, who later became a mission president in Guatemala.
Remarkable Growth
Today, there are almost 200,000 members and more than 40 Guatemalan stakes. Hundreds of elders and sisters attached to four Guatemalan missions are delivering their gospel message to the nation's cities and indigenous populations. Since 1984, faithful families have been sealed in the Guatemala City Guatemala Temple.
"There were only five branches in Guatemala when I was baptized in 1966, but the members were united," said Elder Julio Enrique Alvarado, an Area Authority Seventy.
Such unity was essential if the Church was to survive its first few decades in Guatemala. Elder Alvarado remembers Mutual, for example, being much more than a youth program. Mutual activities at the chapel marked a weekly opportunity for entire LDS families to come together.
Many early Guatemalan members ached to claim temple blessings, so "excursions" to the Mesa Arizona Temple aboard decrepit buses were organized. Such trips typically lasted eight days — three days traveling to Arizona, two at the temple and three to return. On one occasion, U.S. border officials near El Paso, Texas, refused the members' request to enter the country in their rusty, beat-up bus. Worried that their temple trip would have to be scrapped, one of the Guatemalan leaders contacted the stake president in El Paso.
"Soon that stake president arrived with 17 other members," Elder Alvarado recalled. "They packed us in their cars and drove us all to Arizona."
Young leaders such as President Udine Falabella developed in their calling thanks to the frequent tutelage of visiting General Authorities such as Presidents Joseph Fielding Smith, Spencer W. Kimball, Ezra Taft Benson, Gordon B. Hinckley, Thomas S. Monson and Boyd K. Packer.
"I remember listening to President David O. McKay teach my children and a group of young people about tithing," said Eva Bartales, an 82-year-old member who joined the Church a half-century ago.
Faithful Generations
Like their Mexican counterparts to the north, Church members in Guatemala are cultivating faithful youth who have been taught the gospel at the feet of their mothers and fathers, grandmas and granddads. "All the memories I have from childhood and youth are relative to the Church," said Aldo Malchia, a Guatemala City resident who recently returned from a mission in Panama.
The missionary message that touched President Falabella, Sister Bartales, Elder Carlos H. Amado (Guatemala's first General Authority) and thousands of others will continue. The Church's Pass Along cards, for example, have introduced many Guatemalans to the gospel, especially those from the middle class that the missionaries often can't reach. Meanwhile, folks from indigenous regions listen to the discussions and worship in Quiche', K'ekchi' and other native tongues. (See Church News, Jan. 31, 2004, p. 11.)
"The Church will continue to grow in Guatemala," Elder Alvarado said. "Our people are ready to receive the gospel."
E-mail to: jswensen@desnews.com