EL PASO, Texas — The two border towns of El Paso and Ciudad Juarez,
permanently staring at each other from opposite sides of the Rio Grande, could
not be more different.
Congressional Quarterly recently named El Paso the
second-safest city of its size in the United States — although more than
600,000 people call El Paso home, fewer than 30 murders have taken place there
in the past two years.
Conversely, Juarez is the most dangerous city in Mexico and
one of the most treacherous in the world. According to a recent Associated
Press story, over that same time frame as many as 4,000 of Juarez's 1.5 million
inhabitants have been murdered.
With that backdrop, against all earthly logic, hundreds of
Latter-day Saints cross the border from El Paso to Juarez every week. Their
purpose? To attend the temple.
The El Paso Texas Mount Franklin and El Paso Texas Stakes
of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are both part of the Ciudad Juarez Mexico Temple district. The former is
assigned to provide temple patrons each Tuesday, the latter every Thursday.See the full story on LDSChurchNews.com
This story is provided by the LDS Church News, an official publication of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It is produced weekly by the Deseret News.