People

First Chilean Convert was Faithful to the End
By Laurie Wiilliams Sowby

SANTIAGO, Chile – Ricardo Garcia was a strong-willed man who, when he first met missionaries and invited them in, locked the doors and wouldn’t allow them to leave until they’d answered all his questions. They stayed three hours.

Garcia was the first to be baptized in Chile as a small group stepped into the cold water at a country club swimming pool in Santiago on Nov. 25, 1956, just a few months after Elders Verle Allred and Joseph Bentley crossed the Andes from Argentina to open missionary work in Chile. His wife and oldest child would follow with baptism two months later.

That same strong determination, coupled with a firm testimony of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, helped Garcia establish branches of the Church throughout southern Chile as well as Santiago, where he was still serving as patriarch of the Nunoa Stake when he died in 1994.

Perla Garcia, now 85, holds a picture of her late husband, who was still serving as patriarch when he died. (Photo by Laurie Williams Sowby)

His wife Perla, now 85, had already met the missionaries; they’d been by many times, but her husband was always out socializing. Daughter Perla Garcia de Bravo recalls the story:  “One day he was home and answered the door. They asked him, ‘Would you like to be happy man?'”

During the first hour the elders talked with Garcia, his wife and daughter were watching from the adjacent room, so as not to interfere. “My father was listening with big eyes,” his daughter remembers. After she and her mother joined the discussion, she sensed that her father “was looking for something.” She believes “he was converted in that first charla (discussion).”

For his wife, “It was a dream come true” when she saw him kneel in prayer with the elders. He was a large man with a strong presence, and she’d “never seen him look so humbled.” With another teaching appointment scheduled for the next day, Garcia was unable to sleep well as he dreamed of being pulled in two different directions. He prayed by himself for the first time in his life and felt peace.

The family treasures dog-eared photos of Chile’s first baptism, held in a chilly country club pool at 6 a.m., before the course opened. The nine being baptized changed clothes behind large trees draped with towels for privacy. Ricardo Garcia was the first to step into the water. His wife and daughter, 10 at the time, remember how his tears flowed that day. They were baptized in the second service, Jan. 17, 1957. Two other children, Ricardo and Elena, were later baptized when they came of age.

Ricardo Garcia, baptized in a country club swimming pool by Elder Verle Allred, became the first member in Chile 50 years ago. (Photo courtesy of Garcia family)

Both mother and daughter fondly remember the first “chapel” in Santiago, a rented house with 10 chairs, where the elders taught all the classes, including Primary and Relief Society. They were present for the groundbreaking of the Nunoa Chapel – the first in Chile – in 1962. Perla Garcia still lives in the Nunoa Stake.

As an employee of the government’s agriculture department, Ricardo Garcia was called upon, starting in in 1964, to open other facilities in San Fernando, Curico, Talca, Temulco, Valdivia, and Osorno. In each, he saw a need for missionaries and was instrumental in opening branches. His wife served as district Relief Society president in Talco and Osorno and, according to her daughter, “was an expert in earning funds to buy sewing machines for the sisters.”

Perla Garcia remembers the generosity of her husband, how he was always ready to help. “He brought a lot of people home that I’d never met in my life,” she said. He’d help them find a place to live and work, then introduce them to the missionaries. “My father was a great missionary,” adds daughter Perla.

Four years after beginning his work assignment and having established several new branches of the Church in the southern part of Chile, he was fired by his Catholic employers – just as daughter Perla was leaving for a mission to Uruguay. Two of their fondest memories are when President Spencer W. Kimball visited the family in Osorno and gave the parents a blessing, and later when he set daughter Perla apart in Santiago for the mission after the family had moved back and her father began working for Church schools.

In 1980, the couple traveled to Salt Lake City, where they were sealed in the temple by Elder A. Theodore Tuttle and had another visit with President Kimball.

The Garcias paid a visit to President Kimball when they traveled to Salt Lake City to be sealed. (Photo courtesy of Garcia family)

Says Perla Garcia, “I’m grateful for the blessings of the Lord, and grateful for the opportunity to work in the Church in its early days in Chile. I learned many things, including humility.” Although age-related illness now prevents her from holding a Church calling, she still attends services each Sunday – in the old Nunoa Chapel near her home.

“Life without the Church would be very sad,” she says. “Always I’ve had faith in the Lord, even when things have been difficult.” She believes she would have divorced her husband had the gospel not turned their lives in a new direction.

“He was faithful to the day he died,” says Ricardo Garcia’s daughter. The day before he died, still serving as patriarch, he called Stake President (now patriarch) Rodolfo Acevedo to give a report on the current status of patriarchal blessings. He added, perhaps thinking about the day nearly 40 years ago when he’d first met the missionaries, “I am a happy man. Tell everyone in Chile the gospel is happiness.”