People

Octogenarians Lift Church in Chile
By Laurie Williams Sowby

Editor’s note: Laurie Williams Sowby is serving in the Chile Santiago West Mission with her husband, Stephen. Ernestina Mancilla has passed away since this article was written.

SANTIAGO, Chile – In a country where the gospel has been preached for 50 years, the Mancillas stand out. Not only have they been members for 34 years, but still, in their 80s, they continue to be an example of faithfulness in the gospel and activity in the Church.

At 80 and 86 respectively, Sister Ernestina Guida Bravo Barrera and Brother Agusto Segundo Mancilla Vega attend Sunday services each week in the Americo Vespucio Ward of the Los Cerrillos Stake in the suburbs of Santiago, Chile’s capital. They’ve occupied their tidy, two-story apartment since moving here in 1988. Missionaries have taught investigators in their home, and youth groups have visited in recent years.

“Everybody loves them,” says Sister Ashley Youd, serving in the Chile Santiago West Mission. “They greet them with hugs and kisses” when they arrive at church each Sunday.

Even though age and infirmity have curtailed the activity the Mancillas once enjoyed in the Church, they remain a powerful influence with their positive attitude and desire to share their testimonies. Sister Mancilla tells of a rebellious young woman who visited the Mancilla home for a service activity. The girl told her, “Because you are happy, I want to be baptized.” She was.

The Mancillas, natives of Mejillones (in northern Chile), were introduced to the Church after one of their sons had been visiting in the Santiago home of an uncle who was receiving the discussions. When he returned home to Puerto Montt, in the southern part of Chile, similar missionaries – the only pair in that part of the country – appeared at his home to teach him. His mother, though a devout Catholic, listened too as different elders visited monthly over six months.

“I always believed in God,” says Sister Mancilla. After the elders’ visits, she passed the lessons on to her children, because, “I felt in my heart it was the true church.” She and her husband were baptized on Nov. 1, 1972, in the font at the Puerto Montt chapel, the sole chapel in the city. The son who had been introduced to the Church in Santiago was baptized later, and all five children were eventually baptized.

Explaining that her husband had been a heavy drinker before he joined the Church, Ernestina Mancilla says the Church “turned his life around” and made him a better father and husband. Agusto Mancilla says the gospel now is a comfort to him in illness. “We accept the infirmities,” he says,” and we’re happy.”

He was employed with the Chilean Air Force at a Puerto Montt air base when they were baptized. They immediately went to work holding their own family home evenings and encouraging activity and growth in the small branch of 40 members. After 10 years there, they lived in Asuncion, Paraguay, with their daughter for a year, where Ernestina organized the Relief Society. She has served as president several times, along with joint callings as ward missionaries and as some of the first workers in the Santiago Temple. Agusto has also served as elders quorum president and high priest group leader.

One of the highlights of their Church membership was attending the groundbreaking and later the dedication of the Santiago Temple. Ernestina fondly remembers how met President Kimball’s wife at the airport for the groundbreaking. The Mancillas were sealed as husband and wife shortly after the temple’s opening in 1983. The temple is also special to them because of their work in preparing 6,000 names for ordinance work prior to its opening. Agusto worked in the baptistry. They later attended the groundbreaking of the Paraguay Temple in Asuncion, then returned to train workers.

Agusto’s interest in family history and temple work led him to teach a 10-year-old granddaughter how to do research. The Mancillas count 13 grandchildren and five great-grandchildren in their posterity.

Asked what the gospel has meant in their lives, Ernestina answers for both: “Everything. We’re very happy, and our children are, too. We give thanks for the true gospel.”