“God Knows How to Reach Everyone’s Heart”
In 1947, Latter-day Saint missionaries from the Mexican Mission began preaching the restored gospel in Costa Rica. Uriel Quesada was baptized that same year. In 1948, the visiting missionaries left the country because of the civil war, but new missionaries returned in 1949, and the work continued in San José. Eufemia Jiminez, Misael Alfaro, and Surama Segura and her younger sister Deera were among the people baptized in the San José Branch at this time.
Deera Segura worked at an office with her friend Alicia Brenes. Alicia came from a blended family with 21 children. She helped support them through her employment. Before Deera was baptized, she and Alicia liked to go to the movies together or shopping on their Sundays off. However, when Deera began attending Church, she only saw Alicia at work.
Deera wanted to spend time with her friend and introduce her to the Church, but she knew that Alicia, a staunch Catholic, would not be interested in coming to sacrament meetings. Instead, Deera invited her to a weekday mutual activity and assured her that it was not a religious service. Instead, participants played the guitar and sang songs.
When Alicia attended the activity, it did not go well. “I did not like it,” she said frankly. However, as she left that night, she passed by a mailbox with pamphlets telling the story of Joseph Smith, the First Vision, and the Restoration. She took a pamphlet on her way out, unaware that this action would shape the course of her life. “God knows how to reach everyone’s heart,” she said.
What followed was “an unforgettable experience.” Instead of attending her regular Catholic services that night, Alicia read through the pamphlet. She felt the Spirit testify of the truth of the First Vision and Joseph Smith’s prophetic calling. “It touched me deep inside my heart,” she said. She soon contacted the missionaries.
Alicia wanted to receive the lessons at her home, but when the missionaries came, her mother, Leticia Brenes, demanded that they leave. Undeterred, Alicia walked from work to the Church meeting place each day to attend lessons with the missionaries.
Leticia was not happy with her daughter’s interest in the Church and thought Alicia might be suffering from the devil’s influence. For more than a year, Leticia refused to give permission for Alicia to be baptized. Alicia entered the waters of baptism in 1951, at the age of 20.
Not long after joining the Church, Alicia was feeling sad when one of the missionaries asked her if she would like to serve a mission. “I just said yes,” Alicia said, “without thinking that I helped provide for my home.” She left her work position and became the first Costa Rican woman to serve a full-time mission in the Church. She served in Guatemala and El Salvador in 1953 and 1954. To her surprise, when she returned home, her old job was waiting for her.