“I Am So Thankful to My Mother”
On a rainy afternoon in 1967 San José, 14-year-old Mario Jiménez Sandí was doing homework when the Latter-day Saint missionaries knocked at the door. His mother, Zeneida, had been studying the Bible for two years and decided to hear the lessons.
Zeneida had been confined to her bed for 13 years when an automobile accident left her unable to walk. Mario was by her side for most of that time. Zeneida accepted the missionaries’ invitation to attend church despite her condition. “I accompanied her several times to the chapel, in which we went by taxi[,] and one of the missionaries carried her in his arms to the chapel bench,” Mario remembered.
Two months after meeting the missionaries, Zeneida was baptized. “After her baptism,” Mario said, “she transformed into a person so happy that she forgot the hardships caused by her accident and infirmities, seeing the situation as a test that our Heavenly Father had given her.”
Mario occasionally went to meetings with his mother, but he was not ready to be baptized “because I had other plans for my life.” But later when two missionaries challenged him to take the lessons, he agreed and was baptized in March 1968. “My mother could not believe it,” he said.
Except for his mother, Mario’s family was not pleased with his decision. The day of his baptism was stormy, and when Mario arrived at the chapel, only the building’s caretaker was there. Soon, however, a taxi arrived with Zeneida and one of the missionaries. “What a great surprise!” he remembered. By the time he came out of the dressing room, other members of the congregation had arrived.
During his confirmation, Mario recalled, “I felt inside my heart that I should go on a mission.” When he told Zeneida, she worried that she could not financially support him on his mission. The missionaries told her about a Church program that would help pay Mario’s expenses. Zeneida was excited to hear this, and she supported his plans.
Nearly seven years later, Zeneida was diagnosed with terminal cancer, just as Mario was preparing to leave on a mission. Mario knew he could not leave her side and changed his plans. A few months later, as Zeneida was nearing the end of her life, she told Mario that he needed to go. “It was the last thing she told me,” Mario said.
On March 24, 1975, Zeneida passed away. During her funeral, missionaries, who Zeneida always considered her children, sang the hymn “O, My Father,” with the words, “When I leave this frail existence, when I lay this mortal by, Father, Mother, may I meet you in your royal courts on high?”
Nine months later, Mario received a call to serve a mission in Central America. “I am so thankful to my mother,” Mario said, “for being so brave in accepting the restored gospel and becoming the pioneer for our family.”