Accepting a Call to Action

In 1993 the four stakes in Puerto Rico were struggling. “We had many wonderful members, but we were very weak in priesthood leadership,” explained William Burk, who was a bishop in San Juan at the time. Because Puerto Rico is part of the United States, it was common for members to leave the island after they joined the Church to pursue better career opportunities in the continental United States. As a result, the Saints in Puerto Rico did not have the people or resources they needed to keep all of the Church programs running.

That December, Elder L. Tom Perry of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles came to Puerto Rico to reorganize some of the Church units in an effort to strengthen the stakes. While he was there, the Lord directed him to make a more drastic change. He called and consulted the First Presidency. They told him to go ahead with what he felt he needed to do.

Special stake conferences were held across the island the next day, and the announcement was made. “During that service we were all surprised when we learned that all the four stakes were dismantled and that eight districts were created,” said Ruben Pomales, who was then the bishop of the Guaynabo Ward. The San Juan, Ponce, Carolina, and Mayagüez stakes would now be the San Juan, Fajardo, Arecibo, Caguas, Guayama, Mayagüez, Ponce, and Toa Baja districts. Burk, who was called as the San Juan district president when the change was made, recalled, “The membership throughout the island was in a state of shock. They felt like they had been demoted, somehow, from being stakes and wards to now going back to being districts and branches.”

“There was a lot of crying, a lot of disappointment, a lot of sadness in the beginning,” Pomales said. “Some members became inactive.” However, many recognized the change as a call to action and an opportunity for growth. The leaders of each district set goals to reemphasize the basic principles of the gospel. Members increased their missionary and home teaching efforts. “We were ready with great spirituality to accept the changes and designs of the Lord and to begin a process of training and learning,” one leader in the Ponce District wrote in 1994. “We are sure that soon we will become a stake again with greater strength and better trained to move forward the Lord’s purposes for us.”

At a special conference in August 1996, less than three years after Elder Perry’s visit, the Mayagüez Stake was reorganized. “Thanks to the great effort of the leaders and members, we were again about to enjoy the blessings of being a stake,” one stake leader wrote of the occasion. When the reorganization of the stake was announced, “the eyes of many filled with tears.” The Ponce Stake followed just a month later, in September 1996, and on May 4, 1997, the San Juan Stake was also reorganized.