The Best Decision of Our Lives
Blanca Olga Neirreitter was born in Paysandú, Uruguay in 1926. Her mother tragically died when Olga was only three years old. Olga’s father suffered from severe depression after the death of his wife. Eventually, he took a new job as a butler at a ranch. Overwhelmed by raising his younger children by himself, he left Olga in the care of his sister. Olga lived with her aunt in Rivera, and then moved in with her older sister Juana Francisca as an adolescent. In 1944, Olga married Euclides da Cunha Galván Olivera (who went by Quide). They had three children.
In 1958, Olga, Quide, and their two youngest children moved to Montevideo for Olga to recover from a serious health problem that nearly took her life. At the end of the year, the couple decided to move there permanently. Their third child joined them late in 1962, after she completed school in Rivera.
There, Julian, a family friend and recent convert, introduced the family to the Church. “He came to visit us,” Olga said. “He did not preach, yet we could see the change in this person. I loved seeing the change. I did not see him smoke, I did not see him talk of drinking alcohol.” In March 1966, when their daughter attended a talent show the Church put on as part of a festival celebrating the opening of a new chapel, she filled out a referral card with the family’s contact information.
The missionaries begin teaching daughter and mother. “At first, Quide listened from the kitchen, but soon he joined in,” Olga said. “He came in, introduced himself as the head of the household, and sat down to listen. Immediately, the missionaries taught him to pray and asked him to offer a prayer.” After hearing the lesson on the Word of Wisdom, Olga said that Quide felt the Spirit so strongly that he “took a bottle of wine and his pack of cigarettes, put them on a high shelf and promised to never touch them again.”
On April 19, 1966, the entire family was baptized. “It was the best decision of our lives,” Olga said, “and affected not only our lives, but the lives of many more people.” The Neirreitter family had a “missionary spirit” after their conversion. They visited Olga’s younger sister and shared their decision to become members of the Church with her family. They were baptized shortly after, the first of many people to join the Church after Olga and her family shared the restored gospel with them.
In 2016, Olga turned 90 years old. She was the only one of her 10 siblings still alive. Of her relationship with the Lord, she said, “I feel his presence, his company, continuously.” She loved her family and hoped that her children and grandchildren would always follow the example of the Savior. In December 2017, Olga passed away at the age of 91.