“As an Oak Grows Slowly from an Acorn”
Elder Melvin J. Ballard, circa 1925
In 1851, Elder Parley P. Pratt of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles traveled to Chile, where he hoped to establish a mission in South America. However, his limited Spanish and the revolution and civil war hampered the work.
Decades later, after Church members immigrated to Argentina and Brazil, Elder Melvin J. Ballard of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles traveled to Buenos Aires, where he dedicated South America for the preaching of the gospel in December 1925. Before leaving Argentina, Ballard predicted that the Church would initially grow “just as an oak grows slowly from an acorn.” But, he promised, the day would come when “the South American Mission will be a power in the Church.”
In the 1940s, former missionaries who had heard Elder Ballard’s prophecy petitioned Church leaders to open additional missions in South America. Beginning in 1947, with the organization of the Uruguayan Mission, a new era for the Church in South America began. Uruguay was soon a center of strength for the Church in the region.
In 1961, Elder A. Theodore Tuttle of the Seventy was called to supervise the six missions in South America, with Montevideo as the missions’ headquarters. During Tuttle’s time in South America, 1961–1965, missions opened throughout Spanish-speaking areas. Shortly after, the first three stakes in South America—in São Paulo, Buenos Aires, and Montevideo—were organized.