Building the Church in Venezuela
Throughout the 1950s and early 1960s, Church members from North America who lived in Venezuela for work met to worship together. By 1965, around 40 Latter-day Saints were meeting weekly in Caracas. In October 1966, Elder Marion G. Romney of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles came to organize the Church in Venezuela. He registered the Church with the government and then created a branch, with Carl E. Wilcox as president. On November 2, 1966, with several members present, Elder Romney dedicated Venezuela for the preaching of the gospel.
When the Portal family met missionaries from the Church three years later, there were more than 500 members in Venezuela. Beatriz de Carmen Vargas de Portal had become increasingly unhappy with her religion. A devoted Catholic, she felt she wasn’t receiving the blessings she was praying for and began to wonder if the Saints she was asking for help could actually perform miracles. As Beatriz wrestled with her doubts, she continued to attend church with her husband, Alejandro Portal Campos, and their children. “God, if this isn’t your church,” she prayed, “I want to feel it.” One Sunday, she decided it was the last time she would attend. When she got home, she threw away all the figurines of saints scattered throughout their house. Crying, Beatriz knelt and prayed again. “Lord, why have you abandoned me?” she said. “If you do exist, help me to find you.”
A few days later, missionaries from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints came to the Portal family’s door in Caracas. After listening to the lessons, Beatriz, Alejandro, and their seven children were baptized in December 1969. Alejandro and Beatriz later became the first Venezuelan couple to preside over a mission in Venezuela. “I know that God lives; I know that He loves us; I know that He listens to our prayers,” Beatriz testified.
The Church continued to expand to cities across the country, and in 1971, membership surpassed 1,000. One of the families to join the Church that year was the Montalti family of Puerto Ordaz. Javier Rafael Montalti, who was only five years old at the time, remembered that most of their close friends stopped associating with them. “I told myself, ‘Wow, there is going to be a price to pay to be a member of the Church.’”
Soon the Montaltis helped pay a different kind of price. Each adult member of the Puerto Ordaz Branch committed to contribute one bolívar each week to a meetinghouse building fund. The children donated 25 cents. After land was purchased, the members also helped with construction. Javier’s father, Emmanuel, and brother Roger went to the site every weekday after work and every Saturday to volunteer. “It was like a double job,” said Javier, “but the joy that we felt in our home because of the construction is indescribable.” The construction took less than four months, and in 1975, the Puerto Ordaz Chapel became the first Church-built meetinghouse in Venezuela.