“We Will Rise Up”
In 2005, political tensions in Venezuela were rising. Foreign missionaries who were called to Venezuela had an increasingly difficult time obtaining and renewing visas. Anti-American sentiments were growing within the Venezuelan government, as was an increasing distrust of foreign religious missionary organizations. Because of these and other factors, the leaders of the Church decided to pull all North American missionaries out of Venezuela and reassign them to other missions. On October 19, the mission presidents in Venezuela were instructed to prepare their missionaries to leave.
Just days later, on Monday, October 24, the last of 220 American missionaries left the country. Because of the greatly reduced number of missionaries serving in Venezuela, the Missionary Department considered consolidating the four existing missions in Venezuela. “The leadership in Venezuela said, ‘We know that the Venezuelan missionaries left could only fill two normal-size missions, but please don’t do that. We will rise up, and we will call additional young people[,] and we will fill those missions,’” remembered Elder Quentin L. Cook of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, who was the Executive Director of the Missionary Department in 2005. “They’ve done it.”
Less than nine years later, in March 2014, the decision was made to remove all other foreign missionaries, leaving only native Venezuelans. Once again, when approached about the option of consolidating the four missions, local Venezuelan Church leadership responded: “No! We’re ready. Tell the Brethren that we’re going to show that in Venezuela we can be self-sufficient. We will get as many young people as in the past, and we won’t close a single mission.”
Juan Francisco Zorrilla Sequera was serving as president of the Maracaibo Mission at the time. “We were left with almost half the number of missionaries, and the fear I had was that the mission and the missionary work would diminish because of that. But I was wrong; that’s not how it was. Today the missions have had sometimes more than 200 missionaries,” he recounted. “[That’s] more than we had when there were missionaries from other countries. We have witnessed a miracle, a great blessing.”
“The Church in Venezuela is also growing,” said Elder Enrique Falabella, South America Northwest Area President. “We have witnessed how strong are the Venezuelan missionaries; they are baptizing more people by missionary than in any other country in the area.”
In 2020, Church President Russell M. Nelson and Elder D. Todd Christofferson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, unable to visit the Latter-day Saints in person, spoke to them directly via live broadcast and expressed their admiration and appreciation for the Venezuelan Saints’ ongoing faith in Christ. “It is rewarding and joyful to hear the words of the prophet exclusively talking to Venezuela,” Nelly de Toro of the La Victoria Ward in Cagua said, “guiding and reminding us that God does not forget me and has never forgotten us because He has engraved us in the palms of His hands.”