Elder Jorge M. Alvarado
General Authority Seventy
Miguel and Iris Alvarado joined the Church in Puerto Rico in 1977 when their son Jorge was six years old. Young Jorge was baptized two years later and never missed Sabbath services.
“But my own conversion happened when I was 16,” says the newly called General Authority Seventy.
In high school, he began serving as president of his seminary class in his hometown of Ponce. The students were studying the Book of Mormon that year. His new responsibility prompted some soul-searching.
“I had to ask myself, ‘Do I really know the Book of Mormon is true?’ How could I be the president of my seminary class if I didn’t even know if that book was true?”
He picked up his copy of the Book of Mormon and for the first time began earnestly reading it.
“I knelt down and I prayed, and I knew then that it was true,” he says.
The Book of Mormon remains a defining influence in Elder Alvarado’s life.
While serving as a full-time missionary in the Florida Tampa Mission, he shared the Book of Mormon with everyone he taught. Later, he studied the book with his wife and their three children. As president of the Puerto Rico San Juan Mission, he challenged his missionaries to love and share the Book of Mormon.
Now, as a General Authority Seventy, Elder Alvarado remains eager to invite others to discover the life-changing truths of the Book of Mormon.
Jorge Miguel Alvarado Pazo was born on November 21, 1970. On December 19, 1992, he married Cari Lu Rios in the Washington D.C. Temple.
After studying business management at the University of Puerto Rico, he worked in a variety of business management capacities in Puerto Rico and the mainland United States. Most recently, he worked at Church headquarters in Salt Lake City as an international manager for Self-Reliance Services.
Elder Alvarado has served as an Area Seventy, stake president, high councilor, branch president, and ward mission leader.