Taxco, Mexico

Once a mining town, Taxco de Alarcon, Guerrero, Mexico, is known today as one of the country’s pueblos magicos (magic towns), famed for its silver jewelry production, Spanish colonial architecture, and the beauty of the surrounding countryside. The city lies on rugged terrain and has steep, irregular streets. Its main landmark is the 18th-century Santa Prisca church.

Taxco is also home to the Taxco Branch of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which meets each Sunday in a building on avenida de los Plateros. The branch, part of the Iguala Mexico Stake, is one of 1,987 Latter-day Saint congregations in Mexico, where the Church has more than 1.4 million members, 34 missions, and 13 temples. Mexico is also home to the Mexico City Missionary Training Center, the second largest MTC in the Church. The center can accommodate more than 1,000 missionaries at a time.

• The first five members in Mexico were baptized in 1876.

• Mexico was the first country outside the United States to have 100 stakes.

• The Mexico City Mexico Temple, the first in Mexico, was dedicated in 1983. The most recently dedicated is the Tijuana Mexico Temple, dedicated in 2015. The Puebla Mexico Temple was announced in October 2018.

• When President Howard W. Hunter (1907–95) visited Mexico in 1994, he created the Mexico City Contreras Stake, the Church’s 2,000th stake.