This is the story of the conversion of Brother and Sister Diaz. They serve as the second counselor in the Temple Presidency and assistant to the Matron of the temple. When mom heard her tell this story she of course shared it with me. I thought to ask Sister Diaz if she had ever written her story down for her children and grandchildren. She said she had not. I convinced her to do it and then I translated it into English. I then had Brother Candia who speaks really good English check my translation. This is the corrected version. I didn't make too many mistakes.
Elizabeth and Antonio Diaz
Conversion Story
It was difficult for me to join the church. I was catholic and was enrolled for 7 years
in the catholic school Las Adoratrices (The Adorers) and because my childhood
was not easy, I grew up with my mom and step dad and he was difficult at times.
I married and then latter we were living in
Villa Adela in the city of La Paz. For about
three years, my husband had been looking for the missionaries. Thanks to Brother Victor Quezada, who my
husband worked with, he put my husband in contact with the missionaries, they,
began to come to our house and give the lessons to my husband. I didn’t want to listen because I had decided
that I was Apostolic and Roman Catholic and that was the way I was going to
die. On Friday the 29th of
January, 1983 the missionaries gave my husband his last lesson and invited me
to attend his baptism planed for the next day, Saturday the 30th. They explained that I should bring a towel
and extra underwear for him. I didn’t
know why. As soon as the missionaries
had left the house, my husband and I began to have an argument. He told me that he wanted me to be baptized
also and if I would not be baptized then he was not going to get baptized
either. I asked him why, because I had
not been taught the lessons by those young boys. He gave give me a blanket and a pillow and
closed the door to our bedroom. I had to sleep on the couch. I sat down in the living room and began to
smoke a cigarette. I smoked a lot at that time.
Later that evening I knelt down to ask God if my husband was making a
mistake getting baptized into another church?
I recited the complete rosary and then fell asleep. While asleep I had a wonderful dream that
from that point and forever will be engraved in my mind and my heart. I dreamed I was walking on a long street
until I came to a house and inside the house were a lot of people. Old people, young people and others all
dressed in white surrounding a pool and they were without shoes. Some of them had books in their laps and the
books had written on them “Hymns of Zion”.
In front of them was a man dressed in black with a white shirt and tie
and he was missing his right arm. He was
conducting the meeting. On one side were
some stairs and the Elders were giving my husband a lesson. Everyone was inviting me to stay there. I knew nothing about the church. I left there running and I came to a place
that was full of trees and I ran as if someone was chasing me, I finally came
to a place where there was a black fence and I saw a small door in the fence and
I went in and came to the center where there was a fountain of water and above
the fountain was a huge crystal door. In
the doorway there were standing various older men and women all dressed in
white. The difference between these
people and the others were all of these people were wearing shoes. Among them one big man extended his arms and
invited me to come to him. Then crying
in my dream I decided to forgive myself and I woke up crying and knowing that
this was the true church. I had the
conviction that I was also going to get baptized that day. I usually didn’t make a lot of things. But I made a fruit salad, banana bread, and
chocolate milk. I put a towel and my
underwear in a briefcase. The Elders
came and we went to Satellite city where the branch was located. We were a group of 11 including adults and
children. We got to the chapel and we were waiting when
the Elders and my husband came out of where they were having an interview. I
asked why they were having an interview and they said it was so my husband
could be baptized. I said that I wanted
to be baptized also. They said but
sister you have not had even one of the lessons. I told them, I didn’t need the lessons that I
knew that the church was true and that if I didn’t get baptized today I would
never get baptized. They returned to
where they had come from and then came back and took me to where the Stake
President was. He invited me into his
office and he asked me why I wanted to get baptized. I recounted to him my whole dream. He told me that I was a special person and he
gave me permission to be baptized. He
told me that many things that I had seen in my dream would come to pass some
today and the others in 2, 3 or 10 years.
The 30th of January will be engraved in my being because it
was the first time I had a hymn book in my hand that said on the cover just
like in my dream, “Hymns of Zion” and I was dressed in white, without shoes,
and the brother that was conducting the meeting, Brother Bautista, was dressed
in a black suit with a white shirt and tie and he was missing his right arm
just like in my dream. Elders Clay
Cottam and Elder Chavez dressed in white so they could baptize 32 people from
different wards. I cried and had a knot
in my throat. I wanted to yell about the
happiness that I felt but this burning that I felt in my throat almost made it
so I could not breathe. This feeling
seemed stronger than me.
I. Elizabeth Garcia Portugal was baptized into the
church of Jesus Christ on Monday, the 30th
of January, 1983 together with my
husband Antonio Diaz Gutierrez and we went to the temple on the 26 of January
1992, it was like what President Victor Hugo Saravia had said to me back then,
“you’ll see someday the other things in your dream.”. I did not know why, but I learned that in the
church, no one spoke of going to the temple, but I said to my husband, “why
don’t we go to the temple in order to be an eternal family. And so with fasting and prayer we made this
great decision to go to the temple. We
had to sell everything that we owned of any value, our television, our refrigerator,
some of our clothes, our videos, and en the end my husband received some
money. In total we had 2 thousand
dollars and we were a total of 6 people, my husband and me and our 4 children,
Omar 16 years old, Lily 11 years old, Daniela 7 years old, and Gabriella 3
years old. We left the house Friday, 23 of January 1992,
at 1:00 pm. We took the train, Sister
Rita Blanca would be waiting for us when we arrived in Buenos Aries at midnight on Tuesday. But the train hit and killed a man in Viacha
and it took 5 hours to extract the body.
We had lost a lot of time. We
arrived at Villazon at 4 in the afternoon.
We went into immigration and they told us we lacked some signatures for
our children and we could not go through and that we have to get things fixed
on Monday. Because of this we did not
know what to do. My son had made friends
with some young girls, and as we were going into a place to stay, they were
coming out to go and get something to drink and they asked us why we were not
crossing the border. We explained what
had happened and one of them said don’t worry tomorrow you will be able to
cross the border. We hurried in and
immediately knelt down and prayed and asked Father in Heaven to help us get
everything fixed so we could go on. We
left to get something to eat and later went to bed. The next day we got up early and went to wait
for the young people that we had talked to the day before. They finally came and one of the girls asked
us for our passports and 50 US dollars so she could get our passports stamped
so we could cross the border. We crossed
the border at 9 that morning but the train to Argentina did not leave until the
next day. So we decided to take a bus
that left at 11 that evening that would take us to Jujuy. We walked all day and at 11 that evening took
the bus and arrived in Jujuy at 10 pm the next day. We went to the train station and the train
would not leave until Tuesday at 7 in the morning. So we had lost a day. We arrived in Argentina on Wednesday at
midnight, there was no one waiting for us, the sister that was going to meet us
was not there. We were a day late. We called the number we had for her, but she
no longer worked there. We did not know
what to do nor where to go. My husband
and my son went to look for a hotel. The
only one they found was 25 US dollars per person for the night. So we tried to make ourselves comfortable on
the benches in the station with our suitcases.
We were all very tired and my daughters were hungry and my husband’s
friend, who we had met on the train by chance, said we are going to get stabbed
and killed there. Just then a man
appeared out of the darkness, he had a cast on one arm and was carrying a small
bag. He came over to us and asked where
we had come from and we told him, from Bolivia.
He said that the children were hungry and he pulled out of the small bag
some empanadas and gave them to us. He
also gave us something to drink and told us to have a nice stay and that
nothing would happen to us because you are in the hands of the angles. All of us turned around and saw that we were
seated by the window of the Argentine federal police station. When we turned around the man who had given
us the empanadas, who had been sitting on the other side of us, had
disappeared. We had no idea where he had
gone. The next day we looked in the
telephone book for the number of the temple.
We could not find any listing for the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints. So went to the “house
of the witches”, that is what we called it.
It was the house of the uncle of my husband’s friend who we had met on
the train. It was abandoned and full of
ugly things and we had to clean it and the women of the house next door said we
could use her kitchen to fix some food.
This day we tried to get some things settled. We slept there that night and it rained a
lot, in fact it rained more inside the house than outside. My husband didn’t realize that his friend had
been flirting with me and wouldn’t leave me alone, so I prayed asking Father to
give me strength and to be with me in this battle. The next day we left at 5:30 in the morning
to look for the temple. We only had
something to drink and with this bottle we started walking, asking how to get
to the temple. We were told that we
needed to take a bus to Constitution and then take the train to the station
“Ferrer”. The train stopped at a station
and the conductor said, “Passengers we have a problem and we are not going to
be going any further. You will need to
look for another method of transportation.”
A woman asked us where we were going and we explained to her where we
needed to go. She said she would show us
where we needed to go and she got off the train with us. She said cross the train tracks and then walk
7 blocks to the right and then turn and walk 5 blocks to your left. So we all started walking in the direction
she had indicated. We arrived and it was
an Evangelist Church. We walked back to
the station and we saw a couple and walked up to them and asked them if they
knew where the temple was. They
explained that we needed to go in the opposite direction than we had gone. We arrived following their directions at one
of chapels of our church. The doors were
locked and no one was there. We knocked
on all of the doors on this block and no one knew not even one member of the
church that lived close to the chapel.
We went into a shop and the asked for help. They said they had seen two young women with
name tags in the area but did not know where they lived. My husband walked up to a tree and starting
hitting it and saying that we had failed in something and we are never going to
get to the temple. I grabbed him and
shook him and said you have the Priesthood you should be giving us assurance
and hope. Now let’s go, we are going to
find the temple even if it is only to see the doors. So we started to walk back to the
station. My children had not asked for
anything, it was 2 in the afternoon and my feet were bleeding and we were all
very tired, we had not eaten anything.
Like this we walked to the station, when we arrived we saw a police car
and I said to my husband, they will know where the temple is. We ran to the police car and asked them,
where is the Mormon temple? The
explained to us the directions to the church we had just been to. I explained that this is chapel. They said are you talking about the place
with the gold statue. I said yes. They pointed to a white van and said they can
take you where you want to go. We all
ran over to the white van and we asked the drive will you take us to the Mormon
temple. He responded do you know how
much it will cost it is very far away?
It will cost 100 pesos or the equivalent of 100 us dollars. He saw my face and my disappointment. He said don’t worry you can walk 7 blocks to
the right and then 7 blocks to the left and there you will see a sign that says
Bus stop 51. Get on bus 51 and tell the
driver that you want to get off the bus at the stop for bus 86. Wait for the number 86 bus, it will say
Ferrer, and then tell the driver you want to get off at the Mormon temple. We thanked him and walked, following his
directions. We arrived and immediately a
number 51 bus arrived. We did exactly
what he had told us to do. We arrived
and my husband pointed and said Elizabeth the angle Moroni. I said to the driver, let us off where the
people who come to the temple get off. We
got off and ran, we went through the trees just like I had seen in my dream. I threw away my shoes because my feet were
bleeding. We arrived at the black fence
and went through the small gate and a brother came out and asked are you the
Diaz Garcia family. We said yes. He said Brothers the temple president has
been waiting for you since Wednesday, we were crying and full of all kinds of
feelings. He said wait and went and
called by telephone and he took us to the other side of the temple where there
water fountain and the big crystal door and a big man dressed in white and others
dressed the same. He opened his arms,
all of this was just like in the dream I had 9 years earlier, and we ran to him
and he said to us, “your afflictions have ended, you are now in the hands of
our Father in Heaven. He took us inside
and we received the temple ordinances.
It was wonderful to see our children all dressed in white kneeling at
the altar. We left the temple at 10:00
that evening. They had given our
children sandwiches and something to drink, we had eaten nothing, but we were
not hungry. President Fernandez who was
the temple president was the big man who had outstretched his arms and said you
are not going to return to where you have been, you are going to go with the
temple missionaries and Brother Domingo Lariagone, he will help you. So we went with the missionaries and when we
arrived the brother gave my husband and I a room, my three girls a room and my
son a room. The missionaries called us
and invited us to eat with them. The
next day we went early with the missionaries to the temple. The temple president called and sent my
husband and son with a brother Miguel to get our bags and things from the house
we had stayed at and I said that I did not want to go back to that house that I
didn’t want that man to flirt with me anymore.
So they went and got our things and took them to the guest house. Later we went with the missionaries and Brother
Domingo back to the guest house where Brother Domingo called me over to the
fridge and showed me that it was filled with meat, fish, chicken, cheese, and
every other kind of food. On Sunday we
went to the Belgrano ward and we shared our testimonies. On Tuesday we talked to the temple president
and then we stayed at the guest house for 15 days and we worked in the temple every
day. He didn’t charge us a penny for the
guest house or for the food. We had 3
Family Home Evenings with the missionaries and we said goodbye to them with our
hearts full of love and gratitude. We
arrived home with 20 dollars in our pocket but we had received more than we
could have hoped for of the love of our Father in Heaven and the unimaginable
love of His Son, Jesus Christ. I know in
my heart without any doubt and in my being that this is the true church. Lead by a living prophet and I know that if
I’m faithful and do all that my Father asks of me, that I will be able to
return to his presence. I know that the
sacrifice that Jesus Christ made of dying on the cross was not in vain. I want the best for everyone in the world and
I know that the temple is the most sacred place in the world. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
