Building Community in Belize City

In May 1980, the first missionaries arrived in Belize City and organized a branch. They began teaching several individuals and families. Harold Smith, along with his wife, parents, and siblings, were among those first taught. Harold had been visiting churches in his area for a long time with questions about God and Jesus Christ, but he was never satisfied with the answers he received. One day, his friend Orvin invited some “evangelists” to his home in the hopes of giving them a hard time, and he invited Harold to join them. The young men impressed Harold, and he encouraged his friend to listen to their message, despite not knowing what it was. After their meeting, the elders asked Harold if they could visit him at his home.

When the missionaries first visited Harold’s family, they encouraged everyone to write down any questions they had and promised to answer them on their next visit. Harold was astonished when they could answer all the questions his family had compiled, including questions for which he had long sought answers, such as the relationship between the Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost. The missionaries’ teachings on eternal families and on the power of forgiveness also made a deep impression on Harold. About a month later, Harold and his family members assembled in front of a seafront building called the Barracks, where a small congregation of Latter-day Saints met. They waded out into the ocean and were baptized.

Harold’s first Church calling was to serve as the first Belizean branch president of the Belize City Branch. At that time, about 12 or 13 people, mostly women and children, met together in the Barracks. Members enjoyed meeting so much that when the missionaries started a seminary program, everyone attended—not just the high schoolers. “So seminary was for the whole branch, from the little Primary kids up to the old grannies and grandpas,” Harold recalled. “Seminary is for everybody.”

During the 1980s, members in Belize City worked hard to build a meetinghouse on property the Church purchased on Cemetery Road. Still, there was a tremendous amount of work to do. The property was extremely swampy and had to be carefully backfilled to push out the mud and water. Members wielding machetes and axes cleared mangrove trees. Their contributions toward the chapel building fund were made in the form of donated labor. Once the ground was drained and cleared, members planted gardens and other landscaping elements, such as grass. Finally, in 1986, the meetinghouse was completed, a monument to the members’ consecrated time and effort.