“That Is How We Survived”

Once a year between 1978 and 1983, Latter-day Saints in Honduras took part in a physically and emotionally exhausting but spiritually rewarding bus trip. The nearest temple was in Mesa, Arizona, a distance of 4,147 kilometers (2,577 miles). These annual temple excursions typically lasted more than two weeks, with few stops along the way.

Conditions on the bus tested Church members’ patience and endurance. One participant remembered babies crying all through the night, rude teenagers singing loudly, and the unbearable desert heat. The travelers occasionally found relief from a cool creek by the side of the road. The bus was so crowded that passengers slept on the floor. Yet, the same participant also expressed gratitude for the many Christ-like attributes the Honduran Saints acquired as they undertook these long and arduous journeys to the House of the Lord. Along with the discomforts and sacrifices, this person noted, “It was also an opportunity to develop tolerance and the gift of sharing, a blanket, an egg, a loaf of bread, a tortilla and some beans, and young people taking turns holding babies in order to help their mothers, and that is how we survived.”

In December 1983, a much closer temple was dedicated in Mexico City. The following month, Church members from the Tegucigalpa and Comayaguela Stakes took two buses to the newly dedicated temple, where at least eight Honduran couples were sealed. In 1984, the first temple in Central America was dedicated in Guatemala City, which immediately became the new destination for the Honduran Saints’ yearly temple excursion. With the dedication of the Tegucigalpa Honduras Temple in March 2013, church members no longer had to travel beyond their borders to enjoy the blessings of the temple.