“I Had Much Desire to Go to Peru”

In 1851, Elder Parley P. Pratt of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles traveled to Chile, where he began working to bring the gospel to South America. While Pratt failed to make any substantial inroads to the rest of South America, he saw Peru, where religious liberty was protected by the nation’s constitution, as a potentially fertile field for gospel preaching. “I had much desire to go to Peru,” he wrote later, “but an empty purse and imperfect tongue, which has only barely begun to stammer in that language … combined to cause me to wait a little.” Pratt returned to Utah and began studying Spanish, with the hope of translating the Book of Mormon, which he saw as the key that would unlock preaching in South America.

After Pratt’s death in 1857, the Book of Mormon translation and preaching efforts in Latin America faltered. A complete translation of the Book of Mormon was not completed until 1886. Still, no official attempts were made to establish the Church on the continent until the 1920s, when German Latter-day Saints immigrated to Argentina and Brazil and a mission was established, with headquarters in Buenos Aires.

Missionaries and members from Argentina occasionally traveled north to Peru, preaching the gospel and leaving literature along the way. In 1927, J. Vernon Sharp, one of the first missionaries in Argentina, spent a few days in Mollendo, Peru, preaching to a Protestant minister who had received a copy of the Book of Mormon.

Frederick S. Williams, former president of the Argentine and Uruguayan Missions, moved to Peru in January 1956. Williams petitioned the First Presidency to send missionaries and organize a branch. Missionaries arrived in May, and on July 8, 1956, Elder Henry D. Moyle of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles organized the branch in Lima.

The next month, Vernon and Fawn Sharp arrived to preside over the newly organized Andes Mission, headquartered in Lima. By November, when Elder Harold B. Lee of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles came to dedicate the country, 700 converts had been baptized, and three branches had been organized. Roberto Vidal joined the Church in 1957, and in 1970, when the Lima Stake was organized, he was called as the first president.

Far south of Lima, the Church was also established in the late 1950s in Arequipa. In January 1960, a powerful earthquake shook the city, killing more than 40 people. Most of the city’s buildings were destroyed. After the quake, the city’s residents endured the nerve-wracking experience of more than 100 aftershocks. Many were afraid to sleep in their houses at night, choosing to slumber in open spaces instead, safe from the threat of collapse.

In the aftermath, missionaries serving in the Arequipa Branch went to all of the members’ homes to see to their safety. They were happy to find that none of the local Saints were hurt and that their homes were still standing. Local Saints also took care of each other and assisted with recovery efforts in their communities.