Delia Rochon—Uruguay

A thirteen-year-old new member learns what it means to be a Latter-day Saint in Uruguay

A Primary President at Thirteen

In March 1963, four months after her baptism, thirteen-year-old Delia Rochon wanted to pay tithing. She was a member of a branch of about twenty people in Colonia Suiza, a city in southern Uruguay. She knew tithing was a commandment, and she was willing to do everything the Lord asked of her. Her only problem was that she had no income.

She went to her mother, who was not a member of the Church, for advice. Her mother suggested she find a way to make money.

An elderly neighbor agreed to pay Delia to bring him fresh water. Each day, Delia would take a glass container to a well near her house, fill it with about a gallon of water, and carry it to his house. After a few weeks of saving her earnings, she took a peso to Victor Solari, her branch president, for tithing.

“How much money did you make?” the president asked.

“Three pesos,” Delia replied.

“Well,” said President Solari, “tithing is 10 percent.” One peso—a third of what she made—was too much.

“But I want to give the money,” Delia said.

President Solari considered this. “Well,” he said, “do a fast offering.” He explained what fast offerings were and helped Delia fill out her first donation slip.

A short time later, President Solari asked to meet with Delia. She had never been called into his office before, so she was nervous. It was a small room with a metal desk and a few bookshelves lined with Church manuals. When she took a seat in a chair by the desk, her feet did not quite touch the floor.

President Solari got right to the point. The branch’s Primary president had just moved away for a teaching job in another area, and he wanted Delia to take her place.

In times past, missionaries had often led out in branch leadership. But Thomas Fyans, the president of the Uruguayan Mission, was a firm believer in releasing North American missionaries from leadership positions and calling local Saints instead. Doing so had become a priority for South American missions since Elder Kimball’s tour of the continent in 1959. Giving more local opportunities to local Saints—even Saints who were only thirteen years old—was seen as a vital step toward establishing stakes in South America.

Delia had never been to Primary as a child. She did not really know what a Primary president did. Still, she accepted the calling, and it felt good.

But she worried about how her parents would react to the news. They were divorced, and neither of them was a member of the Church. Her father’s family were devout Protestants and disapproved of her membership in the Church. Her Catholic mother was more accepting of her beliefs, but she would be concerned about the calling interfering with her responsibilities at home and school.

“I will talk with your mother,” President Solari said.

It took some convincing, but the branch president and Delia reached an agreement with her mother: Delia would do her chores early on Saturday, the day Primary was held in her branch, and then be allowed to do whatever she needed to fulfill her Church duties.

After being set apart, Delia got to work in her new calling. Since her branch was so small, she alone was responsible for leading and teaching the Primary children. For training, President Solari gave her a thick Primary manual and two typed sheets of instructions.

“If you have questions,” he said, “pray!”

Before preparing her first lesson, Delia read the instructions. She then opened the Primary manual, rested her hands on the pages, and bowed her head.

“Heavenly Father,” she said, “I need to teach this lesson to the children, and I do not know how. Please, help me.”

See the full text in Gospel Library for notes and source citations.

Vintenes for the Hospital

As the new Primary president in Colonia Suiza, Uruguay, Delia Rochon relied heavily on her lesson manual. The Church had produced the handbook specifically for Primary teachers and leaders living in the missions, and Delia prayed frequently about how best to use it. The manual had been written before the Church’s Correlation Committee had begun reviewing and simplifying all Church materials, and it was three hundred pages long. Still, Delia was grateful for the many ideas for activities and crafts it provided. Although the Primary children were sometimes rowdy during her lessons, Delia was patient. If they misbehaved, she could always get their parents to help.

When preparing Primary lessons, Delia felt a duty to follow official Church materials closely. One day, she came across instructions for holding an annual fund drive for the Primary Children’s Hospital in Salt Lake City. The drive, which had taken place each year since 1922, encouraged every Primary child to donate pennies to help other children in need. Delia had never seen a penny before, and she knew very little about the hospital. Nor did she have to go looking for children in need—there were plenty in her Primary class. But she and branch president Victor Solari felt she should still hold a penny drive for the hospital.

Instead of pennies, Delia asked the children to donate vintenes, the coin with the lowest value in Uruguay. One of the parents made a little wooden collection box, which Delia hung on a wall in the meetinghouse. She told the Primary that the money would help children who were ill, but she was careful not to put pressure on her class. She did not want them donating any vintenes they could not afford to give.

Over the next few months, Delia did not look inside the little box or point out who was donating and who was not. Sometimes the children would bring in vintenes, and other times a parent would donate a few coins to support the Primary. Occasionally, she would hear the clink of a coin as it was dropped inside, and the children would clap at the sound.

When the mission leaders visited the Colonia Suiza Branch, Delia decided to open the box. It was much fuller than she expected. When she counted the coins, the children had donated nearly two American dollars. In Delia’s hands, the coins felt like a fortune.

More than that, she realized, the vintenes represented the faith and sacrifice of the Primary children—and the children’s families. Each coin was a widow’s mite, given with love for others and the Savior.

See the full text in Gospel Library for notes and source citations.

Who Do I Stand With?

Delia Rochon was reading the Book of Mormon at home when she received a spiritual impression: “You need to leave.”

It was the most powerful prompting she had ever felt. She was only sixteen, and leaving home would disrupt life as she knew it. But she also knew that staying where she was would keep her from growing and developing as a follower of Christ.

Since Delia’s baptism, her mother had supported her and had sometimes even come to Church activities. But the family struggled financially, and there was tension between her stepfather and mother. Her father, meanwhile, lived far away and thought the Church was cutting her off from her family. When she stayed with him, she could not hold Primary or attend her meetings.

Fortunately, several times a year Delia could leave home to go to district conferences and mission activities in Montevideo and other cities. Delia loved attending these faraway meetings, especially MIA conferences where she could make friends with other Latter-day Saint youth—an opportunity she did not have in her own small branch. The testimony meeting at the end of every convention helped her faith grow even more.

Shortly after receiving her impression, Delia spoke to the branch president. President Solari knew Delia’s family and did not try to persuade her to stay. He mentioned a couple in town, the Pellegrinis. They were not members of the Church, but their daughter, Miryam, was.

“Let’s see if her family could take you in,” President Solari said.

The Pellegrinis were always willing to help someone in need, and they gladly invited Delia to live with them. Delia accepted their kind offer and agreed to assist with the house cleaning and to work for a few hours a day in the shop across the street. Although moving away from home was difficult, Delia thrived in her new surroundings. With the Pellegrinis, she found support and stability.

Still, her life was not entirely free of conflict. Uruguay was one of the most prosperous countries in South America, but its economy was in a slump. Some people were deeply suspicious of the United States, and they saw communism as an answer to their country’s financial woes. As other countries in South America experienced similar economic setbacks, anti-Americanism swept through the continent. Since the Church’s headquarters were in the United States, South American Saints sometimes encountered mistrust and hostility.

Many of Delia’s classmates talked about their support of communism. To avoid controversy, Delia revealed her Church membership and beliefs to only a few classmates. If she spoke too openly, she risked being mocked.

One evening, the missionaries stopped by Delia’s house. She was just leaving for MIA, so the missionaries joined her. It was pleasant outside, but as they approached the town plaza, Delia knew what was coming. Many of her peers liked to gather at the plaza. If they saw her with the North American missionaries, they would find out she was a Latter-day Saint.

Delia looked at the missionaries, and she decided she couldn’t act ashamed of them. “I know I am a Mormon,” she told herself, “but how much of a Mormon am I?”

Gathering her courage, she crossed the plaza alongside the missionaries. She knew she would face isolation at school, but she could not turn from her beliefs. Her testimony of the restored gospel was too strong.

Like Joseph Smith, she knew it was true. She could not deny it.

See the full text in Gospel Library for notes and source citations.