Elder Patricio M. Giuffra

General Authority Seventy

Elder Patricio M. Giuffra was four years old when his father died of cancer. As a child, he grew up questioning God and wondering why life was so unfair.

“My father was a good husband, father, and provider,” Elder Giuffra recalled thinking. “Why did he have to die?”

Answers and understanding came about a decade later when Patricio and his mother met the full-time missionaries and accepted the gospel.

The plan of salvation gave him hope because it helped him understand his family’s loss. “My father prepared the way for us to join the Church,” he said.

From the time he was baptized, the gospel of Jesus Christ has anchored Elder Giuffra’s life. “The Church has been my life,” he said. “I feel like I’ve always belonged to the Church.”

A special moment happened in 1989 when Elder Giuffra was sealed to his parents and deceased siblings in the Ogden Utah Temple. After the ordinance, his mother whispered, “I felt your father’s presence.”

Patricio Mauricio Giuffra Vargas was born in Valparaíso, Chile, on April 6, 1962, to Lazaro Dante Giuffra Riffo and Olga Rosa Vargas Canales. He grew up in Valparaíso, Chile, and married Maria Eugenia Gonzalez Olmos in the Santiago Chile Temple in 1992. They have four children.

Elder Giuffra received a bachelor’s degree in marketing and translation/interpretation from Brigham Young University in 1990 and a master of business administration degree from BYU in 1994.

He has worked as a purchasing manager for Woodgrain Millwork (1994–96), sales manager and operations manager for Alvenius Chilena (1996–98), and general manager at Carbotech Chile (1998–99) and Arcotex SA (2000 to present).

Elder Giuffra has served as a full-time missionary in the Chile Osorno Mission, stake executive secretary, stake Young Men president, bishop, and stake president. Before his call as a General Authority Seventy, he was serving as an Area Seventy in South America.