West Indies, the Church in

From The Encyclopedia of Mormonism

See this page in the original 1992 publication.

Author: Haroldsen, Edwin O.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints took root in the West Indies as English-speaking members moved from the United States to Puerto Rico. Finding no organized group of the Church there, they organized a branch and shared the gospel message with the local population, some of whom joined the Church and later became leaders themselves. Membership in the West Indies grew from 104 members in 1960 to over 50,000 in 1990, with seven stakes and six missions. It grew fastest in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, and Spanish quickly became the language of the Church. The first Caribbean district of the Church was organized in 1963, the first meetinghouse was dedicated in 1970, and the first stake was organized in Puerto Rico by Elder Ezra Taft Benson on December 14, 1980, in Puerto Rico, with Herminio De Jesus as president. In 1990 Church units were functioning throughout the West Indies in such additional places as Antigua, the Bahamas, Barbados, Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, Cuba (Guantanomo U.S. Naval Base), Curaçao, Grenada, Haiti, Jamaica, Martinique, the Netherlands Antilles, and Trinidad.

PUERTO RICO. In the early 1950s, as a few LDS families moved to Puerto Rico on business and to work or to serve in the military at Ramey Air Force Base, they organized the first branch, which met in a member's home in Guajataca. A second branch was organized in San Juan, and the first Puerto Rican converts were baptized there in the early 1950s. Puerto Rico led the way for the Church in the West Indies, receiving the first district, meetinghouse, stake, and mission. In 1990 it had almost 13,000 members attending more than fifty wards and branches in four stakes and one mission.

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC. The Church began in the Dominican Republic in 1978, when the John Rappeley family from Utah and the Eddie Amparo family from New York met in the customs office in Santo Domingo and initiated regular Church meetings. Two months later, Rodolfo Bodden and his family became the first LDS baptisms in the country. In 1986, Brother Bodden was ordained the first stake patriarch of the new Santo Domingo Dominican Republic Stake. In 1990 there were almost twenty thousand members in over seventy Church units, including one stake and two missions.

HAITI. The first LDS missionaries went to Haiti in 1980 and organized a branch of the Church in Port-au-Prince. In 1984 the Haiti mission was established, and by 1990 there were 3,000 members in eighteen branches, and the Book of Mormon was being translated into Haitian.

JAMAICA. The Church sent missionaries to Jamaica in 1841, but they were soon recalled because the prejudice against them made their efforts futile. However, the Church was finally established there in 1970 when several LDS families went to Jamaica to work. Victor Nugent and his family became converts in Jamaica in 1974. Brother Nugent was called as president of the Kingston District when the Jamaica Kingston Mission was organized in 1985. The Church in Jamaica is primarily Jamaican, and it had almost 2,000 members in thirteen branches in 1990. EDWIN O. HAROLDSEN

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