Mexican, undocumented. . .Mormon?

Since 2000, the number of Spanish-speaking members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in the United States has doubled. Many of those Latino Mormons lack legal documentation, which poses a problem for the church.

Young Mormons are called to serve missions — two years on the road, trying to convert strangers to the faith. So what happens when Mormons without papers come of legal age, and set off on their missions?

Isaac’s story sheds some light on this quiet demographic. Isaac is his middle name. When his father, Rafael, was 17 years old in Mexico City, he got a job building a Mormon church. The local bishop took an interest in him, and they became fast friends.

“My dad decided to read the Book of Mormon and be baptized,” Isaac said.

Rafael was not alone: If the Mormon Church continues to grow at current rates, it will be majority Latin American by 2015.

Nine years later after Rafael converted, when Isaac was 18 months old, his family moved from Mexico to the U.S. When Isaac was 5, his father died in a car crash. Isaac immediately felt responsible for his mother and little sister.

“Do you see that little star?” Isaac asked his 2-year-old sister a few nights after the accident. “That’s dad. He’s watching over us right now. So don’t worry. I’m here to help you out.”

And he did. As a teenager, Isaac would slip $20 bills into his mother’s purse, money he earned mowing lawns. And when Isaac was 18, he was getting excited to set out on his Mormon mission. But then, his mother told him something completely unexpected.

“She told me, ‘I don’t know how to put this in words to you. You’re not a U.S. citizen. You are an illegal immigrant from Mexico,'" he said.

The Pew Research Center estimates there are more than 100,000 undocumented immigrants of working age in Utah, where Isaac lives. While those immigrants are filling the ranks of many churches, they are putting the Mormon church in a particularly tricky spot.

Tony Yapias is a Peruvian immigrant, a Mormon and a longtime community organizer in Salt Lake City. He says he has known hundreds of missionaries who lacked papers. The issue became critical, he says, in 2009, when immigration agents in an Ohio airport arrested a Latino missionary. “That had a profound impact in the church,” Yapias said. “It became a concern for parents, a concern for missionaries.”

The Mormon church declined to comment on this story, but it has clearly taken steps along the way to protect itself and its missionaries. In 2005, it backed an amendment by a Utah Senator to a federal law giving churches immunity for having undocumented immigrants do volunteer service, including serving missions. Over the years, the church has developed an evolving "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell" policy on its undocumented missionaries.

“When the immigration issue started heating up, at some point the church knew they were undocumented, and they knew they could no longer send them outside the country on missions," Yapais said.

So by the time Isaac went on his mission, the church was encouraging these missionaries to accept assignments in the U.S., off airplanes, within a long drive from home.

On his mission in Denver, the problems Isaac faced were less legal and more spiritual.

“I remember being rejected constantly,” he said. “It was nonstop. We’d knock on the door and they’d insult us.”

But he found an open door at the home of Guadeloupe Paredes, a Mexican Mormon immigrant who had been inactive in the church for 24 years. She let Isaac speak with her daughters, who decided to be baptized. Paredes says one day, Isaac pulled out a picture of his father. “When I saw it,” she said, “I recognized Rafael. And I said 'I know this person.'” In fact, she knew him very well back in Mexico. It turns out Paredes’ father was the Mormon bishop in Mexico City who built the church alongside Isaac’s father and baptized him.

Paredes told Isaac stories about his father. Meeting her opened up a window into his father’s life, and his faith.

“When we let fear take over us, we lose faith, and when we lose faith, we don’t have a future,” Isaac said.

Two years later, Isaac is now applying for the Obama administration’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. If approved, he can go to college without fear of deportation.

his family moved from Mexico to the U.S.
________________________________________________

No they didnt

Theyre ILLEGAL ALIENS who snuck into our coountry without prior permission...

They are criminals who breoke the law and continued to break the law by their illegal presence..

41 posted on 05/04/2013 2:56:34 PM PDT by Tennessee Nana

“She told me, ‘I don’t know how to put this in words to you. You’re not a U.S. citizen. You are an illegal immigrant from Mexico,’” he said.
____________________________________________

seems like his mother was a practiced liar...

she even had trouble telling the truth to her own children...

42 posted on 05/04/2013 2:58:05 PM PDT by Tennessee Nana

41,739,000 - population of Central America, 2010

mormonism 538,000 = 0.13%

Do you have the percentages for Mexico, North America?

43 posted on 05/04/2013 5:36:59 PM PDT by Graybeard58 (_.. ._. .. _. _._ __ ___ ._. . ___ ..._ ._ ._.. _ .. _. .)

Mod decided to move this thread to bloggers/personal from news...can’t imagine why, with the interest regarding immigration right now.

44 posted on 05/04/2013 5:56:19 PM PDT by greyfoxx39 (Joseph Smith died in a gun battle. This is NOT a martyr's death!)

Mexico’s population, 2011 - 115,296,767

religion - 2010
Catholic, - 95,824,297 = 83%
Protestant - 10,376,709 = 9%
mormons - 1,140,000 = 1%
declared atheist - 5,764,838 = 5%
other - 3,793,263 = 3%

Do mean all of North America or the United States?

45 posted on 05/04/2013 6:12:41 PM PDT by svcw (If you are dead when your heart stops, why aren't you alive when it starts.)

Well, it’s an improvement.....didn’t get pulled.

46 posted on 05/04/2013 6:16:14 PM PDT by svcw (If you are dead when your heart stops, why aren't you alive when it starts.)

We’d knock on the door and they’d insult us.”
______________________________________

Immigrants knocked on the door and your presence here insults them...

47 posted on 05/04/2013 6:48:53 PM PDT by Tennessee Nana

To: Tennessee Nana

How DARE you not use the PC ambivalent ambiguous statement the MSM uses to describe a person of color (light) that has chosen to (travel at great risk to themselves) and avail themselves of the blessings of America that are given to a vast numbers of US citizens that are loafers and baby mamas!!!

I’ll bet you (being a HATER and all) are also a bigot who rejects the message of the ONLY man on Earth that speaks for GOD!

—MormonDude(I believe: I believe)

48 posted on 05/05/2013 4:12:09 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)

IMMIGRATIOM

What’s WRONG with it that it needs REFORMED?

(I know that early Egyptian was hard to write...)

49 posted on 05/05/2013 4:14:04 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)

Mod decided to move this thread to bloggers/personal from news...can’t imagine why, with the interest regarding immigration right now.

Our National 'interest' has shifted a bit these days...

Margaret Young and Mohammed Mushib are eloquent, funny, sharp and, frankly, a little tired of being seen as “fringy.”

Golly! I seem to recall a couple of brothers who shared a very similar lament ---

http://www.latitudenews.com/story/latitude-news-podcast-5-the-mormon-the-muslim/

50 posted on 05/05/2013 4:20:16 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)

To: Tennessee Nana

We’d knock on the door and they’d insult us.”

Golly!

Why'd they do THAT???

Questions put to Joseph Smith: "'Do you believe the Bible?' [Smith:]'If we do, we are the only people under heaven that does, for there are none of the religious sects of the day that do'. When asked 'Will everybody be damned, but Mormons'? [Smith replied] 'Yes, and a great portion of them, unless they repent, and work righteousness." (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 119).

Joseph Smith: "for the teachers of religion of the different sects understood the same passages of scripture so differently as to destroy all confidence in settling the question by an appeal to the Bible" (from Pearl of Great Price 1:12). "What is it that inspires professors of Christianity generally with a hope of salvation? It is that smooth, sophisticated influence of the devil, by which he deceives the whole world" (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p.270).

Brigham Young stated this repeatedly: "When the light came to me I saw that all the so-called Christian world was grovelling in darkness" (Journal of Discourses 5:73); "The Christian world, so-called, are heathens as to the knowledge of the salvation of God" (Journal of Discourses 8:171); "With a regard to true theology, a more ignorant people never lived than the present so-called Christian world" (Journal of Discourses 8:199); "And who is there that acknowledges [God's] hand? ...You may wander east, west, north, and south, and you cannot find it in any church or government on the earth, except the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" (Journal of Discourses , vol. 6, p.24); "Should you ask why we differ from other Christians, as they are called, it is simply because they are not Christians as the New Testament defines Christianity" (Journal of Discourses 10:230).

Orson Pratt proclaimed: "Both Catholics and Protestants are nothing less than the 'whore of Babylon' whom the Lord denounces by the mouth of John the Revelator as having corrupted all the earth by their fornications and wickedness. Any person who shall be so corrupt as to receive a holy ordinance of the Gospel from the ministers of any of these apostate churches will be sent down to hell with them, unless they repent" (The Seer, p. 255).

Orson Pratt also said: "This great apostasy commenced about the close of the first century of the Christian era, and it has been waxing worse and worse from then until now" (Journal of Discourses

, vol.18, p.44) and: "But as there has been no Christian Church on the earth for a great many centuries past, until the present century, the people have lost sight of the pattern that God has given according to which the Christian Church should be established, and they have denominated a great variety of people Christian Churches, because they profess to be ...But there has been a long apostasy, during which the nations have been cursed with apostate churches in great abundance" (Journal of Discourses , 18:172).

President John Taylor stated: "Christianity...is a perfect pack of nonsense...the devil could not invent a better engine to spread his work than the Christianity of the nineteenth century." (Journal of Discourses , vol. 6, p.167); "Where shall we look for the true order or authority of God? It cannot be found in any nation of Christendom." (Journal of Discourses , 10:127).

James Talmage said: "A self-suggesting interpretation of history indicates that there has been a great departure from the way of salvation as laid down by the Savior, a universal apostasy from the Church of Christ". (A Study of the Articles of Faith, p.182).

President Joseph Fielding Smith said: "Doctrines were corrupted, authority lost, and a false order of religion took the place of the gospel of Jesus Christ, just as it had been the case in former dispensations, and the people were left in spiritual darkness." (Doctrines of Salvation, p.266). "For hundreds of years the world was wrapped in a veil of spiritual darkness, until there was not one fundamental truth belonging to the place of salvation ...Joseph Smith declared that in the year 1820 the Lord revealed to him that all the 'Christian' churches were in error, teaching for commandments the doctrines of men" (Doctrines of Salvation, vol. 3, p.282).

More recent statements by apostle Bruce McConkie are also very clear: "Apostasy was universal...And this darkness still prevails except among those who have come to a knowledge of the restored gospel" (Doctrines of Salvation, vol 3, p.265); "Thus the signs of the times include the prevailing apostate darkness in the sects of Christendom and in the religious world in general" (The Millennial Messiah, p.403); "a perverted Christianity holds sway among the so-called Christians of apostate Christendom" (Mormon Doctrine, p.132); "virtually all the millions of apostate Christendom have abased themselves before the mythical throne of a mythical Christ whom they vainly suppose to be a spirit essence who is incorporeal uncreated, immaterial and three-in-one with the Father and Holy Spirit" (Mormon Doctrine, p.269); "Gnosticism is one of the great pagan philosophies which antedated Christ and the Christian Era and which was later commingled with pure Christianity to form the apostate religion that has prevailed in the world since the early days of that era." (Mormon Doctrine, p.316).

President George Q. Cannon said: "After the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was organized, there were only two churches upon the earth. They were known respectively as the Church of the Lamb of God and Babylon. The various organizations which are called churches throughout Christendom, though differing in their creeds and organizations, have one common origin. They all belong to Babylon" (Gospel Truth, p.324).

President Wilford Woodruff stated: "the Gospel of modern Christendom shuts up the Lord, and stops all communication with Him. I want nothing to do with such a Gospel, I would rather prefer the Gospel of the dark ages, so called" (Journal of Discourses , vol. 2, p.196).

51 posted on 05/05/2013 4:21:54 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)

“I remember being rejected constantly,” he said.

That is SO sad!!!

I'm just SURE you'll be ACCEPTED with open arms: Someday...

What Joseph Smith Means to Us (From: various sources )

"He (Joseph Smith) is the man through whom God has spoken... yet I would not like to call him a savior, though in a certain capacity he was a god to us, and is to the nations of the earth, and will continue to be."

- Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses 8:321

"You call us fools; but the day will be, gentlemen and ladies, whether you belong to this Church or not, when you will prize brother Joseph Smith as the Prophet of the Living God, and look upon him as a god..."

- Herber C. Kimball, Journal of Discourses 5:88

"If we get our salvation, we shall have to pass by him [Joseph Smith]; if we enter our glory, it will be through the authority he has received. We cannot get around him [Joseph Smith]"

- (as quoted in 1988 Melchizedek Priesthood Study Guide, p. 142)

There is "no salvation without accepting Joseph Smith. If Joseph Smith was verily a prophet, and if he told the truth...no man can reject that testimony without incurring the most dreadful consequences, for he cannot enter the kingdom of God"

- Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, vol. 1, p.190

"I tell you, Joseph holds the keys, and none of us can get into the celestial kingdom without passing by him. We have not got rid of him, but he stands there as the sentinel, holding the keys of the kingdom of God; and there are many of them beside him. I tell you, if we get past those who have mingled with us, and know us best, and have a right to know us best, probably we can pass all other sentinels as far as it is necessary, or as far as we may desire. But I tell you, the pinch will be with those that have mingled with us, stood next to us, weighed our spirits, tried us, and proven us: there will be a pinch, in my view, to get past them. The others, perhaps, will say, If brother Joseph is satisfied with you, you may pass. If it is all right with him, it is all right with me. Then if Joseph shall say to a man, or if brother Brigham say to a man, I forgive you your sins, "Whosoever sins ye remit they are remitted unto them;" if you who have suffered and felt the weight of transgression—if you have generosity enough to forgive the sinner, I will forgive him: you cannot have more generosity than I have. I have given you power to forgive sins, and when the Lord gives a gift, he does not take it back again."

- Orson Hyde, Journal of Discourses, Vol. 6, p.154-155

"It is because the Lord called Joseph Smith that salvation is again available to mortal men.... If it had not been for Joseph Smith and the restoration, there would be no salvation,"

- Bruce McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, p. 396, 670

They succeeded in killing Joseph, but he had finished his work.

He was a servant of God, and gave us the Book of Mormon.

He said the Bible was right in the main, but, through the translators and others, many precious portions were suppressed, and several other portions were wrongly translated; and now his testimony is in force, for he has sealed it with his blood.

As I have frequently told them, no man in this dispensation will enter the courts of heaven, without the approbation of the Prophet Joseph Smith, Jun.

Who has made this so?

Have I?

Have this people?

Have the world?

No; but the Lord Jehovah has decreed it.

If I ever pass into the heavenly courts, it will be by the consent of the Prophet Joseph.

If you ever pass through the gates into the Holy City, you will do so upon his certificate that you are worthy to pass.

Can you pass without his inspection?

No; neither can any person in this dispensation, which is the dispensation of the fulness of times.

In this generation, and in all the generations that are to come, everyone will have to undergo the scrutiny of this Prophet.

They say that they killed Joseph, and they will yet come with their hats under their arms and bend to him; but what good will it do them, unless they repent?

They can come in a certain way and find favor, but will they?

Brigham Young,

--JOURNAL OF DISCOURSES, vol. 8, p. 224

52 posted on 05/05/2013 4:24:46 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)

“Do you see that little star?” Isaac asked his 2-year-old sister a few nights after the accident. “That’s dad. He’s watching over us right now. So don’t worry. I’m here to help you out.”

The shiny one near Kolob?

53 posted on 05/05/2013 4:28:02 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)

Kolob is a star or planet described in Mormon scripture.

Reference to Kolob is found in the Book of Abraham.

"If You Could Hie to Kolob", the hymn

Kolob as the inspiration for Kobol in Battlestar Galactica

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolob

Figure	Joseph Smith Explanation^[52]	Explanation by non-Mormon and Mormon Egyptologists (quotes are from Deveria)^[25]^[43]^[53]
1	Kolob, signifying the first creation, nearest to the celestial, or the residence of God. First in government, the last pertaining to the measurement of time. The measurement according to celestial time, which celestial time signifies one day to a cubit. One day in Kolob is equal to a thousand years according to the measurement of this earth, which is called by the Egyptians Jah-oh-eh.	"The spirit of the four elements (according to Champollion), or rather of the four winds, or the four cardinal points; the soul of the terrestrial world. This god is always represented with four rams' heads, and his image has certainly been altered here. — They have also evidently made a very clumsy attempt at copying the double human head of the god figured above, fig. 2, instead of the four rams' heads. The word Jah-oh-eh has nothing Egyptian in it; it resembles the Hebrew word [redacted] badly transcribed." (emphasis in original) The name hieroglyph above the central figure is Chnm-Re, the Egyptian "First Creator" god who organized everything out of the primordial chaos.

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Abraham

54 posted on 05/05/2013 4:28:24 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)

To: greyfoxx39; Salvation

“’We’d knock on the door and they’d insult us.’”

That is not an unusual greeting for Mormon Missionaries. It happens all over the world. Rock-throwing, spewing evil hate-filled language - and that’s from many so-called “Christians”.

That being said, I am against illegal immigration. I see where the LDS Church is trying its best to reach out to its members without law-breaking. This is one of the appeals of the LDS Church - supporting and loving its members. The Catholic Church does the same thing - but with more enthusiasm toward illegals.

Have a great day.

55 posted on 05/05/2013 9:15:10 AM PDT by District13 (I miss my country!)

To: District13; svcw; Graybeard; aMorePerfectUnion; Tennessee Nana

I see where the LDS Church is trying its best to reach out to its members without law-breaking.

...uhhhh...aiding and encouraging these law-breaking illegals IS "law breaking".

Sending KNOWN illegal aliens on missions by church authorities to areas where they may not be checked for citizenship instead of turning them over for illegal entry is being complicit with law-breakers.

But, of course, that's an "appeal of the mormon church"...church first, laws of nations/states way down the line.

The hypocrisy in your statement makes me vomit.

56 posted on 05/05/2013 9:37:22 AM PDT by greyfoxx39 (Joseph Smith died in a gun battle. This is NOT a martyr's death!)

You are joking right.....where is the obligatory “they threw a glass of water on me”.

SLC lds are NOT trying to stop illegals - period.

Are you really Saundra?

57 posted on 05/05/2013 9:53:07 AM PDT by svcw (If you are dead when your heart stops, why aren't you alive when it starts.)

You got 50 more to read!

When you get to #51; please take time to explain your chosen religion’s leaders statements to a modern world that awaits MORMON love.

Have a Nice Eternity.

58 posted on 05/05/2013 1:00:46 PM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)

I see where the LDS Church is trying its best to reach out to its members without law-breaking.

While the world sees that the SLC branch of Mormonism will EXCOMMUNICATE any members that actually FOLLOW law: their GOD's law - POLYGAMY - found in D&C 132.

59 posted on 05/05/2013 1:02:41 PM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)

This is one of the appeals of the LDS Church - supporting and loving its members.

Unless one of them DARES to question ANY decision made from on high!

60 posted on 05/05/2013 1:03:37 PM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794