Once Upon a Time in Mexico...

For most Mormons, they look to Utah for their history.

My family also looked to Mexico.  Mormons have had a rich history in Mexico.  First of all, Mexico is a conflicted nation that can't decide whether to embrace its European heritage, or its Native American roots.  It is a nation of Native Americans that is almost ashamed to be indigenous.  And yet, to Mormons, the Native American lineage is almost sacred.  We believe that Native Americans are a chosen people, of the house of Israel.

So, at the end of the 19th Century, not only did Mormons settle in northern Mexico to live polygamy.  (Yes, Mitt Romney's family.)  But the Church started an active mission throughout Mexico.  In 1910, this became interrupted by the Mexican Revolution.  All white Mormons - under the threat of death - were expelled from Mexico, back to Utah, leaving their indigenous congregations to fend for themselves.

In 1915, the town of San Marcos, Hidalgo  - 45 miles north of Mexico City - was taken over by Zapatista guerillas.  In this town was a Mormon missionary of Mexican decent named Rafael de Monroy, along with his companion were captured.  They were identified as "Mormons" by the Zapatistas.  They distrusted anything American, and Mormonism was identified as typically an American institution.

The two Mormons were detained by the soldiers and commanded to forswear their religion.  The two brave missionaries refused.  They were told to surrender their weapons.  Monroy reached into his knapsack and took out a Book of Mormon.

"This is the only weapon I need," he said.

They were told that they would be executed by a firing squad.  The missionaries asked if they could kneel and pray first.  They were allowed, and then they were offered blindfolds, which they refused.  They were shot where they were kneeling.

They are considered martyrs by many Mormons, and I grew up hearing this story.

The Revolution had driven the church authority out of Mexico, and, afterwards, the political climate as well as financial problems kept the Church out of Mexico.  In the meantime, the congregations had to govern themselves, independent of Salt Lake City, and without their influence.

When the missions were established in Mexico, it was done by white Mormons who knew the language and loved the culture.  Men like Rey L. Pratt.  The men that Utah send after the Revolution were not of the same caliber.  They were men that looked on Mexicans with disdain and refused to give the indigenous people autonomy.  It doesn't matter whether these Church leaders really viewed Mexicans this way (although I think they did).  The Mexican people felt that they were treated this way.

Twice, they entreated Salt Lake City to allow them leadership of Mexican decent.  Twice, they were denied.  On the third attempt - which they called the Third Convention - they declared themselves separate from the Mormon Church.

You can read some unique things in history books about the Third Convention.  But historians - in their attempt to revise history - neglect to mention certain things.  The Third Convention continued to live polygamy - long after the mainstream church abandoned the practice.  The Third Convention was the last bastion of plural marriage in the Mormon Church.

In 1946, the LDS Church sent ambassadors to try to woo the Third Convention back into the proverbial fold.  Men like David O. McKay and J. Rueben Clark negotiated a deal with the leaders of the Third Convention - they could return to the Church, but they must only live in public with only one wife.  Most complied, and returned to the Church.  (Some didn't, but that is a different story.)

My father, who served a mission in Mexico in 1961-63, remembered going to sacrament meetings in the LDS Church and seeing old couples with more than one wife.

When my father came into the Mexican mission, one of the heroes in his mission was a man named Benjamin Parra.  This missionary was a grandson of Rafael de Monroy, who gave his life for the sake of Mormonism.  He was also the son of the second wife of Third Convention polygamist.  He was famous, because he had over 200 baptisms under his belt.

Sometime in 1960 or 1961, Benjamin Parra and his companion were traveling by train through Mexico. A moment of inspiration fell upon him, and he stopped the train in the  middle of nowhere.  He told his confused companion that he felt impressed by the Holy Spirit that they must get off of the train.  It was 4:00 AM.  They started walking into the wilderness.  They walked over a mountain, and down into a valley.  They climbed another mountain, and another one.

There was a small village on the other side called San Andres.  The sun was just coming up.  There was a small fountain in the middle of the village, and they made their way to the fountain and started singing Mormon hymns out loud.  The curious villagers came out to listen, and the two missionaries began to preach to the village.  The preached all day.  By the end of the day, they had baptized the entire village in a canal that flowed nearby.

Nowadays, Mormon missionaries must follow a certain protocol and teach potential converts a series of classes called "lessons".  Missionaries can't baptize without following the formula, and they certainly can't baptize on a whim in this manner - with permission.  Yet this was a faith-promoting story that was told to me all through my childhood,  It was published in LDS magazines such as the Improvement Era and the Ensign.

My father told me this story several time when I was young, and he idolized Benjamin Parra as the perfect missionary,  In 1972 - at the age of 32 - Parra was placed in charge of the mission in Vera Cruz.    Three years later, he was made responsible for church real estate transactions in Mexico, and made a special representative of the Quorum of the Twelve in Mexico.

Eventually, Parra was accused of embezzling from the Church and excommunicated.  This shattered my dad's image of Benjamin Parra.  In 1997, my dad traveled to Mexico City and stopped by the Church offices at the Mexico City Temple.  He took a clerk aside who knew Benjamin Parra and asked him about the whole embezzling thing.  My dad was told that the whole thing was a lie.

Benjamin Parra might have had a knack for missionary work, but he had no talent for business.  He used to just sign the checks.  He never knew what they were used for, or what the money was being diverted to.  He was cut off for signing his name to checks that he had no clue what they were used for.

It goes back to the whole reason the Third Convention occurred in the first place.  It is no doubt that churches are businesses, and businesses are money.

What happens if you take money out of it?  What happens if you stop trying to build up the business and focus instead on spreading the good news of the gospel?  What if you made it about faith instead of numbers?

Would you have the bravery to hold up the scriptures to men who want to kill you and say, "This is the only weapon I need!"