Two pioneer members of the Church in this "jumping-off point" border city have seen the Church grow from a tiny group of 20 members, meeting in a small frame house and led by a missionary branch president, to a fully functioning stake with four wards and three branches.

Matamoros is known as a "jumping off point" because of its location at the border of the southern tip of Texas. Many people come to this city of half a million residents to obtain legal documents to work in the United States. Some, however, have found spiritual opportunity as they learned about the Church during their temporary stay here.Converts join wards and branches that were hardly imagined in the 1950s and 1960s when early members Herlinda y Seguirre de Trevino and Juana Acuna de Torres joined and began serving in the Church. Now members of the Buenavista Ward, the women are among the earliest converts in a city where some 30 people are baptized into the Church each month.

With that many converts, leaders have asked members to take part in the entire missionary process. They not only help find people who want to know more about the Church, but also attend missionary lessons with investigators and help new members make a transition into the Church.

"The members of the Church in Matamoros are strong and are quickly involved in leadership," said Luciano Ramirez Garcia, a former regional representative and the first stake president here.

"Converts are a great force in the growth of the Church in this city and region." However, only half the converts remain in Matamoros.

"We try to strengthen converts to become great men and women in this city," he said. "We try to teach them to live the gospel on a higher plane."

An example of these is Sister de Trevino. She told how she became acquainted with the Church.

"On a rainy, cold Monday I took my children to visit my mother. We crossed town but she was not home, so we returned. I had a headache. Soon after we returned, three youth knocked on our door. I asked who they were. They said they were missionaries, (misionarios) but I thought they said they were `prisoners' (prisioneros).

"My headache grew rapidly, and I thought of many things. Then they asked to come in."

They talked more and she realized who they were. She invited them inside. As the missionaries began to teach her of the Church, she soon began listening carefully to the new doctrines she was hearing.

"I enjoyed it very much - very much," she said. "So much that when they finished their lesson, I asked them not to leave."

She received additional lessons and was invited to attend church services.

"With my three youngest children, we went to the meeting. It had rained and there was much mud, but when we arrived at the meeting, a member, Consuelo Jimenez, welcomed us inside. The opening hymn was `Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam.' I felt very happy all day."

She was baptized March 5, 1960, and was called as a counselor in the branch Relief Society presidency a few weeks later.

At the time the Church was emphasizing family history, and she thought that she might be called to direct the branch's genealogy effort. The thoughts overwhelmed her and she felt very inadequate.

"I thought, `Oh, Lord, please take these thoughts away from me.' " But the thoughts persisted. A few days later she was called by the branch president, a full-time missionary, to be the branch genealogy director.

"We surprised you," said the missionary.

"I said, `No, it is not a surprise.' I served in this calling for six years and 15 days."

Another pioneer member baptized even earlier is Sister de Torres, who came to Matamoros in 1952 from Pachuca, in the central Mexican state of Hidalgo, and was very lonesome when she first arrived. The only woman she knew lived on the far side of town. One day when she visited, the woman noticed her reading the Bible.

"Do you like to read the Bible?" the woman asked.

"I said, `Yes,' " said Sister de Torres. "Then she went to talk to the missionaries."

Conversion did not come rapidly, however. "I did not have a great interest and I did not give the Book of Mormon much attention. The missionaries came for a year and a half. Some missionaries left and others took their places."

Later a local member took up teaching the family and baptized eight of them in the ocean in October 1954.

Over the years, the family walked to the branch meetings. Most of the time, the distances were measured in miles. Later, they saved money for a bus ride to the Arizona Temple, one of the highlights of their lives.

The first Church meetings in Matamoros were held in 1948 or 1949 in a small public Benito Juarez cultural hall, according to the best reckoning in a local history of the Church. Next, the group of 20 moved to a small frame home where the Matamoros Branch was formally organized, with Daniel Serna sustained as the first president. As the branch grew, it was moved to successively larger buildings. In 1973, the first meetinghouse in Matamoros was dedicated by Elder Spencer W. Kimball, then of the Quorum of the Twelve. He frequently visited the area, nurturing the members to prepare to become a ward, which came on Oct. 28, 1973, with the creation of the Valle Hermosa stake.

It was after the first meetinghouse was completed that the Church began to grow here, said leaders. In 1980, the tiny seed, which was started in a community cultural hall in 1948, matured to become the Matamoros Mexico Stake, with Luciano Ramirez Garcia called as its first president.

The progress of the Church is also reflected in the family of Sister de Torres, which has also grown.

"There are 35 members of my family in the Church now - all my children and nearly all my grandchildren," she said. "I am very happy. When I say my prayers, I think `What a great joy to have the gospel and be a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in this final dispensation.' "