His bank career mirrors vast growth of Church
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Gabriel Raymundo Saldivar Flores is a man whose career has grown up with the Church.
A member of the Madero 1st Ward, he is a former stake president and regional representative who has seen great progress in the development of the Church in northern Mexico.At the same time, his career has progressed from teller and office manager to being a senior vice president of a major banking chain. He and his wife, Maria Luisa Balboa de Saldivar, are parents of three children.
He was baptized in 1955 in Ciudad Victoria after his wife, a member, invited the missionaries to their home. He said membership in Ciudad Victoria was very small when he was baptized.
"My first calling was as a counselor in a branch presidency," recalled Brother Saldivar, now a counselor in the Mexico Tampico Mission. "In the early days, the activities of the small branches included Sunday School, priesthood and sacrament meetings. But they were greatly different than they are now. We had Sunday School in the morning, then later in the day priesthood and finally sacrament meeting."
In the early 1960s, members and building missionaries constructed the first meetinghouse in Ciudad Victoria. It was a hard project, but brought unity and closeness to members of the branch, he said. The new meetinghouses raised the profile of the branch and additional converts came into the Church.
In addition, the activity rate among members increased and the branch continued to grow.
In 1964, he was transferred by his company from Ciudad Victoria to Madero where he was assistant manager of the Regional Bank of the North. He served as president of the Madero Branch in the Huastaca District during this period. He was later called as counselor in the district presidency, then as district president. When the Tampico Stake was created Feb. 27, 1972, Brother Salvidar, then 41, was called as second counselor in the stake presidency. By then he was bank manager as well.
"This was the fifth stake created in Mexico," he said. There are now nearly 150 stakes in the country. "After the stake was created, we continued to work to increase attendance at our meetings."
He later served as stake president for about 10 years and subsequently was a regional representative.
He retired this year from his bank position as a senior vice president and is now working as a consultant.
"Few had the vision to see the growth of the Church," he said. "Today, people here have a very good opinion of the members of the Church as people who live their religion."
