Church in Spain marks 40 years
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During 2009, the Church in Spain is awash in meaningful milestones. This week marks exactly 10 years since the Madrid Spain Temple was dedicated, and in May the Spanish Latter-day Saints will celebrate the 40th anniversary of their country's dedication for preaching of the gospel.
Opening the Door
As 1967 dawned, religious freedom in Spain was merely a much-anticipated dream somewhere off on the horizon. In June of that year, however, a law was passed that finally made freedom of religion a reality. The Church became recognized by the Spanish government when it officially registered with the Ministry of Justice on Oct. 22, 1968.
On May 20, 1969, Elder Marion G. Romney – then a member of the Quorum of the Twelve – ascended to a wooded hilltop overlooking Madrid with several local Church leaders. There, Elder Romney dedicated Spain for the preaching of the gospel. In the dedicatory prayer, he said the dedication marked a "great day and the opening of an entirely new era in Spain permitting things to happen that could not possibly occur without the blessings of the Gospel" (see Church News, June 14, 1969).
Upward Climb
Although the events of that momentous day meant that LDS missionaries could officially go into Spain, the Church's initial growth in the country would prove to be hard-fought.
"After the law for religious freedom (was passed), missionaries began entering Spain," said Elder Faustino Lopez, the director of the Church Educational System in Spain and an Area Seventy. "But there were many trials at the outset because many people didn't understand that there was this religious freedom or that there were other Christian churches apart from the Catholic Church."
But grow in Spain the Church most certainly did. At the time of Elder Romney's dedicatory prayer, only 335 members of the Church lived in Spain – most of whom were U.S. servicemen and their families. Today, though, 42,873 members of the Church live in Spain. They're spread out over five missions, nine stakes, nine districts, and a combined 133 wards and branches. The Madrid Spain Temple was dedicated March 19-21, 1999.
Garth Wakefield is uniquely qualified to offer insight into the Church's progress in Spain. Along with his wife, Kay Lynn, Brother Wakefield served as president of the Spain Bilbao Mission from 1987-90 and president of the Spain Madrid Missionary Training Center from 2005-08.
"When we started in Bilbao 20 years ago, there were only 1,248 members in our whole mission that covered all of the north of Spain," he said. "Now, they're in consideration to have a stake just in that one northern section. So progress is being made.
"The Spanish saints have tenacity in hanging onto the gospel. For example, I can go back and meet old friends who we were with in the north, and they're still active. That impresses me.
"There are constant and steady temple-goers, and now they're getting into the third generation of members."
Celebrating History
Elder Lopez spearheads current efforts to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Spain's dedication for the preaching of the gospel. He teaches an institute class with curriculum entirely taken from the history of the Church in Spain, is in the process of giving eight firesides in his Madrid stake about the Church's history in Spain, and is putting the finishing touches on a book about the Church's beginnings in Spain that is due out later this year and will include relevant records from the Church archives as well as firsthand accounts from some of the first missionaries called to Spain.
The commemorative activities will culminate with a large celebration in Madrid during May, the same month of Elder Romney's dedicatory prayer four decades ago.
"We're going to invite a lot of people to the celebration, members as well as non-members," Elder Lopez said. "That includes inactive members we hope to reactivate and the young members so that they'll know about the sacrifices that the Church pioneers in Spain had to go through."
Columbus Connection
Spain is of course the country from which Christopher Columbus sailed when he discovered the American continents in 1492. In the Book of Mormon Nephi even prophesies about Columbus, that he would go "forth upon the many waters, even unto the seed of my brethren, who were in the promised land" (1 Nephi 13:12).
The connection between Columbus and Spain was not lost on Elder Romney or President Gordon B. Hinckley, both of whom mentioned Columbus in prominent dedicatory prayers offered on Spanish soil – the former in the 1969 prayer to open Spain to the preaching of the gospel, and the latter during the 1999 dedication of the Madrid Spain Temple.
Regarding Elder Romney's comments, the Church News reported that in his dedicatory prayer he "recalled that Columbus' discovery of the new world facilitated the restoration of the gospel. He also recalled that it was prophesied 400 years before the birth of the Savior that such discovery would hasten the restoration of Christ's Church on earth."
In the temple dedicatory prayer he offered in March 1999, President Hinckley said: "We are mindful it was from these shores that Columbus sailed to discover America as foretold in the Book of Mormon."
Ahead of His Time
Although it wasn't until relatively recently that the country's laws opened the door for the preaching of the gospel in Spain, the first Spanish-born member of the Church was actually baptized 135 years ago.
Meliton Gonzalez Trejo was born in Garganta la Olla, Spain, during 1844. While serving in the Spanish army and stationed in France, Brother Trejo read a pamphlet about the Church he received from an LDS missionary. His interest was immediately piqued, and after an inspired dream he immigrated to Utah in 1874 and joined the Church. In time, he authored the first two translations of the Book of Mormon into Spanish.
Brother Trejo, who died in 1917 in Arizona, continues to influence the Church's presence in his native country now nearly a century after his death. George R. Ryskamp, a history professor at Brigham Young University, became acquainted with Brother Trejo's hometown of Garganta la Olla while researching the Trejo family line. Professor Ryskamp currently conducts research that he describes as "attempting to show women in rural Spanish villages in a new light," and he elected to center that work in Garganta la Olla. This spring, Professor Ryskamp will take BYU students on a research expedition to Garganta la Olla for the third time in five years.
