A Latino Family’s Arduous Journey and Deep Bond to the Mesa Arizona Temple

The Mesa Arizona Temple is once again performing sealings—the sacred ceremony for members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that joins families together forever—after its rededication on Sunday, December 12, 2021.

Four decades ago, the Mesa Arizona Temple was the only temple where families in the entirety of Latin America could participate in Spanish. Thousands of families made the northward trek—often at great sacrifice.

Dinorah Graham was 19 years old when her family left Guatemala to achieve that dream, and her family nearly paid the ultimate sacrifice.

“My mom wanted an eternal family,” Dinorah recalled. “I think she wanted that even before she was a member of the church. She was looking for God.”

Dinorah says her father wanted nothing to do with the Church when the missionaries first knocked at their door. “He had a lot of addictions,” she said. “He couldn't sustain a job.”

As time passed, the missionaries returned and taught Dinorah’s family about eternal families. Her father was ready to learn more.

“When the church came to us, they helped my parents,” Dinorah said.

“I'm grateful that my father chose God. And because he chose God, he was able to conquer his challenges.”

Dinorah’s father, Leonardo Alfaro, stopped drinking. It impressed his boss, and he was promoted. One of his duties was driving a bus. On one trip he transported people to the Los Angeles California Temple.

“[My father] said that he saw many families going to the temple and he wanted to take us to the temple,” Dinorah said.

The family started preparing to go to the Mesa Arizona Temple. Leonardo worked more hours to save the needed money to take his family of 11 on the long journey. The family offered fervent prayers that their righteous goal would be realized.

But, six months from the time they were to leave on their journey to Mesa, Arizona, Dinorah’s father suffered a stroke. CAT scans showed bleeding on the brain. He was in a coma for several weeks.

Leonardo’s prognosis was grim. The doctor told Dinorah’s mother that she should prepare for the worst. “[He] told her, ‘Mrs. Alfaro, be strong because your husband is going to die. Prepare yourself and the children.’”

For the next month, Dinorah said her family and congregation prayed and fasted for Leonardo’s recovery. “At the end of the month, the doctors said that they could not find any trace of blood on my dad’s brain,” Dinorah recalled.                                                                 

Leonardo remained in a coma for four more months. “When my dad finally woke up from his coma, he asked my mom if she was still going to the temple preparation classes. My mom said, ‘No, I stopped them,’ and he said, ‘Go back. Do it. We will go to the temple. Keep your faith, pray, be obedient, and remember that we made a promise at the beginning of the year.’”

On the eve of the scheduled departure for Mesa, Leonardo needed a wheelchair and had difficulty speaking on his slow progress to recovery. “He was very sick,” Dinorah remembered. “My mom asked the doctors if he was able to make the trip to Mesa.” Leonardo’s doctors were against him leaving the hospital.

But Dinorah’s parents were determined to keep their promise to make the trek north. Before leaving the hospital, Dinorah’s mother, Maria, had to sign a medical release, absolving the doctors of any responsibility. Dinorah said, “The doctor’s parting words to my mom were that my dad would most likely die on the trip.”

During that time, Dinorah was the sole breadwinner for her family. Her employer would not give her the time off from work and said if she left her job she would lose it. “I told my boss, ‘I can find another job, but I cannot find another family.’ I knew that being sealed as an eternal family was more important than having a job,” she recounted.

At 2:20 a.m. on December 1, 1978, the Alfaros and other Latter-day Saint families in the Utatlán Stake (a group of congregations) left Guatemala City in a small caravan of buses bound for Mesa.

The Alfaros could not afford seats for their entire clan of 11, so they took turns standing. Dinorah said her younger brother rode the entire trip in the stairwell of the bus. To make the trip more arduous, Leonardo required several seats to lay down. “Sometimes we were standing for hours, but we were talking. We were singing. We were … laughing,” Dinorah said. And with money tight, the family subsisted on black bean and mayonnaise sandwiches.

“The hardest time was to watch my dad getting [worse],” Dinorah said. “When we got to Querétaro, Mexico, my dad was super sick. He says, ‘Please send me back home. I don't want to continue.’”

But Church leaders and members on the trip rallied around the family. Prayers were offered on his behalf, and he was given a priesthood blessing. “We had faith that blessings would help him,” Dinorah said. “We are one of those [families that] believes in blessings.”

They arrived in Mesa late in the evening. The Alfaros’ bus drove by the temple.

“It was just an amazing thing, Dinorah fondly recalled. “Everybody in the bus was [saying], ‘Look at the temple.’ They were so happy. They were crying. We were singing. And at the same time, my mom was trying to wake my dad up, trying to help him to see this beautiful experience.”

Leonardo could not be awakened and did not have a pulse. “And then, of course, the panic started,” Dinorah said. “We were all crying and saying, ‘Please daddy, don’t die. We love you and we are here in Arizona. Tomorrow we are going to be sealed.’”

Fortunately, one of the passengers on the bus was a nurse who administered CPR. “Finally, [the nurse] says, ‘He is alive. Don't worry. He's OK.” Doctors arrived. Another priesthood blessing was administered and more prayers were offered on Leonardo’s behalf.

The weary travelers were given meals and warm beds prepared by local Church members in the Mesa Inter-Stake Center, near the temple, where dozens of other families were also staying. “We were so excited to be there, and people were so kind, so nice,” Dinorah said.

The next morning, Dinorah recalled that her father had made a remarkable recovery. “My dad was the one who was super ready [with the help of] my brother. Everyone was just so excited.”

The group had to be at the temple at 5:00 a.m. Dinorah’s previously wheelchair-bound father was able to walk the several blocks to the temple that morning. “I cannot describe my feelings of that day because, to me, it was a miracle.” 

Dinorah says, as they gathered as a family at the altar for the sealing ceremony,

“It was amazing to see my parents so pure and clean [dressed in white]. I remember … looking at them, I saw them so beautiful. I really saw that I was with angels.”

Dinorah now volunteers at the same building that gave her family food and shelter during their stay in Mesa more than 40 years ago.

“They were ready to help us because they knew that we had nothing,” she recalled. I am so grateful because I see that that place gave us food and a place to feel warm. And I am now the coordinator of the Mesa Welcome Center for Immigrants. And I want them to feel welcome. I want them to see the hand of God.”

“I think that sometimes we say, ‘Oh, I sacrificed so much.’ Being sealed in this temple for us was such a big blessing, such a great opportunity, that I really don't remember those sacrifices.”