Pioneers of Uruguay: Stories of Faith, Perseverance From Saints Who Watched the Church Grow

Download Photo

This story appears here courtesy of TheChurchNews.com. It is not for use by other media.

By Mary Richards, Church News

Editor’s note: The latest in a series of articles during 2025 featuring Latter-day Saint pioneers in South America as The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints commemorates 100 years on that continent. Read more about pioneers of Chile here.

Laura Pujado was born with an inheritance of faith, perseverance and strength she received from her parents and others who joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints when it was new in Uruguay.

Those pioneers accepted multiple callings, fulfilled assignments joyfully and worked around the country to strengthen the members.

Her aunt, Gladys Cristobal, was baptized in July 1950, and then her mother Margarita Cristobal in December of that year.

“Before my mother was baptized, she was already working in Primary,” Pujado said. “We didn’t have leaders yet. I think that that’s why my mother and my aunt got that sense of responsibility — they had to do something.”

Pujado now serves in the Church as her mother did.

“These stories are common to share,” Pujado said. “We’ve been all our lives doing over and over again the things our mothers have done. That is something we can say — maybe you inherit that faith.”

She remembers her mother’s perseverance and love. “I am now in that place. I need to be better because my mother was great.”

This year marks 100 years since Elder Melvin J. Ballard, an early 20th-century Apostle, offered a prayer in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in late 1925, dedicating South America for the preaching of the gospel. The following year, he prophesied the Church would grow “as an oak grows slowly from an acorn.”

Church News A prayer and a prophecy: A look at Church growth in South America over 100 years

While missionaries traveled to Montevideo in 1927, the Church began to grow in earnest here first in 1947 when the Uruguay Mission was created, and then in 1952 when the government granted legal recognition to the Church.

Pujado said in the 1950s, a branch might meet in someone’s home at 10 a.m., and then people would take a bus to another branch so they could be with more people in a meeting. All day long, the young adults would go from one meeting to another. “This was a regular Sunday for them, strengthening each other.”

This is also how her mother met her father, Carlos Pujado, who was baptized in 1958 and who was one of the first missionaries from Uruguay to serve.

Today in Uruguay, the latest statistics listed on ChurchofJesusChrist.org indicate that there are almost 110,000 Latter-day Saints in 130 congregations, with two missions. The Montevideo Uruguay Temple was dedicated in 2001, and the Rivera Uruguay Temple was announced in April 2025 general conference.

There is currently one General Authority Seventy serving from Uruguay — Elder Eduardo Gavarret, who is the Second Counselor in the South America South Area Presidency. Two are Emeritus — Elder Francisco J. Viñas and Elder Walter F. Gonzalez, the latter once telling the Church News that the growth of the Church in South America is evidence that it “is a land of believers. … Our people are very open to the gospel message.”

Here is a look back at the history of the Church in Uruguay through the eyes and experiences of some of its Latter-day Saint pioneers.

Church News Uruguayan Elder Gavarret can trace God’s hand in varied assignments

Victor Gerardo Solari

The Church’s global histories for Uruguay explains that after the Uruguay Mission was created in 1947, baptisms happened quickly. In just four years, 23 branches were organized across the country. During the 1960s, the Church in Uruguay matured as local members were called to leadership positions. In 1967, the Montevideo Uruguay Stake was organized; now there are 18 stakes and two districts.

When asked what he thinks about the growth of the Church in Uruguay, Victor Solari said, “It’s wonderful. It’s a miracle.”

The first meeting of the Church in Solari’s city, Colonia Suiza, was August 23, 1959. His father, also named Victor Solari, was there at the meeting and the first person baptized in that city. Later, his father became the first branch president of the new branch. Some of the story is told in “Saints: Volume 4” in the section about Delia Rochon, who was called as a Primary president at age 13 and also interviewed in 2023 by the Church News.

When Solari was baptized as a child, there were only 12 temples around the world, and all were far from his home. He thought he would never go to one. Now, there are temples all over South America — 29 dedicated, nine under construction, and 23 in various stages of planning and design, for a total of 61 temples on the continent. The Church’s 207th house of the Lord will be dedicated on Sunday, June 15, in Chile.

When he was young, members of the Church met in houses. Like Pujado, he remembers how members would drive from place to place on Sundays to meet with other branches. Most people were baptized in the river.

On Sunday night, June 8, Solari ate a meal with other pioneers of the Church in Uruguay at the chapel in the Montevideo suburb of Malvin.

Download Photo

“These brethren that were here in the dinner, they have been my leaders. I have learned a lot. I have served a little,” he said.

He knows the youth — those he has taught as a seminary and institute teacher — are going to be leaders.

“The youth do incredible things. So the future of Uruguay and South America is vibrant.”

Rosario Guarteche

Sixty years ago this month, a family friend brought cake and the missionaries to Rosario Guarteche’s house because it was her parents’ wedding anniversary. Guarteche’s family began to learn about the gospel from the missionaries. Her mother and many of the children were baptized in 1965.

“My father worked as a policeman on a campaign, and when he came, my mother put Liahonas in his suitcase,” Guarteche said. Her father was baptized in 1968.

When her family joined the Church, there was one branch in her city. Now there’s a stake — the Durazno Uruguay Stake. Her parents served as missionaries together in the Buenos Aires Argentina Temple in 1988 and 1989. Guarteche served in the Montevideo temple from 2015 to 2016. Nieces and nephews, as well as now grand-nieces and nephews, are serving missions.

Her parents have passed away and so have three brothers. “I know that families are eternal. The Lord loves us,” she said.

About the Uruguayan Latter-day Saints, Guarteche said they try to be peacemakers, as President Nelson has invited.

“We are a peaceful people, we respect the opinions of others … we get along well, we greet each other, we help each other. We follow the Lord.”

Nestor Curbelo

Nestor Curbelo was baptized in 1969, after spending three years working with the missionaries. Later, he became an area historian for South America, wrote books about the history of the Church in multiple countries, and contributed dozens of articles for the Church News.

Curbelo once spoke with the Church News about how the 1978 dedication of the São Paulo Brazil Temple — the 17th in the Church and the first in South America — changed everything for him and the other members in Uruguay.

Many members sacrificed for the temple, selling military medals of honor or their cars and bicycles to afford travel, said Curbelo.

“The Sao Paulo temple was the temple of South America,” he said. “All the converts who joined the Church from the beginning to 1978 had the blessing of the temple.”

With the dedication of the Antofagosta Chile Temple on Sunday, June 15, the Church will have 30 dedicated temples on the continent.

“I saw the Church with just a few members when I got baptized,” Curbelo said. “Now there are thousands and thousands.”

In the Assembly Hall on Temple Square on June 11, 2015, Curbelo gave an address called “Prophecy Precedes History.”

He quoted Elder Ballard as prophesying that the work of the Lord would grow slowly in Latin America, “but thousands will join the Church here. … The work here is the smallest that it will ever be. The day will come when the Lamanites in this land will be given a chance. The South American Mission will be a power in the Church.”

“For those who know the story of the evolution of the Church in South America, it is amazing to see how the history of the past 90 years followed exactly the prophetic vision of Elder Ballard,” Curbelo said.

Download Photo

Church History in Uruguay

Here is a brief timeline of some historic dates of the Church in Uruguay from ChurchofJesusChrist.org.

• June 25, 1944: The Montevideo Uruguay Branch was created.
• August 1947: The Uruguayan Mission was created, with Frederick S. Williams as the first mission president.
• November 4, 1948: First local converts were baptized in Uruguay.
• August 21, 1952: The Church was granted legal recognition in Uruguay.
• January 26, 1954: The first visit to Uruguay by a President of the Church, David O. McKay, commenced.
• December 12, 1954: The first meetinghouse built in Montevideo was dedicated by Elder Mark E. Petersen of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.
• November 12, 1967: The first stake in Uruguay — the third stake in South America — was organized.
• February 17, 1974: The second stake in Uruguay was organized.
• October 1978: An area conference, presided over by Church President Spencer W. Kimball, was held in Montevideo, with over 9,000 members in attendance.
• April 6, 1996: Elder Francisco J. Viñas was called as a General Authority, the first Uruguayan to serve in that calling.
• March 18, 2001: The Montevideo Uruguay Temple was dedicated by Church President Gordon B. Hinckley.
• October 25, 2018: President Russell M. Nelson spoke to the members in Uruguay from a large center in Montevideo. The talk was broadcast throughout Uruguay.

Download Photo

Related Content

• Pioneers of Chile: Early Latter-day Saints tell stories of faith and reflect on Church growth over decades

Copyright 2025 Deseret News Publishing Company.