'A gift to our youth'

By Rodolfo Acevedo, Santiago, Chile.

Published: Saturday, April 2, 1994, LDS Church News

One day in August 1987, a humble couple, John A. and Ada Davis of St. George, Utah, arrived in Santiago, Chile, where he was to serve as director of the Santiago Missionary Training Center.

They came to our land as a gift of our Heavenly Father to the hundreds of youth who would come to the training center to learn, and to feel the spirit of love for the work of the Lord.

Cemetery plaque honors historic 1851 visit to Chile

By Rodolfo Acevedo, first counselor, Santiago Chile Puente Alto Stake

Published: Saturday, Nov. 24, 1990, LDS Church News

Commemorating the visit of Parley P. Pratt and his wife, Phoebe, to this nation in the 1850s, a memorial plaque has been placed at the cemetery where their infant son was buried in 1852.

Elder Pratt of the Council of the Twelve, accompanied by his wife and Elder Rufus Allen, arrived in Chile Nov. 8, 1851. Three weeks later, on Nov. 30, Sister Pratt gave birth to a boy they named Omner. The baby lived until Jan. 7, and was buried in a private Valparaiso cemetery. The cemetery plaque notes that Omner Pratt was "Son of Parley P. Pratt, Apostle of Jesus Christ and first missionary of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to South America, who dedicated this land for the preaching of the gospel."

Local members located the gravesite through their research. They also donated funds for the plaque, and made arrangements for the grave marker to be placed. The register of graves is well-preserved and the gravesite is in good condition. The Cemetery of the Dissidents (for foreigners), as it is called, is under the care of the Union Church.

Sister Chilean cities rich in LDS history

Gospel fruit continues its growth in Vina del Mar, Valparaiso
By Jason Swensen
Church News staff writer
Published: Saturday, June 3, 2006

VINA DEL MAR/VALPARAISO, Chile — Folks with an itch for Church history and travel likely have a "must-see" list of LDS-themed locales. Some are obvious: Nauvoo, Ill. Kirtland, Ohio. Palmyra, N.Y.

                           Photo by Jason Swensen

Chilean fishing boats deliver their catch to Valparaiso pier.

Chile's second-largest city, Valparaiso is rich in early

Church history; its sister city, Vina del Mar, can be seen

in the distance.

Other entries on the list might include the Mormon Colonies of northern Mexico, Martin's Cove, Wyo., or perhaps the storied spots of Preston, England.

Adventuresome LDS travelers shouldn't forget to look south in their history hunts.

More than a century before it recorded its first baptism, Chile forever etched its place in early Church history. The Chilean port city of Valparaiso was the intended rest spot for the weary LDS passengers and crew of the ship Brooklyn in May of 1848. The Brooklynhad left New York City three months earlier "determined to flee Babylon, either by land or by sea." It was bound for California in a desperate, dangerous voyage that took the seafaring pioneers below Cape Horn, then along Chile's massive stretch of Pacific coastline.