In 1966 my companion and I knocked on the door of the family of Ernesto and Mirza Jimenez, who were living in the La Reina district of Santiago, Chile. They had seven small children. Mirza invited us in, saying, "We've been waiting for you."

She mentioned having read the pamphlet containing Joseph Smith's account of the First Vision and events surrounding it. Ernesto told us that he wasn't sure he believed in God, but he would listen. The children also listened. We taught them the first discussion on the Restoration and returned about a month later for the second discussion on the Book of Mormon.

We could only meet with them monthly because Ernesto's livelihood was picking up merchandise in the city of Santiago and then taking it on a train to northern Chile to sell. Gone for weeks at a time, he seemed to be making little progress in terms of the gospel.

We had been told that we needed potential priesthood holders to help build the Church in Chile, so we concluded that if he wasn't willing to pray and consider the truthfulness of what we were teaching, we really needed to stop teaching them and move on. But we'd try once more first.

We taught them the third discussion on the commandments. When it was commitment time, I asked Mirza if she would keep the Word of Wisdom. Her husband answered that she would. In surprise, I turned to him and asked if he would keep the Word of Wisdom, and he answered that he would. He then offered to close the meeting with prayer. We knelt and wept as he offered a sweet, humble prayer of gratitude for having found the Lord's church.

After the prayer, he asked if we wanted to know what had happened. Of course we did!

He explained that on his last train trip north, he had taken the Book of Mormon and read it through. When he was done, he knew that God lived, that Jesus was the Christ, and that Joseph Smith was the prophet of the Restoration. I was transferred before they were baptized, but since the baptism of all the family members over the age of 8 was in the adjacent branch, the mission president allowed my companion and me to attend their baptism. It was beautiful!

We exchanged Christmas cards for a few years, during which time I learned that Ernesto was elders quorum president and their children were attending LDS schools in Santiago. Then I moved from California to Pennsylvania, and Christmas cards sent to them went unanswered.

In 2006, my husband and I returned to Chile to serve as missionaries in the area office for the Perpetual Education Fund. I started searching for "my Jimenez family," to no avail, until Rodolfo Acevedo, the church historian in Santiago, wrote an article for the local section of the Liahona magazine on the 50-year celebration of the Church in Chile. My husband Del was featured, since he had served as one of the early missionaries in Chile (1958-60), and Brother Acevedo included photos of the two of us at a fireside he'd spoken at for one of the stakes here. One of the other photos was of me as a young missionary.

One of the Jimenez children living in Argentina recognized me and informed her parents, who started the search for us. They had moved to Argentina about the time we moved to California, but they had returned to Chile. They found us through contacting Brother Acevedo. Then the truth came out about their real conversion story.

Brother Jimenez had been touched very powerfully by the Spirit when he read the Joseph Smith pamphlet, before we ever knocked on their door. He had announced to the family that this was the church they were to join.

He laughed about giving us such a hard time during the first two discussions. When I told him I had been telling their story as I understood it, with the Book of Mormon being the instrument the Holy Ghost had worked through, he got very serious and told us that he knew the Church was true through the pamphlet, but the Book of Mormon is what fleshed out the bones of his initial testimony. He had read it through on that train ride, and it had strengthened his fledgling testimony.