Ricardo Garcia Silva, the first man to be baptized in Chile and a faithful Latter-day Saint since his baptism, died Sept. 26, 1994, in Santiago.
Brother Garcia, a temple ordinance worker and stake patriarch at the time of his death, was the first in a group baptized at an early morning service Nov. 25, 1956. He and his wife, Perla, who was baptized at the same service, were introduced to the gospel by Elders Joseph Bentley and Verle Allred, the first missionaries in Chile in this century.Missionaries from the Argentine Mission and the Andes Mission in Lima, Peru, were assigned to serve in Chile until the Chilean Mission was organized in 1961, with A. Delbert Palmer as the first mission president. Today, there are 68 stakes in Chile, six missions and 370,000 members.
