Fernando & Enriqueta Gomez

Fernando and Enriqueta were both born in Mexico. Enriqueta was born into a Catholic family in Monterrey, Mexico and joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as a teenager after she moved to Nogales, Arizona. Fernando and his Latter-day Saint family moved from Los Mochis, Mexico to San Antonio, Texas in search of better opportunities when he was a child. The couple first met while Fernando was serving a mission in Nogales, Mexico. Their courtship took place after his mission through letters and phone calls, and after three dates, they got married.

After graduating from BYU, Fernando worked in several locations, including Mexico City, Arizona, Nogales, Mexico and Manila, Philippines. Fernando oversaw the production of various manufactured items such as electrical components for computer hardware. The fact that he was bilingual in English and Spanish was helpful in his various professional capacities in these locations. The couple stayed in the Philippines for over a decade and saw the church grow tremendously in that region. When they first came to the Philippines there was one stake, but by the time they left there were forty-four. After their time in the Philippines, the Gomezes served missions in Mexico and Chile.

While visiting Mexico, the Gomezes came across some historical materials about the church in Mexico that had been in Fernando’s family. These materials eventually inspired them to found a museum specializing in Mexican Mormon history, the Museum of Mormon History of the Americas, in Provo, Utah.

Read or listen to the Gomez’s full oral history.