Conversion Story

Grandpa: After Chicago I went to work in San Antonio for four years. And then I went to work for Laredo Air Field – Air Force Base. I worked there 1955 – 1957. In 1957, I went to work for the Navy in Corpus Christy. Met a wonderful friend there by the name of William (Bill) Isaac. We became very close friends. Bill was an alcoholic and there were some times that he didn’t come to work. But our supervisor was really good – real nice fellow and he left a lot of latitude for Bill because Bill was an excellent instrument repair. We were working on repairing airplane radar detectors, the ones that can tell where an airplane was. We would repair those and Bill was so good that our supervisor gave him latitude. One time I didn’t see Bill for a long time; to me it was a long time anyway. About three weeks. He finally came back one day and we were talking. Another one of Heavenly Father’s promptings. Bill came back and we started talking and he said that he was out because of the fact that he was an alcoholic. They had to put him in emergency detox. He met a wonderful nurse and they talked a lot. He liked her quite a bit. They put a relationship in place and then he told me that he was moving to Alaska. He wanted to take me with him. I couldn’t see how I could do it. He left for Alaska but he kept in touch. A month later, once the people in the navy found out that I had been working for their radar equipment, they sent me to a special school where Bill had gone also. I went to that special school and while at the school after a few months, Bill came there also because that school was for all radar people. We met again and he kept on nagging me about coming to Alaska. I told him that if they gave me a certain grade, I would transfer. They did. They offered me that grade – GS11. I started out as a GS7 in El Paso, Texas and then they gave me a GS9. I said, “Oh boy” and said if this was there for that taking maybe they’d stretch a little bit. He said he would contact his boss. He answered back and he offered me the grade. I started preparations to move my little family to Alaska. Next thing I know I was Alaska. That was November 1, 1959 we made it there. The first family to greet us on the 1st of November. Four years later I was GS14. I was working at radar sites as a Relief Electronic Maintenance Technician. Wherever that a technician that had to go home or go on leave or they have sick people, they would just take us from one place to another. It was pretty good. They paid us our regular rate and then they paid us for being away from our base and they also paid per diem. It was exciting for me. It would always keep us in money. But it wasn’t exciting that I had to leave. In fact, when one of our daughters was born, my boss had to be the waiting papa because I left the day before the child was born – Sonya. That was on Menchaka in Nunaka Lane and I gone out to a job in Fairbanks. I was in Fairbanks on my first assignment for three or four months. I pretty much stayed there in Alaska from there on out on all these different assignments. One that I wanted to go live on but I couldn’t was on Middleton Island. Can you imagine seals and sea-lions coming right where the culdesac. We could go out there and bop them on the head, skin them, dry the skins, sell them, you could do everything right there.

Grandma: I had moved up to Alaska 1948 as a new bride just out of High School. I had had data processing experience here in Utah working for IRS and had gotten pretty efficient at that. When we moved to Alaska, I immediately got a job as a data entry supervisor with the State of Alaska. My boss, his son was getting married and he has asked me if I would take over the refreshments table for their reception. The secretary at Sixto’s office was the mother of the bride and so that’s how we were brought together. I was on the groom’s side and he was on the bride’s side. He was there at the wedding, at the reception. He walked the bride down the aisle. He saw me working over at the refreshment table. I had Tammy and Tammy’s friend, Karen. He looked us over and thought, “That’s a pretty good looking lady and daughters.” After the wedding was over, (Grandpa – “I threw the net around her’) it was a dancing reception and he came and asked me to dance. We were exchanging information about each other and getting acquainted. He told me that his wife had died a few months earlier in a tragic fire and had left him a widow with these 7 little children with no mother. I had remembered reading this in the Anchorage Daily News about this fire. There was a picture on the front page of the seven little children that had been left without a mother. I was thinking how tragic that was. When he told me this, I remembered reading about it. I gave him my condolences. He wanted to know about me. I told him that I had 7 children and my husband had left us. So I had 6 girls and a boy and found out that he had 6 girls and a boy. We were just exchanging information and I remember when I was dancing with him, a little streak of lightening went through my body and it said, “You’re going to marry this man someday’. I can still remember how I just shivered and thought I can’t marry him, he’s a little Mexican catholic and widows with 7 children to raise. There was no way I could get involved in something like this. Nevertheless that inspiration had shot through my body and I couldn’t forget it. After that, we became friends. He told me that had an electronic television, stereo, radio repair shop. He told me that if he could ever do anything for me that that would be fine. He told me where his address was and I remembered it being in college village and at that time it was one of the more elite housing areas in Anchorage. I remember, I looked at the address and one night I drove by just to see where it is that he lived. I saw this cute little, not especially pretentious home, but was it was nice home in college village. I had my seven children and we had one of these big long console radios that ran the 78’s or 33’s or whatever they were doing then. It wasn’t working so I thought this is good thing to see how good his electronic talents are. I called the shop and told him that my girls were unhappy because this stereo wasn’t working. He said, “Alright, I’ll stop by and check it out for you.” I can remember when he came to the house, little David his oldest child and only son was with him. David always went on house calls with him. They checked it out and he says that he’d have to take it out of the cabinet and take it into that shop, repair it, and then he’d bring it back to us. He did. He brought it back and it was working and everyone was happy. We’d stop in and visit his children once and a while. I was so impressed with this family because after his wife had died, some of his sisters and his mother came to Alaska for the funeral. They were all decided who would take which child home with them to take care of them. Sixto shook his head and said they’re not going with anybody, “We’re going to stay together as a family.” After everyone left and he was with his family, I found out that he got them all organized into duties in the home. He assigned one of the older children with a younger child and they were assigned meals six days of the week. They knew exactly what they were going cook. They had this menu, like Monday it was macaroni and cheese, Tuesday night it was fried chicken , Wednesday night it was hot dogs, Thursday, Friday, anyway they had these meals set out for the entire week except for Sunday. On Sunday, the men would do the cooking, Sixto and David. I was pretty impressed, I was really impressed how had organized all the children. They all had their house keeping duties. Their house was clean. The girls kept up the laundry. (Grandpa – I already started going to her Church by this time. So I started to want to keep up with the house and organization of the house.) We were just across the street from our chapel. He started going with me. He loved the Church. He loved the people. He felt a little bit guilty about leaving the Catholic Church and going to another church. Sometimes, he would come to Church with me and after we got home, he would go to the Catholic mass for 30 minutes. That’d make him feel better. (Grandpa – sometimes she had to call the LDS chapel to see if I was still there because I was not coming home.) Yet, he didn’t want to have any home teachers or any missionaries. He wasn’t ready to say “Yes, I want to learn more about the Church” but he loved going to Church with me. (Grandpa – we started going to dances). Sixto was in with the more social group in Anchorage. He’d call and ask me if I’d like to go to the Mayor’s Ball with him or the Head-Dress Ball. We’d go downtown to a big hotel and mingle and things like that. One day, I called him and said “We’re having a dance at our Church this Friday night, would you like to come and go dancing with me.” He says, “I can’t go with you on Friday night, that’s our family night and I always spend it with the children.” He said they’d go out and play games or go shopping or go to the park or whatever they would do. That was a set night that he would be with this family and nothing would deter from it. I thought, “Yay, here’s a Catholic that has Family Home Evening” and he doesn’t even know it. He turned me down but he said, “You can come and go with us if you want to.” I did a few times. I went and joined a few of their family nights, doing different things. He was always very ingenious with the things he would have them do on those nights. They’d play games, entertain, sing songs. It was just quite impressive to me that he was as close to his family as he was. (Grandpa – In our living room, our fireplace had a hearth going across it. That’s where our children would perform.) I was working a night shift job out at the NCO officer’s club because I couldn’t support my family without an extra job. I was working there one night and he called me and he says, “Can you come to our house after you get off work. We have something to tell you.” I said, “Yeah, I can stop over there for a few minutes.” It was later in the evening when I dropped by. His seven children were all lined up on the harth of the fireplace that was the full length of the room. They were lined up there, all dressed up in their pajamas. We have something to do for you. I sat down on the sofa and they were all lined up and they began to sing, and they sang “A Very Precious Love’. Google "mucho que te quiero" "quisiera que supieras". The children sang it in english and then they sang it in spanish. He told me that the children had something to ask me. They had taken a vote and elected me to be their new mother. I gasped and felt quite flattered but I wasn’t ready to make that commitment because I was raised a Mormon and said I would never marry outside of the Church. In those months that we had been seeing each other, he has let the children come and go to primary which was during the week then. He said that if they wanted to he would have no objections to them being baptized in the Church. He wouldn’t commit himself but he said if they wanted to. By that time, the little children loved primary and the Church. I didn’t think that would be a very big problem to get them to want to be baptized. I kept saying no and that I wasn’t ready to make a commitment on marriage. One day, he called in and said he was going to Seattle for a training seminar with Zenith radio to learn more about their TVs. He wanted to know if I would go with him and be married in Seattle. I was very uncertain that that was what I should do. Anyways, that was what we decided we would do. He arranged the wedding in Seattle. He had friends there that were going to let us come and stay with them until we were married. We flew to Seattle and were married on May 19, 1970. It was quite a transition to combine our two families. We moved into his home because it was a little larger than mine was. Some of our older daughters that were going to college and planning marriage didn’t move in with us. (Grandpa – they already jumped ship – Loree, Tammy, and Ronna). We ended up with 11 children in the home after we were married. We didn’t call it a marriage, we called it mass merger. It was kind of a little joke we would tell everybody. April 17th, 1970 was the year anniversary of Lupi’s death. We took all of the children and we out to the gravesite. I had bought flowers and each one of them put a flower on her grave and said a little personal prayer. When we finished, Sixto said he would like all of us to kneel (Grandpa – I like Papa better). Why don’t you finish telling this part of it?

Grandpa: That was the year after the death. It was the first time I had prayed at the gravesite as an LDS person. The other times it was mostly catholic, praying to a virgin or somebody else. It was the beginning of my conversion. I don’t know if I can tell it all from here but at least that’s where it started because when I prayed, that prayer Heavenly Father answered as soon as we got home.

Grandma: He prayed actually that time to Lupi. You said, “Please help me to know what to do to bring this family together.” Something to that effect.

Grandpa: I said, “I don’t want to just change religions. That’s not what this is about. I want to know what my Heavenly Father wants so please direct me in that course. We went back home and I found I had a message waiting from Anita – one of my dear sisters that was a year younger than I am. Her husband had been in a very terrible accident the night before. They were not expected to live. The whole week I went along that before I finally made a trip to San Antonio. I was told, “Go to San Antonio and set this thing right.’

Grandma: We discussed this day after day and he was in contact with the families as to how their progress was and getting better. After a few days, he called me at work and he says, “I’ve got to go to San Antonio to see my sister and bother-in-law. I agreed that that was something he should do. I went home and packed up his clothing and got his suitcase and got him ready to fly to San Antonio.

Grandpa: Interesting point from here though, I feel that Heavenly Father allowed me the use of the Priesthood starting from there from the next five days. I left on a Friday and on a Tuesday I came back from San Antonio. While I was away I was able to perform some fantastic miracles. I’ll have to inject this part at another time. I’ll remember it because I know what part it is. It takes too long to tell just outright like this. I did some things that were unimaginable by going over. When I include that, you’d find out why. On your next trip I can do it.

Grandma: Like he said, he felt like he was working under the Spirit of the priesthood even though he didn’t have the priesthood. He went to visit his sister that was very pathetic with a broken knee, collapsed lung, and all kinds of things. He commanded her to be healed, get well, to not feel sorry for herself, to know that she could be healed. He worked with both of them there and they didn’t expect them to live. As he told me when he got back, he worked with them to not be pathetic about themselves, to know that Heavenly Father would bless them, that he would heal them. Then he got on the plane when they were on the road to recovery and came back home. This is your story.

Grandpa: What happened then is, my real conversion started. My conversion was already in process but I got on board the plane and wanted to have a cigarette. I couldn’t find one. I was about to reach across the aisle to borrow a cigarette from a person across the aisle when I had a voice formulated in my mind that asked me why I was doing that and that I didn’t need it. When I admitted to myself that I didn’t need tobacco in my system, the moment I admitted that it was taken off me like a suit of clothing. From that day till this day, I’ve never desired or craved or in no way do I like tobacco. (Grandma – you went from San Antonio to LA and then from LA to Alaska). I went from LA and while I was flying from LA, the lady came down the aisle and asked me if I wanted something to drink. I looked at her for the longest time and then she says to me, “Sir’. It finally woke me up. She asked me if I wanted a drink. I said no. Again the same thing formulated, stating that liquor is not good the body. As soon as I accepted that, the whole thing was taken off. I didn’t have a normal conversion in that respect as far as the Word of Wisdom. I continued like that until I was maybe over Seattle. I heard a voice that said, “If you want to see a miracle, be baptized.” It repeated five times. I looked around to see if someone was playing with me. Nothing was happening. Finally it went away and I landed in Anchorage. Grandma was there waiting for us and brought me home.

Grandma: I picked him up at the airport and we got to the house and it was quite late and night. All of the children were in bed asleep. We went upstairs to the kitchen and he put his arm around me and he said, “I have something to tell you.” I could remember that a little jab of fear hit my entire system because I thought, “Uh oh, he’s been down there with his Catholic family and they’ve talked him out of going to church with me or wanting to pursue Mormonism at all.” I really had a little fear. He put his arms around me and he said, “I want to tell you that I want to be baptized just as quickly as I can.” I remember I started to cry. I thought, “What has happened?” He told me about his conversion from the time he boarded the plane in San Antonio and the vices that were taken from him. I explained it that there must have been some angels up there in the heavens where he was flying that had visited him and convinced him that he needed to be baptized. It was just so amazing to me because he had no idea when he left San Antonio that when he landed in Anchorage that he’d say, “I need to be baptized.” So we were excited. We went to bed. The next morning we got the children up for seminary and to school. We were sitting, we had a bar in our kitchen up there, and we were sitting at the bar discussing the trip and the door bell rings. This was 9 o’clock in the morning. We thought, “This is really strange.” I went down and opened the door and who should be there but two Elders. Our Elders had never been welcome in our home. If they would come, Papa would go out to the garage and find something to do just the same as with the Home Teachers. He stood behind me and said, “Elders come on in! I was just going to call you.” And so the Elders, boy they were wondering what had happened as they came up the stairs. He just told them that he wanted to be baptized and that he wanted to do it as quickly as possible. That was late in April.

Grandpa: Their names were Elder Tyler and Elder Morris. One of them is here in the area. We met them not too long ago.

Grandma: We saw them in the temple. He remembered us. He came up and said, “Brother and Sister Barrera!” Of course, this was how many years ago that he was a young Elder. 35 years. He and his wife were in there doing sealings at the same time we were. We were so excited to see them. He said, “Do you remember, we were the ones who taught you the lessons and baptized your children.” That was pretty exciting. Anyway, I’m sure they were pretty shocked when they came upstairs. He told them that he wanted to be baptized. This was late April. His birthday is on May 18th. He said, “I want to be baptized on my birthday.”

Grandpa: Well, I actually, I didn’t know anything about dates. I told them that I needed to be baptized as soon as possible. They told me that there was conference coming on Saturday. I didn’t know anything about things like that. Anyways, they set me straight. They set it up for the 8th of May. President Kimball was present, so was the Area President and a regional representative. They were present at my baptism. I have to tell you more about that baptism, a very unusual story.

Grandma: In my notes, I have that you were walking to the Church and you heard a voice say,

Grandpa: “If you want to see a miracle, be baptized.” The same voice that had happened before came to me. That’s where I made a decision to be baptized. This is something very important. My mind was, “The glory is mine.” When I told him I wanted to be baptized on the 18th of May on my birthday. But that’s the wrong glory. The glory goes to somebody else. In order to prove it, I had to fall back into the Saturday thing that had been setup. On the way over to the Church, I received an impression to call San Antonio. I talked to my sister and my mother in San Antonio. I remember the words. I talked to them in a hospital in San Antonio. The words are, “If you want to see a miracle, be baptized.” Well, the miracle comes in that they were not supposed to be out of the hospital and walking for about six months. So when I called the hospital in San Antonio, my mother answered. I explained to her what I was going to do. I was afraid she was going to talk me out of it. My mother turned my phone over to my sister . I was able to talk my mother out of talking me out of it but my sister’s going to be tough. Well, I called my sister. We’ve always been close in communicating. She said, “I’m glad you called. I’ve been expecting your call. Today I took my first steps unassisted.” So is that enough proof? It’s a miracle.

Grandma: This was Mirta. She’s just a year younger than Grandpa. They were like twins.

Grandpa: Someday, as I sit here talking about this, I keep thinking, I was wondering if I should do a total story of this like they do on BYU. They give these talks, inspirational talks.

Grandma: It was kind of cute the way Grandpa explained his baptism. Everyone seemed to be excited up there at the Stake that Elder Spencer W. Kimball was going to be there. He didn’t know who Elder Kimball was. When he found out that he was one of the apostles. He witnessed his baptism. While they all thought this was pretty exciting, he didn’t know who this short little guy was that was just about the same height he was. He thought it was pretty neat.

Grandpa: In 1971 I was elevated to an Elder. The person that was there was significant that set me apart, that gave me my eldership. He was the one, the first one I remember ever testifying. Elder Bruce R. McKonkie.

Grandma: That was back in the days when General Authorities got to travel more than they do now. We were very fortunate to have them up there.

Grandpa: That was on the 8th of May, 1971.

Grandma: After he was baptized, he just absolutely was enthralled with reading. We had an occasional chair in our bedroom. I’d wake up in the middle of the night and he’d be sitting over in that chair with the lamp reading the Book of Mormon. He read it from front to cover in less than a month. He’d go to the Bishop and say, “What else do you have for me to read?” They gave him all the priesthood manuals and he just read and read and read. I was just amazed at how he absorbed this information. To this day, he’s read the Book of Mormon several times. To this day, he can tell you where a given scripture is.

Grandpa: Oh honey, you put me too far up there.

Grandma: Well you do so often. Somebody will be teaching a lesson and he’ll come up with a scripture that goes along with it. In Alma such and such. He’s almost had a photographic memory about the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants. I’ve just always been amazed with how much he has remembered. He studied and learned so quickly that it wasn’t too long before …

Grandpa: He allowed me to baptize five of our children in one month. I was prepared for the Priesthood so they set me apart and conferred the Aaronic priesthood.

Grandma: That’s right, he baptized them and it was Elder Morris that was telling us that he conferred them because you didn’t have the Melchizedek priesthood yet. That’s where the connection was. It was very excited to see how he learned and grew in the gospel. He loved missionary work. I think he’s been a missionary more than anything else since he joined the Church. He was made ward mission leader and before we knew it he was, back in those days they actually a Stake Mission Leader. He was called to do that. He has never been afraid to proclaim the Gospel no matter where he’s at or who he’s with.