Illiterate and without shoes, let alone a white shirt and tie, in December of 1956 twenty-five-year-old Benito Torres Sandoval walked into his first Latter-day Saint meeting and sat down. Benito was the poorest among the poor who attended meetings of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that day in Toluca, Mexico. Nevertheless, ignoring his bare feet, ragged clothing, and countrified aroma, the thirty or so Latter-day Saints attending the service welcomed the blue-eyed newcomer.

Benito Torres Sandoval in the living room of his home in Toulca, 2011. Photo courtesy of Eileen Roundy-Tullis.

The elderly Francisco Mena, the only Latter-day Saint in nearby San Mateo Atenco, where Benito lived, had invited the young man to what Benito thought was a Protestant church. Given that most villagers referred to Mena as “the Protestant,” it was a logical conclusion.

At mid-twentieth century, San Mateo Atenco was a fiercely Catholic village, as was the whole Toluca Valley. Until the 1970s, when rapid industrialization enticed tens of thousands of strangers to the area, townspeople treated unkindly anyone abandoning the traditions of the fathers. At worst they resorted to physical violence against wayward people and their property. At best they just walked away. For Mena and his family, the publicly expressed unkindness was an abundance of orchestrated ostracism. In San Mateo Atenco, “the Protestant” was a negatively charged epithet.

Contrary to most of his fellow villagers, ostracism was not a value that Benito Sandoval worried about. One day, driven by different interests if not expansive instincts, the young man rode his bicycle three miles to Mena’s home to plead for information about Jesus Christ. Benito had a gnawing anxiety to learn about the Savior. He was not hearing anything from his friends or the village priest that pleased him. Having heard that Mena could read and that he studied the Bible, Benito figured that a conversation with him would be helpful.

Aside from his interest in the Savior, Benito disagreed with some local customs and religious beliefs practiced in his village and even in his own family. Amid such poverty, why would people give offerings to idols? Why would they deny food and lodging to the most desperate among them? Why did they keep talking about the “next life” when his instinct told him that it was also this one that the Savior wanted people to live well?

Mena received the young man kindly and told him wonderful things about the Savior. He invited him to his church in Toluca. Because Mena was leaving shortly for Mexico City and would be there for some time, he handed Benito a piece of paper on which he had written the meetinghouse’s address: “Plutarco González #22 across from the Alameda.”

Following a ten-mile bicycle ride one Sunday, Benito tried but failed to find the Latter-day Saint meetinghouse. He had the address in his pocket, but he could not read it. He showed the paper to numerous people in central Toluca, but none could or would inform him of the location. Discouraged, he returned home. However, after Mena returned from his lengthy trip, another opportunity arose. This time the older man picked Benito up and together they took a bus from their village to Toluca and then walked to the meetinghouse. What Benito saw not only caught his breath, but it left him astonished, even stunned.

Benito Torres Sandoval had a desperate childhood. His mother[1] died when he was five. In considerable despair his father[2] placed his five young children with relatives in Toluca. Benito went with his paternal aunt and her husband.[3] His father then went to Mexico City to find work and, as it turned out, within a year also a new wife.[4] With her at his side, his father returned to Toluca to set up a new household. In short order, six-year-old Benito, along with his brothers and sisters, moved in with them. There Benito lived for the next twenty or so years helping to support his father’s new family. In the meantime, especially as a child, Benito knew hunger as a household companion. Moreover, on many nights Benito’s bed was a dismantled cardboard box and old newspapers. His younger sister frequently tried to prepare something the whole family could eat. It was mostly tortillas.

By age seven, Benito was a generally recognized street fighter among neighborhood children; he also made ample use of an earthy vocabulary. However, between nine and ten years of age, he recalled, “something told me to stop fighting and saying bad words (groserías).” He heeded what he felt. That something also told him not to drink or smoke, which he never did, a conviction no doubt reinforced by seeing what was becoming of his father, who loved the bottle. His no-alcohol sentiment became fiercely ingrained. In later years he remembered thinking, “When I grow up, I am not going to drink and I am not going to smoke. And when I get married, there will be no alcohol or tobacco on my table. Nor will my children or grandchildren indulge in these things, and thus it will be for many generations.”

The travails of the contemporaneous moment pulled at Benito’s heart and limited his opportunities. The family needed money. Benito entered the labor force at age eight and worked as a servant and waiter (mozito) many years. He never went to school. Although his father taught him the alphabet, he never encouraged him to become educated. His mother had died before he was of school age. His stepmother saw that her own children went to school, but she never did the same for Benito.

As Benito approached the Latter-day Saints’ Toluca meetinghouse that Sunday in 1956, he recalled an indelible dream. The previous night he had experienced a rarity in the annals of human existence, a dream that revealed not only a reality unknown to him but one that indelibly and permanently fixed itself in his consciousness. In his dream Benito had seen a nondescript religious meetinghouse where people were congregating for religious services. He saw the building’s location, its physical features, and its exterior color. He not only saw what he understood to be his fellow Mexicans of all ages and both genders entering the building, but he took note of their discrete and distinguishable facial features. He studied their manner of dress and became aware of grooming details among some of the women, even down to their eyebrows and eyelashes. He saw a group of people seated in a circle who welcomed him. He saw two young people teaching them. He also saw foreigners there, young men in white shirts, jackets, and ties greeting people as they entered. He had never seen a sight like this. It both troubled and beckoned him. He wondered if he should tell Francisco Mena about it but decided to keep the dream to himself until perhaps later.

As Benito and Mena rounded a corner on their way to church, the meetinghouse came suddenly into their view. The young man stopped and stared. His breathing quickened. His eyes darted from people to place and back. He felt faint. Then a wave of calmness enveloped his being and he pensively continued on. Down to the finest detail, he affirmed, he was witnessing the scenario of his dream as if it had been perfectly scripted. How could this be? he wondered. He entered the building and sat down, marveling at what had happened to him.

“I felt so happy,” he said. “I felt something in me that I had never felt before, something that told me I was not a pathetic man. Something or someone in the heavens knew of me and was guiding me. Because of that dream I became a Mormon, especially when I learned the Church’s teachings on the Word of Wisdom and modern-day apostles and prophets. I knew that is how the true church would have to be.” He remembered his childhood thoughts about alcohol and tobacco. His conversion was instantaneous.

Benito Torres had become a Latter-day Saint in sentiment and conviction, but it was three years before he would be baptized. For one thing, only two times in those three years did the missionaries try to find him to teach him. Both times he was not home because at his father’s insistence he was usually away at work. However, whenever he had a free Sunday, he went to church because he loved to be with the Saints and hear their teachings. Yet no one ever asked him to be baptized. He wondered if it was his place to inquire.

Baptism or not, he felt a need to defend his newly acquired understanding of how he should live his life. He had heard a scripture read in church that said the Lord wants his sons and daughters to repent of their sins, to put their hearts in the gospel, and to not be afraid. In particular, he had developed a distaste for images and idols and decided that he would not be afraid to let anyone know about it.

One day after Benito had begun his transition to becoming a Latter-day Saint, he was walking up a village road on which the image of Saint Luke was being paraded in the traditional celebratory way. It was an annual event marking the commoners’ belief that the village patron saint was an intercessor and advocate in heaven for the local people. They revered him. Benito took note that the parade was coming his way. He stopped and stepped aside so as not to encumber the movement of people and the village saint along the street. As he looked at the spectacle, he remembered a scripture that he had heard: “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image. . . . Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them” (Exodus 20:4–5).

At the time, it was customary for men to doff their hats as the image of the saint passed by as a customary expression of respect if not religiosity. As Benito had not done so, friends, neighbors, and even members of his own family asked him to take his hat off. Benito shook his head to say no. He thought he would be punished for worshipping an idol. When the officiating priest and the image of Saint Luke came alongside, the priest stepped over and ordered the young man to remove his hat. Benito responded by telling the priest to remove his own cap (gorra). For such insolence, the priest stepped up and knocked Benito’s hat off with sufficient force to cause his own cap to fall to the ground. Immediately, the word went out that Benito had hit the priest and knocked his cap off. A major social disturbance ensued.

Benito went to talk to Francisco Mena about it. Mena said that he and the lad should go visit the priest and inform him that Benito had meant no harm and that he was sorry the priest’s hat had fallen off. Before they could make their way to the priest’s cottage, local police intercepted them. Within a few minutes the local authorities had hauled Benito off to jail. By day’s end and for good measure, they put Francisco Mena in jail too.

After Benito and Francisco spent a day in jail, the local police, reinforced by the commanding officer of the Toluca police force and a contingent of officers, transferred them from San Mateo Atenco to the jail in Toluca. As they emerged from the San Mateo Atenco jail, Benito became frightened. Hundreds upon hundreds of people surrounded the jail in a raucous and menacing mood, requiring that the Toluca officers push their way through with force. On the way to Toluca they told Benito and his friend that villagers had hatched a plan to douse them with gasoline and turn them into human torches. The officers, at the insistence of the offended priest, had arrived to prevent that from happening. The priest was certainly aware that the whole episode was completely out of control and beyond reason.

Pedro Martínez, a church member (see his vignette herein) with a law degree and president of the branch in Toluca, got them released from jail. Francisco Mena returned to his home to stand guard. Benito, afraid to go home, fled to Mexico City, where he stayed for three months until his anxieties about being burned to death subsided, whereupon he returned to his father’s house. The climate of violence had declined, and many of those who had wanted to torch him were now ashamed of what they had planned to do.

After returning from Mexico City, Benito stayed at his father’s home in San Mateo Atenco for three months but then went back to the city to find work. At around age twenty-nine he returned once again to his village, found work in the Toluca Valley, and continued to help support his family.

Shortly thereafter, Benito became ill with fever and stomach pains of sufficient magnitude that he feared he might die. He raised a fervent prayer to God for help, whereupon José Castañeda, his father’s brother-in-law who had cared for him as a child after his mother had died, happened by for a visit. Benito told him where he had hidden some savings and implored his uncle to take him to the hospital in Toluca. While awaiting the taxi, Benito remembered not only that he had not been baptized but that he had not paid sufficient attention to what the Savior had said. He remembered a scripture he had heard read in church: “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God” (John 3:5).

The doctor in Toluca did a quick examination and immediately took Benito to the hospital, where he stayed for two days until his condition improved. A month later, on March 20, 1960, Benito was baptized. He put on his first pair of shoes and went to church.

Benito was nearing thirty. For years he had felt the urge to find a woman to marry so he could have his own family. But first he had to work and save rather than work and spend as he had been doing while helping to support his father’s growing family. What to do for an occupation that would allow him to support a family?

For years he had wanted to start his own business and earn his way through life being his own boss. A member of the Church, Gabelo Montesano, offered to sell him a dry-cleaning business (tintorería). In due course Benito was able to buy into that business in Toluca and assume ownership. He acquired customers by going door to door selling his services. However, being illiterate, he could not keep proper records, even running afoul of the government for not paying taxes that he had not heard about. He put himself on a crash course in reading and writing so he could manage his business. He even graced a classroom for the first time by going to night school with people older and younger than he. That part of his road to literacy was not satisfactory, however, because “the teacher used words I couldn’t understand.” He hired a literate employee. That helped a lot.

The couple in 1960. Photos courtesy of Benita Torre Sandoval.

At age thirty Benito Torres married Rosa Morales Gómez. Together they worked and saved, acquired a second dry-cleaning establishment, and, amid the normal stresses and vicissitudes of life, had their nine living children.[5] Benito and his wife raised their sons and daughters to have religious convictions and to want to be educated and industrious. Benito sent one daughter and his four sons on missions and lived to see four children married in the temple.

Rosa Morales Gómez and Benito Torres Sandoval, 1970.

In 1911 Benito had been a widower for thirteen years. Seeing all his children in the faith and hearing the sounds of his sixteen grandchildren about him from time to time assuaged his sadness. Knowing that he and his beloved Rosa had been able to establish an economic foundation on which many in his family could improve their lives and continue to bless the Church with their faithful service, skills, and enthusiasm gave him considerable comfort.

Of their father and grandfather, Benito’s children and grandchildren saw a man who courageously defended his beliefs, had lived the gospel, and had passed his convictions intact to them. They saw him as a worthy priesthood bearer, one who paid tithing and obeyed the Word of Wisdom. They came to believe that the Holy Spirit was guiding them through Benito’s example, consoling all in times of adversity and sorrow. They saw in their father and grandfather a conviction that we are all sons and daughters of God. They recognized that God’s pathways are ample if not sometimes mysterious and that although we may appear insignificant in the eyes of others, in God’s eyes we may be great. The children grew convinced that people just needed to have their father’s determination to follow the Savior even in times of great adversity and despite a poor foundation on which to begin life.

Down through the centuries, hundreds if not ultimately thousands of Benito Torres Sandoval’s descendants may well pause to reflect on their blessings as a consequence of a young man who listened to what he said was the Holy Spirit, pushed himself despite seemingly insurmountable odds to acquire business and parenting skills, and raised his children in the faith. It is a legacy that likely will endure until the end of time.

Notes

This vignette is based on a two-hour interview that I had with Benito Torres Sandoval at his home in Toluca, Mexico, on September 13, 2011, and a follow-up visit that Eileen and I made on September 20, 2011, at which time the Torres Sandoval family provided additional information and several photographs. This vignette also profits from the extended Torres family’s review of a Spanish translation of an earlier draft of this article and from their own subsequently written history of their father and father-in-law titled “Dios ha guiado mi vida: la historia de Benito Torres Sandoval” (“God Has Guided My Life: The History of Benito Torres Sandoval”), typescript, November 2011. Frederick Newell Raile provided the translation for the Torres family’s comments. Paula Hayde Fabela Tablas was the family redactor and author of Benito Torres Sandoval’s family biography. Eileen Roundy-Tullis and Sharman Gill commented on previous drafts of this vignette.

[1] Paula Sandoval Rivera.

[2] Francisco Torres Pérez.

[3] Ángel Torres Pérez and José Castañeda.

[4] María Escobar Castañeda.

[5] Daughters: Eliud, Rosa, Rocio, Paula, Marisol. Sons: Daniel, Abel, Isaías, Benito Jr.