c. 2004 Religion New Service

CARY, N.C. _ When people ask Carlos Calderon his religion, the last thing they expect to hear is Mormon.

“They can’t make the connection,” said Calderon, 41, a native of the Dominican Republic and now the president of the new Spanish-speaking Mormon congregation in Cary, N.C. “In some people’s minds this is a Utah-based white people’s church.”

Once a predominantly U.S.-centered religious institution, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has become international. Of its 12 million members worldwide, more than half, 6.4 million, live outside the United States, the majority in Spanish-speaking countries.

Calderon, who was baptized into the faith as a teenager, is one of an estimated 144,000 Spanish-speaking Mormons in the United States. At the first service of the new Cary congregation in May, members wept as they described how happy they were to be speaking their native tongue in church.

Over the past six months, eight Spanish-speaking Mormon congregations, also called branches, have organized across North Carolina. These groups, typically between 25 and 150 people, are made up of people who were introduced to the faith in Mexico, or Central or South America, and others who were baptized into the church after migrating to the United States. Also attending are U.S. native Mormons who enjoy speaking Spanish.

Across the country, there are 482 Spanish-speaking Mormon congregations of various sizes. California leads with 138 Spanish speaking congregations, followed by Texas and Utah with 48 congregations each. In addition, the church has 2,800 missionaries serving Spanish-speaking people in the United States.

These congregations give Spanish speakers the chance to assume leadership roles they may have been reluctant to take, said Harry J. Maxwell, president of the Apex stake or church geographical region. Throughout the world Hispanics have taken on leadership roles in the Mormon church.

“You have a number of experienced men and women,” Maxwell said. “The language inhibited them from being a full part of the church.”

Like many others, Hispanics are attracted to the Mormon church because of its emphasis on family. The family lies at the core of Mormon doctrine, which teaches that marriage is ordained by God and that families live on in eternity. Spirituality is another draw.

“They have a deep and abiding belief in Jesus Christ,” said Dan Mabey, mission president for the Mormon church in Eastern North Carolina.

Mormon Scriptures, particularly the Book of Mormon, teach that Jesus visited North America soon after his resurrection and preached his plan of salvation to the ancient inhabitants of the Americas.

That connection to native people appealed to 16-year-old Calderon, who read the Book of Mormon in his native Santo Domingo. His family converted shortly afterward in 1979.

For these and other reasons, the Mormon church has experienced phenomenal growth.

In 2002, for the first time, the Mormon church edged out the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America as the fifth-largest denomination in the country with 5.2 million members, according to the Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches. (Catholics, Baptists, Methodists and members of the Church of God in Christ represent the top four denominations.)

North Carolina is no stranger to that growth. Membership in the church nearly doubled over the past 20 years, from 29,512 in 1980, to 56,000 today.

But the opening of Cary’s Spanish branch, the smallest unit in the Mormon church, was especially exciting for families who previously have sat through English-language services listening to Spanish translations on headphones.

For Fiorella Guerra of Cary, the new Spanish congregation will allow her children _ Maxwell,10, and Arisha, 6 _ to hear and talk to other Spanish-speaking Mormons. “Our children will now have the opportunity to speak their language, have role models and socialize among Latinos,” she said.

Even U.S.-born Mormons were thrilled with the service. Cindy Arriagada, who was born in Los Angeles to Salvadoran parents but speaks English like a native, said she wanted to be part of a Spanish-speaking congregation.

“I grew up going to church in Spanish,” said Arriagada, 26, of Raleigh. “When I pray now, I still pray in Spanish.”

At the worship service, called a sacrament meeting, members sang in their own language such Mormon hymns as “I Stand All Amazed” and “Because I Have Been Given Much.” Then they shared bread and water, which Mormons believe represent the body and blood of Jesus.

“Today we are writing the beginning of a great story here in Cary,” said Eduardo Claros, a church leader, standing at the podium. The 45 Hispanics nodded in agreement.

DEA/JL END SHIMRON