Wendy Gonzalez shares her family’s story of emigrating from Venezuela to the United States. (Haz clic aquí para leer la entrevista original en español.)

I was born in Naguanagua, Venezuela. I was raised for seven years in my grandmother’s house with my aunts and uncles as brothers and sisters. My mom then met my stepfather, they married, and my brothers and sisters were born. I met my husband, Jaime, when I was 16, and when I was 18 I moved out with him. After a year, Nathy was born.

Things were becoming difficult in Naguanagua, so we moved in with Jaime’s mom. We lived there for three years, during which time Emmanuel was born and we were married. Meanwhile, we studied at the university and worked. Jaime was teaching history at a high school and at the university. I studied business administration and got a job with the mayor’s office working for some of the councilors.

The situation was getting worse, and 99% of the people continued to be kind. But we began to see irregularities, problems in the government. Jaime resigned because of concerns he had, and they ended up firing me as well. It was difficult because at that time we were seeing shortages. There was a group in each neighborhood in charge of making a list of people whose turn it was to go shopping. When we lost our jobs, they also removed us from that list. We had no way to get food. People began to be more afraid of police and other officials than gangs.

We decided to emigrate, but we could only get two hundred dollars together so Jaime went alone to Ecuador. One day, a couple of missionaries saw him sitting in the street looking sad and brought him to the church. They talked to him, spent time with them and after some weeks he told me that he liked the Church and the way they treated him. He called to tell me he was getting baptized. With the help of some members in Ecuador, we joined Jaime in Ecuador, a trip through Colombia that consisted in a series of miracles for us. There, I also met the missionaries. Every Monday we did something with them. Natalia and I also decided to be baptized.

Wendy Gonzalez

We worked for a year in Ecuador, both of us. But at that time a lot of Venezuelans were coming, and some of them were not behaving well and no one wanted to hire us anymore. We decided to go to Peru. After working there for a while, we received the news that the border to the United States was open to Venezuelans seeking asylum. We meditated on this and I told Jaime that I had the conviction that God would bring us to that point. We gathered all the money that we had and made our way to Colombia. From there, we began to pay and pay and pay. A lot of bad people had figured out that immigrants had to pass through that jungle. We bought everything we needed for cooking, but it was stolen from us and we were left with tuna fish and candy. We burned everything we had to stay warm except for our identification and diplomas. We saw bodies—one tarp with an entire family dead. Another time, a woman died giving birth and the baby died. On the third day, we heard wild animals at night and Jaime said, “We’re not getting out of here!” I told him, “I trust in the Lord.” I felt that we could. I knew that the Lord would help us and He would get us out of there. We kept the children from seeing too much. They robbed us, they treated us poorly, but nothing really bad happened to us. For every group that robbed us, there was also a group that shared their wet bread with us. We met a lot of Haitians and Cubans that showed us how to follow clothing that had been hung to mark the way. It was dangerous. Jaime bought a machete and at the end of the trip, he couldn’t unclench his fist because he never opened his hand to let go of the machete—only with therapy could he open his hand again. It took us seven days. You only take this trip out of necessity.

We finally got to a refuge in Panama and the solders took down all of our information. Again, the Church and others helped us to move from Panama to Costa Rica where they said they’d alert someone that we were coming. The adrenaline from crossing the jungle was lowering and we all got sick. Emmanuel had to be hospitalized. From bishop to bishop, we passed through Nicaragua, Honduras, and Guatemala. But crossing the border to Mexico was complicated. A boy took us on his motorcycle. He had to first take the two children and leave them in a certain spot in Mexico and return for Jaime and me. Trusting my kids to a stranger was the only way to move forward. We didn’t have another option. We couldn’t be in Venezuela. I had to talk to the Lord and finally He convinced me that nothing would happen.

Wendy Gonzalez and Family

Over the border in Mexico, we waited for three months. We couldn’t move through the country while we were waiting for our papers in Mexico, but no one wanted to hire us. Again we trusted in the brothers and sisters of the Church. One of the bishops had buildings that he rented and he offered me work cleaning. There, I met a tenant who had a restaurant. He was impressed with the work I did and offered me a job. We have such a deep love for Humberto. We worked for two months for him.

We then got in contact with Hayden Anderson, who had baptized Jaime when he was a missionary. He offered to help us once we arrived in the United States. At that moment, the immigration in Mexico called us to tell us that we could go and pick up our humanitarian visas and continue the trip. From there, we went to Mexico City and on to the border. Just crossing the river remained. We met a boy who said he would help us find a place to cross. It was like something out of a spy movie. He left us at a stoplight and told us to run into the river. We got in the river, and in the middle the agents helped us to get out. From there, they took us to detention.

That was the 11th of May. The next day was Mother’s Day, and I told the patrol officer that they had given me the Mother’s Day gift of being together with my family in the United States. We spent three days there while they reviewed our paperwork so that we could leave there for San Antonio and then on to Salt Lake City where Hayden was waiting for us. We met his mom and his family. We found work, got help from the Cache Refugee and Immigrant Connection, and members of the Church gave us clothes and furniture.

Hayden’s mom, Judy, gifted us a piano a piano because Emmanuel had begun to play by ear—when he was little, he liked to draw lines on the table and pretend to “play.” Now he really can play. And my Natalia, who would play soccer in the dust with the boys wearing her school uniform skirt is now playing for her high school team.

Wendy Gonzalez

We had good experiences learning about the church in Ecuador, but we really learned about the gospel through our trip. We were surprised when we saw that everyone was making a spider’s web that involved members of the Church. The trip, for me, was like the Lord was proving my faith and everything that I’d said in Peru when I said I trusted the Lord.

When we arrived here it was like He said to me, “Yes, you trusted me,” and He opened the door. When our stake president was interviewing us to go through the temple and be sealed together as a family, he talked about the importance of the temple recommend, and what it means for us to know that we are worthy to go into the temple. We understand the importance of documents and passports. Jaime likes to hold up his temple recommend now and say that this is the only “passport” he needs.

INTERVIEW PRODUCED BY JENNY WILLMORE

NAME: Wendy Gonzalez
AGE: 37
LOCATION: Logan, Utah
MARITAL HISTORY: married since 2005
CHILDREN: 2 kids
CONVERT TO THE CHURCH: August 2016
EDUCATION: My education was in Venezuela
LANGUAGES SPOKEN AT HOME: Spanish
FAVORITE HYMN: Let Zion in Her Beauty Rise

At A Glance

Interview Produced by: Jenny Willmore