{"id":50965,"date":"2025-08-16T04:37:38","date_gmt":"2025-08-16T10:37:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/?p=50965"},"modified":"2025-08-15T07:36:43","modified_gmt":"2025-08-15T13:36:43","slug":"eduardo-balderas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2025\/08\/eduardo-balderas\/","title":{"rendered":"Eduardo Balderas"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.fromthedesk.org\/eduardo-balderas-ignacio-garcia\/\">Eduardo Balderas<\/a> is an often-overlooked figure who made tremendous contributions to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In a recent interview at the Latter-day Saint history blog\u00a0<em>From the Desk<\/em>, biographer Ignacio Garcia shared some insights into who Balderas was.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"14xw0Hfl3t\"><p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.fromthedesk.org\/eduardo-balderas-ignacio-garcia\/\">Who Was Eduardo Balderas?<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; visibility: hidden;\" title=\"&#8220;Who Was Eduardo Balderas?&#8221; &#8212; From the Desk\" src=\"https:\/\/www.fromthedesk.org\/eduardo-balderas-ignacio-garcia\/embed\/#?secret=NKnkeztGgp#?secret=14xw0Hfl3t\" data-secret=\"14xw0Hfl3t\" width=\"500\" height=\"282\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Ignacio Garcia shared some information about who Eduardo Balderas was:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Eduardo Balderas came to the United States from Mexico with his family as a refugee fleeing the Mexican Revolution in 1910. He was three years old when his Father, Mother, and a younger brother crossed the border to El Paso, Texas. He would become The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints\u2019 first official, full-time translator (Spanish), and without doubt its most significant translator since Joseph Smith. &#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Spanish-speaking Latter-day Saints came to admire Eduardo Balderas for his translation work of the Doctrine &amp; Covenants, Pearl of Great Price, the temple ceremony, and other works he made accessible in Spanish. Similarly, they observed him as a patriarch and often saw him traveling with other General Authorities.<\/p>\n<p>Since there was no Spanish-speaking General Authority, they chose to recognize him as an unofficial one, thus giving them someone who \u201cspoke with authority\u201d.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>He was beloved and was seen as a key figure representing Latino Latter-day Saints at Church headquarters.<\/p>\n<p>As mentioned above, Eduardo Balderas&#8217;s most crucial contributions were his translations of Church literature into Spanish. As Garcia explained, when it came to the Doctrine and Covenants and the Pearl of Great Price,<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The translation of those two scriptural books provided the Spanish-speaking Saints a\u00a0<strong>greater understanding of the gospel.<\/strong>\u00a0It also provided them with a deeper doctrine than normally taught, and the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.fromthedesk.org\/doctrine-and-covenants-come-follow-me\/\">Doctrine and Covenants<\/a>\u00a0gave them a better understanding of church leadership and protocol.<\/p>\n<p>Lacking these books, the Saints would have found it difficult to progress in the church and would have kept them like children in their own branches and wards.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Another example of this was his work in translating the endowment ceremony into Spanish (the first time it was translated from English to another language):<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>For Spanish-speaking members, translating the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.fromthedesk.org\/latter-day-saint-endowment\/\">temple endowment<\/a>\u00a0into their language enabled them to\u00a0<strong>understand the words and meanings of temple ceremonies<\/strong>\u00a0as they sealed themselves to their families.<\/p>\n<p>Additionally, it provided training in aspects of the gospel not commonly taught in classes and helped the Mexican community develop leadership.<\/p>\n<p>Translating the endowment into Spanish also meant that it would need to be translated into other languages across the world. Making the sacred accessible to most members was a great breakthrough for the church, and one more instance of the Church growing into a global faith. Without a translated endowment and a translated canon, the Church\u2019s mission to take the gospel to all the world would have been stymied.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>He had the backing of mission president Lorin Jones, who, &#8220;while active in getting the Church to change its stance on the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.fromthedesk.org\/lets-talk-about-temples-and-ritual\/\">temple rituals<\/a>\u2014that they should only be in English\u2014was responding not only to his own views, but to Spanish-speaking leaders who were asking for the translation of the temple rites.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>As Ignacio Garcia noted, &#8220;there are many people from diverse backgrounds, including various ethnicities, nationalities, and races, who have contributed to the growth of the Latter-day Saint gospel. We must know their history, and\u00a0<em>Eduardo Balderas: Father of Church Translation<\/em>, is my contribution.&#8221; For more information about <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fromthedesk.org\/eduardo-balderas-ignacio-garcia\/\">Eduardo Balderas<\/a>, head on over and read the full interview at the Latter-day Saint history blog,\u00a0<em>From the Desk<\/em>. You can also see my review of the biography here: <a href=\"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2025\/03\/a-review-eduardo-balderas-father-of-church-translation-1907-1989\/\">A Review: Eduardo Balderas: Father of Church Translation, 1907\u20131989<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Eduardo Balderas is an often-overlooked figure who made tremendous contributions to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In a recent interview at the Latter-day Saint history blog\u00a0From the Desk, biographer Ignacio Garcia shared some insights into who Balderas was.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10397,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2890],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-50965","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-from-the-desk"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50965","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10397"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50965"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50965\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50968,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50965\/revisions\/50968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}