Breathing Free Air
Martha Taborga Coca came of age in Oruro, Bolivia, in the late 1960s under the eye of a strict father who was a miner with a military parenting style. He ensured that his daughter did not spend much time outside of the house socializing with friends. “He would not let us go to parties or worse meetings with other youth,” she remembered. When Martha expressed the desire to serve God as a Catholic nun, he dissuaded her by giving her a reference card for the Church missionaries. Martha eventually took the missionary lessons and was baptized not long after.
“I arrived at the Church and I breathed free air,” Martha said. Her commitment to attending Church activities was so strong that when her mother told her she needed to clean the house before leaving for service on Sunday, Martha worked early enough to finish the task on time.
Her first calling in her branch was as a Primary worker. “I loved being in the Primary with the children. I identified with them because as I was always mischievous, we had these things in common.”
Serving in the Primary taught her simple gospel truths and helped her meet members of the branch through their children. She benefited from excellent teachers and formed friendships with early Church members in Oruro, such as Carmen Molina, Francisco Morales, and branch president Gover Ríos and his family. Martha recalled joining other members who defended the Church from efforts to convince members and investigators in the area to turn away from the gospel.
Martha’s father was more lenient in allowing her to attend Church activities than other social events. While attending missionary activities and watching the missionaries teach, Martha observed that “they were mostly North Americans and a lot of the time, they knew, but they only knew the discussions and the scriptures and could not expand further.” She saw the need for Latino missionaries who knew the culture and language. When Martha approached her parents about serving a mission, her mother did not understand. She asked her father to please let her go. Her strict father, whose obstacles had kept her from participating in many social activities growing up, told her that he would not place any barriers in her way. He helped her fill out her papers.
Money, however, was a larger obstacle. Martha and her parents did not have the 2,000 Bolivian dollars required to serve. Fortunately, Martha’s aunt loaned her the money she needed. Martha became the first Bolivian woman to serve a mission for the Church, fulfilling her call in Ecuador.
Martha Taborga Coca (left).