Arwell L. Pierce

1882-1967

Arwell L. Pierce was born June 8, 1882 in Glendale, Sevier county, Utah. 

Arwell left Utah with his parents moving to the Mormon Colonies in Mexico.  During the trek south, he turned eight years old and was baptized by his father in a Southern Utah stream on July 21, 1890. He was confirmed by his father a member of the Church the same day. 

His first cousin, Brigham H. Pierce, accompanied the family on the trip.

The family arrived at Colonia Diaz, Chihuahua, Mexico, on Dec. 1, 1890. Here Arwell attended school, and was an active member of the various Church auxiliary organizations. 

Colonia Diaz was the families’ home for the next ten years.  The Pierce family experienced many hardships such as little food and clothing and poor housing conditions.  During this time Arwell worked on the farm with his father. 

In 1896, while only 14 years of age, Arwell drove a team and scraper to construct the rail bed for the Rio Grande Sierra Madre & Pacific Railroad near Dublan. 

In the early part of 1898, his father started a lumber yard in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico, and Arwell started to work with him.  During this time Arwell  attended a Mexican day school and studied Spanish, which he learned to speak almost without any foreign accent. He also learned to read and write Spanish very well. Returning again to Colonia Diaz, doing odd jobs to help earn money to support the family. 

In May of 1900, Arwell moved with his mother and the family to Colonia Dublan, where they built a home.  During the years of 1901-1903 Arwell attended the Juarez Stake Academy under the presidency of Professor Guy C. Wilson.  While in attendance, Guy C. Wilson encouraged him to take up school teaching as a profession. Due to an illness, his father needed help in the lumber business.  Arwell was forced to give úp school in order to help provide for the family. He worked in the lumberyard as bookkeeper, yardman, and managed the business. 

He was called on a mission to Mexico in 1904.

Elder Pierce arrived in Mexico City Christmas Day, 1904. He served under the President Talma E. Pomeroy and President Hyrum S. Harris. He was a conference president and second counselor to President Harris. Miraculously, he was protected from the attacks of mobs several times. During his mission, he blessed many children, baptized eight people, and ordained a number of men to the Priesthood. 

He learned the Spanish language fluently.  His ability to speak forcefully in Spanish won him the respect of his fellow missionaries and the Mexican people among whom he served. He finished his mission early due to the death of his father who died on Aug 21, 1906. 

Upon the death of his father, he organized the Juárez Lumber Company and took over the lumberyard from his father’s estate. He purchased an interest in the Juárez Lumber Company and became its manager.

Arwell Pierce married Mary Brentnell Done on October 2, 1907 in the Salt Lake Temple.

In 1912 he and his young family returned to Colonia Dublan.  The stake presidency appointed him to a committee to escort the refugees to El Paso, Texas. During the time the colonists were refugees in the lumber sheds in El Paso, he, along with Orson Pratt Brown looked after the colonists’ needs. 

He permanently moved with his family to El Paso, Texas, where he organized the first Latter-day Saint Sunday school in El Paso and was its first superintendent. He became a counselor to Philip H. Hurst in the branch presidency of the first branch of the Church in El Paso from 1912 to 1916.  In 1918 he was ordained Bishop of the El Paso ward. 

He started in the automobile business in Ciudad Juarez and Chihuahua City in 1920, and in 1928 in Arizona and El Paso, while still keeping his interests in the lumber business, but devoted the majority of his time to the automobile business.

In the year 1928 and 1929 he sold his automobile holdings in Mexico, Arizona, and El Paso choosing to devote his time to the lumber business and his farms.

In 1946 Arwell had the opportunity to serve as Mission President in the Mexico Mission and perform an incredible work to bring many disaffected Mexican saints back into the fold. 

The schism, which became known as the Third Convention, had occurred 10 years earlier.  Due to post-Revolution nationalistic Mexican sentiments, changes in the laws regarding religious officials, and feelings of disregard by Church authorities in Salt Lake City, caused one-third of the members in Mexico to leave the Church.

During the decade from 1936 to 1946, Mission Presidents Harold W. Pratt and A. Lorenzo Anderson used a firm, disciplined approach to handling the disaffected members.  This firm approach resulted in little success in bringing these Saints back into the mainline LDS Church in Mexico. 

According to Third Convention scholar F. LaMond Tullis, the majority of the Third Conventionists still practiced Mormonism faithfully.  They continued to construct buildings and send out missionaries.  They separated themselves from the mainline Church in their belief that their Mission President should be a full-blooded Latino.

At the age of almost 60 years, Arwell had developed patience and wisdom.  He understood that the Third Convention members’ main sticking point with the Church was that no native Mexicans were being called into leadership positions in the Mexican Mission. 

One of his tactics was to have Harold Brown accompany him to speak at Third Convention sacrament meetings.  He would ask Harold to “give them the word,” meaning he wanted Harold to speak harshly to the crowd, while Arwell would then speak softly pleading with them to “come back to Zion.”  This good cop/bad cop approach worked well in softening the hearts of the disaffected.     

Over time, exercising much patience and diligent service,  Arwell was able to get the self-exiled members’ from obsessing about not having a Latin Mission Presidency to what they really should focus on…becoming a full-fledged Stake with a functioning Stake Presidency and auxiliaries staffed by Latin members.   

In 1946 through much back and forth between the Third Convention and The LDS First Presidency in Salt Lake City, Arwell L. Pierce was able to broker a peace agreement.  In 1946 President George Albert Smith visited the members of the Third Convention welcoming them back into fold.  

Arwell served as President of the Mesa, Arizona Temple from 1953–1960.

Arwell L. Pierce died October 23, 1967 In Americus, Georgia.  He was buried in El Paso, Texas

Various sources were used in creating this life sketch. http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=121696605 

F. LaMond Tullis

A Shepherd to Mexico’s Saints: Arwell L. Pierce and the Third Convention

https://ojs.lib.byu.edu/spc/index.php/BYUStudies/article/viewFile/6437/6086