Juan Subirats Ventura — Arrested and Beaten for Hosting a Sacrament Meeting in Franco's Spain (1953)

In 1948, Jordi Subirats Ventura, a sixteen-year-old in Barcelona, Spain, wrote a letter addressed simply to "President, Mormon Church, Salt Lake City, Utah" after a Protestant minister suggested the Mormons "had some very interesting teachings." The Church's Translation Department sent him a Book of Mormon and other materials, and Jordi asked whether members might write to his family. Among those who did was Betty Gibbs, a secretary in the Translation Department. Jordi and his brother Juan studied the gospel, but under the dictatorship of Francisco Franco non-Catholic religious ceremonies were illegal in Spain — so the converts had to leave the country to be baptized. Jordi and his brother-in-law traveled to Nice, France, in 1950; Juan was baptized in the chilly waters of the Mediterranean on April 29, 1952, and confirmed while still sitting, wet and cold, on a rock on the beach.

In July 1953, forty American sailors from the U.S. Sixth Fleet, all in white uniforms, came to Juan's Barcelona apartment. They held a meeting together, singing hymns and partaking of the sacrament. The sailors did not realize that under Franco's regime it was against the law for more than five people to meet together without official permission. "It was against the law for a group of more than five persons to meet together without official permission," Juan later explained. Two days later, two policemen came for him.

Juan's mother, who had been warned of the danger when he called home ("We have some 'gindas' here," she told him — the family's code word for the red-jacketed police), accompanied him to the police station on Via Layetana, where he was booked and put in a cell. When she returned that evening, the officer in charge insisted no one named Juan Ventura was being held there. Then she heard the first line of "Come, Come, Ye Saints" being whistled — the family's own signal, whistled at the door of their apartment building — coming from inside the station. "Oh yes, he's here. He's right over there," she said, pointing to the sound. When a policeman went to look, they found Juan asleep in his cell.

During four days of imprisonment Juan was repeatedly tortured. He was made to lean against a wall with his full weight on his thumbs and beaten on the back with a rubber hose while police demanded over and over, "Are you a member of the Mormon Church?" He was put under a freezing shower fully clothed and left to dry in his cell. He was stretched on a table and beaten on the soles of his feet so severely that the tendons were damaged without leaving a mark — he could barely walk, and felt the effects for years. On the fourth day, a policeman who had known Juan in school days saw his condition, went to the prison officials, and vouched that Juan had no political involvement. Within hours Juan was released — so dazed that he wandered toward the port until a taxi driver who knew him took him home.

The years that followed proved the Lord's timing. Betty Gibbs returned to Spain, and she and Juan were married in Paris in May 1954, their marriage later solemnized in the Salt Lake Temple. After nearly two decades in the United States, Juan returned to Barcelona in 1972 at the encouragement of his friend President Spencer W. Kimball to help establish the very Church he had been persecuted for joining. He became the first local Spanish member to serve as president of the Barcelona Branch, later served as a district president and a counselor to three mission presidents, and in 1979 President Kimball set him apart as a temple sealer in the Swiss Temple — where many of the future stake presidents and General Authorities of the Church in Spain were sealed by Juan's own hands. The man once beaten in a Barcelona jail cell for passing the sacrament became the man who sealed Spain's Saints to their families for eternity.

Fuller account of this event (in the witness’s own words):

In July 1953, forty American sailors from the U.S. Sixth Fleet, all in white uniforms, came to my apartment in Barcelona. We held a meeting together, singing hymns and partaking of the sacrament. We did not realize that under Franco's regime it was against the law for more than five people to meet together without official permission. Two days later, two policemen came for me. My mother, who had been warned of the danger when I called home—we used the code word 'gindas' for the red-jacketed police—accompanied me to the police station on Via Layetana, where I was booked and put in a cell. When she returned that evening, the officer in charge insisted no one named Juan Ventura was being held there. Then she heard a tune being whistled—it was the first line of 'Come, Come, Ye Saints.' This is what family members whistled when entering the front door of the apartment building where we lived. It was a signal for someone inside the apartment, one flight up, to open the door. When my mother heard this whistling, she said, 'Oh yes, he's here. He's right over there'—pointing to where the sound came from. When a policeman went inside to find me, I was asleep! During four days of imprisonment, I was repeatedly tortured. I was made to lean against a wall with my full weight on my thumbs and beaten on the back with a rubber hose while police demanded over and over, 'Are you a member of the Mormon Church?' I was put under a freezing shower fully clothed and left to dry in my cell. I was stretched on a table and beaten on the soles of my feet so severely that the tendons were damaged without leaving a mark—I could barely walk, and felt the effects for years. On the fourth day, a policeman who had known me in school days saw my condition, went to the prison officials, and vouched that I had no political involvement. Within hours I was released—so dazed that I wandered toward the port until a taxi driver who knew me took me home.