Rafael Monroy's Ordination and Establishment of the San Marcos Branch

When Latter-day Saint missionaries were called to leave Mexico City due to the revolution, a new convert named Rafael Monroy expressed his sorrow and concern for the new members left without leadership. President Rey L. Pratt ordained him an elder and set him apart as a branch president. Monroy returned to San Marcos, and through his leadership, the branch grew from fifteen members to over seventy-five, with more than fifty baptisms in two years.

Before his ordination, Rafael Monroy had been baptized on June 11, 1913, by Elder W. Ernest Young in a grove near a river in San Marcos, an event witnessed by President Rey L. Pratt. In the two years following his ordination and appointment as branch president, membership in the San Marcos Branch grew from just the Monroy family to as many as forty people, with the branch becoming a known refuge for Latter-day Saints displaced by the civil war.