The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was founded in the early 19th-century United States among people largely of European descent. This panel of pioneers of the LDS Church in the Caribbean will broaden our understanding of the religious experience of early converts in a globally expanding Church.
Victor and Verna Nugent were the first people to join the LDS Church on the island of Jamaica in 1974. The Nugents witnessed the dedication of Jamaica for missionary work in 1978 and the organization of the first stake in Jamaica in 2014. Victor Nugent was the first Jamaican elder and first Jamaican branch and district president. In 2000, the Nugents immigrated to Utah and currently run a business in Orem. All of their children graduated from BYU.
Pooran Bridgelal is a member of the LDS Church from Trinidad and Tobago and was a member in the early 1990s when the Trinidad and Tobago mission was created. He is a genealogist focusing on the West Indies and India. He currently lives in Toronto, Canada. He will participate in the panel virtually.
Part of our fall 2022 lecture series, "The Global Religious Experience."