I served my mission in the Canada Calgary Mission between
the years of 1991-1993. It was shortly after I returned that I met Suzanne
in the Alamo Singles Branch. We dated almost a year before we were married
in the Dallas, Texas Temple. We decided to make our home in New Braunfels
because it was such a nice and beautiful town, that was just beginning to grow
with incredible speed. It wasn't long after we began dating that we
started to notice that both of our families had a history together that went
back many years.
As we had mentioned before, Suzanne's grandfather was the
first Stake President of San Antonio, and my grandfather was the Branch
President in New Braunfels. Naturally, they worked together on a Stake
level. Both were pioneers in their own right in this area, and both
understood the importance of making the membership grow. President Bremer
played a big part in getting the church involved in the 1968 Hemisphere that was
held in San Antonio. It was because of his efforts that the church had a
meeting house on the fair grounds that allowed people to walk in and learn more
about the church. President Bremer felt strongly that this was a wonderful
opportunity to allow people in this area to be introduced to the church.
His ideas had an incredible impact on the saints in this area. It's
effects are being felt even to this day. I think that it's interesting to
note that President Bremer's design for the meeting house at Hemisphere was
designed so that it could be disassembled, and then later reassembled to be used
as a regular church meeting house. In fact, the building that was used at
Hemisphere was later in San Marcos as their place of worship.
My grandfather had the task of making the New Braunfels
Branch grow into a ward. Through many prayers and trials,   this was
accomplished. At that time, the branch was completely Spanish speaking,
and the majority of it's members were Hispanic. In some respects this made
it somewhat difficult for the members to adjust when the branch was combined
with Randolph to make up the New Braunfels Ward. The reason for this was
the language barrier. It was because of the faithfulness of the members
that this was overcome, and the ward continued to grow. President Bremer
felt that it was important that we all be unified in our purpose, therefore, we
must all work together in order to obtain the goal that we all had. There
were no longer any type of "ites" in the ward, just faithful members
that would do whatever their loving stake president would ask them to do.
Suzanne's grandmother, Gladys Wilhelm Bremer served as the
Stake Relief Society president, and it was her duty to check up on how each of
the presidencies in the wards and branches throughout the stake were
running. It was through this that Sister Bremer came to know not only my
grandmother, but also my mother. Little did they know that several years
later, their grandchildren would meet in church and eventually get married and
sealed. Suzanne and I like to think that it was more than mere chance that
we met, but that it was meant for us to come together to continue the legacy of
those whom have come before us.
President Bremer passed away in 1974, and his darling
wife, Sister Bremer just passed away this June. President Campos died in
1986, and his first wife, my grandmother, passed away just two months before I
was born in 1970. We feel that the road has been paved for us by those
pioneers that came before us, and it is now our duty to finish not only what
they have started, but to create a legacy of our own..............so the journey
begins.
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