Eduardo Ayala expected that the interview with
President Gordon B. Hinckley, then First Counselor
in the First Presidency, might mean a call for him and his wife to serve
as missionaries somewhere. It came as a shock when President Hinckley called
him to be a member of the Seventy.
Elder Ayala, a regional coordinator for the Church
Educational System in Santiago, Chile, had made it a practice since his
baptism twenty-one years earlier never to withhold his service from the Lord
in any way. He accepted the new call. Only later, when he had time to think
about it, did he begin to be awed by the spiritual responsibility that
would be his.
He was sustained as a member of the Seventy, along
with nine other men, during the afternoon session of general conference
on March 31, 1990
Afterward, the Ayalas shared their joy in the calling
with their three children. Eldest son Patricio Eduardo, a photographer
by profession, is their bishop in Santiago; he was eager to give the news
to their ward the next day. Their daughter, Viviana Ester, lives in Japan,
where her husband, a computer expert, is employed. Younger son Ricardo
Antonio is a computer science major at the University of Utah in Salt Lake
City.
Then fifty-two, Eduardo Ayala was born 3 May 1937
in Coronel, Chile, to Magdonio and Maria Aburto Ayala. He married Blanca
Ester Espinoza, a native of Rinconada de Laja, Chile, on 7 February 1959.
Elder Ayala says that he owes his Church membership
and activity to the patience and support of his wife. Missionaries of The
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints first came to their door in
1969. Ester was soon ready to be baptized, but Eduardo was not enthusiastic
about the missionaries’ message at first. She waited patiently, and when
she agreed to a baptismal date six months after the missionaries began
teaching them, he was prepared. Eduardo, Ester, and Patricio were baptized
on 21 June 1969. Viviana and Ricardo were baptized later when they reached
the age of eight.
Sister Ayala “has been my architect,” Elder Ayala
says. “I am what you see because of the help of my wife.” He credits her
not only with helping him find the gospel but also with helping him shape
his own character in ways that make it possible for him to serve the Lord
effectively. He notes that the challenges given to him by General Authorities
during his years of Church service have been helpful, too; he has always
taken pains to meet those challenges, and growth has always been the result.
Eduardo Ayala’s outstanding work in industrial planning
for a mining company in Coronel won him a position in Santiago as a planner
for three of Chile’s largest enterprises in the early 1970s. It was in
Santiago, in 1974, that Elder Boyd K. Packer
of the Quorum of the Twelve called him to be a stake president and
on the same day issued him the invitation to work in the Church Educational
System in Chile. Since then, Elder Ayala has accepted successive calls
as president of another stake, as a regional representative, as a temple sealer, as a mission president
(in Uruguay), and as a regional representative again.
Sister Ayala said her husband has his own innate
qualities that make him an effective leader and servant of the Lord. He
communicates well with people and lets them feel his love. “He loves to
help them better their lives,” Sister Ayala said. “He doesn’t put any limits
on the time it takes him to serve.”
Elder Ayala expressed gratitude for his wife’s constant
support and acknowledged the need in handling his new responsibilities
to rely on the Lord. He and his wife were eager to serve the Church. “I
have no fear in facing this calling, with the Lord for my guide and my
wife to help me,” he said.
Elder Ayala fulfilled his five-year call to serve in
the Second Quorum of the Seventy and was honorably released on September
30, 1995.
