“I had visited different churches, but I didn’t really like the feeling that I had in there. I was not really looking for a religion. I didn’t know what I needed,” Sister Aburto says.
Sister Reyna I. Aburto, who was recently called as second counselor in the Relief Society general presidency, referring to the time when she learned about the Church, said, “I found something that I didn’t even know that I needed.”
Born in Managua, Nicaragua, to Noel Blanco and Delbi Cardoza, Reyna was the second of four children. “My life in Nicaragua was simple,” she said. “We didn’t really have much, but at the same time my parents always worked hard so they could provide for us, just the basics. I had a very happy childhood. I grew up playing with my cousins and walking to school.”
When she was 9 years old, tragedy struck just days before Christmas in 1972. Her family had gone to bed on Dec. 22 when an earthquake shook Managua.
“All of a sudden, I woke up, and I felt like I was in a nightmare,” Sister Aburto recalled.