In 1974, Tom and Jackie Montoya, their four daughters—Pam, Cyndy, Terry, and Tricia—and Terry’s boyfriend, Ferrell, left on an extended camping vacation to Utah from their home in Florida. The family of avid campers looked forward to exploring new trails, but what they didn’t know is that one of those trails in the middle of the Utah desert would lead them to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
An Unspoken Desire
Before leaving for Utah, Tom recalls a passing thought he had: “It would be great if we could run into somebody that would take us in tow and show us the backcountry.”
Two weeks into their trip, that unspoken desire was fulfilled. Tom describes the moment: “As we traveled a jeep trail through Bears Ears and Natural Bridges National Monument, we pulled up behind a group of people waiting at an intersection. I walked up to the group and asked, ‘Is there someplace we can camp up here?’ One in the group said, ‘You can camp anywhere, but you need to know where the water is.’”
As Tom thanked them for the information and turned to leave, one of the men broke away from the group and generously invited the family with the modified Chevrolet Blazer and Florida license plate to join them, explaining that they were just a group of “Mormon” families from Provo enjoying the weekend. The Montoyas then followed their new friends to their campsite a few miles up the mountains.
The Montoya family remembers nothing but kindness from these Utah families. Tricia, the youngest Montoya daughter, recalls, “Even as a 12-year-old, I was intrigued that a group of people who had an established relationship would welcome total strangers to join them on their weekend camping trip.”
“We were just so impressed with the way they treated us and the way they treated each other that we had to know more,” Tom says. “The rest of the week and a half that we had before we had to get back to Florida, that’s all we could talk about. It was absolutely the highlight of the whole trip.”
No Accident
After a couple of days together, the Montoyas and the Provo group said their goodbyes and parted ways—but not for long. While Tom took the car in for some repairs before the family’s return trip to Florida, Jackie and their soon-to-be-high-school-graduate daughter, Cyndy, took a tour of Brigham Young University at the invitation of one of their new friends.
“As we were walking around campus, I knew, with complete certainty, that this is where I wanted to attend college,” Cyndy recalls.
For various reasons, Tom and Jackie were initially hesitant about their daughter applying to BYU. But Cyndy’s determination prevailed. Tom asked a Latter-day Saint coworker to write a letter of recommendation for his daughter, which ultimately led the Montoyas to begin lessons with the missionaries and Cyndy to be accepted to BYU.
Both then and now, everyone involved in that camping trip attests that the families’ meeting was no accident. Scot Johnson, the son of one of the Provo couples recalls: “This chance meeting at the intersection of two nondescript dirt roads at the foot of the Blue Mountains near Blanding, Utah, was anything but a chance meeting. Tom had chosen the right road.”
Tom agrees the meeting was divinely orchestrated. “I knew it then and I know it even more so now because of what has taken place since. Ten minutes one way there or the other, we would not have met. That was planned from the beginning. I know it for sure.”
“There is no doubt that our Heavenly Father knows us and that He is in the smallest details of our lives,” Tricia adds. “I know that it was not by chance that we met those families where we did and when we did.”
“I have a testimony of sharing the gospel by just living it,” the Montoya’s oldest daughter, Pam, says. “Don’t ever underestimate the power of being a good example! You never know when you might be the answer to someone’s silent prayer.”
Paths to Conversion
Seven months after their camping trip and meeting regularly with missionaries in Florida, Tom, Jackie, and Tricia were baptized and confirmed members of the Church.
Tricia remembers the good feeling in her home when the missionaries came to visit: “It was a feeling I did not want to be without. I was eager to follow my parent’s lead and was the first to shout, ‘YES!’ when the elders asked if we would be interested in being baptized.”
Religion had been an important part of Tom and Jackie’s life, and for Tom, the Church filled in some of the gaps in his Methodist beliefs.
“We’d been associated with good people before, but nothing like this,” Tom recalls. “I finally realized it was simply the gift of the Holy Ghost.” Tom and Jackie were sealed in the Washington D.C. Temple one year and 10 days after their baptisms during a stake temple trip.
Tricia likewise remembers something different about these Latter-day Saints from Provo. “Their friendship and sharing the gospel by living it impressed me, to the extent that living the gospel and sharing it by example has always been a core part of my testimony.”
Though she was accepted to BYU as a non-member, Cyndy was also baptized five months before attending college, where her testimony flourished.
For Pam and Terry, however, the decision to join the Church came more slowly. Pam decided to apply to BYU, in part to avoid the increasing feeling of pressure to get baptized like her parents and in part because she had a sister already there. But it wasn’t long after arriving that her heart changed, and she, too, decided to be baptized.
Pam is grateful for the support her Utah friends showed her on that special day. “The classroom on campus that had a baptismal font was filled to capacity with members of the branch and many of those families that we had met in southern Utah that summer of 1974,” she recalls. “I dare say that there was not a dry eye in the group!”
As for Terry, it wasn’t until she and Ferrell got married a few years after that camping trip that she began to feel something was missing. Noticing, in particular, the improved relationship she had with her father since his baptism and the happiness her parents seemed to have, she eventually decided to get baptized, as did Ferrell.
“Over the years, our family had our fair share of trials, and when I look back, I can see Heavenly Father’s hand in them,” she says. “The blessings we received help us through those trials. Divine intervention glowed, and I knew exactly where it came from each time.”
The Montoya family’s conversion has not only impacted them but also their Provo friends. Mark Johnson, who was serving a mission at the time, remembers reading about the story of his family meeting the Montoyas and the Montoya family’s conversion in his father’s letters.
And Mark’s younger sister, Joani, who was on the camping trip with all their family friends has shared the story many times along with her testimony that “you never know who is noticing you, and you can influence them for good or bad.”
50 Years Later
Over the years, the Montoya family has remained close. With the 50th anniversary of their camping trip approaching, now 90-year-old Tom wanted to hold an extra special family reunion to celebrate.
With help from his daughters and Mark and Joani’s brother, Scot, Tom planned a large celebration in June 2024. The gathering included not only members of his own family but also surviving members of the Provo families.
Tricia recalls how special it was to see the reunion come to fruition after watching her father plan and prepare for it for over a year. Pam says, “It was nothing short of a miracle that all 78 members of our family were able to attend this 50th anniversary gathering.”
It was a special time for family and friends alike. “When I saw Tom Montoya and introduced myself, we hugged and tears flowed,” Joani says. “Meeting Tom at 90 years old was so incredible.”
Relying on caterers and others to provide the food, tents, and even a toilet trailer, the family was able to spend more time together focusing on the most important things, such as holding a special meeting in the family’s “sacred grove”—the spot that they first met their Provo friends.
“It helped solidify our family even closer, even those that are not on the covenant path,” Tom says. “They were there and glad to be there.”
And though Tom’s intent was not to preach to family members who haven’t remained active in the Church he joined 50 years ago, he did want them to know how important the gospel and family are to him.
“It was important to Tom that his progeny see and experience the spot on this earth that changed the Montoya family’s future forever,” Scot shares.
Unfortunately, Scot was injured in a motorcycle accident on his way to join the special program. He received emergency first aid from medical professionals in the Montoya family and a priesthood blessing before going to the closest emergency room.
Cyndy says that being prepared to help with this medical emergency made the Montoyas grateful that “in a small way, our family was able to give something back to the families who introduced us to our everything.”
Joani remembers the powerful spirit she felt when the meeting continued:
“Tom Montoya bore his testimony to all of us from Utah and all his posterity. It was a special moment up there in the beautiful mountains. Rain clouds were gathering, and thunder was heard. Then we sang ‘I Am a Child of God’ as rain began to fall. But we all just stayed and sang as the Spirit testified.”
The entire week was a beautiful time of reminiscing and reacquainting, and Pam says a sort of “FOMO” settled in as the week drew to a close. “The last few nights of the reunion, more people were staying up later, enjoying each other’s company because it would soon be coming to an end.”
Though the loss of Jackie Montoya, who passed away a little over a year ago, was felt, Terry believes her mother was glad to see this reunion, too. “The fondest memory I have of the reunion was when my granddaughter came up to me and said, ‘You know, Nana, Mommer is here, I can feel her here,’” Terry shares. “For her to recognize that, at the age of 8 years old, made me realize what a blessing it is to have the Church in our lives.”
The Seed That Keeps Growing
Tom and Jackie Montoya’s decision to accept a stranger’s offer to camp with them, and their future decisions to join the Church, have had a lifelong impact on their family. It is something Cyndy has thought about for years:
“What was it about this particular group of people that inspired my parents to make a seismic life change when they were 40? How grateful I am that they had the courage to do that, and then be so completely dedicated to the gospel for the rest of their lives.
“I think it was because our new friends were genuine in their friendship. They didn’t have an agenda, or a plan for converting us. They were just extending real friendship to us, and that continued even after our initial camping trip.”
As for Tom, he is grateful to be enjoying the part of the gospel of Jesus Christ that caught his and his wife’s interest the most: family.
“Everything that we do in the Church leads to one word, and that is ‘family,’” he says. “I was re-reading the conference talks this past April, and the newest apostle, Elder [Patrick Kearon’s] address was that Heavenly Father’s intent was for everyone to return home. And I tell you, that hit me. That’s it—it’s the family. That’s what it’s all about.”
For more inspiring stories of faith, read the articles below:
▶ A member in Ivory Coast has become an unbelievably effective missionary—here’s how he does it
▶ Meet the family who’s served in 100 temples (and counting) around the world
▶ Berklee grad’s story of returning to the Church is as inspiring as his new music
