Elder Ricardo P. Giménez
General Authority Seventy
Members of the Church in Antofagasta, Chile, will long remember the April 2019 general conference for the announcement of a future temple there and the calling of a native son, Elder Ricardo P. Giménez, as a General Authority Seventy.
As he contemplates the responsibilities of his new calling, Elder Giménez finds faith and courage in the adage “Whom the Lord calls, the Lord qualifies” (Thomas S. Monson, “Duty Calls,” Ensign, May 1996, 44).
“I’ve taught that saying many times in the past, and now I’m trying to apply it to myself,” he says. “Heavenly Father calls you. He knows you. So just go and do what He wants, and everything will be fine.”
Ricardo Patricio Giménez Salazar was born on November 28, 1971, the older of two children born to Ricardo Benjamín Giménez Gimeno and Myrto Lucisca Amalia Salazar Signorini. He joined the Church at age 11 and moved with his mother and sister to Santiago, Chile, after his parents divorced.
In 1995, he met Catherine Ivonne Carrazana Zúñiga in Santiago when she started attending his ward while she was staying there with an uncle. They were sealed in the Santiago Chile Temple on September 12, 1997, and are the parents of two children.
Elder Giménez received his undergraduate degree in accounting and auditing at the University of Santiago in 1997 and a master of business administration degree at the University of Chile in 2003. He began his professional career in the mining industry, eventually moving to information technology as a finance director for Computer Sciences Corporation in Latin America. He returned to mining in 2012, first with Sierra Gorda Mining and then with Robinson Nevada Mining Company.
At the time of his call, Elder Giménez was serving as a counselor in a stake presidency. He has also served as an Area Seventy in the South America South Area, stake president, high councilor, bishop, counselor in a bishopric and in a ward Young Men presidency, and full-time missionary in the Chile Concepción Mission.