Excerpts from an article in the Church News section of the 11 November 1967 Deseret News
At 86, James Elbert Whetton still remembers the time he taught the Gospel to Pancho Villa, famous Mexican Revolutionary leader.
Two missionaries assigned to labor in the town of Namiquipa, located several miles from the Mormon colonies, needed supplies, so early in March, Elder Whetton and Stake Pres. Joseph T. Bentley headed out in buggies loaded with food.
Passing through a mountain area, the brethren were halted by armed men and taken to a guerrilla camp. Later, they were moved into a town which the guerrillas had captured and held prisoner through the night.
Pres. Bentley and Elder Whetton were invited to have breakfast with the man in the checked suit and a light complexioned gentleman. During the meal, the light complexioned man asked many questions about the Mormons. Elder Whetton answered since Pres. Bentley did not understand Spanish.
Finally, the light complexioned man identified himself as Felipe Angeles, a noted and highly trained military officer. He introduced the Mormons to the man in the checked suit Gen. Villa
I always admired the Mormon people, Villa said. They mind their own business.
General, for my part, I wish the whole republic would turn Mormon. When this revolution is settled, I am going to join this church if there is any opportunity for me to do it., Angeles declared.
Why havent any of your people explained these things to me before?, Villa asked. This is the first time I have known anything about your teachings. If I had known these things earlier, this would have been a different Pancho Villa. Is there any chance for a man like me to join the Mormon Church?
He encouraged the brethren to continue their journey to Namiquipa and gave them a hearty abrazo when they parted.
Not long afterward, Angeles was captured and shot by the opposing forces. Villa also met a violent death in 1923 at the hands of assassins.
Years passed. Pres. Bentley died and Elder Whetton became an old man. One night , Pancho Villa, whose real name was Doroteo Arango, appeared to him.
Do you know me, Villa asked.
Si,
You told me that if there was ever any time that you could do something for me, you would do it, the general said. You are the only one who can help me. I want you to do my temple work.
Elder Whetton wrote to the Church Offices in Salt Lake City for permission to do the work and received approval. After the genealogical sheets were prepared, Doroteo Arango was baptized by proxy on Feb 25, 1966, in the Arizona Temple. Whetton himself did the endowment work for the general a few days later. He also had the temple work done for Angeles.
I first learned of this from a copy of a few pages of a Whetton family journal given me by a member of the Whetton family in Mesa, AZ about 15 years ago. Recorded in that journal are a couple of things in addition to owhat is in teh article that might be of added interest:
Felipe Angeles had been trained at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, NY., and may have been serving U.S. interests as well as advising Pancho Villas forces.
When Brother Whetton told his wife of his dream of Villas appearance, she told him it was brought on by something he must have eaten the evening before.
Brother Whetton also travelled to Mexico to obtained permission from Pancho Villa's wife to have his temple work done.
Cool story, Lund. I don't know much about Pocho Villa, only that he was a brutal killer who murdered lots of people... or so the tales about him were told when I was growing up.
--Ray
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I'm not slow; I'm special. (Don't take it personally, everyone finds me offensive. Yet somehow I manage to live with myself.)
Interesting... I once had a neighbor by the name of Skousen who grew up in the colonies who claimed that his father also taught Pancho Villa about the gospel... that he ate at their families table.???? He was a real story teller and a great gardener.
-- Edited by Mahonri at 21:50, 2007-10-26
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no unhallowed hand can stop the work from progressing... the truth of God will go forth till it has penetrated every website, sounded in every ear, till the purposes of God shall be accomplished and the great Jehovah shall say the work is done
Other than hearsay stories, I only read about Pancho Villa and Felipe Angeles on Wikipedia, and still do not understand what their personal causes or agendas were. As with most if not all persons at the center of controversy, there are always multiple sides to their stories. I have no reason to doubt the Whetton journal report or the Church News report, so I have to assume that Pancho Villa was permitted to come and ask Brother Whetton to get his temple work done. The only other such instance I know of in which spirits of the dead came and asked for their temple work to be done was the appearance of 54 of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence and a host of others to Wilford Woodruff in the St. George Temple in August 1877, asking that their temple work be done. I imagine there are other similar instances of this sort. I recently felt impressed, even pushed to get all the temple work done for a man and his wife who had no children and certainly had their detractors, to put it mildly. Doing his work as proxy was one of the nicest expereiences I can recall having in the Temple. So much for judging people on the basis of history books, stories, movies, and even personal acquaintanceship.
One thing that I'm a little curious about, not that it makes much difference in the here and now, is for folks that are bad guys in life -- infamous and notorious for their sins and indiscretions and legends with regards to the commandments -- I wonder sometimes to what degree they are cleansed by the Atonement and accepting the work performed by proxy in their behalf.
Of course, if we have any hope of being cleansed by the Atonement and obtaining exaltation ourselves, then we can surely hope the same for them, but I'm still curious about how it is done, since we know that there will be those who either only merit or select Terrestrial glory and then those who only merit Telestial glory.
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It seems to me the only thing you've learned is that Caesar is a "salad dressing dude."
The Mexican Revolutionary's story is so full of legend that it is hard to figure out the whole story anymore. The revolution itself reads like a cloak and dagger novel. Even the Freemasons were involved in this one if you believe some historians. Did he repent, was it war, what exactly did he do? Who knows. I just like to stick with what the good sister in our family history center told me when I asked her about doing temple work from some really bad people in my family line. She said, "They repented, do the work".
And I've been accused of some bad puns in my day! 
