Elizabeth Salgado remembered as faithful missionary at funeral
Rosemberg Salgado, uncle of Elizabeth Elena Laguna-Salgado, talks to the media before the memorial service for Elizabeth on Saturday, July 28, 2018
Elizabeth Elena Laguna-Salgado was last seen Thursday, April 16, 2015.
A memorial service was held for Elizabeth Elena Laguna-Salgado in Orem, Utah, on Saturday, July 28, 2018.
Members of the Orem community attend a memorial service held for Elizabeth Elena Laguna-Salgado on Saturday, July 28, 2018.
Members of the Orem community attend a memorial service held for Elizabeth Elena Laguna-Salgado on Saturday, July 28, 2018.
Rosemberg Salgado, uncle of Elizabeth Elena Laguna-Salgado, talks to the media before the memorial service for Elizabeth on Saturday, July 28, 2018.
Rosemberg Salgado, uncle of Elizabeth Elena Laguna-Salgado, talks to the media before the memorial service for Elizabeth on Saturday, July 28, 2018.
Rosemberg Salgado, uncle of Elizabeth Elena Laguna-Salgado, talks to the media before the memorial service for Elizabeth on Saturday, July 28, 2018.
Members of the Orem community attend a memorial service held for Elizabeth Elena Laguna-Salgado on Saturday, July 28, 2018.
Ruth Yolanda Laguna stood at a podium behind a white casket and shared memories of her eldest sister.
She said in Spanish that Elizabeth Elena Laguna-Salgado was an obedient woman who loved flowers, stargazing and the sounds of birds.
“You would have loved her if you had met her,” Ruth Yolanda Laguna said through an interpreter.
Elizabeth Salgado was remembered at a funeral service conducted in Spanish on Saturday afternoon at a chapel for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Orem two months after she was found dead and three years after going missing.
Elizabeth Salgado was last seen alive on April 16, 2015, three weeks after she moved from Mexico to Provo to learn English. She was last seen alive walking from class at the Nomen Global Language Center in downtown Provo in the afternoon, but never made it home to the Branbury Apartments complex.
Salgado had recently returned from an LDS mission to Mexico.
Her body was found in a remote part of Hobble Creek Canyon in May after a man left the road to use the restroom and found her remains, which included a skull and pieces of clothing, in bushes.
Her death has been treated as a homicide, although police have not announced a cause or place of death.
Local, national and international agencies have spent thousands of hours investigating the case, and the Salgado family wore pictures with Salgado’s face on it daily while she was missing.
A GoFundMe account to get the Salgado family to Utah has raised more than $17,000. In June the family visited the site where Salgado’s remains were found.
On Saturday, the program for her memorial included Spanish renditions of hymns such as “How Great Thou Art,” “I Know that my Redeemer Lives” and “Families Can be Together Forever.”
The service started with a prayer for strength and understanding for the family. Letters from Elizabeth Salgado’s siblings were read and family members spoke of Elizabeth’s time as an LDS missionary.
Her father, Julio Cesar Laguna Ozuna, said Elizabeth Salgado was beautiful and an example for her siblings. She used to pretend to be a doctor when she was a child and had been a good student.
She was excited to move to Provo and told him she’d be safe there.
He said he believes she’s acting as a missionary in the afterlife.
Her mother, Libertad Edith Salgado De Laguna, said her daughter wanted to be a missionary in order to thank God. After her mission, she went to a market where her daughter handed out passalong cards and invited people to church.
“She wanted to convert everyone,” her mother said through an interpreter.
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