Visiting the Joseph Smith Praça

One of Sandy’s friends served in Brazil as a young missionary and when she said she was coming to Curitiba, he told her she needed to go see the Joseph Smith statue.  While she was here we didn’t have time to do a lot of hunting, so it was actually after she left that we talked to people who could tell us what there really was.  It’s not really a statue, but there is a park and a monument.  So here is the street sign for the praça.

It’s a small triangular park across the street from a chapel that also serves as the mission office for the Curitiba South Mission.

At the tip end of the praça is this monument with a set of plaques.

Here are closeups of the plaques.

In addition to his name and the dates, this one says:

“The prophet who received and translated the history of the people that inhabited this continent between 600 BC and 400 AD.”

This one quotes John 10:16 about one fold and one shepherd.

This one says Brazil is a blessed land and quotes Ether 2:12 saying that the land will be free if the people serve Christ.

This is the park area of the praça.

And at the far end of the praça another monument with a picture of Joseph.

So yes, it is really there.  I would call them monuments and not a statue, and I also got some interesting stories about the church member who got it built.  It would seem that this is a wonderful example of the Brazilian tradition of making something happen, perhaps without following all the rules.  But if you look for it on Google you can find it and Google Maps will tell you how to get there.