IF IT HADN'T been for the Mormon church, Abby Maestas believes, someone in her family would be dead by now. Growing up as the daughter of migrant workers in the small Utah town of Magna, Maestas watched her parents struggle to make ends meet. Times were hard; her father's alcoholism and abusive behavior made them harder. But when her father decided to leave the Catholicism of his native Mexico and join the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), known for its strict moral code forbidding alcohol, cigarettes and gambling, things changed. "It stopped him from drinking, pounding on my mom and gambling away all the money," Maestas remembers.

Now, at 44, Maestas is still listed on the church's membership rolls. But she wants no part of the faith that is attracting more and more of her fellow Latinos. One of the reasons is the color of her skin. "The people who settled here were white. The concept that brown is second class is ingrained [in the Mormon church]," Maestas says. She left the church when she was in her early 20s, shortly after completing an 18-month missionary assignment in Salt Lake City's Spanish-speaking community.

Mormonism may seem like an unlikely religion for Mexicans and other Latinos. In the minds of many outsiders, this religion that originated in the U.S. and is centered in Salt Lake City is made up of large families that are middle-class, suburban, cleancut--and very Anglo. That description still fits the majority of Mormons. Of the church's 8.1 million members worldwide, 4.3 million live in the U. S., according to official church records. In the past four years the U.S. membership grew by 8 percent.

Expanding even faster, however, is the church's Latin America membership. Like many other denominations, the Mormons are actively recruiting Latinos, some in the U.S. but most in Latin America itself. The church now has 2.5 million members in Latin America--almost 70 percent more than it had four years ago. Latinos make up 30 percent of all current members.

That growth is due in large part to an aggressive, well-financed and highly organized proselytizing effort. According to David Knowlton, a 39-year-old anthropologist specializing in Latin America who teaches at the LDS-owned Brigham Young University (BYU) in Provo, Utah, the Mormons have more Latin America missionaries per member than any other church.

The church has done little, however, to overcome its reputation as an exclusive whites-only religion, critics say. Nor has it done much to demonstrate a tolerance for racial and cultural differences.

Among the criticisms is that the church's Latin American members are largely unrepresented at the highest leadership levels, which are made up almost exclusively of white men. "Like most American institutions, [the church] might have a fear of minorities. It may like people who are more like themselves, or who are more compliant," says Orlando Rivera, a 63 year-old Mormon who teaches educational psychology at the University of Utah.

The highest offices of the Mormon church, those of the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve, are all held by white men from the U.S. (Women are not allowed in the church leadership, except to serve in the local Relief Societies--roughly the equivalent of Ladies' Auxiliaries. ) The next leadership level, the First Quorum of the Seventy, currently includes eight Latinos, one a black Brazilian. But, Rivera points out, none of these people are from the U. S., and none are involved in activism or civil rights work. They are from such countries as Chile and Argentina, which have largely white populations.

LDS spokesman Don LeFevre admits that the church's leadership is not yet as diverse as its flock, but says it is moving in that direction. "The church recognizes that as it grows the leadership ought to reflect its members." Mormon leaders frequently cite the church's investment in its outreach programs, including welfare and missionary work, as proof of its interest in being open to nonwhites and non-Americans. Officials estimate the total yearly assistance given worldwide in cash and commodities through the Mormons' vast welfare program to be in the tens of millions of dollars. And the church now has 30,000 missionaries serving throughout the world. "The day of the church being a predominantly American church is passing rapidly away," says Bill Cottam, who directs church education in New York City.

But it was only in 1978 that the church altered rules that prohibited black men from becoming lay priests (the church has no professional clergy). The governing body received in that year what it called a revelation that blacks could fulfill all leadership roles.

Race is mentioned often in the church's scriptures. "And the skins of the Lamanites were dark, according to the mark which was set upon their fathers, which was a curse upon them because of their transgression and their rebellion," reads a passage from Alma, in the Book of Mormon. (The church considers the Book of Mormon to be an "additional testament" to the life of Jesus Christ, as revealed to church founder Joseph Smith in the 1830s.) "Lamanite" is the Mormon term for Native Americans, including the Indians of Latin America, who the Mormons believe descended from the Israelites and were thus "chosen people." But the Lamatires went astray. A passage in the book of 1 Nephi reads, "After they had dwindled in unbelief they became a dark, and loathsome, and a filthy people, full of idleness and all manner of abominations." Numerous references to the Lamanites---explicitly equating their dark skin with proof of their iniquity--are scattered throughout the Book of Mormon.

"I think there's some terrible language in there," says Rivera. "But you have to read the whole Book of Mormon. There are times when the Lamatires are the good guys. If someone called me a Lamatire, I wouldn't consider it offensive." Rivera's family has been in the Mormon church since his great-greatgrandfather took in some Mormon missionaries in Colorado during a cold winter in the 1860s. Ironically, he says the doctrine about the Lamanites is part of the reason Latinos are attracted to the church. "When they read it, they say, hey, we're the chosen people. It's more of a positive than a negative."

Maestas agrees. But she adds that the mixed messages inherent in the text are undeniable. "As a child I was taught that if you are good, you will turn white. And that's very confusing for people who are brown. It makes you feel like you're a second-class citizen. No one ever told the white kids that if they were good they'd turn dark." The Book of Mormon contains a passage that says the skin of the Lamanites will once again be "white and delightsome" when they return to God. After critics called the phrase racist, it was changed in the late 1970s to read "pure and delightsome."

Rivera concedes that negative descriptions of Lamanites could be a problem not only for Native Americans themselves but for Anglo members of the church, who might think that the passages justified racial discrimination against Native Americans or Latinos with Indian blood. Victor Aguila, a student at Brigham Young University who was interviewed for an oral history project by the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at BYU, said he had some of the same fears. "American Latter-day Saints... think that the Lamanites of today still behave like the Lamanites of [past times]," he says. "They think that we are still warring with each other, running around naked, and eating people alive."

Evidence of blatant racism in the Mormon church is far less common, however, than charges by Mormon Latinos that the church simply doesn't do enough to nurture their cultural heritage. "In Catholicism, there is room to celebrate the culture, but in Mormonism, there is none," says Maestas. "They may throw a taco in your direction now and then," she says, but substituting Mexican food for tuna casserole at a church supper is not enough. The key lies in who holds the reins of power. "There is diversity, yes, but not real pluralism."

Richard Gomez, 54, was baptized a Catholic but converted to Mormonism when he was in his early teens. He has moved up the church's leadership ranks, serving as a mission president in Mexico and bishop of one of Salt Lake City's Spanish-speaking "wards," or congregations. Gomez maintains that the church is trying to improve its relations with minority members. But he feels left out when, for example, church leaders open a Mormon "Pioneer Day" celebration in Salt Lake City--one of the church's major events--by asking who among the assembled people was descended from one of the original (Anglo) founders. "It's starting to change. But this is a very slow-changing and conservative church, and you have to accept that if you're going to be a part of it."

Those who don't want to accept it run the risk of official censure, including silencing, exclusion from leadership, and even excommunication. Professor Rivera confirms that members who criticize the church may be threatened with expulsion. Despite his comments on the dearth of Latinos in the church's upper ranks, he has remained a member in good standing. "But I ceased a long time ago to try to make suggestions," he says. "It wasn't appreciated."

In 1989, George P. Lee, the first Native American member of the First Quorum of the Seventy, was excommunicated for what the Mormon leadership called "apostasy and other conduct unbecoming a member of the Church." The church declined to elaborate at the time, and says it still cannot comment. But in public statements and letters he released following the action, Lee, then 46, said the church was increasingly apathetic toward Native Americans, and he criticized its diminishing support for educational programs for Indians. He attributed his ouster to that criticism.

The church leaves no doubt as to its position on dissent. "To publicly criticize the church or the church leaders or its policies is grounds for disciplinary action," LeFevre says. "Within our membership, there's a wide diversity of beliefs, political beliefs, opinions. That of course is welcome and accepted. But as far as church doctrine goes, there is no compromise ."

While there may be reasons for Latinos to stay away from the Mormon church, there are also reasons for them to join. "The attraction is not away from Catholicism so much as it is toward a very established belief system that creates community in a chaotic world," says Jan Shipps, a historian at Indiana University-Purdue University, Indianapolis. The church imposes a strict moral code that promises blessings in exchange for obedience. An emphasis on strong family unity and the prospect of eternal togetherness is another element that draws many to its ranks.

The fact that the Mormon church gives people at the grass-roots level some substantial leadership opportunities may also be appealing to Latinos, many of whom have known only the Catholic hierarchy in which priests serve as intermediaries to God. Finally, many point to the thoroughly North American image of the church as one of its selling points among Latin Americans, who may be looking for a possible ticket to the U. S. or at least a successful economic model to emulate. As Peggy Fletcher Stack, religion reporter for the Salt Lake Tribune, puts it, "If you join our church, look what you get. You basically get America."