Italian Mormon Pioneers Leave Church - Leopoldo Larcher and Emily Guincho | Ep. 2107
Mormon Stories Podcast
Dr. John Dehlin
4.5 • 5.7K Ratings
🗓️ 26 January 2026
⏱️ 223 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On today’s episode, we welcome two very special guests! Leopoldo Larcher and Emily Guincho are a father–daughter duo here to share their Italian Mormon story as the first family to join the LDS Church in Italy.
Leopoldo details his experience of quickly being placed into leadership roles and bearing the responsibility of helping establish the structure of the Church in Italy. Over the years, he worked with many LDS Church leaders, from Ezra Taft Benson to Spencer W. Kimball.
His daughter, Emily, joins us to share her own perspective on what it was like for her and her siblings to grow up in an environment dominated by church service and the immense pressure to represent Mormonism in their community.
Together, Emily and Leopoldo reflect on what it meant to be Mormon pioneers in Italy, how their dedicated service affected their family life, and where they stand with the Church today. They also discuss what the LDS community looks like in Italy within a predominantly Catholic culture, and the challenges the Church faces as it attempts to establish a uniquely American institution in Europe.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories Podcast. I'm your host, John DeLinn. It's January 22nd, 26. And today we will be interviewing the first family baptized into the Mormon Church in Italy after World War II. We'll be hearing their story, and perhaps more interestingly to some of our |
| 0:22.0 | audience, coming to understand why this family has decided to or has left the Mormon Church. |
| 0:29.5 | So without any further ado, we introduced to you Leopoldo Larker. |
| 0:34.6 | Hello, Leopoldo. |
| 0:35.6 | Thanks for joining us. |
| 0:36.8 | Nice to meet you. And with Leopoldo today is his daughter, Emily. Hey, Emily. And Emily, your maid name is Larker, but your current last name is Gwincho. Is that right? Gincho. Yeah. Gincho. All right. Well, we really appreciate y'all being here. |
| 0:56.6 | And we're really excited to hear your Italian Mormon story. |
| 1:01.3 | And joining us in the studio, we're super fortunate to have my wife and co-host Margie. |
| 1:07.9 | Hey, Margie. |
| 1:08.7 | Hello. |
| 1:09.8 | And Margie's a quarter Italian, by the way. Her mom is |
| 1:12.6 | half Italian. So it's an Italian Mormon story all the way around today. All right. Well, I don't |
| 1:22.8 | think that we've ever interviewed an Italian family on Mormon Stories podcast. So this is a first. We always, |
| 1:30.6 | we have a goal to cover as many countries as we can on Mormon stories. So that's something |
| 1:36.6 | that's really exciting to hear about today. But also, your family in particular has held several |
| 1:43.9 | important positions in Italy, |
| 1:48.1 | including mission president in Italy, is that right? |
| 1:52.1 | Yes. |
| 1:53.1 | And Temple Sealer, is that also right? |
| 1:56.4 | Yes. |
| 1:56.8 | Yeah. |
| 1:57.9 | And over the years, you had the privilege or opportunity to meet with several Mormon |
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