This is the name I received from my parents at the time of my birth and my baptism, Angel Alberto Cepeda Perez, my parents are Angel Atilio Cepeda and Adriana del Carmen Perez de Cepeda, who have been married for 47 years, fruit of which we have born 4 children (two females and two males), Wendy Niraida Cepeda Perez (47), Angel Atilio Cepeda Perez (45), Jeidy Nidet Cepeda Perez (43), finally, I (36), which I have already described at the beginning of this paragraph my name. I am native of San Francisco, Municipality San Francisco of the state of Zulia in Venezuela, although my childhood and youth I lived in Casigua el Cubo, Municipality Jesús Maria Semprun of the state of Zulia, where my parents make life, since it was in the town where they had been eradicated to work as educators.

I grew up in a catholic home where I lived my childhood very happily in this small town called Casigua el Cubo, where I did my kindergarten and elementary school studies in the elementary school where my mother worked as an educator. Then I continued my high school studies in an institution where my father worked as a teacher of Geography and Bolivarian Chair. At the end of my studies, my parents gave me the opportunity to continue my university studies in the city of Maracaibo, which is the capital of the state of Zulia.

On the other hand, both in my childhood and in my adolescence I felt the need to help people especially those who were in special situations, at the age of 9 I made my first communion in the Holy Trinity Parish of Casigua el Cubo, At the age of 15 I made my confirmation under the hands of Monsignor Ramiro Diaz who was formerly the Parish Priest of that parish and had been appointed Bishop at that time of the Apostolic Vicariate of Machiques, now the Diocese. In my childhood and adolescence I was always close to the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate. In addition, I served in that Parish in my adolescence for a short time as an assistant catechist without ceasing to have great admiration for the Priest and the great work that each one performed.

Then, in 2003 I began my studies at the University Dr. Rafael Belloso Chacín in order to obtain my degree as an Electronics Engineer in Telecommunications. Rafael Belloso Chacín in order to obtain the degree as an Electronics Engineer in Telecommunications Mention, leaving some pauses in my training process because I felt that something else was missing, this did not fill me fully, in this intermittency during the studies I decided to work for a while but something was still missing in my life, after a while I decided to resume my studies to complete them in 2012, I immediately began working with the government of Zulia state for 4 years, which served me to grow humanly and professionally. In 2016 I decided to quit that job to go to Caracas in order to practice my profession and continue growing as a person, but in turn I began to get a little closer to the Church.

In this sense, I began to help a priest of the Archdiocese of Caracas, who put me in charge of managing the social networks of the Good Shepherd Parish. In this opportunity I took the opportunity to confide to the pastor about my vocational concern towards the priesthood and he suggested me to do a series of exercises that could lead me to truly discern whether or not I was called by God through the priestly vocation. After having done all this discernment, Father told me that the decision to say Yes to the Lord was mine: it was a hard moment for me, but I lived it with great joy and decided to answer the call that God was making me, I presented myself to the Bishop of the Diocese of El Vigia - San Carlos de Zulia Monsignor Juan de Dios Peña Rojas with the letters delivered by the Presbyter of the parish where I was doing my service and the Vocational Center of the Archdiocese of Caracas, receiving a response after a few days later. However, I was told that I had to go to the Seminary of another diocese, since ours does not have its own seminary and for this reason the Bishop must send us to study in other Dioceses. I was admitted to St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary of the Diocese of San Cristobal and there I did my Propaedeutic and Philosophy studies during the years 2017 - 2021.

Then, I was given the opportunity to study theology at the Pontifical University of Santa Croce - an opportunity that I accepted with great joy and gratitude - where I am currently in the first semester of the Faculty of Theology: it is a great opportunity for the formation of future pastors of the Catholic Church to receive a quality education as provided in that university and it is a great joy for me to respond generously to this opportunity, especially considering the difficult situation of my country, my beloved Venezuela.

At this particular moment, Venezuela is experiencing a socio-economic crisis caused by the government, which has destroyed the educational system, the economic system, the production system and also the oil industry, the main source of income for the nation, causing an economic inflation that has led a large part of Venezuelan families to total poverty, making it impossible for young people to choose to study a career - since most of the public universities have been destroyed - and access to private education is impossible for families with limited resources. 

In addition, there is totalitarianism in that the government controls the entire judicial, electoral and executive system. In this sense, there is no justice other than that which the government wants to implement. On the other hand, there is also a great division in the opposition political parties that have not allowed for a strategy that would allow a response to the national problems. 

Even more so, I feel happily grateful to God for having called me to follow Him, a call to which I will always respond with great joy, to serve the Church in my country that suffers so much. And I am particularly grateful to the benefactors of CARF, Centro Academico Romano Foundation, who give me the opportunity to study in such an illustrious University of the Holy Cross.