Missionary

It is a remarkable thing to wear a badge that says you are a representative of Jesus Christ and His church. That means living, talking and acting as his emissary.

In so many ways, it is too much to take in. It is incomprehensible. This magnificent God would trust you to say you belong to Him in a special way. A scripture in 3 Nephi speaks of the Lamanites who “were baptized with fire and with the Holy Ghost, and they knew it not” (3 Nephi 9:20) Here in Puerto Rico, we live in the very shadow of the temple, and, yet, our mortal minds can barely comprehend even the smallest part of the power that is offered there. The same is true with putting on this badge.

In mortality we are half-asleep, blind, dull, and caught up in small things. I think about that when I put on my missionary badge each morning so casually. Do I comprehend what I am saying about the Lord and about me when I wear a missionary badge?

I am saying to the Lord with all the passion of my heart and soul, “I love thee.” “I trust thee.” “Can you really trust me to be your envoy here and now?”

The commitment I made long ago to give my whole soul to God is something I now wear for all to see.

You don’t entirely realize it, but people look at you differently when you bear the name of Jesus Christ on your chest.

Forget being moody, grouchy, grim, negligent or uncaring if you wear His name. Many years ago, Scot and I stood at a desk where someone told us they may have lost the irreplaceable negative to one of his most significant photos. We were shocked, grieved and fear made us a little angry. Still, we waited without showing any of those emotions, while the people looked for the negative. While we were standing there seething inside and during what was a very long wait (signifying that negative had probably carelessly vanished), one of the secretaries put her head out her door and said to Scot, “I had an Institute class from you. You were my favorite teacher.” The negative was found and we thanked them.

Oh, how any remaining feelings of grievance melted away. What if we had hollered like we wanted to? All that good teaching of gospel principles would not mean so much. As we were walking away from this office and down the hall, we joked to each other, “Well, no more being rude to strangers.” We said that not because we particularly did that, but because it would have been so easy to do so, and both of us had been tempted to get huffy.

We’ve had that phrase as a little joke between us now, all these years, when life gets tough. “No more being rude to strangers.”

Yet, really, representing Christ because we wear the badge, leads us into a more celestial place. Each day, we scan the world looking for who God has put in our path to help, relieve, lift and bless. We are His hands. We pray to have His eyes to see.

Our mission leaders, Paul and Karryl Horstmeier had to stop and get lunch recently when they were out and pulled into a free parking space, not realizing it was one of the few spots reserved for Petco. They didn’t see it until they got out of the car, and though they were on a tight schedule, they got back in the car and began moving it to another parking spot, designated for the restaurant where they were headed. This couldn’t have been a tinier thing, but someone was watching. That someone worked for Petco, and they must have seen hundreds of cars pull into that spot and walk into a different business establishment besides their own.

But, really, what would the Lord do?

As they were moving the car, the woman behind the window came running out, waving her hands, and telling them, “Because you were so honest, I want you to take this spot.”

Today we were eating a hasty lunch from Taco Bell in a crowded parking lot, when we saw two guys push a woman’s car into a corner out of traffic. Clearly the car wasn’t going anyplace on its own. Then they left, and we said, “She’s in trouble.” Immediately she got on the phone with someone she knew. From our distance we could see she was both crying and yelling at that person.

“I think she has children with her,” we observed to each other as we tried to figure out how to help. We ran across the parking lot to her, and there on the other side of the car were three small children, whose tears and discomfort were surely a match for hers.

She spoke only Spanish. We are still very far from understanding Spanish, but one word stood out. “Gasolina.” She was out of gas, and immediately a memory came to me. I was with our little children. Finances were thin. I’d hoped to drive further on a tank of gas than the gas would go—and the inevitable happened. I ran out of gas. My children were crying and disconsolate. I was scared and shaking. I didn’t know how to get help. Cell phones wouldn’t be invented for many decades.

We would have helped her no matter what, but my memory made our determination all the more. We told her we were going to get gasoline for her. She seemed relieved. An auto parts store was right next to the gas station so we were able to pick up a gas can, fill it, and run back to her.

Already, the person she had talked to on the other end of the phone had come with gas, given her a gallon and the car was running. The children were back in the car. We added another gallon. She said thank you, and we grabbed both her hands and said, “Blessings.” That last word resonated between us, we looked into each other’s eyes, and I felt a Spirit of sweetness.

“What was that effort for?” we wondered as we drove away. Certainly all of us have helped someone on the road with a problem many times. We have, ourselves, been helped with flat tires and accidents. What would I have done in college, when my roommates and I jack-knifed in front of a semi-truck in a snow storm and landed against the cement barricade, if someone hadn’t helped?

The answer for us was that today was no waste of time. She could have driven happily away without us, but we hoped that somehow she knew that the world was safer than she supposed because someone wearing the badge of Jesus Christ wanted to help her when she was scared, frantic and alone. As we took her hands in a final farewell, I could feel that the Lord approved, so maybe today was really for us. We learned that when you are wearing his badge, you get to act as He wants you to, even if it appears useless. Never restrain a generous act.

How it Matters

My missionary desires line up with Alma’s, “O that I were an angel and could have the wish of mine heart, that I might go forth and speak with the trump of God, with a voice to shake the earth, and cry repentance unto every people” (Alma 29:1).

On a mission what most of us who hope to “speak with the trump of God” learn is that our opportunities are much smaller than that. Trumps speak to throngs of people. We’re blessed to speak to the one and surprised if someone doesn’t break an appointment for a flimsy reason.

As seniors, we are involved with some big projects on our mission, but we also have a personal ministry to strengthen and support our local ward and our young missionaries. In every spare moment we have, we try to work on a personal level, but it’s hard for a reason that many missionaries know in many countries.

Security makes it impossible to get to anyone’s front door. They will never know you came. In Puerto Rico, many live in high-rise apartments, locked and gated. Puerto Rican neighborhoods are not much easier.

Here’s the style of many homes in Puerto Rico. They are made of concrete, often brightly painted, and share a common wall with their next-door neighbor. Many have no front door (the one you’re looking at has no door, even though you think there is a door there]. It is likely they enter their home only through their garage, whose door is locked. Thus, there is nowhere to knock and get the attention of the people you hoped to visit. This is true even if their light is on. You know they are in there, but they don’t know you are standing out hoping to enter.

Across the front of most homes, and especially across the windows, is grill work, meant to be both attractive and protective. They lock the grill—or perhaps multiple grills–and then the door. Puerto Ricans are friendly, open and loving, yet their homes are designed to be as secure as a bank vault.

In our own little casa, to leave through the front door, we have a grill to lock and then a door. We have three locks to get out through the garage, and to enter our own back yard requires four locks and a walk down a dark hall. It’s a beautiful backyard, but we have only been out there for five minutes once. With our limited time, it seems like too much work to get there.

So how do you meet your nearest neighbors or introduce yourselves to people whom you haven’t met in your ward? Naïve to how difficult it would be, we took our bags of treats and traveled the distances between some of the homes of our ward members.

It was the week leading up to Christmas, and without a chimney, not even Santa could get into these houses. We were most disconcerted when our would-be recipients had no front doors. If texting and calling didn’t open the garage door, we finally left our treat in a mailbox with a note saying how much we’d like to get to know them.

It seemed like a bit of a fruitless effort, but not a bad day. Our friend, Ron McMillan, taught us that a bad day can offer good data. Maybe this approach won’t work and we are unsure how to meet the people in our ward who don’t want to be found, but we certainly can see that in an environment where people are concerned about security, you have to find another way to be a friend.

Resourceful

That’s one of the things we admire so much about our mission leaders who have revelatory ways to move forward and our young missionaries who keep a smiling zest about their work. All day long we receive notes from our young missionaries on our phone through the WhatsApp device through which we are connected. They tell each other Happy Birthday (Feliz Cumpleanos). They share when they have had a milagro (miracle). The special excitement is for a baptism (baptismo).

They share their enthusiasm by turning to writing their words in all caps with multiple letters. There’s going to be a baptism? YESSSSS. LET’S GOOOOO. These are usually followed by emojis that look something like eight hearts of various colors, a fire, five fireworks. It is just plain fun to be around such youthful passion for life—and to know that each one every day is acting with real courage talking to people they don’t know, bearing testimony with fervency, and perhaps hiding either a real case of homesickness or a worry that their mission will end too soon or maybe the fear that they won’t accomplish anything they can measure for the sacrifice of so much of their life.

Yet, for every missionary who actually gets to teach and see the results of baptism, there are many more behind the scenes who are quietly supportive. Some senior missionaries, for instance, will find housing, deal with landlords, purchase furniture, inspect apartments and never sit down with a new friend to teach a lesson. Some might quietly shepherd a new convert to the temple for the first time and urge them to continue to do baptisms for their ancestors’ names. Some missionaries might interface with the community to find places to serve. So many serve to put the complex structure in place to take the gospel to all the world. So many do absolutely crucial things that nobody might notice—unless they failed to do them.

So, a mission calls for resourcefulness and, therefore, the need for profound revelation. What do I do with this free Sunday afternoon? On Christmas Eve, two companionships of sisters asked us to come caroling with them. They had looked online for a place they might bring some cheer and landed on the I Love You Lord Home Center. They chose, this spot, not because they knew anything much about it. They figured an elder care with a name like that was a good place to sing.

We often accompany the social media sisters as they film segments for the Venir a Cristo-(Come unto Christ)-Puerto Rico Facebook page. It is work with a camera, an online editing suite, a way to track referrals and so much more—and its missionary impact is significant. For them, this part of their mission looks different than they might have ever supposed, and yet as I scroll down the Facebook page, I find segments with as many as 10,000 views and 60 or 70 comments. If you want to talk to throngs of people, look no farther.

Here we are—all trying to find our way, watching for clues and nudges from the Spirit, and lifting where we stand. We are all calling out for people to come and partake of the tree of life and the Lord uses us where He will.

Christmas Celebration 

It is a tradition for our family in Utah to gather at our home on Christmas Eve, and though we weren’t there this year, our home was still the gathering place, festooned with lights we didn’t hang. That made us so happy that the traditions we love are still played out in our absence and that they mean enough to our family that they go on without us—or at least not entirely without us.

We created a little slide show of photographs for the family to the song, The Christmas Bells (by GENTRI and Hailey Hyde), which says, “the Christmas bells will bring you home.” We connected to them with Zoom, and then when the slide show was over, we had our youngest daughter, Michaela, who lives there, take the computer upstairs and put it in a location where we could watch the games and the nativity program.

At first, Scot was dubious about our hanging around on the computer when it was on a corner of a table, and all we could see was a side glimpse of a grandchild or hear a stray sentence here and there, but that is what I wanted to do that night. Just watch. My eyes were hungry for our family.

I should have known that Scot, being the softie that he is, would also be glued to the screen for three hours. We didn’t want to miss a single thing. We strained to hear every word. We weren’t finished with that Zoom connection until the last family member was leaving. How can anyone be so tied to your soul as your family?

Still, the next morning was a marvel as we had 13 elders and sisters come over from our district for a breakfast buffet. They burst into our home like an explosion of light and good will, and after the meal, we sat in a circle and gave each other a gift of ourselves. We told them it could be a song or a story that meant something to them. It could be a family tradition. All this gift had to be was a portion of themselves.

It was a moving, spirit-filled three hours we spent together, often laughing, sometimes crying. We heard about one missionary’s great grandpa Frank who fought in World War II in Europe. Of German descent, he still had family living on the other side of the battle line, so he gathered food to sneak across the border to bring it to his starving, German family on Christmas Eve.

We heard about one sister’s family cheer. Her family had a white board with significant, covenantal events recorded on it such as baptism, going to the temple, going on a mission and so forth. When a family member achieved a goal, the family served sparkling Martinelli’s and gave the cheer, which she did for all of us.

One elder whistled the first verse to The First Noel and then sang the rest.

It was lovely to see how many of the things shared by the elders and sisters was about the love of family. These included many stories of ancestors, a funny talent one had learned from an uncle, sharing a picture of a grandfather who was a look-alike to one elder. It was these waves of connection that brought this tremendous Spirit into our gathering, this sense of love of each other and of God.

Two of the sisters came bearing individual gifts from the dollar store for each missionary. The district leader received a whistle “to keep everybody in line”. Since the AP’s spend so much time on the phone, they received toy phones that blow bubbles. One elder got a song flute of dubious quality from which he still could pull out a tune and we were given a set of toy binoculars “to keep our eye on the mission.” (see video below).

All in all, it was the merriest of Christmases and a good time to continue learning.