This is a picture of me and my father.  This weekend, I was able to attend with him his mission reunion.  My father was one of the first missionaries to go to the "Central America" mission for the LDS church.  (It was created from the "Mexico mission").   This was during the Korean War and only one missionary per stake was allowed to go.  Two men were eligible before my father, but they didn't go and my father was called.  

In November of 1953, he got a bus with a man who would later become his best friend and traveled down to New Mexico.  He and Elder P. were in a bus station in Albuquerque, New Mexico on Thanksgiving Day and ordered a Thanksgiving meal.  He said they were both so homesick, they just pushed the food around on their plates.  Later, they took a bus into Mexico, where they were met by President Romney's (their mission president) daughter, who helped get them passage to Mexico City.  From there, they "puddle jumped" in a small airplane and flew from city to city until they arrived in Guatemala City, Guatemala.  There was no one there to meet them.  After waiting three hours, they went to a taxi driver, (neither of them speaking a word of Spanish) and showed him an address.  He indicated he could take them there.  (They later learned the address was a post office box number).  A few blocks from the airport, a blue car pulled up behind the taxi, honking, and waving, indicating they needed to stop and pull over.  In the car was their mission president, and the first thing he said to them was, "Why didn't you damn fools wait for me?"

Thus began three of of the most marvelous years of my father's life.  His first month, he was in Guatemala City and studied the language in the morning and then went out tracking with two sister missionaries in the evening.  My father later served in Weiweitenango, Guatemala, Tegucigalpa, Honduras, Quetzaltenango, Guatemala and a short time in Manaua, Nicaragua.  (He was only in Nicaragua for six weeks and said it was the hottest most miserable six weeks of his mission.)  I've also heard him mention San Pedro Sula (which I think is in Honduras).  

During his time on his mission, he played for the Honduras National basketball team, even traveling by burro (across rock slides, and a river) into Mexico to play in some Pan/American basketball tournament.  He was later asked to extend his mission (thus the three years instead of the 2 1/2 he was originally called for ) to travel with his mission president, President Wagner at the time and tour the mission.  Even in his old age, my father speaks excellent Spanish.  (He once told me, he has kept it up by praying in Spanish).  At 19, my father was not only teaching missionary discussions (he had purchased something called the "Anderson" plan in SLC and translated that, as there was no formal discussions organized yet) but also was the area president, solving church problems, and interpersonal issues among members of the church.  He told me, "I was a 19 year old kid, helping couples with marital issues."  My dad still tells people he is Guatemalan.  He LOVED his mission and it was his example that made me want to serve one myself.  

So, this past weekend, I was able to go with my father and meet and watch him reminisce with other missionaries from his time about their time in Central America.  I honestly stood in awe of these men.  These are the pioneer missionaries in Central America.  They are now gray haired, shorter with age but their faces came alive as they told stories and reconnected.  There is a big push for them to record their stories and as my father's daughter, he has no choice.  When I go home later this month, I am going to sit there with a recorder and record his stories.  I will them type them up for him to edit.  I will make sure his story and the amazing history of the LDS church in Central America is recorded.

"Every time a person dies, a library burns."

Personal History Group at church

With the change from a monthly Enrichment Meeting to quarterly Enrichment meetings and optional "groups", I think a lot of Relief Societies have struggled to figure out how to best go about doing things. Our ward recently revamped our "groups" and one that was created was a "Personal History Group". Once a month, we are given a topic to write about and then we meet and take turns reading out loud what we have written. Last night, I attended the first one where we all took turns reading out loud. It was very fun to hear what people have written and I feel so much closer to these wonderful ladies. Anyway, our Relief Society President said something about the importance of being more open about our beliefs. In the spirit of what she said, I am posting what I wrote for last night's meeting. The theme for this month was "testimony." So, here it is.

I hated early morning seminary. Being raised in Boulder, Colorado, all we had was early morning seminary and it started every weekday morning at 6:15 am. I tried every excuse with my mother about why I should not have to go. "Teenagers need their sleep." "The teacher teaches false doctrine." "My life is too busy to attend." "I am too tired to pay attention, so I don’t get anything out of it." But, nothing worked. Every morning around 5:45 am, my mom would wake me, push me in the direction of the shower, and get me out the door for Seminary.


This was the pattern all four years I attended until something happened in the late fall of my senior year of high school and my last year of Seminary. The Seminary teacher that year was a law student at the University of Colorado. He was married, had a little boy and worked a night shift at a hotel to make ends meet. He was a super nice man but I know it was very hard for him to get up early and teach a group of relatively apathetic high school students.

One day, in late fall, I showed up at Seminary and the teacher had not shown up. A good friend of mine, Jeff Jones, stood up in front of the class and said, "Since the teacher isn’t here, I think we should just take turns reading out loud the assigned reading." We were studing the Book of Mormon that year and were at the end of 2 Nephi. Someone started reading 2 Nephi 33: 10-11. It reads, "And now, my beloved brethren and also Jew, and all ye ends of the earth, hearken unto these words and believe in Christ; and if ye believe not in these words believe in Christ. And if ye shall believe in Christ ye will believe in these words, for they are the words of Christ, and he hath given them unto me; and they teach all men that they should do good. And if they are not the words of Christ, judge ye–for Christ will show unto you, with power and great glory, that they are his words, at the last day; and you and I shall stand face to face before his bar; and ye shall know that I have been commanded of him to write these things, notwithstanding my weakness."

As I listened to those words, I thought, "I believe in Christ. If I believe in Him, then these words are true." As that thought completed, the Spirit touched me more profoundly than it ever had before in my life. I was so struck by it, that I remember looking around the room at the other students to see if they were feeling the same thing. They didn’t seem changed or to appear as if they were feeling something different. For some reason, this was a lesson that I was learning privately, just for me. The feeling didn’t go away. I carried it with me for the rest of class and the rest of the day at school. And, it was the first time that I could honestly recall a profound, life-changing spiritual event and it was the beginning of a strong testimony for me.

I have often since reflected on that event and contemplated the act of diligence. I had been attending Seminary for almost four years. It was often dull and unfullfilling. But because I was diligent (or my mom was diligent in making me go), and being where I was supposed to be, I was taught by the Spirit. If I had been at home in bed sleeping, I would have missed that opportunity. Many times since, as I have sat through Sunday after Sunday at church without feeling much of anything, I am struck by the need for diligence in doing the right thing and being where I am supposed to be and where the Lord expects me to be. It is often when I least expect it, when I have been being diligent day after day, month after month, year after year, about doing a spiritual activity (reading the scriptures, visiting teaching, attending the temple, praying, etc.) that the spirit whispers to me and confirms the truth of the gospel. I am glad I learned that lesson at a relatively young age of 17 attending early morning Seminary.

This Article Moved Me

I was just about to throw away the paper today, when I came across this article. As I finished it, I was fighting back tears. It has been a long winter here in Utah with record breaking "inversion" days and it was nice to read this and gain a spiritual perspective to all of this.

Winter turns to spring — eventually
By Jerry JohnstonDeseret Morning News

I write this column "in the bleak midwinter," looking out my window at a landscape that could be the moon. Even the evergreens are gray. And the sky looks like oil shale. "Wish hard enough — and long enough — and Christmas will come," my father used to say. You could say the same for spring. It's always around the corner. It's that hoping "long enough" that takes a toll. I'm reminded of several women in the Bible. Time and again a woman who is either very old, or considered barren, gives birth to a baby. And that baby, more times than not, turns out to be a leader. It happened to Sarah, with her son Isaac. Elizabeth, John the Baptist's mother, found herself in the same fix. But thanks to a miracle, someone who was thought to be infertile became filled with something living, warm and alive. The dead came back to life. When a thing like that happens once in the Bible, it's interesting. When it happens twice, it's worth remembering. But when it happens over and over, there is usually a lesson to be learned. And the lesson here, I think, is: Don't dismiss anything as being too dry or desolate to be beyond redemption. Heaven can bring things back to life at a moment's notice. The "big lessons" are easy to spot. People's faith in the resurrection of the dead comes to mind. As does the faith of a pioneering people who walked West into a wilderness and, with the blessings of heaven, made it bloom. But there are also "little lessons" — personal lessons — to be learned. The mother and father who feel like giving up on a child whose life has become a barren desert could take heart from Sarah, Elizabeth and others. Even the most withered soul can be made alive. And there are times each of us feels as dry as cork inside. But with patience and faith, a heart like a saltine cracker can become — in the flicker of an eyelash — something as sweet and tender as homemade bread. So, as I sit here looking out at the landscape like that guy in the song "Cool Water" (all day I faced the barren waste), I know in a few weeks all that gray will be green again and all those empty flower beds will be filled with color. Does the fact I understand the cycles of the seasons make the rebirth of nature each year less of a miracle? Not in the least. In fact, if I had a little more faith, perhaps I could see that the eventual "coming alive" of all things parched and arid can be counted on as confidently as the coming of May. I'm not quite at that level of assurance yet. But, as with Christmas, I keep hoping long and hard for it to happen. In the meantime, all those stories of barren women becoming mothers in the Bible, the stories of thirsty deserts that have been brought into bloom and the brittle lives that have become soft and warm — in short, all these bleak midwinter "moonscapes" I've seen evolve into spring — help me to keep taking heart in the hope that there is bigger more glorious spring awaiting us all. And that thought takes a bit of the chill out of the ice outside.