Brief Introduction

Shortly after returning from my LDS mission in Brazil, I compiled some of my essays and thoughts into a book-length text. Hope you enjoy!


Stand at the Door and Knock

J. D. Durant

Copyright 2001, J. D. Durant. All rights reserved.

To Emerson, Jassom, Sarinha, Junior, Taciana, Thaisa, Jessica, Renatinha, Julius Ceser; the beautiful children of Wellington and Clayde, Bela, Rose Mary, and Cristiane; and to Durantinha, my namesake.

Introduction

“It’s been a long time, Jim! How’s life been treating you?”

“Great! It seems like I haven’t seen you in — well — two years! I can scarcely believe how much has changed!”

I’ll say. Jim and I had been friends since Ms. Clark’s tenth grade English class, though I hardly recognized him now. High-school shyness had given way to modest confidence.

“Can you believe how much we’ve changed?”

“You’ve put on a few pounds since I last saw you, haven’t you, Jake?”

“Thanks for reminding me! I’m a victim of Brazilian rice and beans.”

“Yeah, I was lucky being called to France. There’s nothing like escargot to make a guy loose his appetite.”

“Tell me about your mission, Jim. How was it?”

His eyes converged on some faraway point as his mind focused on a remote land and a distant people. He sat in silence for a few moments, lost in his thoughts, before focusing his whole attention — his whole soul — on his response.

“Jacob, it was the best two years of my life.”

Why is that answer always the same? Jim had returned from France only three weeks earlier, but fifty years won’t change his response. Why is a mission so moving? What makes us leave a part of our souls in a distant land?

A mission is sacred, our opportunity to loose ourselves in the Lord’s service. It’s an opportunity to leave the word and fix our minds completely on God, an opportunity to elevate ourselves from this Telestial sphere to a two-year or year-and-a-half respite in the celestial realm. Perhaps that’s why all returned missionaries point to their missions as some of the best years of their lives, a time when they briefly left this world and got a sneak-preview of eternity.

I served in the Brazil Maceió mission, a mission in the northeastern and poorest region of that country. The dirt streets were at times depressing and the open sewage offensive, and yet, ironically, to me that spot was celestial. It’s that way for all missionaries in all places, for the work’s sacredness celestializes even the escargot, even the sushi, even the sewage.

I claim no authority or excellence. My grandpa George always asserted with pride that he was the most extraordinary ordinary missionary in the history of the church. I feel the same way. Any missionary could write a book like this one, a volume full of experiences and lessons learned, for each mission is as holy as scripture, as touching as prayer.

My mission, like all missions, was sacred. I spent two years of my life sharing with others the gospel of Jesus Christ. I hope these essays inspire those who read them as the experiences they describe inspired me.

Chapter 1: A Love for the Savior

Elder J. Richard Clarke summarized devotion this way: “We demonstrate the depth of our love for the Savior when we care enough to seek out the suffering among us and attend to their needs … We would all like to have the Savior’s capacity to assuage the hungers of the world; but let us not forget that there are many simple ways by which we can walk in His steps” (Conference Report, October 1981, pp. 112-13.).

How many hunger? How many wander without the divine map that leads back to the Father? We missionaries — representatives of Jesus Christ — show our love for the Savior by caring for the spiritually afflicted, just as He would. Of course we’ll never cure all the world’s spiritual hungers, but as missionaries we seek the small, simple ways to walk in the Savior’s sacred steps.

If we’re to represent Jesus Christ, we must understand what He did to be what He is. We must understand His saving sacrifice to comprehend our own missionary sacrifices, sacrifices that also save. We must understand His love to grasp our own missionary love for those we serve. To be a great missionary — to seek the simple ways to walk in the Savior’s footsteps, ways to attend to the needs of the spiritually suffering — we must first seek to understand and love the Lord Jesus Christ.

Golgotha and the Garden Tomb

Mary of Magdala had a hard time rising on that second day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. She lay quietly on the small platform bed, lay quietly as the sun underwent its daily birth and cast its radiant beams upon the earth beneath. She was awake but paralyzed with the thoughts of her fallen friend. Despite the bright rays that bathed her tiny body, only darkness dwelt in Mary’s soul, for another Son had set the previous day. Both died, Mary thought, but only one would rise again. Only one was daily reborn.

She forced her leg from beneath her blanket and rolled out of bed, the dirt of the floor cold between her toes. Sunbeams hit the dusty air, creating spears of light that cast radiant patterns about her feet. Most days she’d have welcomed the sunbeams as her dearest friends, but today the incandescent spears reminded her only of the javelin that had pierced her Savior’s side the night before. She cringed at the sunlight’s stabs.

Mary slowly unwound her sindon, the white linen sheet in which she slept, thinking as she undressed of the fine linen in which they’d wrapped her departed Master. Only He would never awake as she had. He would never shed His sindon at the beginning of a new day, for no new days would dawn for her fallen friend — only the cold, dark nights of Arimathea’s tomb.

Her small hand grasped the tight-fitting woolen garment, the kuttoneth, her most comfortable shirt. She lifted the cloth above her and slipped it over her head, straightening the wrinkles. The girdle about her waist, once fastened, pulled the shirt close to her body and revealed her frail frame. Mary was among the poorest in Jerusalem, lean from hard work and scarce food, and yet she had been one of the happiest in the Holy City. Happy, that is, until her best friend had left her — abandoned her, she thought. Mary reached for her tsa’iyph and pulled the white dress over her head, letting it hide her thinness. The large fringe covered her fragile feet.

She moved to the center of her room and knelt. Her face wore a slight frown as she placed her hands in her lap and bowed her head, preparing to call upon the Lord as all Jews do, offering her tefillah, hoping God had not forsaken her completely.

“Blessed be the Lord our God and the God of our fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob, the great, the mighty, and the terrible God; the Most High God, Who showeth … mercy …”

Mary paused with that last word. She inhaled as tears formed in her eyes, as the dew of sorrow already condensed upon her soul turned to relentless rain. Tiny hands wiped away salty drops, but the downpour of grief within continued unabated. If God was merciful, why did He allow His Son, her Master and her dearest friend, to be tortured and murdered? How she needed Him! Why did God take from her that which she cherished most?

“And kindness, who createth all things, Who remembereth the gracious …”

Unable to bear the weight of her sorrow, Mary’s head fell into her lap. She let her tears fall; to try to stop them would be like trying to empty an ocean with a bucket. No one noticed the little creature weeping silently, her tiny form shaking with each sob. Even God seemed to have abandoned her, seemed to have withdrawn His warmth from her soul and left only frigid loneliness. What had He said? What had He promised when He was yet with her?

“Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.”

Where was that promised comfort now? Where was His friendly embrace and quick smile? Her comfort had died with Christ on the cross, crucified with her Master. She rose slowly to her feet, unable to finish the tefillah, and left without breakfast.

Hundreds of soles trod the dirt streets of Jerusalem, kicking up clouds of dust that suffocated Mary’s body just as grief suffocated her spirit. Despite the noise, Jerusalem was quiet that Sabbath. All marched to the synagogues, heeding tradition’s call that they worship Jehovah — the same they had crucified the day before — in their houses of prayer.

Mary walked the streets of the lower city in a daze, numbed by sorrow. A sudden rush of cold air greeted the young woman when she opened the synagogue door. The darkness within challenged the radiant brilliance of the spring day. Mary stood in the entryway until her eyes adjusted to the shadows. She quickly found her seat.

The Magdalene sat between isolation and loneliness near the back, pulling her legs up close to her body, needing something to hug. At least a hundred Jews filled the room, but Mary was alone. Resting her chin on her knees, she watched the ruler of the synagogue march to the lectern at the front of the room, dignified and authoritative.

“Blessed be Thou, O Lord, King of the world,” he began, following the rituals of Jewish Sabbath worship, “Who formest the light and createst the darkness, Who makest peace and createst everything; Who, in mercy, givest light to the earth and to those who dwell upon it, and in Thy goodness day by day and every day renewest the works of creation. Blessed be the Lord our God for the glory of His handiwork and for the light-giving lights which He has made for His praise. Selah! Blessed be the Lord our God, Who hath formed the lights.”

“Renewest the works of thy creation? Will you renew the life of my friend, who you created and then took from me? Yes, Lord — I know you formed the lights in the heavens — but will you return the heaven-sent light of life into my Master’s lifeless body?”

Mary was not angry with God — she had learned to trust Him — but how He puzzled her. Why had He taken her Master? Why had He let His Son die upon the cross? Why had He let her watch her Savior — her dearest friend — depart this brutal world? Mary inhaled, her tiny body expanding as the sorrow within her swelled, and then exhaled, the shadow of a sob hidden in her sigh.

“With great love hast Thou loved us, O Lord our God, and with much overflowing pity hast Thou pitied us our Father and our King. For the sake of our fathers who trusted in Thee, and Thou taughtest them the statutes of life, have mercy upon us and teach us. Enlighten our eyes in Thy law; cause our hearts to cleave to The commandments; unite our hearts to love and fear The name, and we shall not be put to shame, world without end. For Thou art a God Who preparest salvation, and us hast Thou chosen from among all nations and tongues, and hast in truth brought us near to The great Name that we may lovingly praise Thee and Thy Oneness. Blessed be the Lord Who in love chose His people Israel.”

“Yes, Lord! Have mercy on us! Our fathers trusted in Thee and their bones now rot in their tombs. If you have loved us with a great love — and I believe you have — how can you let us die, never to return, never again to ‘cleave to the commandments’ or to ‘unite our hearts to love and fear the name?’ What good is being chosen if in the end we rot as all men do, as my Savior who lies now in Arimathea’s tomb is rotting? I love Him, Lord! Will I never see Him again?”

Her soul spoke out, but Mary was silent. Tears fell upon her knees as the ruler of the synagogue began the shema, but no one noticed the trembling young women alone at the back of the room. No one saw her falling tears or spiritual sorrows.

“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord,” the ruler began, reading the prayer from the Torah before him. The congregation repeated, all save for Mary who remained silent, legs still pulled up against her.

“And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might …”

“Oh God, I do love Thee — I do — but why did You let them kill Him? I watched as His spirit left His body; I saw the flame in His eyes slowly dwindle until it finally went out. Part of me died with Him! Why did it have to be this way, Lord? Why does this have to be the end?”

“True it is, that Thou art Jehovah our God and the God of our fathers, our King and the King of our fathers, our Savior and the Savior of our fathers, our Creator, the Rock of our salvation, our Help and our Deliverer …”

“Help me, Lord! Deliver me from this sorrow! I’ve many questions without answers. How can you let us lie down forever in the grave if you love us? Help me understand, Lord! I know your love — I’ve felt it a thousand times — but why have you made death the end? Why does the grave win? Why is Your divine hand ever out of reach?”

“O Lord our God! Cause us to lie down in peace, and raise us up again to life, O our King!”

Mary no longer heard the ruler’s address, for sorrow had consumed her. She heard nothing of the Eighteen Benedictions, of the ruler’s plea that the Lord bless and keep his congregation, of the reading from the law or the prophets. Her soul’s cries resonated throughout her tiny body, a vast cavern in which her inward sobs echoed, reverberated, and silenced the universe. How she missed her Savior! How she longed for His tender embrace and loving counsel, but He had left her — forever, she thought — and now she had only her sorrow, only the emptiness within where once her friend had dwelt.

Several hours later Mary realized she was alone, this time literally. All had left the synagogue to partake of their Sabbath meal, but Mary had no family with which to eat, no family with which to offer the wavesheaf to the Lord on the second day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. The previous day she had watched her Master die on the cross and so had prepared no Sabbath meal. Mary wandered home and crawled into bed, too drained to remove even her tsa’iyph. She tossed until morning.

Eleazar began to climb the temple’s pinnacle. His feet shook as he struggled to place one in front of the other, as he marched up the staircase despite the arthritis in his knees and ankles. Age had left him thin and frail, but each passing year had only intensified his stubbornness; pain would not stop him now. The younger priest below stared skyward until he saw a tiny silhouette against the dark morning sky.

“Is it light yet?” Jephunneh yelled, his voice resonating through the crisp morning air. “Is it light as far as Hebron?”

Eleazar, now four hundred and fifty feet above the valley floor, turned his face toward the city of Hebron twenty miles to the south, the vista before him awe-inspiring. The Dead Sea loomed to his left; the Palestinian hills were frozen ocean waves painted green instead of blue. Sadly, his dim eyes could make only a foggy vagueness out of the contours of the surrounding terrain. The Mount of Olives and the fortress Herodium were but a blur, but Eleazar could see the sun’s light as it crept across the valley of Eshcol, in which slept the city Hebron.

“Yes! You may begin the morning sacrifice!”

Mary of Magdalene heard his shrill call as she hurried through the lower city’s sleeping streets. Remembering her Master’s hasty burial, the young woman had risen early that Sunday morning to anoint His body, to finally say good bye. The unlit houses of Jerusalem’s abandoned streets surrounded and trapped Mary, making her feel claustrophobic as she walked through the twilight. Even the heavens were closer that night, a beautiful ceiling that bore down upon the young Magdalene. Mary hurried to the house of Mary, Cleopas’ wife, searching for a friend to comfort her.

The Savior’s aunt heard the quiver in the young woman’s voice and understood, at least in part, her agony. She embraced her young friend, letting the Magdalene’s tears fall on her shoulder. How they missed Jesus of Nazareth! How they longed to talk with Him again, to sit at His feet as they had at the Horns of Hattin or at Solomon’s porch. The older Mary was heart-broken, but she knew the Magdalene hurt even more. The woman in her arms had been the Savior’s most devout disciple, had followed Him as He traveled from city to city. The younger Mary had watched Him as He blessed and taught the multitudes, had cared for Him when He fell ill.

“I won’t pretend to understand how you feel, Mary. I never thought it would end this way either. I never thought He’d die, but think about this, little one. I would rather have a single flower given to me in life than I would have my sepulcher banked with roses. You can remember Jesus in two ways. You can remember the way he was in life — you can remember the buds of kindness and the petals of friendship you shared — or you can remember the flowers about His tomb, memories of loss and sorrow. Remember the times you spent together, Mary. Remember the friendship and the love, for the flowers given in life always smell the sweetest.”

She wiped the tears from the Magdalene’s eyes, and the two continued northward toward the garden tomb. The lower city’s dark streets led them to the Holdah Gates on the temple’s southern side, enormous entrances to Herod’s greatest achievement. The stunning tapestries there always took the Magdalene’s breath away. The golden vines that hung from the temple wall attested to the holiness of the Lord’s house. But that night the two women, blinded by grief, wandered through the gate without noticing the craftsmanship. The white stones of the Royal Portico glowed in the moon light, but the two Marys walked on dim-eyed.

“Remember when He taught on this porch? ‘My doctrine is not mine,’ He said, ‘but His that sent me.’ What will become of His doctrine now that He’s gone, Mary? Who will carry on His legacy?”

The older woman pulled her friend’s frail body closer, a few tears falling down her own cheeks, too. She searched her soul for some answer to give, searched her soul for some words of comfort, but found none. Perhaps Christ’s legacy would die with Him. Perhaps even His divine teachings would fade with time, just as earthly ones do.

The younger woman’s shoulders stiffened when the two turned left onto Solomon’s porch. She stared at the Beautiful Gate on the court’s western wall, the gate where she remembered her Savior once standing. The portal’s Corinthian brass plates intensified the moonlight, stunning brilliance that paralleled Mary’s stunned spirit.

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.

“I will follow Him, Mary! I will follow Him to the grave, just as everyone will, never again to breathe the morning air or to embrace a dear friend or to hear a bird’s sweet song!”

Mary hugged her young companion, her gnarled hands stroking the young woman’s back. What could she say to the sobbing creature in her arms? All would follow Christ. Death was the end; the grave released no prisoners.

She slid her right arm onto the young lady’s shoulder, and the two left the temple precinct, traveling past the pool of Israel and the pool of Bethesda, on to Golgotha and the Garden Tomb. Calvary, a barren skull in the distance, now had new significance. They had passed Golgotha on the way to Sebaste dozens of times, had often been frightened by its crucified. This time, though, their vivid memories of a crucified friend gave the faceless criminal an identity. He was no common malefactor, but their cherished Messiah.

The ground steepened as they scaled the rocky hill, stumbling as they ascended. A brightening sky prophesied the approaching sunrise, and the warmth awakened morning birds. Tears kept the Magdalene’s soul in twilight. No morning bird could comfort such a creature; no sunrise could cast its rays on her sorrowing spirit.

The two women reached their destination, not at the top as they had two days earlier, but at Arimathea’s tomb. A large mass protruded from the hill, an immense bulge in Calvary’s side. Sorrow grasped their throats and choked them as they approached the spot. This was the last time they would see their friend, the last time they would administer to Jesus of Nazareth. No birds sang in those trees nearest His resting place. Only silence. Peace.

The sun, though visible from Hebron, still hid from Golgotha. April flowers, faithful guards, stood in bloom about the rectangular door, the entrance to the tomb, carved into the small cliff at the bulge’s base. The edge of the sun peeked above the horizon and bathed the scene in brilliant light, its piercing rays bolting through the unobscured entrance to the crypt and dispersing the shadows there — inside the tomb — for the large stone that had sealed the sepulcher stood now eight feet removed.

The two women paused, confused. They had not yet imagined their Master’s body stolen, nor had they spoken with the angel who would proclaim His resurrection. They didn’t realize what that open tomb symbolized. Christ, their Savior, had suffered infinitely at Gethsemane. He had been tried illegally before Caiaphas and mocked before Herod, forsaken by Pilate and scourged by the brutal whip. He had died upon Golgotha’s summit, and yet He had triumphed. He was afflicted, yet He overcame. He was degraded, yet not defeated. Scourged, but not subdued; forsaken, but not frustrated; murdered, but not mastered. Christ had risen, and many would follow Him, not toward death alone, but toward immortality and eternal life. This the open tomb testified. The sunlight that entered that crypt did not fall upon its Creator. It did not fall upon His lifeless body. In that instant the two Marys, confused by the empty tomb, did not understand. This gift, which only the great Jehovah could give, was not symbolized by the suffering at Gethsemane or by the tragedy of Golgotha, but by the beauty of that sacred, empty tomb.

Chapter 2: A Love for the People

“We must develop a love for people. Our hearts must go out to them in the pure love of the gospel, in a desire to lift them, to build them up, to point them to a higher, finer life and eventually to exaltation in the celestial kingdom of God.” (Ezra Taft Benson, Come unto Christ [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1983], 95.)

A missionary must develop a love for Jesus Christ and His gospel. We must let our knowledge of His messiahship and our certainty of His doctrine compel us to proclaim His message. Ours is not just any religion that saves, nor do we suppose as some that religion saves no one. We alone have the complete truth. Our investigators, whether they know it or not, desperately need our sacred message.

Once we’ve developed this love for Jesus Christ and His gospel, we must cultivate the consequential love for those we serve. We must cultivate within ourselves the pure love of He whom we represent. Charity — Christ’s pure love — must drive us to help those we teach, must drive us to do whatever it takes to save them. We must strive to love our investigators and inactives, to lift them, to build them up, to point them to exaltation.

Christ’s love drove Him to pray for those He saved, to help them, to worry about them. We must be likewise driven if we’re to be the Savior’s true representatives. Christ healed the spiritually sick. He helped sinners come to repentance. He loved enough to die for each of us. We, too, must seek to develop a Christlike charity for those who we, like Jesus of Nazareth, strive to save.

Diadema

I recently went on splits to Diadema, a suburb of São Paulo. I’d heard of places like Diadema — returned missionaries are always willing to talk — but I’d never believed people lived that way, that people could live that way. The roads were unpaved, symbols of poverty. There were no trees, no grass, only dirt and unpainted brick. Diadema was the play city I used to build in the mud for my toy soldiers, only the houses were not pretend. The people were not toys. The tiny dwellings were completely unorganized. One stood at street level and another right below it, accessible by a steep, tree-house staircase. I descended those stairs and traversed a narrow passageway, passing by a four-year-old who sat in the twilight gutter, hidden from the road by the houses above, hidden as if the world didn’t want to remember what I would never forget.

I climbed and gazed at the terrain. Sharp hills rose and fell as far as the eye could see, juxtaposed against a large, polluted river in the distance. The scene was from the Hudson River School, though painted in browns and grays instead of greens and blues. Gray were the houses of tens of thousands of impoverished souls — souls like mine — stretching dismally off into the distance.

Children danced with dirty street dogs, riding rusty bikes and flying pipas — kites — with smiles on their faces and dust on their feet. They were happy — poor, yes, but rich, for they understood some mysterious principle, some elusive doctrine. Perhaps I’ll never understand. A man and his grandson gazed at flirting chickens. I gave the little boy a sticker with Jesus on the front. A smile appeared on his soiled face, and I saw Jesus in his countenance, too, somewhere beneath the mud and the muck, the dirt and the dust. He placed the sticker on his grandfather’s leg and smiled at it, for he recognized the man depicted thereon. He remembered a time when he was clothed not in rags of grime but in a robe of glory, a time when he stood next to the man in the sticker, brighter and purer than I will ever be, His most cherished friend.

As I walked the dusty streets of that foreign land, I felt the same spirit I’d felt back home in a chapel or in a temple. The brown-faced children didn’t notice the feeling that permeated the dusty air, for they had spent their entire lives walking and playing on that holy ground. But for me this place was sacred. This was the mission field, the place where I would bring souls to Christ, where I would labor in the vineyard.

These are real people, not characters in a story or actors in a movie. As I write, they wash their clothes. They try to feed their children, try to find work and clean water. A mother sits in one of those tiny brick houses right now nursing her little boy while her husband stands quietly in the corner watching her, trying desperately to figure out how he’s going to make ends meet. And God gave me, an awkward boy, the mandate to teach these real people the gospel of Jesus Christ, to save these real souls. Their clothes are dirty, my suit is clean and neatly pressed. I’ve attended a university; many of them are illiterate. I come from a middle-class American family, but many of them cannot afford the tiny shacks they call homes. I am unworthy to latch the sandals of their dusty feet. What an opportunity, missionary work! What a blessing to show these choice souls how to return to live with their Father, how to dwell forever at His right hand! I am humbled to serve, humbled to try, however inadequately, to be a type of Christ, a Savior for the people I’ll be privileged to teach, privileged to love.

Chapter 3: Trust in the Lord

“Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths” (Proverbs 3:5-6).

To unite our love for Christ with our love for those we serve is to combine fire and gasoline; the desire to preach the gospel — to help others understand and apply saving principles — consumes us. But how can mere missionaries transform those desires into realities? How can we make a real difference in the lives of those we teach?

Should we rely on our own faculties — our own strengths — to do the work? No one gets an A by asking another to study in his place; he alone through his own hard work determines his grade. No CEO leaves his decisions to another. Independence demands he personally make the most important cooperate determinations.

Missionary work is counterintuitive. The missionary who seeks independence — the one who uses his own abilities to single-handedly “run the show”– will never be successful. God, not His missionaries, governs this work. Rather then independence, we must seek complete dependence upon the Lord. Any two people can accomplish even the impossible — even the masterstroke of missionary service — if one of them is God.

The Master and the Message

Someone had moved the sofa, though mom had yet to notice. The carpet was the same, and the video-game joystick in the room’s center was earthly enough. No one would have guessed that the rearranged, cream-colored furniture was the metallic battle bridge of the Starship Enterprise; no one knew that the gray Atari joystick was the central-computer of the federation’s most powerful flagship. But I knew, for my eight-year-old heart yearned with each beat to “boldly go where no man had gone before,” longed with each pulse to fearlessly look both ways before crossing the galaxy.

“Dad, grab the camera! I’m going to make a movie!”

My beanpole sister Andee was Spock, and Jessi was Doctor Bones. “Darn it, Kirk, I’m a sister, not a Star Trek oddball” she said, trying to imitate the good doctor. Besides the director, I was the star, Captain James T. Kirk himself, commander and chief of the starship Enterprise, heart and head of the most powerful space vessel this side of the Romulan Empire.

The plot was brilliant, following closely the plot of every Star Trek episode ever created. Sister Spock was flying the Enterprise through an uncharted sector of the galaxy, avoiding black holes and other “unidentified singularities in space-time.” The ship shuddered, an effect created by jostling the video camera randomly as we all lunged to the right.

“Captain, we’re being attacked by an unidentified race of alien beings!”

“Don’t worry, Spock. I’ll just beam off the ship to fix this problem.”

Circular weights from my dad’s muscle-building machine (the “beaming-pad”) had replaced the plastic plant in the corner. I sprinted, and with the decisive order to “energize” the molecules of my body, ever inclined to disobey even the most fundamental laws of physics, reassembled themselves in some distant spot.

Once off living-room/stage I grabbed a “special effect.” With stolen twine from my mother’s sowing drawer I’d tied a blue frisbee to the end of a broken broomstick. Now came the decisive moment! With all the drama my soul could muster, I raised the extraterrestrial and, swinging the broom, made the aggressive creature lunge violently at sister Spock.

Sister Spock snickered. A feeling of immense anger rose from within me as the corners of her mouth rose to her eyes. Dad stopped filming Spock and Bones and turned the camera in my direction, recording forever the scene of a red-faced, red-haired eight-year-old whose six-year-old sister’s unprofessional smile had ruined an otherwise brilliant drama.

Spock failed to understand who was in charge of that ill-fated science-ficticional production. She misunderstood the message my angry face lanced in her direction — a message of solemnity and dramatic professionalism.

I pondered that experience ten years later in an MTC classroom, indulging in a little nostalgia instead of studying a little Portuguese. My mind made a curious connection. Spock had ignored my sober message, ignored my unspoken reprimand. Sister Spock never understood who was in charge of the movie — who directed and governed that work. Was I any different? Did I understand who was directing and governing me then, who was trying then to guide and teach me? Did I understand who directs and governs missionary work, a work far more important than “Star Trek IX: Spock Gets Eaten”? I like sister Spock ignored my director’s message and threatened to ruin everything. Who was in charge? My zone leader, my mission president? An apostle or a prophet? What was that director’s message for me?

“Where do you think you’ll serve your mission, son?”

We passed the north side of Cougar Stadium, just past the hill where college students make snowmen and sled tracks in December. Exotic places — Jamaica, Kenya; Romania or Magnolia — invaded my mind. My four-year-old sister Kelsey Kay chirped an agitated response.

“Mom! It’s Jesus that gets to decide!”

Jesus Christ, the Son of God, gets to decide! Jesus Christ, our Savior and Master, directs and governs His missionaries, whether in Brazil or Bolivia, Delaware or Denmark. We preach Christ; He’s our message! We preach His gospel as restored through the boy-prophet.

These thoughts meandered through my head as I lay on that MTC classroom floor, resting from a long day of Portuguese and Prophets, pondering what it meant to be a representative of Jesus Christ. I glanced at the brick wall above me, stared at the two paintings that hung there.

The first was of the Savior in a regal white robe. Surrounded by concourses of angels, He stood upon the clouds with outstretched hands, beckoning all nations and peoples.

The second was of the prophet in a grove called sacred, beholding the glory of the Father and Son above him in a pillar of light. God also outstretched His hand, pointing to His Son as He Said, “This is my Beloved. Hear ye Him!” Pointing as He ushered in the restoration of His only true church.

My sister never realized who was in charge of the movie: me! She never understood the message etched on my beet-red face: shape up! But we understand! Our Master is Jesus Christ. Our message is His restored gospel. He directs this work, and through Him we will help our brothers and sisters return to His presence.

Whisperings of the Spirit

Disturbed by swaying jackfruit leafs above, sunbeams danced upon heavy coconuts, mangos, and bananas. Machete-cut field grass was a lush carpet, and the sweet smell of fallen fruit rode the Brazilian breeze. My companion, Elder Moura, clapped at the front gate.

A thin carpenter came running from behind the tiny farmhouse, his smile even sharper than the machete still in his hand. He greeted us with a firm “I’m-really-happy-to-see-you” handshake. Poverty had stripped his living room of everything but a few chairs and a cheap television, yet a good feeling gave the tile floor upon which we sat a warm shine despite its dust.

Luciano was, in all senses of the word, goofy. His wide smile mismatched his thin body, and I never once saw him in clean clothes. Saw dust and oil were as much a part of his wardrobe as pants and shirts. His petite wife sat beside him with a twinkle in her eyes, excited that her husband was becoming a “believer.” Would their marriage improve once he stopped drinking? Would he spend more time with the children? She glanced hopefully between her husband’s smile, her six-month-old in a dishrag diaper, and her shirtless toddler, envisioning unity and love.

“Elder Durant, yesterday two Jehovah’s Witnesses stopped by my house, but I told them I was already Mormon.”

I grinned. We were the first “believers” he’d allowed in his house, and I was pleased he’d noticed the distinct good feeling that accompanied our visits.

“You’re practically already there, Luciano. Just stay strong! Hey, what do you guys think about reading in the book? Would you pass me your copy?”

He smiled bashfully as he handed me his Book of Mormon. I’d folded three pages, letting the corners stick out so he’d find them easily. Those corners now bore suspicious teeth-shaped tears.

“Sorry, Elder Durant. Our monkeys get real hungry.”

The tiny monkeys perched upon his wife’s head screeched, confirming their villainy.

“Well, that’s all right. Look, it’s still readable! Let me find third Nephi chapter eleven and we’ll start …”

“And it came to pass,” I read slowly, trying to transmit the Spirit to these wonderful people, trying to feel the power of the words, “that the multitude went forth, and thrust their hands into his side, and did feel the prints of the nails in his hands and in his feet; and this they did do, going forth one by one until they had all gone forth, and did see with their eyes and did feel with their hands, and did know of a surety and did bear record, that it was he, of whom it was written by the prophets, that should come.”

“Those people had the marvelous opportunity to see Jesus, but in our day we must rely upon something else equally marvelous: faith …”

A small puddle of water formed beneath the baby’s dishrag diaper, an expanding lake beneath a broken dam. I’ll never know how so much liquid came out of such a tiny child, but I gained a greater appreciation for the absorbing capacity of the factory brand diaper.

“Oops! It looks like your baby might have wet himself.”

“Aw, don’t worry about it, Elders. My wife’ll take care of it later.”

“Ok … well … um, speaking of water, look what Christ taught here. ‘And then shall ye immerse them in the water, and come forth again out of the water.'”

“Baptism is so important,” I said emphatically, hoping the Spirit would touch their hearts, “but it’s got to be done in the right way. We’re baptized by immersion because …”

A mother duck invaded the house with her four chicks, as disruptive as a high-school parade with cheerleaders doing flips and trumpets doing scales. Attracted by the new lake, they waddled between us in spiteful defiance.

“Wow, Luciano, I … I … I didn’t even know you guys had ducks. How … interesting.”

“Yeah, we bought them last week. Cool, isn’t it?”

“Really cool. Really. Anyway, I know the things we’ve discussed today are true. The Holy Ghost touches our …” — the monkey screamed — “… our … hearts … and helps us to know that these things are …” — the six-year-old grabbed my flip chart and attacked the picture of Jesus Christ — “… are … really true. We’re happy we have the opportunity to …”

“Man, if you keep talking like this I’ll just have to give up beer!”

A satisfied smile materialized on my face. To continue was futile.

“That’s great, Luciano. You’re a great man. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.”

As we stepped though the door, Luciano put his hand on my shoulder, goofiness giving way to sincerity.

“Elder Durant, every time you guys visit me I feel a little bit stronger. I know God sent you.”

I’ve thought about that discussion, tried to discover how Luciano’s heart was touched despite the half-eaten Book of Mormon, the leak worse than Exxon, and the defying ducks. Elder Moura and I taught nothing that day. Constant interruptions destroyed our message; animals of feathers and fur were the night’s chief presenters. Yet a phenomenon — a miracle — happened in that tiny house on the fruit farm. God touched souls and blessed lives.

When a sounding tuning fork is placed next to another fork of the same pitch, the sound vibrations produced by the first collide with the second and make it vibrate at the same frequency. Even if a silent fork is placed in a noisy room with sound vibrations of all pitches and intensities, only those vibrations from a sounding fork of the same frequency produce resonance.

Men are tuning forks, for if one teaches by the Spirit and another listens with an open heart, the heart of the second feels what the first feels — knows what he knows. As we taught Luciano, his heart vibrated in tune with ours, for the Holy Ghost, the true Teacher, cut through the distractions and pierced his soul.

Chapter 4: Lessons Learned

“It is worth all the struggle and sacrifice one is called upon to make to finish a mission creditably before the Lord, and to come home with an honorable release, with a strong testimony and a humble spirit. The development has been gradual, as in other kinds of work; as in the schools of the world, the missionary advances from lesson to lesson, day by day, learning here a little and there a little, adding grace to grace and power to power.” (The Northern States Mission by President John H. Tailor, Improvement Era, 1928, Vol. Xxxi. May, 1928 No. 7.)

We leave expecting to teach only to return having learned far more than our investigators. Whether because of the people we serve or the experiences we face, our missions give us the education a university never could, the knowledge needed to return to God’s presence.

Missionary experiences are sacred memories that last a lifetime. They teach us that which we can only learn in the Lord’s service. With each lesson we advance day by day, grace by grace, until through our acquired experience we become better than we were.

The Plastic Flower

My companion and I turned left at the intersection. The day had been hard, and with every step the blisters on my feet demanded rest. Elder Erickson, an experienced missionary of twenty months, smiled nostalgically as I winced, remembering how he’d passed through the same. How I longed for the day when leathery skin would at last silence my cries of pain!

Walking this new neighborhood, though, a different cry caught my attention — the cheerful cries of children dancing in the street. Huts lined the road — a village made from brown and gray legos — and stopgap, graffiti-scared walls stood in front of each shanty. These small dwellings — tool sheds, not homes — resembled the tiny adobe houses of Mexico, but without the beautiful adobe color that makes the Mexican buildings poster or calendar worthy. Some ancient civilization had once paved the roads, but time had exposed cobblestones and excavated potholes. I’d seen the same scene in National Geographic, only instead of a photograph this distant land was my new life, my new everything. Home was the distant place now.

We stopped at one of those huts, the gate locked to keep thieves from stealing the family’s nothing.

Quem é?”

Élder.”

The timid voice unlocked and opened the gate. Before us stood a brown Mrs. Santa Clause in a tattered T-shirt. Time had wrinkled her face. The biggest wrinkle was her smile, a painting framed by wiry, black hair.

She directed us to a ragged couch. Scare money had robbed the cold cement floor of tile or carpet, and time had stripped it, laying bare the gravel beneath. Her husband had built a small kitchen and a broken-toilet bathroom, both hidden behind thin sheets that should have been doors. No ceiling defended this house, only a tin roof with holes that became waterfalls during the rainy season.

But wait! Something was different. The floors were still gray cement, the roof was still leaky, and the toilet was still broken. I glanced around — almost frantically — before realizing. She’d spent the entire day painting the old cement walls white. Scarce money had refused plaster, and wallpaper was as remote as caviar, but how she beamed as we admired her handy-work!

Her friend had spent a few months in my home state. We gazed at the television, at images of a U.S. Christmas with snow and lights, tinsel and mistletoe. Again I saw children playing, this time with shiny plastic toys on wrapping-paper carpet. The immaculate tile floor of an appliance-ridden kitchen reflected a nearby Steinway, a sharp contrast to the windowless walls and feelings of inadequacy reflected in the woman’s eyes. The Christmas kids laughed just like the dancing ones, though for different reasons. Brazilian street children saw Christmas trees and tinsel as often as snow.

We rode in a red car with black leather seats. A radio blared either static or Pearl Jam; I’m uncertain which. Undisturbed whiteness covered the ground. The middle-class houses were mansions. The road, as smooth as the freshly fallen snow, led to car-and-truck-filled driveways. Stunning wreaths hung on American doors painted green and red and white, and …

She stood, her eyes still fixed on the television, and left the room. Moments later she returned with a vase of cheap, plastic flowers and a pensive countenance. Peace replaced sadness. The two Americans vanished. The cars, the boats, and the tinsel faded away. She placed the flowers on the shelf near the TV and arranged them a bit. A hidden smile graced her face as she stepped back, a smile of satisfaction. It was a beautiful house, with a cold cement floor, a leaky roof, and walls as white as snow.

The Little Ones

Brazilian street children are a simple lot. Barbie accessories and computerized, trilingual gadgets are as foreign as a lunar colony; instead, construction-paper kites and empty pop bottles entertain like a Furby. Imagine their excitement upon seeing two tall, blue-eyed missionaries in dark pants and zipper ties! Pop bottles drop every time we pass.

Tu! Fala inglês!” they yell, headlight eyes full of expectation. “You! Say English!” How exciting to hear another language!

Or there’s the plea of the economically minded children.

Me dê dez!” they say, tiny hands extended as if to catch snowflakes. “Give me ten centavos!” Tasty hard candies and coconut sweet rolls dance seductively in their heads.

I’ll never forget one street child I met in the rain, a darling little girl with a tattered gray dress and a thousand-dollar smile. I watched at a distance as she tried to rip up a cardboard box with tiny, little-girl arms; soaked, she desperately needed a makeshift umbrella. The tiny creature ran as I approached, not out of fear so much as uncertainty. I tore the box open and demanded she sit with me under the bus stop’s protective concrete canopy. As we sat captive on that dry, deserted-island bus stop, surrounded by an ocean of rain, the little one’s golden soul — a soul that had withstood poverty’s corrosion — enchanted me. She called me “senhor” — “mister” — in her sing-song, northeast-Brazilian accent as if I were a king or a senator.

“You know, if you invested those ten centavos on NASDAQ, you could retire in thirty years.”

Her quizzical smile showed she’d never heard of the stock exchange.

“Thanks, mister. Thanks a lot.”

A little girl giggled as she half walked, half skipped down the street, a cardboard umbrella her only protection from the rain.

The constant “fala inglês/me dê dez” verbal assault irritates some missionaries, especially when the children really want to hear English or really want ten-centavo coconut bread. For me, though, one word ended the fala inglês/me dê dez aggravation: “chique.” “Chique” means “slick” in the sense that a person wearing a leather coat on his Harley is “slick.” It’s a grown-up word most street children don’t understand. I slyly used it to my advantage.

One torrid summer day my companion and I were walking down a certain street for the ten thousandth time. As we passed some little ones, the offending phrase assaulted our ears: “Fala inglês!

I stopped and stared at the surprised youngsters.

Cheguem.”

Though cautious at first, they soon decided we were harmless and herded about us, lightning carried on toothpick legs.

“All right. You children clearly need some training. When I pass, you’re all to yell ‘chique, chique!’ Understood?”

The children smiled, guessing “chique” was either my name or some English word.

“All right, let’s practice,” I said, stepping backwards before advancing again. “Look! I’m passing you!”

Chique, chique! Chique, chique!

“Elder Red Elk,” I panted as we passed the same spot weeks later, “this sun is going to kill me! I’ve never sweat so much in my whole life!”

Chique, chique!

My thumbs-up was returned with a smile. The sky continued cloudless, but the sun let up.

“Elder Red Elk, that water we just drank had ants in it, but I downed it anyway because I didn’t want to offend Sister Barbosa. I’m going to ralf!”

Chique, chique!

The chique cured my stomach ache faster than Peptobismo.

“Elder Red Elk! If another guy says he ‘already has the truth’ I’m going to smack him!”

Chique, chique! Chique, chique!

Thus we formed an alliance, a relationship built not on “me dê dez” or “fala ingles” but on chiqueness. The children became our friends and helpers in ways I’d never anticipated.

Não tem ninguém,” a little voice chirped as we knocked. “Nobody’s home.”

“Thanks, kid.”

We moved to the next house and repeated the door-knocking ritual for the fifty thousandth time that day.

Também,” the shirtless child said, jumping to his feet. “Nobody’s there.” Tattered shorts miraculously remained around a toothpick waist.

Our knock on the next door was echoed across the street by littler hands, as if the angel who had pushed the battered saints’ handcarts over Rocky Ridge had now come to give two sunburned missionaries a helpful push. The little boy was knocking doors for us!

“Hi, lady. Is your husband home? Those two white guys over there are looking for him.” His tiny black body was a strange silhouette against the house’s high, whitewashed wall.

“Sorry, bud. He’s working until 6:00.”

“He’s gone over here, guys. Let me check this next one!”

Our little spy continued until the street’s end, knocking and reporting his findings to his new American friends. The FBI could have hoped for no better undercover agent!

“You are one great little boy! Hey, I’ve got some chocolate here in my pocket. It’s a little melted, but probably still good. Are you hungry?”

Just as the tiniest terrestrial cloud blocks the brilliance of the celestial sun, so, too, can the tiniest terrestrial difficulty — often God’s blessing mislabeled — block our celestial happiness. How often does God send us blessings — like little street children who really like to talk — and yet we see only irritating curses? Why does God permit the innocent to be tried? Why does he let criancinhas vex His missionaries with fala ingles and me dê dez? Our “trials” are blessings, blessings like little ones dancing in the streets, to the rhythm of “chique, chique!

The Sacrifice

The humid breeze was almost refreshing that Sunday morning. We hurried down the street, anticipating our encounter with him like a child anticipates Christmas, hoping he’d be ready when we knocked his door.

The slum’s avenue was paved with dust and mud, dirt compacted by the feet of a thousand passers-by. The narrow road permitted no cars. The poor couldn’t afford them anyway. Their brick shacks had no garages; their pockets had no money. Tiny girls of three or four ran shirtless in the street, skirts swinging as they raced. Boys played soccer barefoot in shorts with revealing rips.

I clapped. His thin figure materialized in the door way.

“Hey, Joseph. Are you ready to go to church?”

“You bet! Just a second … let me grab my shirt.”

He limped from the house wearing blue jeans and a checkered T-shirt, supporting his weight on two steel braces insecurely gripped. Joseph was a fisherman before he was a cripple. He’d ignored his back pain, kept working until it was too late. The doctors said brisk ocean waters were to blame, though, had Joseph had money, the cause might have been rheumatoid arthritis or spinal injury.

He leaned on the braces and swung his clock-pendulum legs forward, determined to continue. The illness had twisted his knees, afflicting both pain and humiliation. Unable to bend the joints beneath his waist, the braces were prisoner guards, nagging companions that reminded him constantly of his condition. I’d never seen him walk, never seen how he swung the dead weight of his lower body forward.

The journey to the chapel was slow. I walked in grandma gear at his side, rambling to distract him from his pain. Dews of sweat precipitated on his rose-pedal brow. Exhaustion slowed his steps.

“I’m sorry. I need to rest for just a second.”

“You look tired, Joseph. I had no idea it was going to be this hard. Next time we’ll get you a ride, okay? Don’t worry one bit.”

“This is nothing, Elder Durant. The trip to the hospital’s just as hard as this one. At least this time I’m going to the house of God.”

He lunged his body forward, continuing his pioneer trek across not-so-frozen plains. Sweating and panting, he walked with an open mouth and breathed like a long-distance runner.

We arrived thirty minutes late. The voyage had taken longer than expected. The veteran crept into Elders quorum. All eyes stared at the cripple as he locked his eyes on a folding chair across the room and limped to it. He fell into his seat, exhausted.

I’m a Hero and I Know it

I tossed and turned in bed, ear plugs unable to muffle the blaring music that penetrated my paper-thin bedroom walls. Jessi, fifteen years old, had discovered the maniac melodies of the Spice Girls and had chosen a most inopportune moment to listen to “Tell ya wut I wunt, wut I rilly, rilly wunt” at jet-engine, ear-plug-ignoring volume. I left my inviting blanket and tiptoed past her door into the boiler room beyond. Relief coursed through my veins as I stared at the circuit-breaker aspirin for my sisterly headache. Hidden in the darkness, my fingers, already programmed and acting automatically (for this I’d often done before), flipped the switch and cut the electricity to her “rocking” bedroom. I leaned against the boiler-room door and stared though a crack there, only to see Jessi mosey by, wearing a confused look every bit as revealing as the Spice Girls’ miniskirts.

I left my breakfast on the bathroom counter across the hall. Orange juice developed into an interesting bacterial culture, even better than the laboratory, petri-dish varieties. Science constrained me to observe its daily development. Daily it grew larger and smellier, but, compelled by scholarship, I nobly bore the stench. A greater commitment interrupted the experiment; I had to leave on my mission before I could published in Scientific American.

Yes my family loved me, a love interlaced with tolerance and longsuffering. I lived to bother my siblings, lived to hear their hysterical giggles every time I yelled “tickle torture.” When I left on my mission, water turned to wine; instead of a tolerated nuisance, I became an incomparable legend, a Lincoln, a Gandhi. A strange alchemy transformed a light-hearted lad into an unequaled legend.

My saintly mother never tired of reminding me to clean my room or wash the dishes. She always stomached me lovingly, a weary grin upon her Dutch face every time she pointed out the many chores I’d “forgotten.” Affliction is a magnifying glass that intensifies sunlight love. I was an electron microscope. When I left on my mission, though, I was no longer simply loved. I was deified.

“It was pretty rough on me today at the MTC as I watched my little boy leave and even worse when I got home. I saw the bathrobe you’ve been using on the floor of the bathroom. Instead of being glad it was the last time I’d have to pick up after you I cried — because it’s the last time I get to pick up after you! Then as I did your laundry this afternoon, I would smell each stinky article of clothing, relishing that unique stench that is only you before I washed it for the last time. Then I discovered your science experiment. When I couldn’t get the smell out of the glass after three washings, I still wanted to keep the glass as a memory of you. I slapped myself in the face, took a reality check and chucked the glass in the garbage.”

Mom saw me as a blessing — Johnny Lingo’s Mahana instead of the “Mahana you ugly” Mahana of post marriage fame — forgetting the time I flooded the basement or the time I dropped our van’s transmition.

“I’m telling you, you better come home cause we are getting too many blessings. It’s almost embarrassing! (But not that much!)”

Even Jessi, who later discovered why her bedroom blacked out every time I wanted to sleep, converted to the Elder Durant cult.

“You are such an example to me. To give up two years of your life to dedicate to the Lord is incredible! Wait, I am wrong … you have dedicated your whole life to the Lord! You are so close to perfect and you don’t even know it, even if you say you do. I love you so much and pray for you every night.”

The part of my life spent in the boiler room was dedicated to nothing but my sleep, and my constant comments about being perfect (subtle brainwashing) would have been fruitless had she known about the circuit breaker.

Then there’s my twelve-year-old, skinny-as-a-stick sister Ellie, whose boy friends were, I asserted, really boyfriends. She, too, immortalized me.

“I love you so much! You are such an example to me. You are so smart, and handsome, and you care for other people’s feelings. You are so righteous and are determined to do what is right, and you give good advice, but the most of all you are an example to me because you are going on a mission. This letter is just a short, short summary of how great you really are.”

What a phenomenon! What an unpredicted solar eclipse in the Jake-is-a-nerd starry sky! Jake Durant stumbled into the telephone-booth-of-missionary-service and came out Super Elder. What caused this miracle? First, my family now missed me instead of simply pitying me as before.

“Jessi, Ellie, Kelsey and I were driving down the street yesterday looking for a place to eat lunch. We passed an Arby’s and Jessi said, ‘Oh, Jake used to love Arby’s.’ All of us sighed at the same time.”

Second, the huge distance between Utah and Brazil made teasing and tickling impossible. Without any reality checks, my family’s good perception of me increased as boundlessly as the bacterial growth in the bathroom.

“You are such an important influence on your sisters, son. Especially with you being on a mission. The girls practically worship you now that you’re gone. You’re a lot easier to worship from afar!!”

No matter the cause, when I became Elder Durant I became an example. Like the first domino that knocks over the rest, an example’s influence is enormous. Many look to another to know how to likewise better themselves.

I once added the P.S. “hope you’re all reading your scriptures” to a letter home, added it like a baker throws another cherry on his cake for no real reason at all. Mom returned an emphasized response.

“I’m reading my scriptures, son. Thanks for the encouragement.”

She repeated the same in subsequent letters, making sure I knew she was reading, worried she might disappoint me. I’d thought my comment was unimportant, and yet it had a profound effect. Mom began to listen more in church so she’d have interesting things to write me, and my family became more involved in missionary work.

“I talked with a lady at the laundry-mat, we struck up conversations with people at KOA campgrounds, etc. When we have a son in the mission field, it gives us more courage. The worst that can happen is they will walk away thinking we are weird. That happens to me all the time even when I am not talking about the church, so oh well!”

“You are the biggest example to me and I interminably love you all the time. You are teaching the Lord’s word and we are his children. I love this gospel and would be lost with out it. You are not the only one that has got stronger and spiritual. Remember that your little sister has gotten stronger by you, ok? I love you so much!”

When one follows an example he longs to do what his example does.

“Jake, your letter was amazing. I cried because it really touched me. I want to have an experience like that so much. It makes me so genuinely happy to know that you’re touching lives, young and old, all the way over in Brazil. I wish I could be in your shoes for a little while so I could serve the Brazilians.”

“Jake, bear lake was so much fun! I wish you could be there but I would rather be in Brazil and serving the Lord then on a jet ski in Bear Lake.”

The desire to do what an example does leads to plans to do what an example did. An example is a template. Plans to apply that template have long-term effects the example never knows or understands, pebbles thrown off a cliff that cause an unseen landslide. Perhaps my family was right in immortalizing me! An example is eternal.

“Last Sunday your brother Matty was looking through my planner during the sacrament. I told him he should be thinking about Jesus. He said, ‘Mom, I know how I can think about Jesus.’ He turned to your picture at the back of my planner and said, ‘Just looking at Jakie makes me think about Jesus.'”

The Real Difference

It was hot — no, no (that doesn’t quite describe it). The torrid ocean wind blowing in our parched faces was the fiery column of air that shoots out the back of a 747 jet engine and makes the scenery on the other side dance the Brazilian samba, the wind that makes people see mirages and go a little crazy, the heat that really does fry eggs on the sidewalk. We invaded the casainha, eager to defy the blazing sun with a relaxing lunch-break.

“Lunch is ready,” Linete hollered, smiling as she parted the kitchen drape that should have been a wall. “Come and eat!”

Linete was a beanpole, tall and lanky with jet-black hair and an enormous grin. She taught me the difference between a pair of shoes and a smile. Worn shoes ware, but time only strengthens a smile. Thanks to years of exercise, Linete had one of the most powerful smiles I’d ever seen. She always made sure we had lunch, always gave us water when we visited, and even organized a Relief Society service project to clean our house. She was my Brazilian mother, a welcome friend at a time when my real mom was thousands of miles away in the land of pasteurized milk and Snickers candy bars.

As we entered her tidy kitchen a table full of rice and beans greeted us. Though poor, Linete always gave what few mites she had; her big heart seasoned food better than black pepper. The food spread before us was a king’s banquet, and the aura of happiness and hospitality that Linete wore as an extra layer of clothing made me a king.

“Grandma’s been asking if the missionaries would come today. Boy’s she excited!”

“Grandma? What grandma, irmã? Oh … you mean that elderly lady we met last week? She’s your grandma?”

I remembered her now, the tiny-framed, frail woman with hands I was afraid to shake for fear I’d break them. Years had wrinkled her skin like seran-wrap on a hot stove, but she still radiated happiness. No one was sad when Linete was around. This woman was the constant benefactor of Linete’s grand-daughterly devotion. She’d spoken in a quiet, raspy, hard-to-understand voice, and I’d just nodded, smiled, and moved on without a second thought.

But I was thinking twice about her that day two weeks later! She was all I thought about as I feasted on rice and beans, this small, wrinkled lady I hardly knew who was so excited to see me.

“Do you suppose we could move our seats to her bedroom door, Linete?”

“Sure. That’d be great! You can all eat ice cream together. In fact, I’ve got some maracujá syrup you’ve got to try, Elder. Just one taste and you’ll never want to leave Brazil!”

We moved our chairs into the doorway of the woman’s tiny room. A medication-laden nightstand stood next to a rusty chair. Linete had been sitting there a few minutes earlier, hand-feeding her elderly grandmother.

“How are you, irmã?”

I frantically analyzed her raspy, impossible-to-understand response, desperately hoping to comprehend just enough so she’d think I’d caught everything.

“Aral gnar flam grandson trel served good mission.”

“Oh! Your grandson served a mission! That’s great! How long ago did he serve?”

“Lecern matergen smin.”

I pulled a face that implied comprehension.

“How do you feel about the gospel, anyway, irmã?”

“Lanterk frem soler son-in-law halnen bishop.”

Hers were the eyes of a pound-bound puppy-dog on adoption day. Finally some attention!

“Oh, so you’re Bishop Vital’s mother-in-law! You know, he’s a great man.”

Our “conversation” continued for ten minutes. Her frail body kept her from expressing much excitement, but the sparkle in her eyes shouted “hallelujah” louder than any Pentecostal believer in the church down the street. Our schedule demanded we leave, but, when we did, that sweet grandma was overjoyed, thrilled that two American missionaries took the time to chat with her.

Is power in money or property? Humanity will forget even the richest men. How many people recognize “Rockefeller” as anything but a New York skyscraper mentioned occasionally on TV? How many recognize “Vanderbilt” as anything but a “cool party school back east?” History writes the transient power of wealth in pencil. Time erases it from humanity’s memory.

Is true power in politics, then? How many remember the names of the Roman emperors or the Russian czars? How many Americans know the names of all the U.S. presidents? Time writes political preeminence in pencil, too, and one hundred years from now no one but the historians will care.

But how many people remember their first best friend? How many people remember a mom who put a band-aid on a three-year-old finger and comfort into a three-year-old heart? How many people remember the insecurity of leaving for college and that one special friend who smiled and made it all bearable? Power is in the little things because when we do the little things the angels in heaven record our good deeds in pen, a celestial register that’s never forgotten, never erased.

Power is not in money or in politics or in any mundane thing. Power was when I leaned over to my companion and whispered, “You know, if we’d take ten minutes out of our schedule to talk to that old lady, I bet it’d make her day.”

Chapter 5: The Consequences of the Work

“For I say unto you that every man who has received any portion of the Priesthood is a missionary; and the salvation of the world, to a certain extent, rests upon his shoulders.” (Journal of Discourses, 26 vols. [London: Latter-day Saints’ Book Depot, 1854-1886], 22: 250.)

What is missionary work’s consequence? Why do thousands labor and sweat day after day despite the rejection and the discouragement at nearly every door and on nearly every street corner? As representatives of the Savior, the result of our sacrifice parallels the result of His. Just as He saved, we, too, help save those we teach. We bring them to their Master.

What is the value of a human soul? What, then, is the significance of our efforts to save a soul? President Harold B. Lee answered that question with the story of Elder Charles A. Callis.

“There was a missionary who went over to Ireland and had filled a mission of two or three years. They invited him to the stand to give his homecoming speech and he said to them something like this, ‘Brothers and sisters, I think my mission has been a failure. I have labored all my days as a missionary here and I have only baptized one dirty little Irish kid. That is all I baptized.’

Years later this man came back, went up to his home somewhere in Montana, and Brother Callis, now a member of the Council of the Twelve, learned where he was living, this old missionary, and he went up to visit him. And he said to him, ‘Do you remember having served as a missionary over in Ireland? And do you remember having said that you thought your mission was a failure because you had only baptized one dirty little Irish kid?’

He said, ‘Yes.’

Well, Brother Callis put out his hand and he said, ‘I would like to shake hands with you. My name is Charles A. Callis, of the Council of the Twelve of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I am that dirty little Irish kid.'” (Harold B. Lee, The Teachings of Harold B. Lee, edited by Clyde J. Williams [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1996], 603.)

At the last day we’ll stand before our Maker, surrounded by those we’ve helped to save. Perhaps we’ll have an experience like Brother Callis’. Those we’ve helped will embrace us as they whisper, “Yeah, I was that dirty little Brazilian kid” or “Hey, remember me? The old lady you almost gave up on?” Imagine our gratitude for having known them — for having played so important a role in their lives — as we watch them pass on to their celestial glory.

What are Those Mans Doing?

Little Jenny’s hidden ears perked up when the doorbell rang; her brown, shoulder-length hair bounced as she turned her head toward the sound. Hers was a doll’s face with blue headlight eyes and a nose that wrinkled each time joy painted a vibrant smile on an olive-skin canvas. She was a tall five-year-old and skinny too, though her thinness was hidden under her pink, “mom-can’t-you-tell-it’s-really-a-mink-coat” bathrobe.

Jenny crept down the wooden staircase into the living room. The tile floor froze her little-girl feet, curled her toes like a plastic cup in a campfire. Spying from her secret spot behind the table, she saw two strangers. Who were they? One was dark — an Indian from the Amazon — and the other alarmingly white, a German from the south — Santa Catarina. They wore dress pants and white shirts, another sign they were from a faraway place, and spoke in a funny way that made Jenny think they were Argentine or Bolivian.

“Mommy, what are these mans doing here?”

Her mother’s gaze continued fixed on the men. Jenny stared harder at the two, trying to discover their trick, tilting her head and pressing her lips together as if sheer concentration might reveal their true intentions.

“What are they doing here?”

Widening pupils hid blue irises. The twinkle in her eyes momentarily reflected two realities, two possible futures.

—————

“Who’s he, Kim? I’ve never seen him before!”

“Well I’ll be!” Kim yelled as she raised her fifth glass of beer — hands shaking — to pale lips. “Looks like somebody’s caught J.J.’s attention!”

The woman at the neighboring table gave Kim a dirty look. Jenny turned as red as a ripe acerola fruit.

“Keep your voice down, Kim! The whole human race doesn’t have to know it!”

She stared through cigarette smoke, stared at a young poker player in a leather coat. His was a masculine build, with broad shoulders and a square, unshaven chin. Bursting into laughter, the handsome creature threw his cards on the table and inhaled his beer. The others swallowed disappointment. Jenny gasped.

“Well, Jen, he’s a winner. It’s your twenty-first birthday and I’m going to give ya a present ya’ll never forget!”

Kim got off the bar stool as if dismounting a horse and started toward the poker player, nearly fainting as she walked.

“Don’t you dare!” Jenny yelled, grabbing her arm. “You are so drunk!”

“Let me go, Jen. I’ll do whatever I want. Ya’ll thank me in the end.”

Kim stumbled across the dark room. Jenny turned her back nervously.

“Hey, lover.”

The poker player shoved Kim’s barstool so close to Jenny’s that the two banged together. He arrogantly sat so his shoulder touched hers. Alcoholic breath made Jenny uneasy, but she couldn’t ask him to back off. If the sight of him hadn’t so enchanted her she might have vomited at his smell.

“My name’s John. So, anyway, ya think I’m a babe, right?”

Jenny again turned red. Somewhere in the farthest corner of her mind she was already plotting Kim’s death.

“Hey you, bar tender. Give me two beers!”

“Oh, no thanks — what was your name? I only wanted a drink or two. I’m done already.”

John slammed the beer on the counter before her, splashing some on her blue dress. Reluctantly, she wrapped her warm fingers around the mug’s cold handle and lifted it to her mouth. Her fake smile came across as uneasy anyway.

Jenny, still in last night’s beer-stained clothes, regained consciousness on the floor of her apartment. The bar’s alcoholic stench had invaded her own room, and she couldn’t open her eyes without confronting pain in full armor. Jenny questioned her alarm clock, but the kitchen clock stubbornly confirmed. Three in the afternoon. She fell onto her sofa just as the telephone rang.

“J.J., is that you?”

“Wha? Yeah, it’s me. Who is …”

“Are we still on for tonight?”

“Wha? Tonight?”

“It’s me, John!”

“Oh, we were going to …”

John’s handsome face, a sunbeam reflected off gutter water, flashed across her memory and blinded her. She’d have agreed to anything.

“Oh, yeah. Seven at the bar, right?”

“No, Jen. What is in that head of yours, anyway? Nine-thirty, remember?”

“Oh … yeah. I’ll be there.”

“Ok. Bye.”

“Bye,” Jenny said to the hollow tone, feeling rather hollow herself.

They saw each other daily, spending time together in dark places. At first Jenny’s conscience demanded she avoid the boisterous poker player like an angry dog, but that inner voice whispered quieter each time it was ignored. A bonfire diminished, smoldered, and died. They spent weekends in the bar where John drowned the worries of work in rancid whiskey. Jenny accepted and even enjoyed that wretched place. Even a princess can get used to the slum.

“What’s that, John?”

The bar air was almost clear that Sunday morning, for the cackling drinkers wouldn’t arrive until seven. Jenny was disheartened, for even John was sober. She liked to be able to blame the way he treated her on his drunkenness. James and Sophia, two of John’s friends from work, sat smiling at the cigarette James had taken from his pocket.

“Oh come on, J.J.! Don’t tell me you’ve never smoked a joint!”

Jenny squirmed as John’s arm, then around her waist, squeezed her uncomfortably. James lit the cigarette and placed it in his mouth, inhaling, and Sophia, smiling with anticipation, did the same. Next John secured the joint with his right hand and inched it toward himself, Jenny staring at him with big eyes. The missile struck its target. John’s left arm tensed around her waist.

The poker player then turned to his trembling girlfriend. Jenny wasn’t sure which she feared more, the joint or his determined eyes. She moved her hand to take it, but in fear yanked back. John lifted the beast to her mouth and placed it there, noting with pleasure the terror in her eyes as she reluctantly inhaled.

The two unconscious drunkards lay their heads on the bar table. The morning sun disturbed their comatose slumber like a cellular phone in sacrament meeting. Both awoke, cursing the warm rays upon their pale faces.

“Get up, Jen. We’re going home.”

“Ok, John. I feel real sick. It’ll be good to crash in my bed for a few hours.”

“Get a clue, J.J. I ain’t talking about your home. My home.”

“What? What are you talking about?”

“Didn’t I tell you to get up? Move it! You’ll live with me now, J.J.”

“John, we can’t …”

His determined eyes interrupted her. With his enormous hand around her wrist he escorted her to a new home, too cowardly to commit himself to the woman he’d claimed, to cruel to marry her.

The following years brought two children into their miserable lives. After work John always went to the bar to drink and to flirt, only to arrive home around two in a drunken rage, yelling and screaming at his children and his so-called wife. Like all little ones, these also feared monsters. Their bogeyman was real.

Jenny lay in his bed, waiting and fearing. The alarm clock said 4:00 when the silhouette of a true beast slammed the front door and entered the bedroom, hurling itself — muddy shoes and all — upon the bed. The smell of sweat and alcohol made Jenny sick. The children began to whimper. She crept out of bed and held their heads in her lap, leaving the drunken creature to wallow until morning.

Weeks later Jenny felt sick, nauseous as if from drinking, though the baby room had long since ousted the bar. A bouncy bus took the fatherless family — two terrified children and a pale mother — to the Sugar and Tobacco Hospital.

“Ms. Atkins, I’ve got great news for you! It’s not often somebody comes to a hospital sick only to get congratulated for it!”

“Why, Doctor? What is it?”

“You’re going to be a mother for the third time! Send my sympathies to the father!”

Jenny’s countenance fell, and salty drops coursed down her shaking face. The concerned doctor touched her shoulder.

“Are you alright, Ms. Atkins? What’s wrong? Did I say something?”

“There is no father,” she sobbed. “There is none.”

Jenny returned home and slept sorrow’s deep sleep until 11:00.

“I wonder if the baby hears this,” she asked herself as her screaming husband’s face, only a few inches distant, threw alcoholic breath into hers.

Some months later Jenny lay in bed beside him, squirming. She was in her third trimester and wiggled despite herself. Her enormous stomach got in the way no matter how she lay in his bed.

“Stop wiggling, J.J. I’m sick of it!”

Jenny froze. The rain pounding on the roof kept beat with her heart.

“Sorry, John. Sorry.”

“I said stop wiggling, Jennifer!”

“Listen, John, I’m real sorry. I’m trying not to, honest.”

John jumped out of his bed and stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind him. Jenny followed, only to find the house’s front door open and John halfway through it, fighting gushing rainwater. The storm within mirrored the storm without. Sorrow flooded her soul.

“Wait! John, I love you!”

He paused in the doorway, turning to glare at her.

“I’ve had enough of your nagging, your whining, your selfishness! I want you out of my life, understand, Jen? I want you out!”

“Please don’t go, John! Please! I need you.”

His lips pressed together and his eyes narrowed into slits, rancor an ugly scar on his face. Before she could react, he raised his heavy hand and slapped her on the cheek. Then he was gone.

Jenny stared at his silhouette in the rain until he vanished, stared through dull eyes as a solitary tear rolled down her bruised cheek.

—————-

The Indian and the German spotted little Jenny beneath the table. Having missed the sad tale in her blue eyes, the two ignored the skinny five-year-old. A silky breeze brushed across her angel face, and with a blink the reflection of a joyless future vanished from her pupils. A twinkle glimmered there now, and an unseen painter threw another possibility onto the blue canvas, painted by chance or perhaps by a being far more purposeful than arbitrary destiny.

—————-

“Who’s he, Sara? I’ve never seen him before.”

“Well I’ll be! Could it be that someone has caught old Jennifer’s attention?”

“Keep your voice down, Sara Souza. Man alive, the whole ward doesn’t have to know it!”

Jenny gazed through the cultural-hall-turned-institute-dance-floor, stared through disco-ball light at the awkward dancer. He was tall and lanky, impressive in a hidden way like one of those scriptures you have to think about before you come to love it. Jenny gasped when the maniac lost his balance and fell on his backside. His face turned ripe-plum red; his friends’ faces burst into laughter.

“Well he’s a winner all right!”

Giggling, the two turned their backs to the fallen boy and joined a group of gossiping girlfriends.

An hour and a half later Jenny sat smiling on a folding chair, admiring her friends’ moves. Hours of jumping had drained her, but Jenny refused to cave in to exhaustion. In five minutes her blue dress would again twist and twirl.

“Hey.”

The maniac dancer sat timidly on the chair next to Jenny’s, his brown eyes meeting hers.

“My name’s … um … Daniel. Would you … like to dance?”

Musk cologne emanated from him like smoke from a stink bomb. If he hadn’t so enchanted her — if he hadn’t so taken her breath away, if she was still inhaling — Jenny would have fainted from his thick, smelly vapor.

“Well … I’d … I’d love to.”

She spent the night trying to protect her toes, smiling gracefully each time Daniel’s half-waltzing, half-break-dancing feet stomped on hers. He walked her home and hugged her good night, a normal hug she’d never forget.

“Hello, is Jennifer there?”

“Speaking. Why, this isn’t …”

“Hey, Jenny, it’s Daniel. Sorry I’m breathing so hard. I … I … I was just running. Yeah. Anyway, I totally understand if you’re busy tonight and all, plus this is short notice, but … well … well, I was wondering if you’d like to go to a Disney movie with me tonight at 7:30.”

“Would I ever! Pick me up at 7:00, ok?”

“Yes! I mean … that would be fine. Until 7:00.”

“Okay, see ya!”

They saw each other daily, first watching every Disney movie in the theaters before selecting videos from Daniel’s massive Disney home collection. He lipsinked every movie, eyeing Jenny whenever Aladdin or Prince Charming sang a love song. Their love grew faster than Mickey’s beanstalk, faster than Pinocchio’s nose.

Jenny and Daniel always sat together at church, holding hands as they listened to speakers, singers, and long-winded high councilmen. One Spring Sunday Sister Youngberg gave an inspiring discourse on eternal marriage. Daniel wiggled beside his best friend, squeezing her hand as they listened. Jenny placed her head on his shoulder and tightened her grip in silent response.

She’d never forget one Sunday morning when with heads bowed they listened to the sacrament prayer. The São João holiday had emptied the chapel, but with Daniel at her side no one was really missing. Pensive, she watched as faithful members passed the bread down her row. A white-mustached fellow took the offering and placed it in his mouth, thoughts of the atonement reflected in his old eyes, before offering the bread to his elderly wife. Jenny stared at Daniel with grateful eyes as he partook. How she loved him! She couldn’t contain her sudden happiness. His left arm around her shoulder tensed as he ate, pulling Jenny closer. He took the sacrament tray in his right hand and offered it to his best friend.

The two met at five one Monday morning near the movie theater, both in blue jeans, flannel shirts, and sturdy hiking boots. A roller-coaster bus ride brought them to a large, rocky hill. They climbed like cautious ten-year-olds climb old wooden ladders, nearly slipping on mossy stones and muddy puddles with every step.

The eastern sky lightened, and sunlight-bathed clouds glowed white. The two lovers sat on the hill’s summit, his arm around her waist and her head upon his shoulder, watching as a wall of sunlight crept across the valley floor. The sun finally reached them, casting its solar splendor on their vibrant faces and bathing them in warmth.

“Jennifer, will you marry me for now and forever?”

The brightness of her smile eclipsed the new-born sun, and a tear rolled down her cheek.

The years brought them a dimpled boy with round, Japanese-cartoon eyes. Daniel, who always left work at 5:29, used to sprint home to play with the little creature, a child himself whenever the two were together.

“You know, little Ryan, your daddy tax payment is due.”

“Daddy tax? What you talking ‘bout, daddy?”

“You know, the first Monday of each month 15 percent of your earnings go to your old dad.”

“Daddy, I don’t earn nothing!”

“Umm … I’m sorry to hear that, son. You’ll just have to accept the penalty.”

Even before Jenny could holler “not in the house” the two were on the floor, Daniel trying to tickle Ryan until he wet his pants and Ryan struggling to resist the tickle-torture assault.

One night Daniel’s car broke down on an isolated stretch of Avenida Fernandes Lima, and a worried Jenny tossed in her dark bedroom until he made it home. The alarm clock said 12:30 when the front door locked shut and the silhouette of a true angel materialized in her bedroom doorway. She pretended to sleep, hoping the room’s darkness would hide her coy smile. Daniel entered the bedroom, closed the door as gently and quietly as a door of glass, and tiptoed squeaklessly across the tile floor. He gazed at his wife. Through almost-closed eyes Jenny watched him pull a rose from his bag and place it next to her motionless face. She fell asleep with the smell of the sweet flower in her nose and an even sweeter feeling in her heart.

A few weeks later Jenny felt sick, nauseous and unbalanced. Daniel piled the whole family into their brown ‘85 chevy and hauled them off to the nearby Sugar and Tobacco Hospital. Strange how the tobacco part never made it into their TV advertisements. Little Ryan fanned his mother with an old newspaper, for the car’s broken air conditioner belched only hot air.

“Mr. and Ms. Johnson, congratulations! It’s not often somebody comes to a hospital sick only to get congratulated for it!”

“Why, doctor? What is it?”

“You’re going to be parents for the second time!”

Daniel burst into shouting, Jenny burst into tears, and the two embraced in another hug she’d never forget. The proud father treated the whole family to a feast at Estação Farol, generously forking out the three and a half reais per plate.

Within a few months Jenny’s stomach, a water balloon attached to the faucet, had doubled in volume. Daily Daniel brought his smiling wife a kiss home from work.

“How are you, Sleeping Beauty?”

“I’m …”

Daniel squatted before her, his face next to her belly button and his two hands on her watermelon abdomen.

“And how’s the world’s most beautiful daughter? Tiny Jane in mommy’s tummy, are you from Tennessee?”

Jenny’s eyes rolled. Daniel asked the same question every night.

“No? ‘Cause you’re the only ten I see!”

Jenny and Ryan groaned as Daniel escorted his wife to the pink couch, preparing her stomach for Disney songs. The baby kicked every time he sang “I Can Show You the World.” Jenny knew little Jane heard her father’s every word.

Some weeks later a very pregnant Jenny lay squirming in bed. Though afraid of waking Daniel, she just had to wiggle; her enormous stomach got in the way no matter how she turned.

“Ohhh …” Daniel groaned.

“Sorry, honey. Real sorry.”

“It’s cherry cough drops, isn’t it, dear?”

“This has got to be the stupidest craving a pregnant woman ever had! I can wait, honey. Really.”

A marathon runner, Daniel jumped out of bed and flew out the room. Jenny chased, only to find him halfway through the front door, trying to leave as buckets of water bullied their way in.

“Wait! Daniel, it’s raining like crazy! I’m your wife and you’ve got to listen to me! I don’t need those cherry cough drops right now, and if you go out there you’ll catch a cold.”

He paused and turned to look at her.

“The drug store down the street is open twenty-four hours, honey. It’s just right down the street. I could be back in five minutes.”

“Please don’t go! I can wait until morning, I promise!”

He grinned, for both knew the truth; she couldn’t wait at all. Before Jenny even realized what was happening, Daniel kissed her on the cheek. He turned and dashed into the downpour.

She stared at his silhouette in the rain until he vanished, stared through twinkling eyes as a solitary tear of joy rolled down her rosy cheek.

—————-

Little Jenny continued to stare at the two strange creatures with the white shirts and the black name tags.

“What are these mans doing here?” she asked herself, mouthing but not voicing the question.

Without a second thought, the skinny five-year-old bounced to her feet and ran upstairs to play.

The Prayer

Ok. I admit it. I was having doubts. We’d thought the Spirit had said to knock this street — you know, that subtle whisper we non-apostles so easily misinterpret — but after the third house I doubted we were receiving any real inspiration.

“Hello, Mam. How are you tonight? My name is Elder Durant, and this is my companion, Elder Ketchum. Might we please speak with the head of the household?”

“Oh, it’s you guys again. Listen, we’re eating dinner right now, ok?”

“Ok. Have an enjoyable evening.”

The two of us marched automatically to the next door. We’d been rejected so many times that day it’d become funny, like being slapped silly. After the hurting, the only thing left is the silly.

“Well hello there, little girl. You sure are a cute one! My name’s Elder Ketchum. Who’s that person whispering to you from behind the door? Is it your mommy? Would you get her for us?”

“She’s not home right now.”

“And your daddy?”

“He’s at … What did you say, mommy? Oh … work, right?”

“Are you home alone? It’s just like that movie with Macaulay Culkin!”

She’d never seen the movie.

“Well, will you do me a favor, little girl?”

“I don’t know. I guess so.”

“Go ask your mommy when she’ll get home.”

Relieved that’s all we wanted, the little creature darted into the house.

“She said she’ll be home late — around 11:30.”

“Wow! She’s working hard, isn’t she? Thanks for asking. Bye bye!”

“Hello,” I said to our next candidate for salvation. “How are you tonight?”

“I’m fine. Listen, I’m really busy right now. What do you want?”

“Oh, not much, sir. We’re visiting this street sharing messages about Jesus Christ. Do you have some time to talk with us?”

Elder Ketchum noticed a skinny young lady dash into her room, hunting for some nicer clothes. Curious, but he decided to ignore her.

“Well, I recently had tooth surgery, and like I said I’m really busy, so … I don’t think now is the best time.”

“Ok. Maybe another opportunity, sir.”

What happened next startled me more than headlights startle the deer that gets caught in them. A young woman ran toward us as fast as lightening, pigtails flying. ‘Twas a scene that would terrify any missionary. My instincts demanded I flee, but my more spiritual inclinations said I’d come out better than the deer in the end.

“Wait!” she called, a jet-fighter closing in on its target. “Wait!”

“Elder Ketchum, this could be the end. You’ve been a wonderful companion. I’m sorry if I hogged the fan at night, ok? Also, I stole some of your milk the other day. That was wrong of me, and I repent. It was really great knowing you. Think of it this way, now we’ll get to do missionary work on the other side of the veil! I hope you get Joseph Smith as your companion, because I’ve heard he’s a good one. He’ll probably never steal your milk, and I bet he even does his own dishes. He’s probably really good at telling the story of the first vision, too. Do you think this is how all those Japanese people felt when Godzilla was closing in on their city?”

She screeched to a stop before us.

“Hello! Um … is there … uh … something we can do for you?”

I moved myself behind Elder Ketchum, wiping my sweaty palms on my yellowed white shirt. One advantage of being senior companion is that you can use your junior as a human shield.

“I heard you guys believe in prophets in the Americas. Is that true?”

“Elder Ketchum, I think this is one of the examples in the Missionary Guide! Page one hundred and twenty-three! I don’t believe it!”

“You know, prophets in the Americas? You guys are the mozmuns, right?”

“Actually it’s Mormons, and we do believe in prophets in the Americas. Sorry my companion is so … excited. I don’t think he’s been sleeping very well.”

“Wow! And I thought you were Godzilla! We gotta bapt — I mean — teach you! Is your dad home?”

“Yeah, but he just had tooth surgery, so I don’t think it would work out. Hey, are you going to be alright?”

“Well, let me think here … The Sousa family isn’t home right now, so we can’t teach you there. The Barbosas are out of town, and the Santos family’s all at work …”

“Hey, maybe you two could set up an appointment to come back. You do do that kind of thing, don’t you?”

“That’s a great idea! We’ll ask the Silva family on Bebedouro street if we can teach you there. Does Tuesday at three o’clock work for you?”

“Sounds great. I’ll be there.”

“Durant,” Elder Ketchum whispered as she left, “the name.”

“Oh! Wait just a second! There isn’t enough room here on my planner for ‘Godzilla.’ You don’t have a nickname, do you?”

“Taciana.”

“Ok. See you Tuesday.”

Tuesday was hot as always, one-hundred degrees and a humidity of a hundred and ten percent. At exactly three o’clock Elder Ketchum and I stood at Taciana’s front door covered in sweat and dying for water. Well, okay, it was 3:10, but ten minutes make little real difference, right? People arrive late for everything: births, weddings, total eclipses, etc.

“Hello, Mam! How are you this morning?”

“Just fine. What can I do for you two?”

“We are here to speak with Godzi … oh man … what was her name? …”

“Taciana,” Elder Ketchum prompted.

“Oh, yeah. Taciana. Is she home right now? It’s about prophets in the Americas.”

“She left five minutes ago. Said she was going to look for Mozmons.”

“Mormons,” Elder Ketchum corrected.

“Do you by chance know where she went? It wasn’t Tokyo, was it?”

“All she told me was that she was going to look for someone who belonged to the mozmun church. She headed off in the direction of Bebedouro street.”

“Thanks a lot for your help,” Elder Ketchum called back after we’d already embarked, two hunters in pursuit of their prey, two missionaries trailing the elect.

“Look! There she is!”

Elder Ketchum pointed as if she were some African jaguar we’d cornered. I felt compelled to crouch behind a bush and speak with an Australian accent. Taciana was knocking doors looking for us!

“Crikey, Elder Ketchum! For over a year and a half now I’ve been tracting, scrutinizing the streets of Maceió for people to teach, but this is the first time I’ve ever seen an investigator tracting to find us!”

“Should we go home and wait for her to find us, Elder Durant? When she gets there I could tell her I just had a tooth surgery! Boy would that ever be gratifying!”

I stood staring, mouth open in wonder. After knocking a few doors she noticed our impolite gaze and approached us with an amused accusation.

“You guys could have told me you were standing there. I thought you’d forgot my appointment so I decided to track down that member you mentioned — you know — the one on Bebedouro street.”

I felt like Alma when he spoke with the angel. So surprised was he at the celestial being’s reprimand that he “fell to the earth.” My suit insisted I remain standing. My knees nearly disobeyed.

“Elder Durant and I are really sorry, Taciana. You know, you’re very punctual.”

The Sousa home was simple but beautiful, immaculate despite the dirt road on which it was found. A picture of Christ hung on the wall above the couch, and Ms. Sousa prepared delicious sandwiches in the kitchen for the three of us. She even sent her out-of-control six-year-old Roberto to the back yard so we’d have peace. Elder Ketchum took out his flip chart and scriptures. I retrieved my Bible.

“Taciana, before we get started, you don’t have any questions, do you?”

She pulled an essay out of her pocket, flattening the paper on her lap as if it were fragile. Both sides were full of sentences ending in question marks.

“To start, do you guys believe in transubstantiation? What’s the deal with that, anyway?”

“Transub what?”

Each of Taciana’s discussions — and I will call them her discussions and not our own, for she did most the teaching — was an experience. She paid close attention to all we said, staring at our flip chart as if at a Monet and at our faces as if we were Paul and Peter. More than understand our words, she felt them. Once she almost surprised a random young man in the street; having learned about the restoration, she just wanted to hug someone. We explained that that feeling was the Spirit testifying of the truth. She agreed.

Elder Ketchum and I sat on the curb, our Doc Martins resting idly in the gutter and our elbows resting idly on our knees.

“Elder Durant, what about a service project? I heard the Barbosa family needs their septic tank cleaned out.”

“You’re a bit too charitable, Elder Ketchum. I never liked cleaning our bathroom at home, and I’m not going to volunteer to clean the world’s biggest toilet bowl now!”

We sat silently for a few minutes, lost in our thoughts. A slight wind kicked dust into our faces, but we didn’t blink. Another breeze whipped around the corner, this time carrying Taciana.

“Hi guys! Windy, isn’t it? Hey, I was just thinking about this whole church thing, and, well, don’t ya’ll think I ought to be baptized?”

“I don’t know, Taciana. We’re awfully busy, and Elder Ketchum was thinking about a tooth surgery. What do you think, Elder?”

“Aside from the surgery, there is that septic tank to clean. But what the heck, maybe we could find some time for a baptism on Saturday, don’t you think Elder Durant?”

The three of us smiled like children on Christmas day.

I’ll never forget a certain sacred night some weeks later. Taciana had asked us to visit her, and

we saw it as a great opportunity to work on her retention. Besides, it’s always fantastic to chat with one of your pre-earth-life friends!

“Hey, Elders. How ya’ll doing?”

“Great, and you?”

“I’m wonderful! I went to choir today and it was awesome. We’re singing ‘Sim, Eu Te Seguirei,’ the song you guys sang at my baptism. Hey, sorry we can’t go in, but, as you know, my father is still recovering from his ‘tooth surgery.'”

“Man, Taciana! That was quite a surgery!”

The three of us laughed. Elder Ketchum and I had heard so many phoney excuses that they were more entertaining than bothersome. Once an honest-looking woman rejected us because her husband was drunk from Pepsi!

“Anyway, the reason I asked you to come by is because I’ve been thinking about all you’ve done for me. I’d like to say a prayer for you guys. Would that be ok?”

“That’d be great, Taciana. That’d be really great.”

We stood in front of her little house in the nine o’clock darkness, heads bowed. The street, normally boisterous with passers-by, was abandoned — a miracle, I suppose. Even the crickets became reverent, anticipating her prayer. This young lady’s spiritual maturity and sweet sincerity never ceased to amaze me. The shadowy night was chilly, but no one noticed, for as she began her simple prayer the Spirit surrounded us, a thick, comforting blanket.

“Heavenly Father. Thanks so much for sending these two Elders to baptize me. I’d been looking for the truth for so very long, but I just didn’t know where to find it. I know You sent them, because I felt a good feeling whisper to me that they spoke the truth. Please, Father, help them with everything they do. Help them to find more of Your children so Your great work can go ever forward. In my eyes, they are the best Elders in the whole world. In the name of Jesus. Amen.”

As missionaries we couldn’t hug Taciana, but just then our three spirits came together in an enormous spiritual embrace.

The Chain

Not all chains are steel, nor does every chain oppress. Some liberate. Such is the gospel legacy each has received from ancestral metal workers, a chain forged from souls in the furnace of familial love, a chain passed down through generations.

Each is a blacksmith entitled to add one link. Some dedicate their entire lives to the job, sacrificing all they have to make a link stronger than the previous. Others are so busy doing the unimportant that they work only sporadically, forging a weak link that trivializes the work of generations past. Yet others deny their responsibility all together. They spend their time in idle places doing idle things, and when they leave the blacksmith’s shop their link remains unfinished. Their chain ends. Their legacy is broken.

This chain extends not through space but through generations. Unchanging gospel values passed from grandparents to parents to children bind us to our ancestors, to our roots. Each has a divine mandate to hammer out a gospel-legacy link, to pass this our most precious family heirloom on to our posterity.

As a missionary, I dealt with families. I saw how they made and destroyed links and how chains were started and broken. I rejoiced when parents transmitted the priceless gospel legacy to their children. I sorrowed when they neglected their gospel heritage.

One young LDS family of five lived in a humid city of northeastern Brazil. The father was an impressive sight, a strong, dignified-looking fellow with stately white hair and a well-defined jaw line. A capable man, he spent many hours at work and few hours with his family.

At home he was a beast. Even with missionary visitors he screamed at his teary-eyed children, sent them scampering off to the corner with strikes on their heads. His wife stared silently, wiping away her own hidden tear before anyone noticed it. Various church books — The Book of Mormon, Gospel Principles, Our Heritage — sat dust-covered on the shelf behind him as he rose to his feet. Without a word, he went to his bedroom, as uncomfortable in our presence as his own children were in his. He had not forged his link. His broken chain made a broken home.

Another young LDS family of five lived in the house next door. The head of that household was a scrawny butcher with a pronounced overbite, a fellow who spoke Portuguese like a five-year-old. He prepared meat with his family at his side, the five of them laughing together as they chopped raw beef. Both he and his wife were illiterate, but both had spent a lot of time in the blacksmith’s shop. Both had spent a lot of time at the forge.

This young father loved his little ones. A Book of Mormon sat dustless on his table; both children and parents tried to build their lives on that book’s principles. His children were articulate and literate, some of the brightest I’d ever met.

One night he invited the whole ward over for family night. With pride in his eyes he watched as his nine-year-old son directed the meeting, reading from the itinerary in a competent voice. The butcher knew he’d never do what his son was then doing — he’d never read or speak eloquently — and yet he wasn’t embarrassed. He only felt proud, for he’d built a strong link. He’d amplified his gospel legacy. He’d passed it on to his children.

More than any worldly accomplishment — more than riches or fame or prestige — passing on this gospel heritage is life’s most important task. Time forgets men’s trite accomplishments, but our chain of heritage — our gospel legacy — is eternal. Holy are those who begin such eternal chains, those who have the courage to bless their posterity by following Christ.

I’ll never forget a certain visit to John, a father in the Brazilian back country. John, a slender fellow with a wrinkled face, had eyes that lit up like headlights every time we visited. He’d been baptized two weeks earlier and still had new-convert excitement. His family was receiving the discussions now, and we visited them often to enjoy their home’s sweet spirit. A black-haired eleven-year-old sat between his parents, flipping through the paintings of the Gospel Principles book, asking me about each.

He stared wide-eyed at two adjacent pictures. On the left was Joseph Smith in a rocking chair, a fourteen-year-old boy reading James moments before a passage of scripture came with more power to his heart than had ever before come to the heart of man. On the right was the boy prophet with his hand above his head, shielding his eyes from a light above the brightness of the sun that had gradually descended upon him, the glorious light of the Father and the Son standing above him in the air.

I was about to comment, but John interrupted.

“Jason, do you see how Joseph was studying the Bible even when he was a little boy like you? He grew up studying, always thinking about Jesus, and one day he saw Heavenly Father. Shouldn’t you study, too, to be just like him?”

Little Jason looked up into his father’s eyes and nodded, complete trust painted perfectly on his innocent face. In that moment the faces of a thousand little children flashed through my mind, thousands of John’s descendants who will one day look up into their fathers’ eyes to learn of their Savior, thousands of God’s children who will be blessed because of the first link of the solid chain John was then forging.

“I suppose you should be teaching him all this, Elders. After all, you know a lot more about this stuff then I do.”

The corners of my mouth slid up into a smile as I shook my head back and forth.

The German

The dirt-road dust didn’t bother me; I’d long since given up polishing my shoes, and my lungs had grown accustomed. It was a moonless night, almost chilly if such a temperature were possible in northeastern Brazil. Once we’d arrived on the street the Spirit had indicated we began knocking doors, hoping to find the one the Lord had in mind. Rejection greeted us at every house, but some silent whisper said we’d shortly meet with success.

“I don’t believe you’re here!”

That’s the one.

“Please, please come in. Please, I must talk with you. I’m so terribly depressed.”

Her home was small but well kept. Darling angel statuettes sat upon her counter top, adorable figures with innocent eyes. Her shelf was so book-laden I thought it might collapse; a German textbook capped one of many sporadic piles. This was no ordinary woman.

“Mam, are you all right? Is there anything we can do to help?”

“I’m sorry for crying in front of you like this, Elders. I was just watching a Hitler documentary on TV. What a terrible, terrible man! I feel sick every time I think about him. Please, have a seat.”

Elders? How did she know we’re called Elders? The woman’s sobs deepened. Something was different here, something puzzling. She was so open, yet she didn’t even know our names. Why had a simple documentary so moved her?

“I was born in Germany sixty-two years ago, at the very time when Hitler was coming to power. My father didn’t accept what was happening to his Jewish neighbors, so he hid them in our attic.”

My eyes widened. I’d never met anyone that had had such personal contact with the holocaust.

“Yes,” she whispered, as if at any moment a German guard might march around the corner with a hand gun. “As a small child I prepared food for the sad creatures. When the Third Reich discovered what papa was doing, they sent him to a concentration camp. My heart broke when they wrenched him from us. I was afraid I’d never see him again.”

“Why didn’t they send you to the camp, Mam?”

“Daddy told them we had nothing to do with the Jews. They did terrible things to my father; the guards made him eat broken glass. But God never forgot us! We fled with dad when I was eight years old, fled to Brazil. It was hard at first, but after a few months I learned a little Portuguese. I made my way to the University of Porto Alegre where I studied law, and then two Elders knocked on our door. I was too busy studying — at least that was my excuse — to speak with them, but my parents payed close attention to their message.”

She rose to her feet, shuffled to a small drawer, and retrieved a cardboard box full of German castles and landscapes, full of memories.

“Let me see if they’re still here. Have you two ever seen such an unorganized photographic heap? I haven’t looked at these pictures in years. Oh! Found it!”

The faces were mysterious. Any one of them could have been my grandfather, but in black and white they were young and vibrant.

“This one’s Elder Johnson. He was the first to come to our house. Oh, you can’t imagine the banquets my parents prepared for him every Friday after they were baptized!”

“They were baptized?”

“Of course! Oh … and this one was Elder Peterson. Man alive was it ever hard to understand him! I had a secret crush on him, though, but I never let on. A sly fox, wasn’t I? Look at this! It’s an invitation to the Halloween Dance. Where did I put my glasses? Could you read it for me, Elder … what’s your name … Durant?”

I took the invitation carefully from her hands, an archaeologist handling an ancient parchment. It should have been in church archives. I should have informed the first presidency.

“You are formally invited to the Porto Alegre second ward’s first annual Dance of the Witches on October 31, 1959 in the Ponta Grossa chapel.”

“My parents tried so hard to get me to go,” she chuckled, “but I was a stubborn little brat. They never stopped throwing the church in my face, trying to get me to involve myself. Never thought I’d miss that harassment! Who knows, maybe papa’s up there right now, watching us all. I sure would love to know what he’s thinking! What do you think, Elders? Does he know you’re here? Does he know?”

Forty years from now those old black and white photographs will still be collecting dust. The gray picture of Elder Johnson will still make him look like a dignitary, though his eyes will give him away as but a boy. The ashen image of Elder Peterson will still reveal a clandestine smile that shows he knew about the secret crush after all. They never saw the fruits of their sacred work, never knew what they’d done. There’ll be another photograph tucked away in that box then, beneath the black and white images of Elder Johnson and Elder Peterson. Beneath those will be buried a picture in vibrant color, a picture with an elder on the right dressed in his finest navy blue suit, another on the left in dark gray, and an old stubborn German lady in the middle, in white.

The Saviors

Ted Johnson was an average kid, tall with uncombed hair. He’d never gone to a school dance — too shy, his mother said — until one October evening when he was forced in to it. He and his best friend Dan, the forced and the forcer, stood together in the dark, humid, high-school gymnasium-turned-ballroom, looking cool amid shaking bodies and flashing lights, resisting the jet-engine music’s demands that they plug their ears. Ted’s slow scan of the crowd became a stare when he noticed a slender young lady named Sara with an enormous smile and a bubbly personality. The two became quick friends and, after a few months, even more, promising each other in that innocent, high-school way that they’d be together always. With Sara’s support, Ted blossomed. He even became senior class secretary, though he never felt comfortable with the responsibility. The two were inseparable. They studied together. They ate together. They walked arm in arm to the ward house on the day of Ted’s missionary farewell speech.

Sara’s tiny body shuddered as she sobbed, her arms around Ted’s neck, her face buried in his shoulder, and a lonely tear rolled down Ted’s cheek too. Between each sob she promised she’d wait for him. She signed each promise with a tear upon his shoulder.

The trip from Pocatello to Provo took only five hours, but each moment was an eternity. Ted wiggled in the front seat as his mother drove their Ford Taurus down highway I-80. His father stared proudly at his eldest son, remembering his own mission, preparing to live missionary life again, vicariously. A chill ran down Ted’s back, whether from the air conditioner or his nervous excitement he wasn’t sure. The three sat in silence.

Suddenly his mother began her farewell speech, so confidently proclaiming Ted the greatest hero in Johnson family history that even he believed it. Ted sat next to her as the MTC mission president addressed the parents and boys-turned-elders, the son’s left arm around his mother’s waist and his right hand in hers. He stared at his family through tear-filled eyes, trying to memorize their faces. Those images would have to last two years.

For the next two months Ted was a tennis ball bounced between college-style dormitories and small classrooms. He’d never liked school; sitting all day killed him, especially on sunny days when the basketball court was particularly seductive. Elder Johnson lived for lunch, not because MTC food was that stellar — once two sick-looking Elders made Ted jealous when they got to leave the classroom early on “mystery meat” day — but because the break gave him just enough time to bolt to the mail room and retrieve the two letters Sara had always written him the morning and night before. Just the same, he tried to concentrate despite the past participle and the subjunctive, both powerful anesthetics.

One day Ted received a letter from his best friend Dan warning him that Sara was spending a lot of time with a certain Jonathan Parker, a college quarterback. Elder Johnson, remembering the teardrop contracts Sara had signed, thought little of it until one day when he came back from lunch without two letters in his hands.

The clock said 11:30 when Ted glanced at it from his bottom bunk. The room’s darkness reminded him of the dark high-school gymnasium-turned-ballroom from two years earlier. Thoughts flashed through his head instead of flashing disco lights. Both the loud air conditioner and his troubled heart kept him up, kept him dreaming of home. How lonely he felt! How betrayed! His family was but five hours away, yet an eternity separated them. His Sara was no longer thinking of him, no longer dreaming of him as he still dreamed of her. Again a tear rolled down his face, and yet someone else was also once betrayed. Someone else once wept.

Ted Johnson was soon on a 747 rocketing over the green pastures of western France, feeling air sick and home sick at the same time. He glanced at the terrain below; houses were grains of sand and highways strings of thread. Elder Johnson felt small himself, a normal kid embarking on an extraordinary journey. He began thinking as he closed his eyes. Two years. A normal kid doing something extraordinary — but how? How could he do it alone, without his family and without his girlfriend? Sleep put weights on his eyelids and clouded his mind, but in that instant between nodding and awake Ted heard a whisper just above the drone of the plane’s engines that said someone was always at his side. Earthly parents were distant, but a Heavenly Father was near to comfort and encourage. Ted knew that the two of them together could do anything, no matter how difficult.

The next two years passed, Elder Johnson and his Father walking hand in hand, seeking to save the open-hearted. Ted had never worked so hard, had never felt such peace despite the doors and insults thrown constantly in his face. One January morning he received a small manilla envelope with a simple “to Ted” on the front. Upon opening it, he learned that Jeffery C. and Kay Bunn were pleased to announce the marriage of their daughter Sara Bunn to Jonathan Jay Parker, son of Jay J. and Sharon C. Parker. The letter had no return address. Ted had paid a high price to serve. Yet someone else was also once afflicted for the gospel’s sake. Someone else once wept.

The time was a passing breeze, one moment but beginning and the next already gone. He’d only baptized one, a sixteen-year old boy he’d met in the Paris subway, a young man whose mouth turned up in a goofy smile every time he thought of Elder Johnson, the fellow who’d helped to save him. Ted’s new eternal friend would one day return to his Father’s presence thanks in part to the help of a certain boy-turned-man, the salvation Elder Johnson had offered, just as someone else once saved.

As he stepped through the heavy metal door that connected the Salt Lake International Airport with his Air France 747, Ted was greeted by a large “Welcome home Elder Johnson” paper banner. His father had a few more wrinkles about the corners of his mouth, and his sisters had all grown up, but Ted recognized them immediately. Two years had not faded his memories of home. When he met his father’s eyes — dimmer than they used to be — old Mr. Johnson cried, and his son, his eldest, ran with excitement to his side. A firm embrace followed, and tears of joy coursed down Ted’s face, just as someone else once returned to a loving Father after a faithful mission. Just as someone else once wept.

But who was the someone else Ted had unknowingly symbolized? What someone else had already passed through what Ted had passed through, had already felt and known what Ted felt and knew?

In a humble stable two thousands years earlier had been born in an obscure village south of Jerusalem a king of David’s royal line, though the Roman occupation had placed another on the thrown. The babe increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man, developing the charismatic personality of a powerful political leader, and yet, at thirty years He sought not to govern but to save. He left His family and friends and wandered the hills of Palestine, searching for the humble seekers of truth, just as another would one day leave family and friends to save his brethren.

David’s son taught eternal truths on Olivet’s summit and in the temple court, in Samaria and on Galilee’s shore, and those whose narrow minds could not comprehend the eternal hated Him for it. Many despised and rejected the carpenter’s son, a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. He was alone, just as another would one day feel alone.

The sons of men took the Son of Man before the high priests and let the biased sentence Him to death. They tore His clothes from His body and tied Him to a post, hoping He’d be helpless against the flesh-tearing tips of their cruel whip. He was not helpless. They placed a kingly crown of thorns upon His head and pressed the sharp spines into His scalp. He was still a king. They escorted the Lamb of God to Golgotha where they crucified and killed Him. He still lived. Two thousand years later another would strive to follow in His footsteps, would with pleasure suffer for the cause of Christ.

After His final triumph, Jesus Christ returned to His Heavenly Father, His mortal mission complete. The Lord must have recognized His glorious Father immediately, for thirty-four years could not have faded His memories of home. When He met His Father’s eyes — eyes as brilliant as ever — the Father surely cried, and His Son, His Eldest, ran with excitement to His side. A firm embrace followed, and Jesus wept, tears of joy coursing down the Savior’s face as His Father whispered welcome home.

Conclusion

An effective mission is based on five principles. First, we must learn to love the Savior Jesus Christ. We must comprehend His redeeming sacrifice and believe in His sacred sonship. Second, we must learn to love the people we serve. We must look past their weaknesses to the divine spirit in each of them. We must let our love motivate us to do all we can to save them. Third, we must learn to trust in the Lord. We must put aside our pride and seek the Lord’s guidance, seek His will. Fourth, we must learn at God’s feet. A mission is the Lord’s university; both our investigators and our experiences are sacred lessons from the Father. Fifth, we must understand the consequences of our work. We labor to save. If we seek to make our missions of real value — if we learn to love our Savior and those we teach, if we trust in the Lord and learn at His feet, if we strive to comprehend the sacred importance of our calling — these two years will be our best so far.

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