The First Discussion

(The photo on the right is of the LDS chapel on Middlefield Rd in Palo Alto)

I had been in Palo Alto for two months and had just gotten a new companion, and this particular morning he asked me to pick the streets we would tract.  I got on my knees to pray for guidance and then picked two streets that I felt good about.  Off we went.

A teenage girl answered the third door on the first street and my companion gave his door approach: "We are sharing a message about Jesus Christ today and if you have 15-20 minutes we were wondering if we could come in and share that message with you.”  The girl said “Uh, yeah, I guess” and then she let us in.

My companion and I hadn't discussed what we would do if we got in a door, so I just tried to follow his lead.  He started by telling her about a few of our beliefs about Christ and then he introduced the Book of Mormon giving a brief overview up to Alma.  He turned it over to me and I talked about Christ’s visit to the people on this continent and then turned to Moroni’s Promise.  After I read the scripture and bore my testimony, my companion told the story of Joseph Smith's fisrt vision -- and I wondered if that was what he had expected me to do when it was my turn.

In any case, we gave her a copy of the Book of Mormon and left.  We had given her most of the first discussion, so my companion said we could count it on our weekly report.  I had my reservations because of what we didn't talk about, but I kept them to myself.  Regardless of what we put on the report that week, I never counted this as a discussion and that meant that I was still waiting to teach my first dicussion in the mission field.

The area we were in was extremely slow, and those few times my previous companion and I had gotten in a door we just gave a short presentation on the Book of Mormon.  I think that's why I continued talking about the Book of Mormon when it was my turn in this girl's home.  In retrospect, I should have counted this experience as a discussion because it would be a month and a half before I got the chance to teach another one.

At some point in the previous two months, my trainer and I had tracted into Leslie who lived on a street called Corina, which was at the far end of our area.  She was busy the day we first knocked on her door but asked us to come back another day.  When we did so a few weeks later, Leslie was busy again, so we gave her some pamphlets and promised to return.  The following week we rode all they way done to Corina to give her a copy of the Book of Mormon.  This time she had a few minutes and we gave her the short presentation about the book -- I didn't understand why we didn't take a few minutes more to give her first discussion.

But it gets better, because we didn't have a marked copy of the Book of Mormon -- during the first year of my mission we were supposed to be giving copies of the book that had several passages marked -- so we didn't actually give Leslie a copy of the Book of Mormon that day.  For the next couple of months I would go down to Corina with my next two companions only to find that she was either not home or too busy.  Finally, my last Thursday in Palo Alto, my third companion in the mission field and I got the chance I had been waiting four months for.

At first, it seemed like another missed chance when we arrived at Leslie's house only to find that she was not at home.  Feeling a little dejected at getting dogged, we crossed the street to sit down in some shade.  It came to pass, when we were about to get up and ride off, that Leslie suddenly drove up.  This time I took the first two principles of the discussion, which were about God and Jesus Christ, then I taught her the steps of prayer.

When my companion started teaching her about the Book of Mormon, we found out that Leslie had an anthroplogy degree.  Naturally, she had some concernes with the story of Lehi and whether Native Americans are his descendants.

Because of this my companion figured it would be at least three months before she would be baptized, if at all, and neither of us would be there for that.  My companion went home the following week, having completed his two years, and I was transfered down to Seaside.  None of that mattered, however, for I had finally taught a full discussion to a real investigator, thus closing the frustrating chapter that was Palo Alto.

One final note, one the way back to our apartment, my companion got a flat tire.  It took us 90 minutes to walk home.

The Subline Transfer

One particular Friday, early in my mission, I got a phone call from the mission office.  Well, the caller claimed he was in the mission office, I was pretty sure it was another elder in the district who had covered the phone's mouthpiece with some tissue to disguise his voice.  The caller said I in for "subline transfer," whatever that meant.  I asked my companion, who had been with me for a couple of weeks, what a subline transfer was and he said it was a special transfer.  So why not just call it a special transfer?

In any case, the caller said they were going to pick me up at 9:00 p.m. on Monday and they would take me to Seaside apartment, wherever that was.  I was pretty sure that this was a joke, but the term "subline" made it sound official.  If it wasn't real I would end up packing for nothing, but if it was real, and I didn't pack. . . .  A real Catch 22.

On Sunday evening, when my companion and I got back from our ward meetings, one of the other elders in the apartment said that the mission president had called.  The both of us, according to him, were now being transferred.  I thought I could trust this elder because we had been in the same apartment for the past two and a half months, were from the same hometown, and we got along well together.  Well, that clinched it for me and I started packing.

About an hour later, the other two elders in the district stopped by our apartment.  When they heard that I was packing they started laughing.  They said that it was all a joke, and that they had made up the term "subline transfer."  I had been had.

After unpacking I sat on the edge of my bed and sulked.  I could hear the other elders laughing out in the living room.  That's when it hit me that I had been taking things too seriously, not just the joke, but a lot of the comments made by other elders.  It occurred to me that I had a choice; I could sit there and feel sorry for myself, or I could lighten up.  I went out to the living room, admitted that they had gotten me, and then I laughed with them.  As I laughed I felt as if a great weight has been lifted off my shoulders.

When you get a bunch of 19-20 year old kids together -- let's face it, that's what we were -- you can expect some practical jokes and other hijinks.  One pair of elders were wrestling in their apartment one day and broke their couch.  In another apartment, in another area, my flat mates decided to have a water fighter one evening -- inside the apartment!  While I chose not to participate, I still had to have a sense of humor about it.  One of the most important pieces of survival equipment for a mission, and life in general, is a sense of humor.  If you can laugh at things that otherwise might worry you or cause you stress, then life becomes more enjoyable.

About two and a half weeks after the subline transfer joke, there was a real special transfer.  The other elder in the apartment who was from the same hometown, was transferred to the office and a new elder was transferred in.  With the change we asked permission to make other changes, switching the companionships around with the result that the new elder coming in was now my companion.  This switch ended up being one of the best things to happen to me on my mission.

Three weeks later I was transferred to a new area.  The ward I was assigned to was called the Carmel Ward even though it was actually in a town called Seaside, which was sandwiched between Monterey and Fort Ord, a military base long since closed.  While most of the ward was in Seaside, there was a rural area called Carmel Valley that was also part of the ward, and that is how it got its name.  Carmel by the Sea was actually part of the Pacific Grove Ward.  So, ironically, I ended up in Seaside apartment anyway.

"If Thy Brother Hath Ought Against Thee" Or, "If Thou Hath Ought Against Thy Brother"

I have written before about how much I loved my mission president, but two of the worst moments during my mission involved him.  The first bad moment was when I knew that I had disappointed him one evening when my companion and I got home later than we were supposed to -- the one evening he had been calling, trying to reach me.  The second bad moment was during one of our every-other-month interviews.

I usually had something to talk about going into these interviews, but this time I did not, which in retrosepct was a mistake.  My mission president started asking me questions about the area I was serving in, and for reasons that were not all my fault, I didn't have good answers.  The questions then became more pointed, and I began to feel defensive even as I simply ran out of answers.  I think I felt some loyalty to my previous companion, who had just been transferred out, because we had got along so well during the three months we were together.

I left this interview hurt and angry, and it wasn't long before my new companion noticed that something was bothering me.  When I told him about it he suggested I call the mission office and set up an appointment with the mission president.  I took his adivce and set up another interview.

When I went in, I wanted to apologize and set the record straight.  Because I was one of a hundred missionaries in the mission, I suggested that he might not remember what happened.  I also expressed a concern that I might have put a black mark on my record, but my mission president said that I had not.

We ended up spending 45 minutes together, discussing what had happened, the area I was serving in, and other things.  At one point he told me that I would soon have the opportunity to "call the shots" in my own companionship and I was blown away.  I had been hoping for quite sometime to become a senior companion.

The lesson here, besides always having something to talk about in an interview with the mission president, is that when you feel hurt or offended you should go to the other party to talk about it.

In the Sermon on the Mount, the Savior said, "Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee; Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift" (Matthew 5:23-24).  I think this principle can work both ways; if you are hurt and offended, you need not wait until the other party comes to you; for one thing, you might end up waiting a long time, for another, they might not even be aware that there is a problem.

An unfortunate occurance, which appears to happen often, takes place when an individual chooses to separate themselves from the rest of their family over an offense given or perceived to have been given by another individual.  In refusing to be near the "offender", the other, innocent, family members are also denied the presence of the "offended".  These other family members may themseleves feel hurt and offended, and further rifts in the family may be opened.  As the poet wrote, "No man is an island."

These things ought not to be, not when it is possible to prevent these breaches by going to the offender or the offended and discussing what happened, what was said, or what was done.  Whether we are the offended or the offender, we need to swallow our pride and do whatever is necessary to make things right.  The Lord will forgive who he will forgive, but of us it is required that we forgive everyone (see Doctrine & Covenants 64:34-35).

So what do we do when the other party refuses to talk?  The simple answer is that we have to accept their decision, at least eventually.  You have to know when to weary the unrighteous judge (see Luke 18:1-5), and when to walk away, at some point the law of diminishing returns takes effect.  We can receive peace from the Lord even as we accept the other party's decision not to talk; it may take time, but we can have that peace. 

What if the offender refuses to or does not change?  When family is involved, it is my humble opinion, that we should not avoid family events in order to avoid the offender -- unless they are downright abusive and it would be unsafe to be around them.

The Germans were Never In the Abbey

The allies landed at Salerno, Italy, in September 1943, and Naples was captured in the first days of October.  After that the allies marched into the mountais south of Rome, which the Germans used effectively for defense to hold up the allied advance until the spring of 1944.  The most significant obstacle in the German Gustav Line centered around the town of Cassino, and the mountain that rose above it.  It was atop Monte Cassino, in 529 A.D. that St. Benedict of Nursia established a monestary, which became the source of the Benedictine Order.

With it's gleaming white walls, the two story Abbey drew the gaze of every soldier on the front line.  As the battle on the Gustav line devolved into a stalemate, the Abbey soon became the object of blame.  Surely, said the infantrymen below, the Germans had to be occupying the Abbey and using it as an observation post.  The Germans, with the advantage of commanding the heights, had almost unlimited visability and could call down artillery on any movement made by the allies.  But the Germans didn't need to be in the Abbey to have this commanding view, they needed only to occupy the ground outside of the monestary.

Even so, the Abbey became the fixation of every allied soldier.  A general claimed to have spotted the sun flashing off German binoculars on the second floor.  Even pilots flying over the Abbey claimed to see Germans inside it.  As every move to penetrate the Gustav line and make it into the Liri Valley -- with a straight shot to Rome -- was thwarted, some soldiers called for the destruction of the Abbey by air attack and artillery.  Other soldiers countered that bombing the Abbey would give no advantage, that, in fact, the Germans could make better defensive use of the ruins.  Though some of the first soldiers knew those other soldiers were right, the pressure mounted to bomb the Abbey.

And so, in February 1944, the allies bombed the Abbey, and the Germans moved into the ruins, and continued to thwart allied efforts to break the Gutav line.  Perhaps what is more remarkable, is that the allies repeated the same mistake just a month later when they bombed the town of Cassino.  In the fight that followed, the New Zealander infantrymen faced such difficulty that they soon began to call the town "Little Stalingrad" after the monumental urban battle on the Russian front in 1942.  Eventually, the Kiwis admitted that they could not drive the Germans out of Cassino, and the stalemate continued.  The good news, if you can call it that, is that eventually spring would come, the allies would break the Gustav line, and race up the Liri Valley to capture Rome on June 5, 1944.

I have been reading an excellent book on the campaigns in Italy, The Day of Battle by Rick Atkinson, and a few days ago I watched a movie called The Story of G.I. Joe.  The movie follows war correspondant Ernie Pyle, played by Burgess Meredith, who at times meets up with a company commanded by Bill Walker, played by Robert Mitchum, a charcter based on a real soldier who was killed during the battles on the Gustav Line.  In the film, the soldiers of Walker's company become fixated on the Abbey atop Monte Cassino and cheer when it is bombed, but then Pyle notes the irony of war in that the Germans made good use of the ruins.

As I have been thinking about Monte Cassino, I have thought about things I have at times become fixated on, that later turned out to not be as I had supposed they were.  In aerial combat there is something called target fixation; in chasing or bombing a target, the pilot becomes so fixated that he has tunnel vision, and sometimes the result is that he flies into the target.

It seems that we often have such fixations: if we could buy that house then all our problems would be solved; if we could ask a certain girl out, then life would be wonderful.

Often we become fixated on the weaknesses we see in others.  We want to remove the sliver in another's eye and we become so fixated on it that we miss the telephone pole in our own eye.  At other times we become fixated on a perceived slight, and we cannot let go.  And sometimes we become fixated on having things done our way, and if they are not, we become dissaffected.

Whatever our fixation, we should remind ourselves that the Germans were never in the Abbey.

Honset, Hard-Working and Loyal: A Monument to Faith

In the news today is the passing of techno-thriller author Tom Clancy.  He has been called the creator of the techno-thriller; it's not stricly true, but he did perfect the art.

Some 23 years ago, when I returned from my LDS mission, I learned that a movie based on Tom Clancy's The Hunt for Red October was soon to be released. So I bought the book and read it.

After Red October I read Red Storm Rising and really enjoyed it, then Patriot Games which I struggled a bit with -- at least the first half after Ryan breaks up the attack in London, then the attack on the highway in Maryland propelled me through the rest of the book. I waited awhile before reading Cardinal of the Kremlin and was surprised at how much I enjoyed it.

I didn't like Clear and Present Danger as much and The Sum of All Fears took a long time to get to the action. But I really enjoyed Debt of Honor and Executive Orders.

Clancy was one of the best, he will be missed.

Two things really impressed me about Clancy. First, there were times when I would stop reading just to marvel at how good his writing was. Second, his LDS characters, though usually minor, were real people rather than charactures.

In Clear and Present Danger as Ryan is struggling to decide what to do about the illegal secret mission in Columbia, he is driving along the beltway and sees the Washington Temple, which leads him to recall members of the church in government who have acted with integrity. In Without Remorse the F-105 pilot shot down and captured by the North Vietnamese was LDS, and I could find no fault with how Clancy developed the character or how he presented LDS beliefs.  The pilot even taps out "all is well; all is well" in Morse code to another prisoner.

I have posted before about integrity, with that in mind, here is an excerpt from Clear and Present Danger (Jack Ryan is being driven along the Washington beltway):

Jack looked out the window as they passed the Mormon temple, just outside the beltway near Connecticut Avenue.  A decidedly odd looking buidling, it had grandeur with its marble columns and gilt spires.  The beliefs represented by that impressive structure seemed curious to Ryan, a lifelong Catholic, but the people who held them were honest and hard-working , and fiercly loyal to their country, becuase they believed in what America stood for.  And that was all it came down to, wasn't it?  Either you stand for something, or you don't, Ryan told himself.  Any jack[wagon] could be against things, like a petulant child claiming to hate an untasted vegetable   You could tell what these people stood for.  The Mormons tithed their income, which allowed their church to construct this monument to faith.  Just as medieval peasants had taken from their need to build the cathedrals of their age, for precisely the same purpose.  The peasants were forgotten by all but the God in Whom they believed.

The cathedrals -- testimony to those beliefs -- remained in their glory, still used for their intended purpose.  Who remembered the political issues of that age?  The nobles and their castles had crumbled away, the royal bloodlines had mostly ended, and all that age had left behind were memorials to faith, belief in something more important than man's corporeal existance, expressed in stonework crafted by the hands of men.  What better proof could there be of what really mattered?

Jack knew he wasn't the first to wonder at the fact, not by a very long shot indeed, but it wasn't often that anyone perceived Truth so clearly as Ryan did on this Monday morning.  It made expediency seem a shallow, emphemeral, and ultimately useless commodity.  He still had to figure out what he would do, and knew that his action would possibly be decided by others, but he knew what sort of guide, what sort of measure he would use to determine his action.  That was enough for now, he told himself.

Source: Clancy, T. (1989). Clear and Present Danger. New York: G.P Putnam's Sons. Pg. 498.