...mercy on thee

part 1

As I sit in my second story, Paraguayan Apartment, I come to realize the reason why missionaries shouldn’t take naps.  My companion is fast asleep, it’s way past ten thirty, bed time, and I still have no desire to sleep.  The bustling noises of the city and the loud neighbors make me think of home.  As my time as a full-time missionary draws to an end, I look back on what I’ve done in these two years.  I’m fairly certain I’ve screwed up a lot, but I know that the lord has strengthened me.  It is nights like this that bring back to my mind Rodolfo’s conversion.  I think that this experience comes into my thoughts because the Lord wants me to keep in mind that maybe I’m not as horrible a person as I sometimes think I am.  What I learned from my life, mission, and especially the conversion of Rodolfo is this: the Savior loves us.  He always does.

To understand the story fully, I guess I’d have to tell my whole life story. Better yet, I’d have to start at the beginning of the universe. For lack of ink and lack of desire it will be sufficient to know that in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.  In that earth I was born. At the age of nineteen, I decided to serve a mission.

I believe the clearest picture will best be achieved if we head back to May two thousand and nine, to the Conference of Latter-day Saints in the city of Luque, Paraguay.  We were meeting in the newly constructed stake center, a large church meeting house, situated along the busy road of Calle’i.  All in all, it was an extremely normal, uneventful day.  The only major event occurring that day was that it was the first time we would meet the new missionaries transferred into the zone earlier that week.  That’s where I got to know Elder Rickford, a very key figure in this story.  Let’s call it “love at first sight.”  We both started making fun of the brand new tractor-lovin missionary from Idaho.  We continued talking about how Elder Tractor had no idea what was in store for him, and how much life, in general, sucks. The meeting began and we decided to sit together. From that point on, we were inseparable.  Every chance we got we would hang out and tell jokes and philosophize on life and our situation as missionaries. We both had arrived at a point in our missions of frustration and anxiety. We were tired of walking in the hot sun, day in and day out, to share a message with people who didn’t want to talk to us. We both knew we had to endure. Rickford sought advice from his family and received what could be perhaps considered revelation from his sister who had already survived a mission: “Sleep Over”. It sounded like a plan to me. We convinced our normally assigned missionary companions to do a division, or exchange of companions. With that small act of rebellion, we were able to find him.

The division started out a bit rocky. We met around lunchtime and ate at the supermarket cafeteria near our apartment. Then we just walked around in the super for an hour or solooking for interesting things to buy.  It wasn’t particularly cold that day, so we decided on buying some Tereré, a Paraguayan herbal iced tea, instead of Mate. My assigned area was known throughout the Paraguayan mission as difficult, and there hadn’t been many baptisms in years. The local leaders of the church didn’t like to help the missionaries and there were hundreds of members that refused to attend meetings because of some argument they’d had with some other member of the church. It was full of a lot of people that didn’t want to hear what we had to say. Whatever residual success left in this bone dry area I had squeezed out in the months prior.  I was pushing 6 months in the area and we only had a few people remaining that were willing to listen to us. We only had one teaching appointment planned that day, at around three.  Rickford and I walked around the empedrado, or jagged rock-paved streets, looking for a new house to live in seeing as the current one was full of mold, dogs, and fleas.  We had worked up quite a thirst with all our aimless walking.  We decided to take our Tereré break in the house of my favorite member/friend, Graciela.  Her sister was visiting from Argentina so we sat and talked about our frustrations as they prepared and served the herbal tea.  We wasted a good amount of time and it was almost three o’clock, time to go.

We headed a couple blocks east towards a young family that I had been teaching for a few weeks, but that still hadn’t gone to church.  They already knew the church was true; they just didn’t want to go there, despite them assuring us they did.  We arrived at the gate and clapped, since in Paraguay many houses do not have doors, it is considered polite to clap your hands and wait outside the property for a response. After waiting a bit, out came some unknown character who informed us the family wasn’t there.  With our spirits once again crushed, we decided we would try talking to people in the streets. After trying many people, including about 12 construction workers working on the sewers that didn’t want to turn off their jackhammer to talk to us, we were tired. Before we knew it, we had wasted an hour and we found ourselves close by the family we were supposed to teach. We decided that we might as well try again.  We really had nothing to lose.  We slowly approached the gate and clapped. Through the gaps in the chain link fence, I saw him.

We were welcomed in by Raul, the father of the young family. As usual, he had a lot of friends over visiting, all of questionable backgrounds, and questionable levels of sobriety.  The atmosphere was full of cigarette smoke and plenty of noises including grown men yelling, laughing, and of children playing.  Outside the house sitting under the covered patio I saw a man, well advanced in years, dressed in all black and smoking like a chimney.  He dressed as though he was going to a funeral.  Unlike Raul’s normal house guests, there was a certain dignity about him. Raul had to tend to his other guests, so he left us with this old, creepy man, which he introduced as his grandfather.  His name was Rodolfo, his deep gravelly voice showed off his forty or so years of chain smoking.  His fingers and teeth were yellowed and tarred with the smoke stains of the Tobacco.  His long gray hair was slicked back with nothing more than its natural grease.

I contemplated just making random chit-chat, wasting time, until Raul came back, but, perhaps as a forewarning, a thought suddenly rushed into my mind. I had a responsibility to give everyone the chance to believe what I already knew was the truth. I had something important I wanted to share, so, I needed to share it… with everyone. So, I sucked it up and began verifying all the requisite missionary things. Rodolfo was very educated; he had a way of speaking more refined than the majority of Paraguayans.  He had recently moved from San Lorenzo to live with his grandson. He was long divorced, but was still working, even though he was 62 years old.  I got to verifying what he knew about the church. That’s when I heard the dreaded words: “I already know everything about your church.”

Feelings of doubt and depression hit me once again. I thought, “Just another angry catholic that thinks he knows everything and that all is well.  Eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we die.”  He continued talking but I had lost interest and stopped paying attention. According to what Rickford later told me, he had fallen asleep right around this moment. He then continued to ask if he could see one of “our books,” because there was a part in it that he didn’t quite understand.  Understanding what he meant, I then opened up my backpack and pulled out a fresh new copy of “The Book of Mormon.”  I passed the crisp, clean book to Rodolfo, who then began to turn the white pages one by one with his stained fingers.  He told me the part he was looking for, “had something to do with witnesses.”  Naturally, I assumed he meant the testimony of the three witnesses of the Book of Mormon located near the beginning of the book. Seeing as no one ever really read much further beyond that point anyway. I showed him what I thought he was looking for, but he assured me it was closer to the end of the book.  As he went back to meticulously turning the pages one by one, with his darkened fingers, I turned my head to look at Rickford.  He sat in a wire-woven chair with his head down. He almost appeared to be sleeping.

After a little while, Rodolfo exclaimed that he had found the part he was looking for.  He then began to read the first two verses of the eleventh chapter of the third book of Nephi.  He explained to me that he could not understand this part of the book.  Suddenly a light flashed into my mind that illuminated the path I should take to share the truth of the message. This chapter was especially meaningful to me because it was this very chapter that helped my Mom to decide to be baptized after being an active member in the Catholic Church for twenty years.  For that reason, I had studied the chapter many times and had outlined a way to teach all the principles of the first missionary lesson, using only that chapter.  We began to read each verse of the chapter back and forth, both of us analyzing what there was to be learned.  As we progressed, Rodolfo’s interest and understanding grew more and more.  At this point, Rickford had awoken and joined in the teaching.  We continued sharing our faith and arrived to the first vision of Joseph Smith.  In that moment, I saw a light of understanding in Rodolfo’s eyes.  I wanted him to be sure.  We finished explaining how the Book of Mormon is the tangible evidence that Joseph Smith was indeed a prophet of God.  l asked him to read in the final chapter of the Book of Mormon, Moroni chapter ten, verses three to five, to invite him to ask God for himself it these things were not true.  After the last words slipped from his mouth “…by the power of the Holy Ghost, ye may know the truth of all things” we guarded silence for a moment, and then I heard a question that I had never heard before or since.  “…Can I ask right now?” 

I was surprised for a moment but as soon as I could I blurted “Yes!”  I was taken back because I had never even expected a question like that. I knew he would receive an answer because he showed sufficient faith just by asking the question he asked. He showed complete faith. He knew his petition would be answered.  Rickford and I both boldly stated that we knew he would receive an answer. We didn’t doubt, even though it was possibly the worst environment to pray.  Full of distractions and noises coming from passing motorcycles, drunk men yelling in the next room, and children urinating on bushes while screaming. The air was suffocated with smoke and all other kinds of Paraguayan smells.  But, without fear, without worry, Rodolfo bowed his head and stretched his hands above his lap with his palms facing the heavens and let these words slip from his mouth: “Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, I ask thee to manifest unto me the truthfulness of these things…”  When those words were spoken we were pounded with an indescribable feeling of peace.  Despite all the distractions I couldn’t hear anything other than the words of Rodolfo’s prayer.  We were suffocated with the silence of the spirit. His answer descended so strongly that we also felt it.  The feelings are impossible to completely describe with words, but it sufficeth to know that the power of the Holy Spirit was manifested in that moment, and the three present cannot deny it.

His prayer continued, “I thank thee for sending me these your servants, and please bless them with success in sharing thy word…Amen.”  A simple prayer. As we lifted our gaze, I cast my eyes up towards Rodolfo’s. His eyes were wandering off into the distance as if he didn’t quite know what had happened.  He began to try to express what it was he was feeling, but he was stumbling over his words.  We interjected and told him that God had answered his prayer.  He was silenced, out of words.  And suddenly tears began to fall from his eyes.

He had recognized his answer. He uttered with tears in his eyes, “I know… I felt it…I felt!...”  He then explained that the only other time in his life he had felt that way. Years earlier, when he had set foot in the Asunción Paraguay Temple during an open house or tour for the public, he was overwhelmed with the feelings that he had experienced as he prayed. He then said to us, “I want you in my baptism.”

At around that point Raul, Rodolfo’s grandson came back, finally. As he had learned from the many missionaries that he had spoken with, Raul explained to Rodolfo that to be baptized, he had to quit smoking.  Rodolfo did not even hesitate in committing himself to quit smoking to be able to be baptized. “If God be for us, who can be against us.”  Seeing as he wanted me to be in his baptism, and missionary changes were coming soon, I invited him to be baptized June ninth, two weeks away, one day before missionary transfers, and one day before my birthday.  We set a time to come back and left the house after giving Rodolfo a hug.

Our dispositions were changed. God had given us this miracle. We were jumping, dancing and shouting in the street.  We were filled with joy. We didn’t know what to do. We felt weak and couldn’t think straight.  I could only think one thing.  We have to tell Graciela.  We returned to my favorite member’s home and I threw myself down on her dusty cement porch and began telling her the experience.  She was almost brought to tears as well.  Apparently it was just what she needed to hear as well.  Seeing as we all pass through times of adversity, sometimes all we need is to hear something positive.  She told us that God had given us this miracle because he wants us to be happy.

After laying there motionless for a while, recuperating my wasted strength, we decided to leave and meet up with our respective companions to carry out our aforementioned sleepover. We caught a bus, and rode to the nearby town where they were working. We found our companions and, with great impatience, told them about what had happened.  They were a bit surprised, because their day had been fairly routine.  Rickford and I were filled with happiness and our faces were covered with an unstoppable smile for the rest of the day.  We stayed up conversing and philosophizing till four in the morning and then drifted off to sleep.

                Thinking back on this experience always helps me remember why I’m here, and why I decided to serve a mission. No matter what happens, I know that I am a missionary of The Church of Jesus Christ because I know that God lives, he loves us, and I want others to feel of his love. To be, as it were, a light on a hill bringing others to a knowledge of the truth. I would love to finish the whole story so all the mercies of the lord that were manifest in this part of my life could be known, but that will have to wait for another day, it is getting late… time to drift off to sleep.

                To be continued…