Week 9 over the moon - we hope to get our visas tomorrow!
On the good, better, best scale, on Wednesday I missed choir practice to instead go with our son Alex and Liz (and of course their dog, Petzl) on a hike in a canyon. The company, views of the mountains, the waterfall and the lights of the valley below on our way back down were spectacular and all well worth the climb and scramble over and through the rocks.
Our guest at our Thursday morning Collections Zone devotional was an engineer that works on the Salt Lake City Temple communications team. He described the ongoing work as a "renewal" versus a renovation as when the work is complete it will substantially increase its capacity to allow us to do more ordinance work there than ever before. I could very much relate to his characterization of the covenants we make, including those made in temples, that deepen our relationship with our Heavenly Father and the Messiah as we bind ourselves to Them. With that relationship comes even greater careful care and attention into the details of our lives as we strive to become more like Them.
I got a call Thursday afternoon asking us to confirm receipt of an email on our scheduled visa interview at the Mexican consulate here in Salt Lake City on Tuesday, October 31. Our work at the Utah Salt Lake City Headquarters Mission has been great and we are "over the moon" about getting our visas so we can report to the Mexico City East Mission within the next couple of weeks. More than one person has described our experience thus far as two missions in one. Ourselves and two other visa-waiter couples have appointments tomorrow morning. There are at least 10 young proselyting missionaries still waiting for visas.
Our instructions included the following warning (bold, variable fonts and green highlighting are copy and pasted below from the original email):
**Being disrespectful or exhibiting inappropriate behavior while at the consulate may delay your visa process, cause your visa to be denied, or impact the Church’s ability to obtain visas for future missionaries assigned to Mexico. **
Perhaps my reputation proceeds me? I will try my best to behave/portarme bien. We understand the "interview" consists of verifying that the photo sent with our application in March of this year matches our in-person faces and their taking another photo.
There is something quite liberating about leaving nearly everything behind to serve a mission and being able to go to the temple weekly. We served in the Utah Jordan River Temple on Friday afternoon. Sister Mejia our guide from our trip to the Ogden temple last week came with us again. In jest, she said the members of our church do not retire to old folks homes, instead they serve in Temples. I would add and they serve missions ;) Just as there are a lot of members of the church here, there are also a lot of temples - 25 of them. Although they are undeniably beautiful structures and I am posting pictures of the ones we have been to, I don't see myself as a temple tourist - it's how I feel while I am serving that draws me to them. In 1990 Sister Schlachter and I had a layover in Salt Lake City on our way back from our honeymoon. We went to the Jordan River Utah Temple because the Salt Lake City temple was closed. It was wonderful to be there again together 33 years later.
We took a train, a bus and walked to get to the Utah Jordan River temple. En route we met and chatted with an elderly lady on the bus that was also going to the temple. She said she goes every day the temple is open and does as many endowment sessions as she can. I would guess she is in her late 70's or early 80's. She shared the joy she also feels serving in this way. The bus driver knew her and one of the two youths on the bus. We had a most wonderful conversation about about the joys of temple and missionary service, past, current and future. We also had delightful conversations on the train both ways with our fellow passengers - our missionary tags seemed to bring out the best in many folks. This was in stark contrast to the sadness I felt with respect to a woman we encountered near the Salt Lake City light-rail platform on our way to the temple who, for lack of a better description, was having a bad day, cursing at the top of her voice while shaking her fists at the crowd of people waiting for the train. There was a fellow standing about 3 meters from her that seemed to be with her and keeping an eye on her. They were gone by the time we returned later that afternoon.
We met a couple of young elders on the way back to our apartment while we were waiting to cross the street - it was such a joy to speak with them that we waited a full cycle of the lights to cross the street. They were on bicycles. In 1990, not long after I joined the church, I escaped winter to spend a few months in Mazatlán, Sinaloa. I went to church on Sunday and made myself available to go out with the missionaries. The zone was short one missionary and so I went out every day with one of them for a couple of weeks, and then with the Mission President's approval, I moved into the same apartment and shortly after that I was formally called and set apart to serve full-time as a "summer" missionary for a couple more months. Yes, I had to cut my hair and shave my moustache off.
I used my farm mechanic skills to fix and then maintain a number of bicycles that we subsequently used to get to and from appointments. At first we had only one bicycle per companionship - initially I couldn't speak Spanish well enough to be of much help in teaching so I volunteered to be the "motor" on the bike - carrying my companion standing on the "diablos" mounted on the back axle (diablos were an extension of the axle just long enough to hook a fellow's heels on them) while he steadied himself by grabbing onto my shoulders.
One time when my companion and I both had bicycles, I remember attempting to take a corner at the bottom of a hill and, hitting an oil slick, I dismounted running while my bike slid out from underneath me and skidded to the curb. The experience of serving even for this limited time was life changing. I was stretched, instructed, chastened and strengthened spiritually in so many ways. I so very wanted my children to have an opportunity to serve full-time missions like my companions. I have tracked down and connected with some of my companions from those days - I am so grateful for them.
It still makes me very happy to see missionaries and even more so if they are on bicycles. I don't expect Sister Schlachter and I will find ourselves on bicycles in Mexico this this time around, though I think I could still be a pretty good "motor". The photo below is of me in Mazatlán while I was serving - definitely a "best" use of time versus toasting myself on the beach which couldn't have received even a "good" rating at least looking back now.
Yes, full-time missionaries are allowed to have fun. On Saturday afternoon, after shopping, laundry and our weekly food prep, we went with Alex and Liz to her parents' home for some Halloween fun with them, four of their grandchildren and their parents. The fun included a fishing game (a sheet, stick with a line and clothespin "hook", icing sugar cookies, carving pumpkins and a spooky meal. I especially enjoyed meeting the children's parents; their mother is from Guadalajara. It was also a delight watching a two and a half year old discover that eating the different coloured icing and sprinkles was even better than putting them on a sugar cookie - though his fine motor skills were excellent. Something very cool that I would like to do some time is to replicate the skeleton Liz's mom made of bread, with a warm spaghetti sauce "heart" and spaghetti "intestines". There seemed to be one rib too many until the children discovered all by themselves that it was missing a tailbone which they soon remedied. When gramma tactfully pointed out that it made the skeleton look like a boy, the pragmatic solution they came up with was to tuck it further under the skeleton's guts.
After dinner we went for a drive through a family-friendly spooky light and sound show - our first. Always the entrepreneur - Alex was estimating the cost and revenue generation potential - apparently the same site also does something similar for Christmas.
On Sunday our sacrament meeting speakers included a sister from a larger eastern City - she shared how she was first introduced to the Church and the first time in her life that she felt the love of Jesus Christ in her life - the latter occurred during a very precarious and stressful time when her monthly rent took an unexpected US$ 300 hike upwards and she didn't know how she was going to make ends meet - she was already working two jobs. She said the love she felt included knowing that things would be alright and indeed they were. For her, that answer also confirmed that the Book of Mormon was the word of God and that Joseph Smith was and is His prophet. My experience is that prayers are always answered, often in ways we do not expect.
During the second hour we learned about something being tried in the Utah stakes to open up employment opportunities. Education resource mentors are being called to serve congregations to help people take advantage of education opportunities starting wherever they are. Some of the examples referenced of people who could be helped included stay-at-home moms whose circumstances didn't allow them to finish an education program they started or to newly start and finish one, new immigrants and people that don't fit neatly into the education system (i.e., that learn differently). I served as an employment specialist in the Champlain Ward in Ottawa and can see the value of having a resource like what was described available to complement and enable self-reliance programming. The gal called to serve in our ward here is a university professor and a lawyer but her introduction included an invitation prefaced by a brief description about her own challenges with learning, "If you're like me and can tell me how many squirrels are running around right now outside that window but can't focus on what's happening in this meeting - we should talk." A young woman in the meeting said she was dyslexic and could she get help - the answer was a resounding "yes!" The mentor helps people target their interests, identify resources and provide encouragement to go and do with the help of ward members. It's pretty exciting.
We got part of the afternoon off today as there was a waterline break this morning resulting in the City having to shut off the water to the Church History Library and, I imagine, some of the surrounding buildings. One of our zone leaders told us that one of the senior missionaries slipped on the ice, fell and broke a bone and the mission rule - "don't fall".
We hope our interview tomorrow at the Mexican consulate goes as planned.
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