Day 1!

Finally, it was time to head out! Though most of the choir was planning to leave July 24th, my former companion, Rachel, and I had made plans to arrive the day before so that we could spend the day in the capital city, where we had served together. The choir had plans to spend only one day in the Capital, and we knew that if we went with them we wouldn't have time to visit the members and converts we had grown to love, so it was well worth it to arrive a day early.

The flight to Guatemala seemed super fast. We had a layover of an hour or so in the Los Angeles airport, and wound up sitting next to a man who looked distinctly Latino. When he nearly tripped over my bag in the aisle, I instinctively said, "Perdon, hermano!" rather than "Sorry!" He sort of cocked his head and asked me in broken English if I spoke Spanish. Rachel and I said that we did, and explained where we had learned it and why we were going back. We had a really nice chat in Spanish, and it was the first time since I had been home that I had spoken with a native Guatemalan in Spanish. It felt like coming home.

We arrived at the airport and took a crazy taxi ride to Ermita, the neighborhood where I had spent eight months of my mission. A member, Zusi, had graciously offered us a place to spend the night, so we brought all our stuff and dropped it there, and she prepared us a traditional Guatemalan breakfast (our flight was a red eye, so we were arriving about 8 AM). Then, we spent the rest of the day making house calls. 

As a missionary, I spent most of my time either walking to teaching appointments or knocking on doors hoping to get a teaching appointment. Ermita is a tiny little neighborhood, and by the time I was transferred to another area, I knew just about everyone there at least by face if not by name, members and non-members alike. I could have drawn a map of the area and explained who lived in which apartment. But despite my familiarity with the place, I found myself feeling faintly nervous. Guatemala City is one of the most dangerous cities in the world. While serving in Ermita, I witnessed some of that danger, but as a missionary I never once felt nervous for my safety. Now, a few moments after arriving there, I was watching my back and checking my pockets. 

"Things are different now, huh?" I asked Rachel, looking around and noticing the stares we were getting from people.

"Yeah," she said. "No more gafete."

She was referring to the nametags we wore on the mission, proclaiming our names and that we were representatives of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She was partially right in a literal sense: our nametags were an easy way for people to quickly identify us. They didn't have to ask themselves why two blonde girls were wandering around inner city Guatemala City, so they saw us, noticed us, and then forgot about us. Now, we were just two tourists with no apparent purpose for being there. We stuck out really, really bad. 

But the other fact was, we weren't missionaries any more. We were no longer set apart to do that particular work, and we no longer had the protection afforded the Lord's called servants. 

We took some extra precautions, avoiding some streets we knew to be more dangerous, keeping cameras and cell phones out of sight, and making sure we always had a member with us to off set our obvious strangeness. Despite the constant nerves I felt, nothing happened to us while we were there, and we thoroughly enjoyed our time visiting with the members. 

Our most memorable visit had to be with a family we had found and taught as missionaries, the Colindrez family. A series of miracles led us to them, and over a few months we witnessed another miracle: their conversion. Now, more than a year after their baptisms, we had come to see them just a few months after they were sealed together in the Guatemala City Temple. This visit was one of my personal miracles of the whole trip, because most missionaries get to be a part of just a small part of an investigator's progress. I had been privileged to see all of it. I was there when we knocked on their door. Together with Rachel, we had visited them, prayed for them, fasted for them, and watched them grow to love the gospel. We saw them make changes in their lives, sacrifice to come to church, and come closer as a family. We saw them, one after another, enter the waters of baptism. After Rachel went home, my new companion and I were blessed to watch them learn more about the church, assume responsibilities and callings, and become an integral part of the ward. And now, months later, I was able to come back and see how they had progressed, how they had kept their covenants and made additional ones, how their lives had changed. I truly have felt no greater joy in my entire life, than to spend an hour with that family and witness their joy. 

To top off a wonderful day, we got word that night that one of the families in the ward wanted us to come visit them. We arrived at their home and found not just them, but half of the ward there! We had told the Bishop we were coming, and he had thrown together a "Family Home Evening" style activity. We sat in a circle. The ward had fun trying to guess our first names; they never did figure out mine, and I had to tell them. Then the Bishop, who was apparently unsatisfied with an activity that didn’t include some kind of gospel teaching, asked Rachel and I to share a few words and bear our testimonies. I felt sort of strange, standing there in jeans and a hooded sweatshirt, using words I had used as a missionary. All I could think of to say to them was, “Thank you.” I thanked them for their examples, for teaching me, for working so hard, for taking care of those people we taught. And I told them that I knew that what I had preached as a missionary was true, that it wasn’t just words I had said: the Book of Mormon is true. There is a living prophet on the earth. This, and no other, is Christ’s true church.

I thought I would get teary-eyed, being back in my mission and sharing my testimony in Spanish, but I found that quite the opposite was true. I found my heartbeat speeding and my chest filling with that indescribable joy I had experienced as a missionary—that I had only ever experienced as a missionary! It was exhilarating and wonderful.

I sat down, and Rachel shared her thoughts, and then I was surprised to see each of the members stand, one by one, to bear a testimony, or to share a memory of when they had gone to teach with us, or to tell us of a recent missionary experience, or to thank us for our service. And that was when I got teary-eyed. J

We finished off the evening by eating Chapin Hot Dogs—miniature hot dogs roasted over a fire and wrapped in a tortilla, and the Bishopric teasingly brought out a 2-liter bottle of Coke, the drink we were not allowed in the mission.

Yeah, it was a great night.