We had arranged to spend Labor Day weekend at the beach, an end-of-summer recreation. A tropical storm arrived before we did and summer ended. During three years in Los Angeles previously, the muting of seasonal cues became stranger to my perception the longer I was there. I would strain to recollect milestones by which I could reckon the current month, much as I usually do to figure out the date of the month when a calendar is not at hand. A neighbor cut down a Norfolk pine, and I obtained a couple feet of the trunk to show the cub scouts its rings. It turned out that it didn’t have any distinct rings. Not even the trees of LA know what season it is.
My first year as a missionary was a confusion of seasons. I trained in Provo in summer. In the early evening, the district would take a break outside and toss a frisbee around. The last couple weeks leading to our August 5th departure, sunset was on the shoulder, off the plateau, arriving a minute earlier every day. It was still summer, but it wouldn’t last. Then suddenly it wasn’t summer anymore; it was late winter with frost and ice puddles in the morning. Elder Peterson explained that the local Mothers’ Day was observed in spring, in October, and that afforded him a second occasion to call his mother each year while away. That first area’s climate and vegetation (link) were a bit like those of my native land (link), and it was only two degrees farther from the equator, It warmed quickly enough, especially after Elder Workman arrived in September. His mother suffered some ailment requiring surgery, and he fasted for her and called her by phone. I would meet her in her Eager, Arizona home four years later. The clear, dry air, the low level of outdoor lighting, and our plentiful time outside provided excellent enjoyment of the sky. I became fond of tracking the moon, day and night.
It was good and hot, like a Nevadan likes it, when I was sent 13 degrees further south on December 2. The sun would wheel around two-thirds of the horizon, its altitude never higher than 62 degrees, though it was summer. A couple times we walked home under midnight twilight. When Elder Pinder left home, it was doubtful he would see his cancer-stricken mother again, but more than a year later, her disease was in remission. Midsummer was warm enough, but we always wore our overcoats as a defense from the perpetual wind. I always imagined those winds arriving from Antarctica, though at that latitude, they should have been westerlies from the horse latitudes, not polar easterlies. We were 40 miles from the Magellan Strait and taught a gendarme airplane mechanic whose duties took him to Antarctic bases the same distance from us as the mission office. One fun stunt was to unbutton our coats, clutch them close and face into the wind, spring straight up and unfurl the coats like kites, and be carried however many feet the gale had strength for. The natural vegetation in the field was tough little stuff only a few inches high, tundra it would probably be classified (link). Trees planted in town were shielded when young from breezes that would otherwise dry them out quickly, but still their trunks were all inclined about 45 degrees from vertical.
The last day of the year, the mission secretary informed me that my mother was dead. Between a mail strike and my transfer, the last letters from home had arrived five weeks earlier and had been written a week or two before that. The last letter from my mother that I had read said she was seeing a doctor about unspecified discomfort, but she didn’t want me to worry about it. So I hadn’t. New Year’s phone calls were making it impossible to get a line to the capital, let alone to the United States. On January 3rd, I finally got through to my family’s phone, but it just rang, so I called my bishop. He had just stepped in from conducting my mother’s funeral, and my family was en route to the cemetery in Logandale (link). Through the bishop, I arranged to call my family the next morning, and I spoke with my father and with my sister (but not with my mother). Later that month I had contact from my mother again; when the mail strike ended, the backlog of letters arrived at once, mostly from my mother, then from my sister when my mother could no longer write.
There was one solitary summer day that the wind was calm. We left our overcoats home and the sun beat down on our jackets. We listened and heard nothing: there was no wind. We felt hot and carried the jackets on our arms, mostly to enjoy the fact that we could. By the end of February, the wind started to have an icy edge to it. March 13th I traveled 950 miles north to my next area, a port city. Autumn was like spring for me, delightful mild weather, comfortable with a jacket on and even more so with one off. From that point on the march of the seasons proceeded normally. A year and a quarter later when my austral service ended, the return to the northern hemisphere from winter on the Pampa left no particular impression on my tired mind.
Argentina, I assume?
I’m a Nevadan, John. Where are you from? I was born in Ely, raised all over. I have lived in Goldfied, yes, Goldfield. But I don’t like it hot, in fact, just the opposite, I love Seattle.
Dang, I just read the part about your mom. I think I may have missed your point altogether, but I’m so sorry about your mom. I strongly believe missionaries should be allowed to mourn, to attend the funerals of their loved ones. Your story makes me angry. You write eloquently about the weather, and all I feel is like hitting somebody. How could they do that to you?
Annegb,
My husbands’ father passed away unexpectedly after a grueling, but brief battle with pancreatic cancer. He too was serving a mission. He did not feel like anyone “did that to him.” He was able to call home and felt lifted up and sustained-extra blessed during the time. He says looking back, it was all rather strange.Of course he mourned–but briefly.
I also had a MTC teacher who’s mother died while he was a missionary. He too said that though it was trying, he felt like he was doing the right thing. This same thing happened with my VT companion’s husband, who’s mother died while he was on a mission, after being diagnosed with cancer while pregnant. She chose to have the baby and for go treatment to protect the fetus, and that is what killed her.
When I was growing up there was a young man who came home for the funeral of his father. He was an only child, and his mother needed him at that moment. He stayed a few days and went back out.
My own father, who has a brain tumor, could have been a worry to me while I served. But I knew that going out.
You forget that missionaries choose to go on missions. They are adults. If they want to leave, no one is going to stop them. They choose to serve under that hardship. Life doesn’t stop while people are on missions. Weddings are missed, births, and yes-even deaths. But I think most wouldn’t change it for the world.
No, that’s not true, Mami. Many young people who lose loved ones are not permitted to leave their missions to attend the funerals and they don’t know any better. They acquiese to authority and later regret it. I can cite examples, just as you have, of the opposite.
I think the church is being more compassionate these days, but I think the idea that if a person flies home to attend the funeral of their mother, it somehow impinges on their mission, is lunacy. Also cruel.
As far as “most wouldn’t change it for the world” I’m not so sure. I would say “half wouldn’t change it for the world.” Nothing is perfect and many regret their missions, or at least, suffer through them.
Annegb,
It is true that most likely if missionaries ask if they can leave for a funeral they will be told no. But missionaries sometimes leave their missions simply because they don’t like it. I think it is ludicrous to say they are just acquieses to authority. These are not children (though some are childish).
It is blaming the church for just one more thing to say it is cruel. Was it cruel too for God to take their parent while they were away? No one is inflicting something horrible on missionaries who choose to be there.
Queuno, yes, Argentina. The links will indicate specifically where.
Anne, I considered when I wrote that line that some Nevadan would respond that she doesn’t like the heat. I decided that I would declare that the one making such a response couldn’t be a true Nevadan. Not many people in the 21st Century can lay any claim to Goldfield. I did help patch a roof on a bank there once. It was kind of a weird job; I don’t think the building had been used in a couple decades, but someone owned it and hired the repair.
Anne and Mami, touching your debate here are some of my views: At a very difficult time for my mother, my being where I was was one of the things that comforted her, and she’s the one who died, not me. One great addition to our relationship due to the mission was that we had exchanged letters weekly for several months before she fell ill. That was a powerful communication form for me; my wife and I courted largely by mail. When my mother died, I was in a remote province of 200,000 people occupying 244,000 square kilometers. As I indicated, available communication was such that I couldn’t get a phone line through until the funeral had already passed. Some places really are far away. It was purposeful for missionaries to be there, and it was an unusual experience that I cherish. I am glad that Elder Pinder and I weren’t disqualified from such service.
Our mother’s death hit my sister much harder than me. Everyone wondered about the son far away, but the girl right there was the one who needed their support.