Random Missionary Memories

More Random Missionary Moments. I am going to warn you ahead of time, they aren't funny or uplifting. Unless of course human suffering uplifts you, under which of course, you should probably see a doctor.

Within the first couple of months in the mission, my trainer and I went to see a family. Now if you know anything about the Latin culture you know that they will almost always offer you some kind of food or drink. Sure the mission rules were that we shouldn't eat or drink anything down there that we weren't sure of, but I honestly believe that the church makes those rules just to pacify parents that we aren't going to get sick. In other words, we would eat or drink almost anything put in front of us and prayed that Lord would bless us not to get sick. Most of the time he did bless us, I often wished he would turn the cow stomach into something I could stomach, but alas, those prayers remained unanswered.

When we went to see this family they served us a drink. A slightly orange hot water. I drank it and thanked the mother, she was a single mother of four kids. She replied to me, but since my Spanish could only be described as pre-pre-preschool level I didn't understand. My companion was a Peruvian and didn't speak English so he couldn't explain it to me right then. After we left I asked him what it was we drank, being the green missionary I was I was slightly afraid that it was tea. He explained to me that it was sugar water. Just water with a bit of sugar? Yep. That was all they could offer, but they offered it anyway. The mother had a small loom that she would make rugs with and that's how she would pay for food, but that was all she could do. I didn't realize it at first, but the room we sat in when we talked with her was the only room in what can only be described as a hovel.

Some months in the mission field, and with considerable improvement to my Spanish. I was stuck with a companion that was nearing the end of his mission and was already thinking of home, we call that Trunky. One day we were out looking for contacts, in my mind we were, in his mind we were strolling through the park. There were a group of kids playing soccer, for whatever reason one of the kids tripped and ran straight into my leg, then fell to the ground. He didn't really make an effort to get up. My companion knelt beside the kid and picked him up. I was just a dumb kid and my mind was conjuring up lessons of CPR. My companion sat the kid down on a bench and told the kid to sit there while we looked for his mother. No sooner did my companion release the child did he fall straight forward, flat on his face without making any movement to stop his fall, to the concrete. My companion was quick and picked the kid up immediately. I looked at the kid's face, it had the expected scratches, but what I didn't expect was a non-mucus white liquid coming out of his nose. Within seconds did his mother and a neighbor run up to us. The mother was freaking out, cursing at us she ripped her child from my companion's arms. My companion told her that she needed take him to a doctor, she cried and muttered that she couldn't afford it and that she'd take him home. The neighbor stepped in and said that it wasn't like it used to be, and that she could take her son to the doctor and that they didn't charge for children. I will always remember her face, the hopelessness disappearing and hope peaking through. She didn't believe it at first, but the neighbor insisted and flagged down a taxi. I never did hear what happened.

I feel ill when people say that they "understand" poverty. Or when they say that poor people just need to get a job. There are times I can't sleep at night thinking about some of the people I've seen. I sit here with a computer in front of me with high-speed internet, while I know that there is a family that has had their livelihood taken away from them and there is no one that will plead their case. I get to decide what I eat, while some have to wonder if they are going to be able to. The worst part is, I have seen their faces, I know their voices and they are my friends.