In the Spring of 1970, around March, I was surprised to receive
the call to serve as the President of the Southwest Spanish-speaking Mission of
the Church which was headquartered in East Los Angeles and had ecclesiastical
responsibility for all Spanish-speaking units and members that threaded through
six different states.
Frankly, the idea of moving our children from
their schools to East Los Angeles did not appeal to me and definitely not to
Barbara either. We were instructed not to mention the call to anyone
other than family and we chose not to mention it even to our own children at
the time. They were all involved in their school activities. Amy
and Susan were trying out for either East High Pep Club, Acapella Choir, etc.
We didn’t tell them not to worry about whether they were accepted or not
because they were not going to be here anyway, or so we thought.
I struggled with the location of the call for
several days, even a week or so, and then one morning about 2:00 AM, I got up
and was wandering around the front living room area concerned about moving our
family to that location. I was looking out the northwest window of
the living room when I had an experience that I will not forget and have only
shared with a very few. All of a sudden a warm feeling of peace came over
me. I was assured again in a very powerful spiritual way that Jesus is
the Christ, that this is His Church. A deep commitment came over me that
I would be willing to serve in any capacity, anywhere—even
in East Los Angeles and do it very willingly.
We checked with the then serving mission
president whom we would succeed about the size of the mission home in terms of
bedrooms, etc. since we would be bringing all six of our children. Things
seemed to be in order for our making the move and with the accommodations which
were available.
Barbara and I continued to make our
preparations very quietly and confidentially. Then, we received a
surprising call from President Nathan Eldon Tanner of the First Presidency to
come to his office at Church Headquarters. Almost apologetically he mentioned
that the Brethren had decided to absorb the Southwest Spanish-speaking mission,
units and members into the Church units wherever they geographically
lived. He wondered if we would be willing to accept the change of our
call to the Mexico-Mexico City mission with headquarters in Mexico City.
President Romney, who was serving as President there, was having some health
difficulties and needed to be released. Would we be willing to
change!?? Would we ever!! If we had received a chance to select our
first choice of all the missions in the world, that would be the one we would
have selected.
Then a Wednesday morning, sometime in May as I
recall, when we knew that the news of our call would be published in the Church
News, we called a “Family Council” in the basement family room and
made the announcement to our six children. Amy and Susan had been
accepted in their various special groups in high school and things were moving
along for them.
We made the announcement of our call to Mexico
City and our need to be there on July 1st. The older girls
burst into tears at the thought of leaving their high school friends and
experiences. The younger boys cheered about the idea. We found out
why Spencer was cheering when he asked, “Dad and Mom, do you have to go to
school when you are on a mission?” In spite of all the feelings and
emotions, we were so proud of all of them that they accepted the call and were
willing to lay their own lives and wishes on the “altar of Lord” for the next
three years.
All new mission presidents and wives
We signed a three-year lease to renters of our home at 1860 East
Yalecrest Avenue. Then we packed up all the necessities including
essentials such books, the girls’ new dresses for school, etc. and the Church
made the shipment to Mexico City. We arrived there on the evening of June
30th and due to Sister Romney’s health and other concerns were
given accommodations at the Benemerito Preparatory school for
the night. (Incidentally, that is the location where years later three of our
grandchildren, Tanner, Jameson and Sarah) attended the MTC when it was
converted from a school for that purpose.)
Among the first experiences we had was to
learn that a few days after arriving in Mexico, we received information that
four general authorities and their wives would be coming to Mexico City.
They were: President Joseph Fielding Smith and Nathan Eldon Tanner of the
First Presidency, Acting President of the Twelve Apostles, Spencer W.
Kimball, and Elder Howard W. Hunter of the Twelve. They all came to the
Mission Home and we invited all the missionaries serving in or near Mexico City
to come for a special Missionary Conference. It was a thrill for all of
us! After the meeting, as was the custom, many pictures were taken.
Here are a few of them:
No comments:
Post a Comment