Ay, Hermana Celinda e Hija

    I was trying to remember their names since ... a long time ago. Since the 1990s, it must have been. In 1995 I wrote the mother's name down. I had not remembered the daughter's, but I did annotate their ages when I knew them, a few years later, as I was finishing college; I knew them when they were 40 and 14, respectively, as I recorded it five years later. More so, I tried to recall them in 2005, when I returned to the town for a few months where I knew them, taught them, and baptized them when I was twenty. Elder Potter was there, too. We did it as a team, it was not just me. Plus I think some local members were involved. Hopefully. Maybe he, my junior partner, knew them better than me, (I can explain why), and maybe he remembers them still, unlike me. I will explain.

   This little post is trying to compensate for lost memories, perhaps recovering hopes, blessings, or achieving lessons learned and ...

 Some call it Proselytizing, Others Proselyting, Some "Recruiting"

    When we go on full time missions, many of us wish to ambitiously teach and baptize as many people as possible. Going to the Chile Concepcion Mission of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the early 1990s I was afforded this opportunity. And, as we learn and memorize in Doctrine and Covenants Section 4, we know that "lo, the field is white, already to harvest." That means: baptize new converts robustly! My trainer and I would read and re-read the pamphlets of early Church leaders like Heber C. Kimball and Wilford Woodruff who baptized thousands in England in the 1830s and 1840s. We wanted to emulate them. Teach and baptize many (thousands!) into the fold. Like a time of miracles and the fulfillment of the Fullness of Times, the Spirit of God overcoming us and those that we met was our aim. Our faith filling the Earth, as it were. "Why not?" the Church pamphlet implored.

   For me statistically, I was not among the high baptizers of my mission. We would receive the numbers of the elders and sisters who baptized the most by newsletter every month; I do not think I was ever a part of those missionaries recognized and lauded for doing so. Some had the gift, some were teaching and helping considerable numbers to join. 10 in one month. 15 in one month. These numbers accumulate pretty soon. As a mission we would baptize collectively over 400 souls in a month in 1990; some companionships had many, some had none. The "none" list seemed to be a time of shame or redoubt, like it or not. I had a few of those; that made me question my efficacy, and even my worthiness as a full time missionary of my faith.

    Chile in the 1990s was a baptizing place, across our then six missions from north to south. Some of the contiguous missions to the north would baptize over a thousand people in one calendar month. The country might baptize 8 or more thousand in a month, depending on each mission's monthly success. I heard from a reliable source in Chile that the Southern/Concepcion Mission of 1980 had a month where they baptized 5,000 souls. The former missionary, a Chilean, said he felt like a robot, teaching and baptizing. He could not remember many of those that he taught. My seventh missionary companion, also a native Chilean, was one month from finishing his two years served; he said he had taken part in upwards of 175 conversions, and there were people in former areas that he could not recall.

    I had five areas during the course of my two year mission; my companions and I ended up baptizing the most in my first area, the small town of Mulchen. There in the space of four plus months my three consecutive native companions and I baptized three in January, four in February, six in March, and four more in April, to make a list of 17. I usually remember all their names and faces, their families and situations, their ages and personalities. I suppose with the passage of time additional converts can be less memorable, easier to forget, but in my case there were fewer converts in my later areas. So it should not be as hard to recollect as those missionaries who were baptizing dozens and dozens per sector.

 

     But I could not remember Celinda or her daughter, from my penultimate area, for many years, even decades. Even when going back there for many weeks years later (2005), searching the streets and my memories. I wanted to find them, or simply recall who they were. Not to forget them, as some forget their conversions...

     In the six months of my second ward in Concepcion city in 1990, with four different companions we baptized eight individuals: I still recall all of them and I can show you where they lived. In my third area of five months, a small town and a fledgling branch, Santa Juana, we baptized only three. That seemed like a frustrating time of poor growth for me and us, apart from the numbers officially joining. 

    It was in Angol where I served for four months that I could not remember Celinda nor her daughter. Not the names, the faces, the streets, or even the part of town, although I had my suspicions by process of elimination. It had to be, as I had long supposed, in the poorest area of Angol, to the far west, in the foothills abutting the mountains. This side of Angol had its own small branch, which was in its death throes when I returned 14 years later with my wife and two small girls. I thought that we had taught some young men up there, some that Elder Watson had baptized with Elder ... his former companion. But Elder Potter and I must have taught and baptized 40 year Celinda and her 14 year-old daughter, now unnamed. Forgive me.

 When I returned in '05, Sister Celinda would have been 54, and her daughter 28. I was 34, turning 35. Life was passing me by, as so many memories do. What had become of these sisters? Did they have their own husbands and children? had they stayed in the forgotten house and far off street going about the hill of west Angol, in a little heard of Ninth Province of Chile? Or, had they moved on to another part of the country, or even delved abroad?

     I re-read the notes from my mid-nineties recollections now in March of 2021. Celinda would be 70 and the daughter 44. Where are they now? Do they remember a gringo missionary that befriended, taught, and baptized them, or is their memory as bad or worse than mine of that time? Do they remember jovial and easy- going Elder Potter, of little Shelly, Idaho, more than me? What do they remember? Were there aspects that were not positive, as I fear may have occurred? Am I sub-consciously blocking out parts of that time and these people? Is it one great stupor of thought?

     I was a Zone leader for those four months in Angol, three of them with Elder Potter. As such I was required to travel to other sectors of the zone, to the south side of Angol and Huequen, to farther off Collipulli and Los Sauces and Puren; I would leave our two Angol branches sometimes twice per week, staying over night fro my area, dwhich meant I had less time to fellowship with our pools of investigators. Hence, I did not meet with Celinda and daughter as much as Potter, presumably, and I was not as involved in their teaching and final joining of the faith. Along with those two, we taught and baptized five other people in the total of four months that I resided in this "ideally sized town for living", all of whom I recall and I could indicate where they lived, who they were, what was their conditions upon joining us in worship.

    Excuses, excuses. I should not have forgotten them, I should have taken better notes and consulted them occasionally for my own purposes of maintaining my memory of them. Each person was not a stat in the end, but an individual and soul of immense worth, like all of us. I remember all the rest, but not so much these two. But, thinking of Elder Olea in 1990, who could not remember all his close to 200 converts, or the older former missionary who was part of the 5,000 baptism month in 1980, I cannot blame him for not recalling all the dozens of people that he was probably teaching and baptizing. Although, he should have a record of them, and be able to know where they attended, lived when coming to Church. As a native of Chile he has a better chance to visit and re-connect with many of them.

    Remembering the 99 and 1

     This whole exercise of remembering them, these people that we fellowshipped, taught, and baptized and confirmed members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is a metaphor or allegory for the love and presence of God Himself, in certain senses. Does our Eternal Father remember us, or does He disappear in the shadows and recesses of our collective and personal consciousnesses? Was all this Church idea just some random or even nefarious way of shaping and manipulating emotions, hopes, expectations, and dreams? As some detractors accuse: is it for profit, control, and coercion of the masses? 

    Heaven forbid.

    Was the very notion and existence of God a false flag, a canard, a hoax and a scheme, a lie and a hoodwink? Were organized religions simply mechanisms and tools to serve the people the opiates of control, as Lenin (or was it Marx?) would insinuate and decry?

   I tell myself, and others, and dear (now) old Celinda, age 70, and the daughter, age 44, perhaps herself a mother and grandmother, that we are not forgotten.

 

   You are not forgotten, nor abandoned, nor cast off. God loves, remembers you. I do too.

 

   I hope this wish and missive, these thoughts and prayers, ruminations and good wishes, find you well.

 

   God bless you and all yours. God bless Angol, God bless Chile. Redeem us all, O Lord of the Heavens and Sovereign of the Universe: Save and exalt us from our earthly stains and faults. Forgive us, Oh Lord, our debts as we forgive our debtors.

 

  Whether 30 years later or a hundred years from now, we knew you, loved you; God and His faiths are ever moving, consoling, adapting, progressing, and delving into the corners and avenues of our hearts, minds, and beings. Our souls are indeed of great worth; Celinda and daughter are there shining bright, even among the distorted or dilapidated passages of time that rack us all.

   We gringos of the north have not forgotten; we look back with nostalgia, remembrance of a time of hope and spiritual longing for cleansing and oneness, unity; love and life.

Ay, Celinda e hija.

Agradezco el hecho de haber puesto conocerles. 

Que nos encontremos en el futuro: cercano or lejano, distante o proximo.

Nos veremos con sonrisas. Gracias.