Let the Celebration Begin!

Saturday October 8, Today was the kickoff of the 50th Anniversary of the Chilean Mission because on this very day, 50 years ago, the Mission began. Since our first meeting, which would be a reunion of the "Misioneros Historicos" (those who served from 1961 to 1975) didn't begin until 2:00pm, we hungout in the apartment until it was time to go. All dressed up in our Sunday-best we caught a taxi at 1:30 headed for the first chapel ever built in Chile, in Nunoa. I kind of knew where we were going, having found on the map that we would pass by the temple, so when the taxi driver took an unexpected turn, I questioned him; I think he either didn't know exactly where he was going or else he did know where he was going and was trying to get a higher fare; I'll chose to believe the former. We got to the building at 10 minutes before the hour and from the locked gate out in front, our first impression was that there was no one there. But upon further investigation, we discovered an open gate for the driveway for church parking on the side of the property. Entering the building, we saw people in the Cultural Hall so we knew we weren't the only ones there. We were first greeted by a Bro. Steven Warren, ex-missionary from Utah, then a couple from San Marcos- of all places- the Fifes, interesting that we had to travel so far to meet someone that lives so close to us in San Diego. The only people we knew before our arrival were Rodolfo Acevedo, my former missionary companion, his wife, Soledad, (they are Chilean natives that live here in Santiago) and Gary Davis, the head of the Chilean Alumni Association. The couple we most enjoyed meeting was President and Sister MacArthur, who currently preside over the Rancagua Mission, the city south of Santiago were I first started my mission. They were at the reunion because Sis. McArthur is a former Chilean missionary herself. Pres. McArthur has a very bubbly personality, easy to laugh and very self-depricating. His wife was short, sweet, soft-spoken, the perfect balance for her husband and she is a mother of TEN children no less, that includes two sets of twins!! In the course of our conversation, Pres. McArthur asked if I might be related to a mission president with the last name of Jesperson that is currently serving in the Guadalajara, Mexico Mission. YES! I said, that would be my cousin John! Pres. McArthur said he knew John and his wife very well, that they were from the same stake in the Provo area, and that he had emailed John's wife, Dianna just the day before. It's a small world when you belong to the Church. He said he was glad he was in Chile, not in Mexico where people are routinely and randomly shot as the drug wars continue. He admitted that he had struggled his first months in the mission on account of not having used his Spanish for the past 40 years since he served as a Spanish-speaking mission to Texas. The calling of a mission president is a very complicated calling and when a language barrier is added to the mix, it's very humbling. Pres. McArthur seems to have weathered the storm and has hit his stride. He jokes that the Chileans speak very fast and drop the "s" from many of their words which makes it doubly hard to understand them. When he found out that I was serving in the California San Diego Mission Presidency, and that I had maintained my Spanish all these years, he proclaimed loudly that I would be called to be a Chilean mission president next. "They are probably calling your home now to interview you" he said "this is the time of the year that they call new mission presidents". He prophesied that when the current mission president of the Vina del Mar Mission finishes his mission next year, I would take his place. I admit that all this talk had me very excited, there would be nothing more that I would enjoy than to return to Chile to serve a mission, but it must be in the Lord's time, of course. We met Bro. and Sis. Cardon who are in Chile as temple missionaries; Bro. Cardon was one of the missionaries that opened Chile in 1961, so he was one of the ones that got it all started. After 60 minutes of glad-handing, meeting new people and reminiscing about the good ole days, we passed into the chapel where Rodolfo, who is the church historian for Chile, reviewed the history of the Church in Chile. Come to find out that it was he that had supplied all the historical data to the Area Presidency and organizers of the various presentations that would take place during this week-long celebration. Some of the tidbits of history that  I found interesting were that when the pioneers were going to the West, some of them, following a Samuel Brannon, chose to sail around the tip of South America rather than trudge overland (they were hoping that Brigham Young would bypass the Valley of the Great Salt Lake and travel on to California). They sailed on a ship named the "Brooklyn" and when they got close to Chile, a sister that was pregnant died. Before she passed away she begged them not bury her at sea. They intended to stop at Valparaiso to repair the ship, take on supplies and bury this sister, however, a storm kept them for landing in Valparaiso so they stopped at the Island of Juan Fernandez (a Chilean possession). Rodolfo made the point that before the Saints arrived in the Salt Lake Valley, the Saints arrived to Chile. Also, when the Gold Rush was on in California in 1847, many Chileans went there seeking their fortune, they all lived in a small community together. Apparently, they were attacked by a gang of "Bigoted Claim-jumpers" and the only ones to come to their aid were.....the Mormons, former members of the Mormon Battalion, no doubt. Following the excellent presentation by Rodolfo, we went back into the cultural hall for a quick bite to eat which included ham and cheese sandwiches, potato chips, cookies and soda. The bread was not the sliced bread we are used to but rather a hefty-sized, rather solid bun. Mallory liked them so much that she had two. After we finished, we piled into Rodolfo's car and his son, Toby, drove us to the La Reina Stake Center for the Devotional that was to kickoff the week of celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the Chilean Mission. The stake center was a beehive of activity and you could tell that this was going to be an important meeting as the entire building was wired for to broadcast the meeting via satellite to all the stake centers in Chile as well as a select group of stake centers in the States. We received word late that the meeting would also be broadcast on the internet for the whole world to see (I'm sure there are a lot of ex-Chilean missionaries that didn't come to Chile that are glad for that). We were treated like VIPs, they ushered us into the chapel and had us sit in the third row right behind the Area Seventies and their wives. The Chilean Mission Presidents and their wives were seated in the front benches on the side of the chapel. As we entered, there was a young lady playing the violin accompanied by a young man playing a grand piano as a prelude to the meeting. The choir seats were filled with well groomed young people, wearing church dress, smiling pleasantly and with an obvious excitement to be part of the program. This meeting was presided over by the Area Presidency of the Chilean Area and up until the young lady at the door of the chapel handed me a program with the pictures of the Area Presidency on it, I didn't know who they were. The President is Lawrence Corbridge, who I remember giving a great talk in General Conference no too long ago, 1st Counselor is Jorge Zeballos, a Chileno, and I was surprised to find that Kent J. Richards, who visited our mission not too long ago as a newly called General Authority, was the 2nd Counselor. The meeting consisted of talks given by the members of the Area Presidency along with singing by the choir and the congregation. The music by the choir was inspiring, I felt a surge of the Spirit as they sang. Elder Richards spoke about the rising generation of Chilean youth, Elder Zeballos covered the highlights of history of the Church in Chile and displayed a timeline of all the major events that have taken place since the beginning of the restoration, and specifically in the last 50 years in Chile. He then unrolled a blank length of paper and declared that the next 50 years of history has yet to written and said it was up to the rising generation to write that history. Elder Corbridge's talk, although very doctrinally sound, was above the heads of the average member of the Church in Chile and was too long for the event, I thought. All in all it was a great devotional and I'm hoping to get a recording of it to review with some time to fully absorb it. Following the conclusion of the meeting, I made sure to greet Elder Richards and remind him of who I was and when we had last met; he said that he had just seen Pres. Donaldson in Salt Lake the week before when they were up for General Conference. We made our way walking to the Metro, talking about how much we enjoyed the meeting.  We met and chatted with a couple from Canada on the Metro, the husband was an ex-missionary to Chile, the wife was Chilean. After connecting with another Metro line, we eventually got home.