CALLED TO SERVE, Part 4

This blog entry is part 4 of the entry of my Mission experiences.


Our transfers came in the mail, usually on Wednesday. Transfer day was Friday or Saturday. That gave us a couple of days to pack, put in a change of address, write our folks and say good-bye to the members. My transfer said I was going to Norway. Norway, Maine that is. I was to catch a bus from Hartford to Boston. Then change busses in Boston for Lewiston-Auburn, Maine. There I would be picked up by my companion and go on to Norway. The District Leaders were in Lewiston-Auburn. I was no stranger to riding the bus as I had ridden the bus from San Jose to San Francisco a few times when I worked for Uncle Lee. I even took a date to San Francisco on the bus once. Real romantic. I only did it once! Anyway, I packed everything I owned in my suit cases and headed for northern New England. It was March and Spring was in the air, but there was still snow on the ground.

My trip to Maine was uneventful, as was my layover in the Boston Bus Terminal. I knew that lots of missionaries were being transferred that day and was surprised that I didn’t see any. I had to go to the restroom and not wanting to leave my bags unattended nor wanting to drag them downstairs to the restroom, I needed an ally. I sat next to a group of Nuns and struck up a conversation. We didn’t wear name tags in those days and I wasn’t about to tip my hand as to whom I was until after I used the restroom. I asked if they would mind watching my stuff. I figured that if I couldn’t trust them, then who could I trust? They graciously said they would watch my things. When I got back, the Nun’s and my things were still there. I thanked them and we exchanged pleasantries, then they got up and went to their bus.

Arriving in Lewiston-Auburn, I was met by the DLs and my companion, Elder Buchanan. I was coming as the newly assigned Senior Companion. I soon found out that Elder Buchanan wasn’t thrilled at the idea of his Senior Companion being out barely 5 months when he had been out almost a year. Our time together went downhill from there. In Maine he was like a fish out of water. He was a city boy and he hated the country…and Norway, Maine was out in the country. The town of Norway and its neighboring town, South Paris, were not quite as large as the Boston Bus Terminal! Well, okay, larger, but not by much. He had come up to Maine from Boston and had loved tracting in the apartment buildings. You could spend an entire day going from door to door until you got kicked out. If you couldn’t tract, you could sit in your apartment and telephone contact…boy that was effective! But in Maine, we had no apartment buildings of any size, and each phone call cost a nickel. I loved the outdoors, so we tracted. The towns of Norway and South Paris had been tracted out entirely several times in the preceding months, so I suggested we go into the country an visit some folks on the farms. We would drive out to the country, park and then walk back to the farms we had passed. Then we walked back to the car. The area was breathtaking, full of white birch trees and pines. The snow was melting, the temperature was mild, and it was like being in a picture postcard.

We stopped at a farm wanting to visit with the people who lived there and teach them the gospel. Elder Buchanan was deathly afraid of dogs. We entered the gate of the farm and were just inside the gate when we were met by a large black dog. My guess is that it was either a Rottweiler or a Lab. The dog came bounding up barking. My companion froze and the dog squared off with him. I told him to ignore the dog and keep walking, but he wasn’t moving. He was frozen with fear…and I think the dog sensed his fear. Then a woman came to the door and asked what we wanted. I told her, and she said she was the babysitter and the family would be home that evening. I asked her about the dog and she said she didn’t know if the dog was vicious or not. I thanked her and looked at my companion, who was still face to face with that dog, about 4 feet apart. Then both the dog and Elder Buchanan flinched at the same time. Elder Buchanan did a 180 degree turn precisely at the moment the dog did the same and the both headed in opposite directions as fast as they could go. The woman on the porch and I laughed so hard my side hurt. That, of course, ended tracting in the country.

The Branch President suggested we might want to try doing work in a neighboring town, Bridgton, as there were some members there. So we went and met the Mayor and a few other people, and decided we could do a lot of work there. We called President Packer and got permission to move to Bridgton. So the next day we went back and found an apartment. We stopped by the newspaper and had our pictures and a story about the missionary efforts run, and then we moved. After moving our stuff in, I figured the best thing to do would be to stop at the local diner, have lunch and ask for directions to somewhere, just to start a conversation. We ended up talking with a couple of folks and then left. When the next edition of the weekly newspaper came out, we were in it. Downtown we were stopped by a shop owner whose shop we had visited the day we moved to Bridgton. . She came out to apologize to us because she had thought we were the con men she had read about in the Boston paper. She had told others to watch out for the two young guys in suits because they were con men. When she read the article in the paper, she was embarrassed. But she became our friend, although she wasn’t interested in hearing the discussions. And nobody else ever mentioned our being con men.

The local branch was in Norway and met in the Grange Hall. The only Priesthood in the Branch was the Branch Presidency and some Aaronic Priesthood holders. One Sunday the Branch Presidency had an early morning meeting in Bangor, Maine with the District President and the Mission President. They expected to be back in time for Church, which started at 10, but didn’t make it. Elder Buchanan and I were the only Melchezidek Priesthood holders, so we decided to go ahead and conduct the meeting. The program was already set, so we went ahead and started. About the end of the meeting the Branch President came in. They thanked us for taking charge.

Maniacs (what people from Maine call themselves), speak with a distinct accent, almost their own dialect. They really emphasize and extend out the “ah” sound in the letter “a”. Father becomes Faaaahhhhhther. The Branch President’s son was a student at BYU and was home for a few days over spring break. He had totally lost his Maine/New England accent and sounded like a westerner. Being a Priest, he was one who administered the Sacrament that Sunday. When he began the blessing on the bread he did fine until he came to father. Then that old Maniac Faaahhhhther came out. I jerked my head up and it was all I could do to keep from laughing. It was the only time I ever heard the faintest accent from him.

Our apartment in Bridgton was right on Long Lake. Bridgton had a population of about 1500 to 2000 in the winter, and nearly 10,000 in the summer. It was an ideal vacation spot. We could go to the backyard of our apartment building and walk right down to the waters edge. I would highly doubt that if we were to go there today that we would find those apartments any more. More likely we would find expensive vacation homes with boat docks. Southern New Englanders spend a lot of summer months in Maine, and Bridgton was a popular spot. But before the influx of summer people came, my transfer notice arrived, and I was on my way to Pittsfield, MA.

What a joyous day it was to leave Maine, or at least my companion. Funny thing, while we came close to fisticuffs one evening, after we parted ways, we became good friends. I left Maine and arrived in Pittsfield on a beautiful spring afternoon one day in May. My companion was Elder Thurman and we would be together for four months. While Pittsfield was a good sized small town, we had lots of opportunities to tract in the country. There were two sets of Elders in Pittsfield and the other Elders, Elders Monson and Orton, had the town in their area. We lived in an apartment on West Houstatonic Street, a couple of doors up form the A and W Root Beer stand. We would drink a lot of root beer in those few months. Lots of empty calories that packed on some weight!

Elder Thurman had a girlfriend, and she wrote to him every day. The mail came at 11 and all he could think or talk about was going to get the mail. Mission rules were 1 letter per week. I told him to write his girlfriend and tell her to only write once a week. He refused at first. So when we would get back to the apartment each afternoon I grabbed the mail and would not give him the letters from his girlfriend. I told him he could have them on P-Day. After a few threats of physical violence, he finally began to settle down. Once he quit worrying about the letters and his girlfriend, he started to enjoy his mission. After a couple of weeks he wrote her and told her to only write once a week. She did and he became an outstanding Missionary. Before he got off his Mission, she sent him a “Dear John”.

One afternoon Elder Thurman and I were tracting in the country and were about a mile from our car. In the distance we heard the rumble of thunder. We looked at the mountains and saw the first white puffs of clouds coming over the range, and we headed hurriedly for our car. It usually took about ten minutes from the first rumble to a full blown afternoon thunderstorm. On that day we barely made it back before the rains came. We remembered we had left the windows in the apartment open, so we headed home. By the time we got there we were engulfed in rain. We ran upstairs to our apartment and the curtains were blowing horizontally to the floor; and the floors were soaking wet. We closed the windows and waited out the storm. Then we opened the windows again and began mopping up the water. All of the water was limited to the kitchen and dining area, so our bedrooms were dry.

The Pittsfield Branch met downtown on the 2nd floor of the YMCA. The Branch President was a professor at one of the colleges in Adams or North Adams, MA. On some Saturday evenings the Y sponsored a dog show. When we got to the Y on Sunday mornings, we would help the Branch Presidency clean up the place for church. Mostly we had to rearrange chairs, put away tables and floor mats. The Branch rented the building, but the Y did nothing to make our use of it easy.

Brother Boland was one of those perennial investigators. He loved discussions with the Missionaries, but never had any intention of joining the Church. He was the drama professor at Berkshire Community College and was a well educated and pleasant man. He was a widower of several years. He invited us to the dress rehearsal of The Fantasticks, which we thoroughly enjoyed. The music was fantastic! However, Brother Boland, as educated as he was, was a UFO freak! He believed in them and knew they were out there. The east coast blackout the previous November was a direct result of UFO’s sucking up power off one of the New England power grids just outside of Pittsfield. We would listen as he would tell us of the UFO sightings that night. One included a farmer’s field right outside of Pittsfield that had a perfect circle burned in the middle of the pasture. By the time he got there the Sheriff’s office had people bulldozing the area. They said they found a body there. No body finding was ever reported in the local paper. Brother Boland was a hoot, very creditable and we loved him and his theories as much as he loved the Missionaries.

Transfers came and I was to get a new companion. Elders Thurman and Monson were going to new areas. One companion of each set of Elders was going and leaving me and Elder Orton as companions. Pittsfield would have only one set of Missionaries. I was not thrilled because he was an extreme introvert and never talked much at all.

I had been in Pittsfield for 4 months and it was time for District Conference. This was a special conference because the Hartford Stake was to be organized. Elder Herald B. Lee of the Quorum of the Twelve was presiding with President Packer assisting. When we got to Hartford for the meeting, the Branch President told me that I was in for a big surprise. I asked him if I was being transferred. When the business portion of the conference was conducted, President Packer, in his role as a General Authority, transacted the business. He announced that the area of the New England Mission comprised of all of Connecticut and Western Massachusetts, including all 40 missionaries serving in those areas, was being transferred from the jurisdiction of the New England Mission to that of the Eastern States Mission. The Branch President leaned over to me and said, “You’ve been transferred.”

The Sunday afternoon meeting Missionaries were to have with Elder Lee was postponed until the next morning so that the business of organizing the Stake could take place. Missionaries were farmed out to families to spend the night, although Elder Orton and I went with the West Hartford Elders and stayed in the place I lived on my mission. The next morning at 9 we were in the Hartford Ward building. During this meeting, each missionary had the opportunity to meet personally with an Apostle of the Lord. Elder Lee interviewed each Missionary individually. When it was my turn, I went into the Bishops office and sat across the desk from Elder Lee. He was a very pleasant man and had a warm demeanor about him. He had pictures of me and of my companion. He told me that I had learned a lot from President Packer and would now be able to learn a lot from President Eldridge. He said that most missionaries don’t serve under two different presidents, and it was very rare to serve in two different Missions, and I was doing both. Then the looked at my companion’s picture and told me all about him. He described him to a tee. Then he gave me some ideas on how to help him come out of his shell. Then the interview was over. I don’t remember all that was said, but I can still feel the spirit when I reflect on that meeting.

Elder Orton and I were together in Pittsfield for 4 months. We taught a lot of discussions, but we didn’t baptize. It was a tough area – blue caller mostly, an area highly concentrated with Eastern European immigrants, and very Catholic. The only family baptized while I was there went inactive pretty quickly. We visited with them after they quit coming to Church and they had never taken down symbols of their former religion, including holders for holy water. Thirty years later I visited Pittsfield and the Pittsfield Ward met in a modern building just outside Pittsfield. I didn’t know anyone, but several younger adults told me they were in primary in the days when the branch met in the YMCA.
Transfers were conducted differently in the Eastern States Mission. My transfer notice came by telephone and I was being transferred to Yonkers, NY. I was to be a Zone Leader. In the Eastern States Mission, when the President called Zone Leaders, he called one former District Leader and one who had been a Senior Companion, to gain more leadership experience. That Zone Leader would generally then become a District Leader. In stead of catching a bus, my District Leader, Elder Bunting, came to Pittsfield from Greenfield, MA and drove me to the Mission Home in Manhattan. There we had a short meeting with the Mission President, met the Mission staff, including the APs, and then had a short interview with the Mission President. He told me I was going to Yonkers with Elder Frear. After meeting Elder Frear, we loaded up and we were off to Westchester County.

TO BE CONTINUED