CALLED TO SERVE, Part 6

This blog entry is part 6 of the entry of my Mission experiences.

In March I got my notice that I was to be transferred out to Patchogue, Long Island, New York. I arrived at the Mission Home ready for my new assignment. President Eldridge called me into his office for an interview. He said he was calling me to be the District Leader of the Patchogue District. He told me that the area I was going into was a very difficult area. He said that the Church has put so much emphasis on the Worlds Fair that a lot of areas in the Mission had not had many Missionaries for a long time. To make things interesting, Patchogue was a resort town on the Long Island Atlantic coast, and I was a resort kind of guy! A boy from California, raised on the beach was now being sent to the beach. Talk about sending a dog into the butcher shop! I accepted the call and met up with my companion, Elder Stock, and we headed east to Long Island.

Our apartment was a second story walk-up in a private residence in Patchogue. The family downstairs owned the building, and as such were our landlords. They loved us. The lady was 25 years younger than her husband, who was in very poor health. He was a former major league baseball player who had played for the Yankees. I cannot remember his name now, but he was quite famous in his day. Their 17 year old son, Jack, was our permanent investigator, and wanted to join the Church. Because his dad would not give his permission, he had to wait until he was 18. Whenever we needed an investigator to justify something we were doing, we took Jack with us.

One of the first people I met in Patchogue were Brother and Sister Hoyman. She had been a member for 14 years. Their children had been baptized at age 8. Brother Hoyman told me that he was the longest investigator in the Church; he had been investigating the Church for 14 years. When I got there he had been a member for a little over a year. He told me the story of his long process of joining the Church. They had come in contact with the Church many years before and had the discussions. They both loved what they heard and were ready to embrace the restored gospel. Then the Missionaries gave the 6th and final discussion on tithing. Dirk made a good living and earned a lot of money. His response was, “What ever Dirk Hoyman makes, Dirk Hoyman keeps”. Two weeks later he lost his job. Coincidence? You be the judge. He doesn’t think so. But it took him another 14 years to come around. He always attended Church though. And when he traveled with his new job, he found the local Ward and attended. Once he could only find The Church of Christ and thought that must be the place. He introduced himself as Brother Hoyman. They thought he was a CofC preacher and invited him to come up an preach. He declined.

One evening Dirk asked his wife what plans she had on Saturday evening. She said she had none. He said good because he wanted her to be at his baptism Saturday evening. She just stared at him a minute then burst out crying. A short time before I came to Patchogue, they had been sealed as a family in the Salt Lake Temple.

Lake Ronkonkoma, LI, NY was a little town on the banks of Lake Ronkonkoma, a pretty, picturesque lake not far from Patchogue. We had an appointment there one afternoon and we headed out. I was driving and must have been going at a pretty good clip because the police pulled me over. The officer asked for my driver license and registration. I kept my license in the packet I had for my Ministerial Certificate. The car was registered to The Corporation of the Presiding Bishop of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I handed him the documents and he looked them over. He asked if we were ministers, and I told him we were and were on our way to visit with a family in Lake Ronkonkoma. He then handed me back my documents and asked me to slow down and stay within the speed limit. Then he apologized for pulling us over. Maybe he figured that if he gave us a ticket he would offend the Man Upstairs. I never again had a police officer apologize for pulling me over, although I did have one stop me once for doing a wobble, which is another story for another time.

When I arrived in Patchogue, there were several members who knew about a supposed prophesy predicting Long Island would break off and fall into the depths of the sea. (I had always heard that same prediction about California. I keep hoping!) There were families who actually left Long Island for Utah to be safe. One sister took her children and moved to Utah alone because her husband didn’t believe in the pending disaster. He ended up going out the Utah and bringing his family back. The source of this false doctrine was the book by Duane Crowther called “Prophecy, Key to the Future”, a book referred to by President Packer as “Prophecy, the Key to Crowther”. I actually heard Mr. Crowther speak a couple of years later at the Institute at San Jose State where he said everything he wrote was his interpretation and not any way doctrinal. In this book, the author predicted the catastrophe for Long Island. This hysteria migrated into all parts of Long Island and to parts of Manhattan. This would have a direct influence on the future of the New York Stake.

The Patchogue Branch met in the Seventh Day Adventist Church. It worked out great because they didn’t use the building on Sunday. And the building was similar to most small LDS buildings and had all the facilities needed. We also had the building on Tuesdays for the auxiliary meetings. The Branch President had his hands full trying to convince the members that it was okay to stay on Long Island!

At Stake Conference, Elder Harold B. Lee came to divide the New York Stake and create the New York East Stake. Instead of taking care of that business, his address was a call to repentance. He addressed the problem caused by the book. He told the members to quit reading that book and spend more time in the scriptures.. He then asked if the members thought the Brethren (First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve) were a bunch of ignoramuses. If Long Island was to fall into the ocean, why would the Church spend millions of dollars on the new chapels now under construction? The meeting concluded without dividing the Stake. Six months later, two weeks before my Mission was finished, the entire attitude of the members of the Stake had changed and you could feel it in the spirit of the Conference when Elder Lee came back and divided the New York Stake and created the New York East Stake.

One of the sets of Elders in our district told me that they had to move out of their apartment for a few days because it was being fumigated. So the Elders moved in with us temporarily. One Elder was new and was a Utah sheep farmer. He was sleeping on the floor in the living room and had an old wind up alarm clock that he put on the stove in the kitchen. At 5:15 AM on P-Day his alarm went off. I shot up out of bed and was in the kitchen turning the alarm off before the new Elder finally stirred. Very loudly, I asked him what he was doing setting his alarm so early for, and especially on P-Day. He said he wanted to get up early and study. (Greenies) I looked at him right in the face and said, “Elder, it’s P-Day and we don’t have to get up early. On any other day we don’t get up until 6:30. If that alarm ever goes off again in this apartment I am going to throw it out the window!” I slammed the alarm down on the kitchen table and went back to bed. That poor Elder didn’t know what to do.

That young Elder has lost an eye in a farm accident when he was a little boy. He had a prosthesis in his right eye. He showed me all the eyes he had collected over the years, different sizes for different ages. He said he wanted to have them made into cufflinks. He would take is eye out and try to get me to look. I wouldn’t look. I don’t know what I thought I would see … some farm kid’s brain, I guess. The story seems much funnier to me now because of my having had my right eye removed and now wear a prosthesis. I think of all the pranks I have pulled with my eye, and I guess no one wants to see my brain either.

One day, following a trip into the Mission Home to drop off Elder Stock, who was going to Pittsfield; and to pick up my new companion, Elder Hill, we made a stop on the way back to Long Island. We stopped in Flushing Meadows at a place called SHEA STADIUM! The Giants were coming to play the Mets. These were the Willie Mays, Willie McCovey, Orlando Cepeda Giants. They were playing on P-Day and the stadium was only 30 miles or so from Patchogue. And it would be a fellowshipping opportunity because Jack was coming with us! Poor Elder Hill. He didn’t know what to think. I hope we didn’t corrupt him too badly. Anyway, we went and the Giants won. And we didn’t get caught. Need I say more?

Elder Hill, and I went to the Hoyman’s for dinner one Sunday after Church. Sister Hoyman was a good cook and that night made a meatloaf. Her meatloaf was much like the one Jannie makes and was covered with a sauce. Elder Hill’s experience with meatloaf must have been much like mine with my Mother…. all meat and no juice, and covered with ketchup to make it edible. As Elder Hill took a piece of meatloaf from the platter as it was passed around the table, he innocently asked if they had any ketchup. The 13 year old Hoyman daughter was devastated. She stopped what she was doing and, looking hurt, asked my companion, “What’s the matter, Elder Hill, don’t you like it?” We all had a good laugh.

It had been two years since I left on my mission and it was time to go home. I had grown a lot during those two years. I had gone from a green Elder who hoped the Church was true to a servant of the Lord with a strong testimony. I had seen growth in my family at home. My mother had gone from skeptic to believer. She would still have times in her life when she doubted, but at that time she had her own testimony.

On Wednesday, September 20, 1967 I left Patchogue for the last time. We left early because of the time it took to drive into mid-town Manhattan on the Long Island Expressway. I arrived and was interviewed by President Eldridge. He released me to return home, but said my formal release would come from my Stake President when I next met with him. He thanked me and then it was over. Like so many Missionaries who were going home every time we had transfers in Manhattan, we stood around on the steps of the Mission Home glad handing each other as we promised to keep in touch when we got to BYU. The APs took us to JFK and I caught a non stop flight to San Francisco International Airport. I had gone from a nervous Missionary giving the second conclusion of the first discussion in the living room of a row house with no air conditioning to a confident missionary and leader. As I looked back, the change was astonishing.

My family met me at the airport. I came down the ramp wearing my suit and the summer straw business hat I had purchased so many months ago in Hartford. I just knew they wouldn’t recognize me, but Evelyn came running up the ramp and thru her arms around me. We stood and hugged, Evelyn, Mom, Aunt June, Aunt Jean and me. Then we went to baggage claim, picked up my bags and headed down the Bayshore Freeway to San Jose.

When we arrived at the house I went into my bedroom. Mom had gone all out. She had purchased all new furniture for my bedroom and had washed and pressed all my clothes. I remember I was alone in my room, the first time I had been alone in two years. As I stood in front of my dresser, taking off my tie, I felt alone. Uncomfortably alone. I don’t know if I was missing my companion or having the feeling that somehow the Spirit had withdrawn when I no longer had the mantle of a Missionary. The feeling passed in a few minutes. Mom and Evelyn had planned a big Welcome Home party for that evening and were fluttering around getting it ready. I laid down and took a nap.