"There is no more lovely, friendly and charming relationship, communion or company than a good marriage."
-- Martin Luther (German Priest, theologian, author; 1483 - 1546)
Now, this is a tricky topic. Why? Because I'm not married yet. And a lot of people nowadays aren't either. Yet marriage is so important in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. We believe that families are at the center of God's Plan of Happiness. And it's clear to see how the sanctity of marriage is seemingly dimming as the years go on. Nevertheless, it is my hope that as many as have the opportunity take the leap of faith and make their marriage last a lifetime. Marriage, just like anything else in life, isn't supposed to be easy but it's absolutely doable. Just because there will be bad times doesn't mean we should sacrifice the good times too.
**NOTE: If you wish to get in contact with missionaries of the Church to learn more, you can do so at https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/comeuntochrist/requests/missionary-visit
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A WALK IN THE PARK
As always, Elder Mullins and I were knocking on doors to find people to teach. Amusingly, the lyrics to the song by Queen, “Somebody to Love”, kept coming to mind for some reason. To lighten my spirits I suppose?:
“Each morning I get up I die a little
Can barely stand on my feet
Take a look at yourself in the mirror and cry
Lord what you're doing to me
I have spent all my years in believing you
But I just can't get no relief, Lord!
Somebody somebody,
Can anybody find me somebody to TEACH?” (obviously not the official lyric)
It was almost like the song was written for missionaries! After no apparent success, my spirits were getting low. Elder Mullins didn’t seem to mind. He kept trying. I asked him why he seemed so relaxed. He just said, “I don’t want to teach someone who doesn’t want to learn. God will keep pushing us towards the people who do want to listen”.
It was Thursday, January 14, 2016. We came upon one of the nicer parks between the Fuentes Del Valle neighborhood and the Casa Bella neighborhood. There on the park bench under the shade of a big tree by the swing set was a woman taking care of her baby. I wasn’t sure how she would react to two guys like us approaching her by herself in the park but we went for it. After all, I am sure that we didn’t look that intimidating in our white shirts and ties, as youthful and frail as we were! We asked to sit with her and we started talking. Her name was Jocelyn. She had many wonderful questions. We were there for a while.
Of the six pamphlets we used in lessons, she brought up something from each one. There in that park, we summarized almost everything in an hour or so which is unheard of. We were happy to hear that she lived in our Area of San José and we scheduled a time to visit her and her husband. Before we left the park, she even accepted a baptismal date -- a target goal to which we could work up to her baptism (See "Baptism by Immersion"). It was a miracle! Elder Mullins taught me an important lesson. That no matter how many people don’t want to listen, we are there for the one who does.
Unfortunately, for a while, we had a hard time finding where she lived because she, like everyone on the Mexican frontier, went by descriptions rather than addresses. All she told us was the general direction from where we were in the park, about two streets away (it was actually 3 streets away to the East), and it was a blue house. Despite San José being a relatively small Area, with nothing but a paper map in hand and our internal compass, I easily got turned around and couldn’t so much as locate that park again. It was like the Isla de Los Muertos from Pirates of the Caribbean, a place that can't be found except by those who already know where it is. We were fortunate we randomly walked upon it when we did that day.
Some days later, by some miracle, we found a blue house, tried our luck and knocked, and found her. She welcomed us but couldn't see how her instructions weren't good enough to find her sooner. We went and visited her several times. Her "husband", Edgar, was a nice guy but challenges became clear. They weren’t legally married! My hopes dropped. I knew it was too good to be true! She learned much with us over the course of the weeks but she had three ultimate downfalls. 1) She wasn’t married to the man she was living with and 2) She wasn’t reading the Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ, like she said she would, and 3) She didn't come to Church despite her repetitious promises to us that she would.
Nevertheless, we did everything we could. In retrospect, it's incredible that of those three issues that we could have eventually resolved, the one that we did was getting the two of them married!
NEWLYWEDS
As I've said before in my blog post, "Chastity and Charity", the reasons for people not getting married were varied, obviously. Some people were only together to split the rent, not because they loved each other. Some people wanted to get married but couldn't afford to do so. And then there were other reasons. But lucky for us, Jocelyn and her partner wanted to get married! It was just a matter of time and cost.
I think the cost of a marriage certificate in Reynosa was only 900 pesos or $45 USD. To me, and probably to a lot of you, that doesn't sound like a lot. But for a young couple with a baby living off of a meager salary, that's a lot of money.
After much coordination with our leaders and other Wards in Reynosa, we were able to get our hands on a document that essentially gave them a discount to get married. It took much work, and I mean a lot of work, but we scheduled a time to get Jocelyn and Edgar to the “Civil” (Pronounced like See-veel) to be legally certified to be married. The Hermanas helped us and we took time out of P-Day to go with them to the government building. It was still dark at about 5:30 in the early morning when we left because we wanted to beat the lines. The taxis weren’t even out and about yet so the Hermanas made a call and President and Hermana Morales picked all of us up and drove us. I’m sure it was a sacrifice for them but they did it with a good heart and we knew if the Hermanas were the ones to ask, they had to say yes, surely! We owe them many thanks. All we got was criticism from our Zone Leaders for missing out on their “training lesson” despite having obvious permission from President Morales himself and that we were only a third of a mile away from the chapel. You would think that they would have supported this enormous step forward, but it's all in the past, water under the bridge and all that.
It took several hours of waiting for our turn but we eventually got the job done! Jocelyn and Edgar were married on Monday, February 22, 2016! That was the only time I ever got to help someone get married in Mexico! It was so much work, time, and money that it was just hard to do which was why it didn’t happen more often and why it was one of the biggest issues to get passed before baptism.
Despite this great step forward, they still had other problems that we had no control over. At the end of the day, missionaries can't do everything for everyone. No matter how many times we invited them, and the patience we had over the weeks, they never came to church (apart from one activity). We did everything we could. We arranged rides for them. We called them again and again in advance to remind them and confirm everything on Saturday. But whenever Sunday came around, they were nowhere to be found --- phone calls unanswered, nobody at home, or otherwise. They gave us excuses that things kept coming up at the last minute and apologized when we’d find them on a weekday but Sunday was a constant disappointment. We gave them second, third, and fourth chances but we had to give them the charla franca (See "Sí, Dios Quiere"). It was hard letting go of someone that we thought was excited and on their way and with whom we’d spent so much time helping to get married but we had no choice. I didn't want to stop visiting, in fact, I was the one who held out the longest for them in the hopes that this time would be different, but we had to use our time in more productive ways. They never got baptized. Good people, sure, but not ready to join the Church yet. A step closer perhaps, but not yet.
I wish I had more to say about marriage than that which I've already said in previous posts such as "Chastity and Charity", "You've Been Served", and "The Baptismal Interview". Marriage is a commandment of God, and eternal marriage can only be perpetuated through covenant-making and keeping in the Lord's temple (See "Temples -- Holy Houses of the Lord"). Marriage is incredibly important to Heavenly Father and that's why we get married in the temple. I commend you to a talk given at BYU in 2000 by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Twelve Apostles entitled, "How Do I Love Thee?". Says he:
"I believe that second only to your membership in the Church, your “membership in a marriage” is the most important association you will have in time and eternity—and to the faithful what doesn’t come in time will come in eternity."
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