88. It Shall Be Opened
- L Rshaw
- Jan 26, 2020
- 10 min read
Updated: Jan 18, 2022
"You miss 100% of the shots you don't take"
--- Wayne Gretzky (Canadian Ice Hockey Player; 1961 - Present)
Let me start by saying that Heavenly Father expects us to be diligent in whatever we choose to do. Faith isn't sufficient without action backing up that faith. We're expected to be agents unto ourselves, to choose the turns in the road we want for our lives. We shouldn't expect to get something for nothing. Hard work and consistency and resilience when things don't always work out the first try is how we get good at anything. Most of the time, we're going to fail before we get good at something. But what gets us back on our feet and try again is faith. We have faith that if we try again, things might be different. And if we try enough times, if we throw enough darts at the dartboard, statistically, one is eventually going to stick. Believe that with enough effort and a dash of luck, you'll succeed. If you don't believe and you stop trying, your failure is guaranteed. Shoot your shot. If you miss, shoot again. It's often from our failures that we learn what doesn't work which points us in the direction we should be going. The only people that get anywhere in life, that have any success, are the ones brave enough to try.
Click to Navigate (Table of Contents):
WE'RE GONNA FIND OUT
It happened so gradually over the course of my two years as a missionary of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in Mexico, that its emergence was almost imperceptible until I caught myself saying it over and over again when I returned home. Whenever somebody asked me a question along the lines of, "Do you think that'll work?", my response was more often than not, "Well, we're gonna find out". That's a phrase that I never said before the Mission and yet, I found it coming out of my mouth all the time once I started back into college life. If ever there was a scenario with uncertainty and I was asked if I believed in one of the possible outcomes, instead of leaning into the negative, I allowed the possibility of it working to have a chance. We can sit around all day theorizing if something would work or not but the only way we can know for sure is if we try it out.
It was Friday, September 11, 2015. Elder Muhlestein who baptized the Muñoz family was serving as an AP (Assistant to President Morales; see "Mission Administration") and was in his last week before finishing his Mission the following Tuesday (See "An Infinite-Finite Solution"). At that time in our mission, missionaries got to spend their last few days visiting whoever in the boundaries of the Mission they wanted to. Since I was in Riveras and in a trio, Elder Muhlestein asked if he could borrow me to be his companion for the day to visit friends in the Area (See "Three's a Crowd" and "3rd Area: Riveras, Reynosa"). Of course, I accepted. The possibility of absorbing some of his "Assistant to the President wisdom" before he went home was an opportunity I didn't want to pass up. I only knew Elder Muhlestein superficially as we'd been in the same room together before, but I didn't really know him very well personally.
We visited a few people, the Muñoz family the last among them once we had no other appointments to go to and spent quite a bit of time with them until our final scheduled meeting nearby. For whatever reason, that appointment was scheduled for later in the night than we'd usually go for but we thought it would be worth it if it worked out. Until then. we decided it best to pop in to visit with the Muñoz family for the remainder of the time gap when rainclouds made their way towards us at about 5:30 pm. I don't really remember too much of our visit, but I mostly just kicked back and let Elder Muhlestein chat them up.
As we prepared to leave their house that evening, the sky turned pitch black and it started to pour. We hadn't prepared for rain (since we had no way of accessing the forecast). They lent us some umbrellas since we didn’t have so much as a coat in that late summer which we accepted graciously. We headed towards our next appointment, not too much further from where we'd just left but farther in the direction opposite of home sweet home as if we weren't already far. The dirt backroad morphed into slippery mud, the paved roads into puddles, and to top it off in our dismay, the person we had scheduled for a first visit wasn’t home, and they had apparently canceled that morning but we didn't get the memo. By this point, it's so dark, both because of the rain but also the hour, that we can barely differentiate one house from the next. Nothing but the faintest silhouette of black on slightly darker black.
Night was upon us and the rain was pouring and seeping through our shoes. I was at a loss. Generally, people didn’t open up to strangers in the night (especially in the uncertain border city of Reynosa) but Elder Muhlestein went for it, having nothing to lose. Ironically, he approached a house with a giant Virgin Mary in front of it and yelled, “Buenas Noches!” To my relief, the woman actually opened her door! Elder Muhlestein asked if we could take temporary shelter under her porch and she agreed. She was more than happy to let us sit down and wait out the storm. It was pitch black and for the duration of it all, as long as we were there, I could barely see Elder Muhlestein sitting next to me nor my hand in front of my face. It was like a movie theatre with no movie. It was brisk and I could only discern the intensity of the falling rain by a single lamp post which made it look like glowing snowfall against a black canvas. The precipitation was deafening, not like applause, but like if you took one clap and stretched the sound out for an hour.
We were already soaked head to toe. The lady drifted in and out of the house, to check on us. She even gave us water and chips to snack on. When we got the chance, we tried making light conversation with her. She was nice but not particularly interested in us teaching her, claiming that she already had “her religion” (Something we heard far too often). That really would have been something if she was interested, but that was fine. We were just happy to be out of the rain. We had to at least make her that offer, not that our hopes were that high to begin with with that giant Virgin Mary portrait sharing the porch, watching the rain with us.
DOOR OF OPPORTUNITY
I think of the saying, “Ask, and it shall be given you…Knock and it shall be opened unto you” (Matt. 7:7). Most of the time, people closed their doors on us, even if it meant leaving us in the rain. In fact, I'd say that it was harder to find people willing to let us in if it was raining! Only occasionally would people leave their doors cracked to let the coo air circulate through the house. More than once during Rio Bravo’s wet winter as a novice missionary, we’d be standing out in the middle of nowhere, shivering from the incessant humidity, eyeballs freezing, desperately knocking doors and gates only to be answered with, “Not now guys. It’s too cold” and a door slammed to the face. I honestly couldn't tell if they were just taunting us or stupid. I thought what anyone would think in silent retaliation in my head, “No kidding! Thanks for being so kind to alert us to that fact! We wouldn't have known without you. We’ve only been out here all day! We’re freezing! Let us in!”. But Elder Muhlestein had faith and acted to bring about this, albeit, small yet appreciated miracle in our moment of need. I wish it could have been like that all the time! Every door open. If only for a minute. If only to give us a chance to speak our peace.
You never know which “doors” will open until you knock. Heavenly Father wants to open many doors to us and is only waiting for us to ask. But after we ask, we need to act. When the doors open, it's up to us to walk through them or not.
There's a really famous painting by Latter-Day Saint artist, Del Parson, of Jesus knocking on a door with no outer handle. It's purposefully symbolic as a lot of art is. We're on the other side of that door, and in order for Him to come in, we're the ones who have to open up.
In Buena Vista, I'd met a decent man named Eleazar who liked talking with us but liked his pastor more. One day he insisted on showing us one of his favorite paintings he was using as the wallpaper on his phone. It was this exact painting. As if I hadn't seen that painting a million times in my life, he went ahead explained to us its symbolism anyway, unknown to him that it was a painting from our Church! What irony! Just the same, his devotion to his pastor wasn't going to change just by telling him that. He loved it so much, I wish he would have understood that the Church of Jesus Christ which we represented was offering him more than just a piece of art. I think that may have been the last time we visited him.
GETTING HOME
At about 8:15 pm, the woman told us that the pecera (the bus back), was actually further down the street than where we'd been keeping an eye on all that time. We were told that we might be able to make the last one if we hurried. And so, taking off down the street, the miracle happened. The rain died down temporarily and we were blessed with a pecera headed East where we need to be going (See "P-Days and Peceras"). It came like the Knight Bus, if you're familiar with Harry Potter, except just the opposite because this bus moved as fast as a person can walk. I suppose the reason for it was the rain and mud and darkness, but just the same, we needed to get back to the far East side of the Area quickly before curfew to meet up with our companions. Nevertheless, we were grateful to be on that bus and closing the gap. Walking back wasn’t a viable option but it was so late, I wondered if we were waiting for a pecera that would never come; you can imagine my joy when it magically appeared at the moment I was about to surrender hope.
The few passengers on the late pecera looked dry and then there we were, two young Americans, soaked to the bone in wet dress shirts and ties and muddy shoes. We caught the silent attention of some but then went on to being ignored as usual. It was such a quiet ride, with how slow we moved with nothing to see out the black windows, we may as well have tried taking a quick nap. It was so hard to see anything out the window, we were lucky that the only stop was the one we needed. Everyone getting off was as good an indication as any to follow suit.
We got off the bus but had to sprint the last third of a mile (1700 feet or 530 yards) to the chapel building where I was to drop him off and reunite with Elder Brogan and Elder Urias. The winds were fierce. Our borrowed umbrellas from the Muñoz family actually snapped and broke against the gusts of the tall slippery overpass. It was as helpful at keeping us dry as newspaper flailing in every which direction. And secondly, the umbrella wouldn't have done much good anyway because the rain wasn't falling downwards. IT WAS HITTING US SIDEWAYS AS THE WIND BLEW! We didn’t stop, we just ran faster. Water blowing into our eyes forced us to squint just enough to see a couple of inches in front of our feet on the sidewalk. Puddles or not, we weren't able to get any wetter than we already were.
We made it to the chapel at long last, safe and sound. Luckily, Obispo Flores was able to drive Elder Muhlestein the short distance down the street to drop him off at the Mission Home (since missionaries can’t be alone) and then pick the rest of us up to at least drive us a bit closer to our home.
For a small moment, just as we arrived at the chapel building, the rain slowed for a short time before resuming as we prepared to go the rest of the way home for the night.
The street we lived on was on a partial slope which kept it from flooding too much but the opposite could be said for the rest of the neighborhood. Obispo Flores was forced to stop short because of the deeper waters at the edge of our neighborhood (about .2 miles away or .3 kilometers away from home). We must have sprinted five or more blocks through sloshing flooded waters. Each step was a splash and dash. We could scarcely see where we were. The loud rushing water cascading down the street was disorientating. The potholes and deformities in the streets created currents sweeping away everything in its path. The three of us passed a house with a gated entrance and something caught our attention. The front door was ajar. The water didn’t reach the house but a small dog had managed to escape unknown to its owner and was in danger of being swept away. We were lucky to rescue it and return it to its owner. I wondered how anyone could be so negligent of their pet and why the door was open in the first place.
The whole night was like an action movie. Our trek home was like navigating a maze. Life is rarely a straight shot. Elder Brogan led us all the way home since I couldn't distinguish one street from another in the dark. We laughed it off and did what we always did, we took pictures of our soaked selves to remember that adventure! My paper planner got a beating. I forgot it was in my shirt pocket. My tie was so wet that when it dried out, I couldn't get the wrinkles out.
I got into the habit of giving my family weather reports every week. Whenever I sent a picture where I'm drenched, my dad would joke that I had forgotten to take off my clothes before I washed them. I guess the plus side was that we weren’t eating dust anymore like we had all summer in Reynosa La Polverosa! There is always a silver lining behind every rain cloud.
Comments