I Hope They Call Me on a Mission...

I hope they call me on a mission

When I have grown a foot or two.

I hope by then I will be ready

To teach and preach and work as missionaries do.

This was one of the songs that I was taught as a child growing up in the LDS Church.  Once a week, we would meet with other children in our Primary class and sing songs like this.  We were taught that the most glorious thing that a girl could do was to grow up to be a wife and a mother.  And the most important work a boy could do was to serve two years as a missionary when he turned nineteen.

At that magical age, a young man would leave his home, his family, and trade in his jeans and t-shirts for a white shirt and tie.  He would go into rigorous training at a facility in Provo, Utah - complete with barracks -  called the MTC (Missionary Training Center) before getting whisked away to his pre-selected mission.  If he was lucky, he would get six weeks language training and get to go to some exotic, foreign country.  If he was not lucky, he would go to New Jersey, or Nevada.

But the where didn't matter.  He would serve the Lord wherever he was called.

Growing up in Arizona, I was taught from an early age that I would go on a mission someday.  I didn't question it.  I just knew I would go.

My dad served a mission in Mexico in the 1960s.  It was kind of how he met my mom.  (My mom was from Mexico, but was living in the States by the time they met.  Her brother was serving the same mission as my dad.)

My dad came back speaking perfect Spanish, and - for the rest of his life - he was more Mexican than most Mexicans.  His mission changed his life.  (I will talk quite a bit more about my dad as I blog on.)  When guests would come over, he would break out the slides, and we would all look at grainy photos of my dad - a lanky man with a crewcut in the photos - standing atop pyramids in the jungles of Yucatan.

I wanted to be like my dad.  I wanted to be a missionary.

When I was eight, I was given a can - ironically a coffee can.  It was spray painted gold, and a slot was cut into the top.  Whenever I would get a spare coin, I would drop it into the can.  It was my missionary fund.  I don't know whatever happened to that can, or the money inside.  It was probably put in the gas tank when funds got scarce for my parents.

My dad was always a maverick, and, at some point, he began to question some of the policies and practices of the church.  More specifically, he questioned practices done away with by the mainstream church - like plural marriage.  When I was 17, he began to teach the family that polygamy should have never been done away with.  By the time I was 18, my dad was excommunicated.

When I finally turned 19, I was called into the office of my bishop for an interview.  Instead of talking about my mission, my bishop asked me two questions:

"Do you believe that polygamy should be lived today?"

I answered:  "Yes."

"Do you believe that Ezra Taft Benson is a Prophet, Seer and Revelator, and the only man on earth who holds the keys?"

My answer:  "No."

I was dismissed.  I was frustrated.  I knew that this would end my dream of going on a mission.  I told my dad that I wanted to go on a mission.  I told my dad that I would not teach my beliefs to anyone while on my mission, but only abide the teachings of the Church.

On my behalf, my dad went to the bishop and made a plea for me.  "Is it possible that my son could still serve a mission?"

One month later, I enrolled for college class in Salt Lake City, Utah, and I got, by mail, the invitation to my excommunication trial and the results.  I was cut off from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  I really didn't regret my decision.  But I did regret not getting the chance to serve as a missionary.

Little did I know that I would serve a mission of a different sort...

Shortly after my excommunication, I had a dream that changed my life.  I was standing on top of a steep, rocky hill.  A rocky landscape spread out before me.  At the base of the hill stood my father.  He called me down the hill.  But the hill was steep, and I was frightened to climb down.  So I refused.  My father went up the hill, grabbed me by the ear, and drug me down the hill.  I was cussing him out the whole time.  

When we got to the bottom of the hill, he deposited me into a tent.  Inside the tent were four women, veiled and dressed in white temple robes.  (I had never seen temple robes before this dream.)  They were to be my wives.  I became ashamed of my fear, and I was grateful to my dad for dragging me down my hill...