by Laura Stone
Christensen fell silent. Adam glanced over, and at that Christensen smiled, laughing softly to himself. Adam looked straight ahead.
“Modest, huh? I respect that. Hey. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. Come on, let’s go around the corner. There’s a chocolate shop you have to see. Might be a good place to meet people, too, huh?”
On Sunday they made a point of arriving early at the church in order to help families with many young children settle in and be reverent for Sacrament service. For all that that was normal, it took several minutes for Adam to realize that he was in a church. The design and the entrance were all wrong. Back in the States, all stand-alone LDS meeting houses followed a common blueprint. The familiarity of the location of Sunday school classes, bathrooms, gymnasium, breezeway and the chapel served as a touchstone for Mormons when they traveled. But in Barcelona, the church sat in the middle of a glass and red-brick skyscraper that covered almost an entire city block. It had a nondescript doorway in the middle of a long line of parking garages and office fronts on the skyscraper’s first floor. The only way Adam recognized it as being associated with the Mormons was from the standard grey-granite sign bearing the copyright-protected font the LDS Church used on all buildings, temples and printed materials.
At least the service was the same, even if it was held in Spanish. Adam was adding colloquial fluency to his textbook Spanish; he could now participate in the little in-jokes among members. The preteen boys called Adam “chaval,” and now when he and Christensen arrived, their calls of, “Oye, chaval!” made him laugh at being called “Greenie” by a group of cocky twelve-year-olds. The little ones were trained by Christensen to call Adam “gigante blanco” or “white giant,” much to Adam’s consternation and Christensen’s glee.
All missionaries were trained to be very cautious around small children, especially when it came to physical contact. Well, male missionaries were trained to be cautious; sister missionaries were often expected to hold and console crying children during service. Christensen, however, didn’t seem to worry too much about his behavior with the kids, not that Adam could see a reason for worry. He assumed Christensen was so comfortable around them because he was one of the oldest in a huge family of eight children.
Christensen would whisk babies from a harried mother’s hands and coo and make faces at them before passing them back once the mothers seemed to have pulled themselves together. Toddlers would get tucked against his side and a crayon and coloring book would appear before they could fuss.
“You know,” Adam said quietly, as everyone pulled out their hymnals. “My folks wouldn’t let me color during Sacrament service.”
“What?” Christensen looked scandalized. He plucked a purple crayon from the box and passed it to the three-year-old sitting next to him. “Never? Not even before you were baptized?”
“Nope. It wasn’t reverent.”
Christensen shook his head before joining in with the congregation, singing tenor alongside Adam’s baritone.
Adam’s heart stuttered when Christensen calmly took the crayons from the little girl’s hands and showed her how to fold her arms and bow her head for the prayer and she solemnly blinked up at him and nodded before copying him.
Christensen seemed to make everyone want to be their best. Funny how he leads by example and not by coercion, Adam thought. Christensen apparently loved to be in the thick of things and seemed to delight in forcing Adam into the middle of the action as well. Sister Lupe twisted around in the pew in front of them and passed Adam her baby, who looked ready to cry.
Adam tucked the little blanket-wrapped parcel against his chest and gently rocked from side-to-side, marveling at how something so small carried so much weight in his arms. Sister Lupe smiled at him, turned to listen to their speaker and left Adam with the now-sleeping baby.
“See?” Christensen said, bumping his shoulder against Adam’s with a soft smile curling the edges of his mouth. Adam couldn’t help but return it. “We’re here to help the locals. And doing an excellent job, if I say so myself.”
That wasn’t quite what Adam had been raised to believe a mission call would be, but he was, well, he was dealing with it. Surely his mission companion—the District Leader, no less—wasn’t doing anything the Lord wouldn’t approve of, right? It was okay to be so… happy? So engaged? Sitting here with someone so good, so well-liked, while singing hymns that he loved about families being forever, bouncing a baby on his shoulder… There was no worry that any fidgeting on his part was proof to his parents that he wasn’t listening to the lesson, proof that he wasn’t a worthy vessel for the Holy Ghost and the Light of Christ. There were no niggling thoughts that he could be doing more, praying more fervently, getting better callings, living up to the righteousness of his brothers and sister. Instead, he felt only a sense of peace and calmness of spirit, something he’d never really experienced before.
It was almost perfect. A part of him longed for this to be every Sunday, forever. A cold chill raced down his back at the thought of that. He didn’t mean… Not with his missionary companion, but the feeling, the goodness of being with people who were singing about joy, the simple pleasure of a warm, sleeping baby on his shoulder, the lilting voice of the speaker talking about how sacred temple marriage was and—
He sighed, adjusting the baby in his arm. He wasn’t thinking about marriage.
Okay, so maybe Adam was a bit of a nervous wreck. Though he could see that being forced into these social situations with the locals was turning out to be good for him, tapping into a part of himself he had never been allowed to access before his mission, and though he could see how Christensen’s inherent kindness set a wonderful example for him to follow instead of the ham-fisted authoritarianism of his father, it was the other part of his companion’s personality that was throwing him for a loop.
It was all the questions. Where Hagel back at the MTC had been a sarcastic layabout with no interest in intellectual conversation about the Church’s doctrines—Rule number four: Do not get into debates or arguments—Christensen was nothing but questions. Adam had never spent a lot of time dissecting what his religion taught aside from following along with the Church-sanctioned study questions shared in Sunday School and during Family Home Evenings on Monday nights. Seminary and the college-age version, Institute, were Sunday School classes guided and controlled by the Church’s educational program, as well. Teachers posed the questions and provided the answers.
He’d been well-trained to parrot back what he’d learned in these various classes, as was expected of him. To question anything—to ask things not listed in his study guides—led to confusing thoughts, and confusing thoughts, as his parents and priesthood leaders had always explained, were a sign that Adam wasn’t letting in the spirit of God, wasn’t setting himself up to believe.
“Elder,” Christensen said one morning, “I’ve been thinking about something the prophet Alma said, and I could really use your thoughts.”
“Oh?” Adam stopped shoving pamphlets into his messenger bag. Christensen perched on the edge of one of their rickety chairs with his head bowed and his hands worrying themselves in his lap.
“You know how Alma, in chapter thirty-two, talks about how knowing something isn’t believing something, because you know it?”
Adam nodded. Every missionary knew Alma: 32 in the Book of Mormon. It was all about his missionary work among the ancient Americans.
“I read that this morning during our personal study time, and that got me to thinking about having a testimony.”
“Okay?”
“Well,” Christensen paused, chewing his lip. Adam sat across from him, narrowly avoiding the busted cushion. “A testimony is about our faith. It’s when we express our faith out loud, for others to bear witness, right?”
“Yeah?”
“And what do we all say?” His face was twisted into a wry grin. “We know the Ch
urch is true. We know.”
“Right.” Adam nodded. It was pretty typical to say that and how you knew Joseph Smith was a true prophet of God and that the Book of Mormon was true.
“But don’t you see the problem?” He pushed to his feet and began pacing. “You can’t believe something if you know it.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.” Adam sat back to watch his companion pacing more and more agitatedly in their tiny apartment. “Of course you can.”
“But the prophet said you can’t!” He turned, his face stricken with worry to the point where Adam wanted to put his hand on his companion’s shoulder. Adam forced himself to stay where he was.
“Verse eighteen.” Christensen pointed toward his open scriptures on the kitchen table and quoted from memory, “‘Now I ask, is this faith? Behold, I say unto you, Nay; for if a man knoweth a thing he hath no cause to believe, for he knoweth it.’”
“Elder,” Adam said rubbing a hand over his face. “I don’t follow where you’re going here.”
Christensen dropped his forearm against the wall and pressed his face against it. “I’m supposed to have a perfect faith. We’re supposed to have faith in all things.”
“I know, but—”
“But I want to know.” His back heaved from the force of his breathing. “Am I… Isn’t it wicked to want to know? To want proof? Isn’t that… wrong?”
Adam’s mouth dropped open. He’d always felt guilty for wanting proof of anything related to the spiritual. He remembered asking his father something along this same line when he was twelve or so.
“You’re setting yourself up to sin, to stray off the path of righteousness, by questioning our leaders,” his father had replied. “I think you need to remind yourself of 2 Nephi. If you don’t have a perfect faith, you cannot be saved in the kingdom of God. Don’t you want to go to the Celestial Kingdom?”
“Y-yes, sir.”
“These questions… Do you need to talk about things with the Bishop?”
“No, sir.” Adam had fled to his room to reread his scriptures.
That following Sunday had been his father’s chance to talk to the congregation after the sacrament had been passed, and he’d chosen to speak on a perfect faith.
“Faith,” Gerald Young began, his tone stentorian and his gaze upon the congregation stern, “is an active choice to believe in the word of God. It is an active choice we undertake to know the truthfulness of the Gospel. We don’t need to see things to have faith that they are real. I’ve never seen Australia, for example.” The audience laughed softly. “But I know it’s there. We don’t even need to fully understand these things to believe. We simply need to hold onto the hope that one day we will understand. Our Heavenly Father will reveal truthfulness to us when we’re ready for it and not a moment sooner.
“I’d like to tell you about a conversation I had with my youngest son this past week.”
Adam sank low in the pew, feeling everyone’s eyes on him.
“He began to question the truthfulness of the Gospel. He began to question why he would even question it, as if to say isn’t that a sign of some dark portent, some sign of treachery or duplicity on the part of our leaders. And there is one answer for that.” Gerald looked briefly at Adam before turning back to scanning the congregation. “It is only proof of a considerable and troubling lack of faith. So how can we increase our faith? The same way we can improve our health, our worldly knowledge, our physical strength: we work at it. We accept that we won’t have all the answers, and that it’s greed motivating us to have all the answers right away. We accept that the Word of God is just that, His Word.”
Remembering that intense feeling of shame, the fear that he’d be left behind, ostracized from his family for all eternity because of his lack of faith, Adam’s heart was heavy at the thought of his good and seemingly righteous companion experiencing anything resembling that. He worried the shiny fabric over his knees, trying to put into words an answer that could help Christensen get past this. He didn’t believe he was up to the task to help anyone in a faith crisis. But hang on, what was he on his mission for, if not to help others?
“Well…” Adam started, allowing his thoughts to settle on just the right answer. “But if you have faith, doesn’t Heavenly Father promise to reveal truths to us? So we don’t have to have faith in those things any longer, because God Himself answered us?”
Christensen sighed and sat back down.
“And the chapter goes on about the seed, remember? That if a seed grows, it’s good.” Adam frowned, calling the scriptures to mind. “Our faith is a seed meant to grow.”
“Perfect faith to perfect knowledge,” Christensen added, the deep lines in his forehead smoothing out. “I just… I worry that there’s something wrong in wanting to know more, I guess. Heck, Joseph Smith said that ‘The glory of God is intelligence,’ but we’re not supposed to ask questions that might contradict the Church. Maybe the answers would build our faith, instead of us just being blind and accepting. But how will we know if we don’t, you know, seek it out?”
Up until this moment, Adam would have said there was something wrong in asking those sort of questions. His father had made it clear that a good Mormon didn’t question the Church, its leaders or the Doctrine. They were to have hope that Heavenly Father would reveal truth to them. Gerald Young expected his children to exercise their faith by being patient, by waiting for the truth to reveal itself.
“You know,” Adam said with a strangled sort of laugh, “that’s what I thought my mission would do for me.” Christensen seemed confused, so Adam pressed on. “My blind and accepting self would suddenly know, right? The things that didn’t make sense to me… I sort of hoped being here, teaching the Gospel to strangers, that it would just…click. I’d finally understand the things I didn’t.”
Christensen nodded solemnly. “I guess I’ve been thinking that, too.”
Adam didn’t know what to say. For the few weeks he’d been here, he’d assumed Christensen already knew everything, had a perfect testimony of the Church and its teachings, but Christensen continued to obliterate that image with every new question he now posed. It was as if after he’d asked Adam for help that one time, Christensen could no longer hold back the flood of questions he’d evidently walled behind his perfect Mission Leader exterior.
Some of Christensen’s questions were ones Adam hadn’t considered, particularly those about deep Mormon Doctrine that were usually off-limits in discussions with any investigators they met on the street. Christensen apparently had no issue bringing them up.
“Why do we teach that nothing is more important than the family, yet everyone’s father is gone from sunup to sundown for meetings on the Sabbath?”
And, “We’re taught that we have free agency, that it’s imperative that we have free agency to fulfill God’s Plan, but then if we exercise it, we’re disappointing Heavenly Father. What the heck did He give it to us for?”
Or the doozy, “If God will never lead our prophets to do anything contradictory to His will, then how do you explain polygamy, or the Laws of Consecration and Adoption that were basically men sealing other men to themselves for time and all eternity?” Christensen paced in a tight circle in their apartment with his hand roughly scrubbing over his head, messing up his thick hair. “Brigham Young loved that one, you know. He wanted a special room in the temple for men to be sealed to other men and said it should be above the Celestial room where men and women are sealed. Well, hmm. That one is out there, I know, but that’s true.”
Adam hadn’t known that, but he also knew that Christensen had a complete set of the Journal of Discourses, the books of lectures and speeches from the early leaders of the Church. Adam hadn’t been allowed to read them. There were a lot of books Adam hadn’t been allowed to read that dealt with early LDS Church history, he’d discovered.
“Or what about black m
en having the priesthood when Joseph Smith was in charge, then Brigham Young took it away and called them all fence-sitters and unworthy because their skin was the ‘Mark of Cain’? Then they gave them back the priesthood in the ‘70s and… Why the heck does God change his mind so much?”
Adam should have been outraged, or at least very concerned for his companion’s eternal salvation. It was a criticism of the Church, of its leaders and of their divine inspiration from Jesus Christ Himself. His father had been outraged with him after all whenever Adam came to his father with doctrinal concerns. Questioning the Church was as bad as questioning the Lord. Questioning the Lord meant… Adam’s heart began to race when he thought about what that could mean. He could only picture darkness, loneliness, no family, no Church, no eternal peace.
But Adam knew Christensen was a good man. Heck, he was the only missionary who had baptized anyone in the city. He knew Christensen was a person of deep love for God, for his family, who wanted to know everything about the Gospel he could. Maybe if his companion could make sense of it all, it would all make sense to Adam, too.
Christensen shook his head and smiled. “Sorry. Thanks for letting me blow off a little steam. Sometimes I just struggle to make all the pieces fit, you know?”
Yeah. He did.
Chapter Four
“And if you have not faith, hope, and charity, you can do nothing.” D&C 18:19
It was the middle of the week. The lengthy two-hour lunch that locals insisted on drew to an end, and people trudged to work or home. Christensen and Young hoped to catch folks in their post-meal stupor along the palm-tree-lined promenade that ran parallel to the beach. This was the time of the week when it was safe to be near the beaches; Adam had been horrified to learn they were bathing-top optional.
Adam nodded at an older gentleman who was leaning against one of the rough, peeling trunks as he shuffled a few cloth bags and a well-worn cane in his arms.
