Since we were called to serve a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints a few months ago many have asked us where we were going. As you know missionaries are assigned to labor in literally hundreds of countries around the world. Some countries are off limits to LDS missionaries at the present time, mostly due to political and safety reason. We were called to be stay-stay-at-home missionaries laboring in the Utah Ogden Mission. Our specific area of labor is the Logan Central Stake in Logan, Utah where our home is located. Our first week of active service in the mission has been an eye opener. At President Horsely's (our Stake President)request we have been charged with two major responsibilities, to seek out and strengthen singles sisters and especially single mothers. Our second focus will be to assist the people in our stake with their family history responsibilities. While in the MTC we met couples from all over the the United States going off to Africa, Siberia, Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean, Rome, and many other areas around the world. There were a few couples like us who have been assigned to work from home. The discussion we had with some of the missionary couples often centered on the question: "What will you do in Logan, Utah where 90 percent of the people are LDS already?"
As per the direction of our leaders we have spent this first week trying to get acquainted with some of the single mothers who live within the boundaries of the stake. Our eyes have been opened as never before to the sadness and hopelessness felt by some of the people we have met and the joyous message of the gospel of Jesus Christ and the blessings of freedom and abundance we so often take for granted in the United States.
I am going to tell of one family we met this week. I will not use their real name, but they are real people and live in Logan, Utah, within the shadow of several LDS meeting houses, the Logan Temple, good public schools, and Utah State University. They are also surrounded on every side by good and faithful people, yet in the midst of all this are people who are sad and who feel isolated and who suffer. The family I will tell about is headed by a single mother. She is the mother of seven children, six boys and a girl. They range from the youngest, a two-year-old to the oldest being a fourteen year old boy. The father(fathers) are out of the picture and have never played a role in the children's lives, except for siring them. The mother was born in the southern region of Sudan in Africa to a Christian mother and a Muslim father. As some of you may know, Sudan has been involved an a long civil war during most of the last twenty-five years. This woman's father was killed during the war along with some of her siblings. She lost track of her mother and has no knowledge of where she is or what happened to her. She and her sister ended up in a squalid refugee camp where they we able to survive. Finally ,under the auspices of the UN, the United States agreed to assist some of these refugees by bringing them to the United States. This woman and her sister, both young teenagers, were among the "lucky ones." They knew no one and could not speak the language and were in for a culture shock of monumental proportions. They first were taken to Des Moines, Iowa, where they were taken in and housed and fed until they were grown. Then they were left to make their way, largely on their own. They had some basic schooling and learned to speak English, surprisingly quite well. Training in morals and personal responsibility were sadly lacking. Soon she was pregnant and started having children, one after another. This was what women did in the Sudan and she really did not know any different. Sadly there always seems to be a man who will be a sire, but who then disappears into thin air as for as his paternal responsibilities are concerned. After moving from Des Moines to Nebraska, she eventually found her way to Logan, Utah. where her sister now lived. She said the main draw of Logan was that it was a safe environment.
Some time after she moved here she was taught the missionary lessons and she and her children over the age of eight were baptized and became members of the Church. The depth of their understanding was rather rudimentary, but they were fellowshipped and included in Church activities. The boys especially liked to be involved in scouting and have attended scout camps and have been influenced by caring and dedicated leaders.
Providing a living and paying the rent for the family have been a severe challenge, especially with meager education and lack of social skills necessary to function well in the work place. The Church has helped a great deal. This woman is not lazy, but she is overwhelmed and still finds it very difficult to cope with her problems in many areas of her life. She was able to find full time employment at Miller Packing in Hyrum. She works on the killing floor at the slaughter house and said that she has to wear heavy rubber boots and is often wading in blood several inches deep most of the day. It is hard for me even to imagine. She has to be at work by 7:15 AM in the mornings and, having no car, she has to rely of public transportation to get to work. She has to leave very early in order to catch the bus and leaves her seven children at home alone to fend for themselves. For them getting out of bed and feeding themselves and going to school is very, very difficult. The older children often stay at home to take care of the younger children and so are constantly in trouble with the truant officers. Their life is more of an existence than it is a life. Their future is bleak indeed, and what hope they have is in the gospel of Jesus Christ and the good people who try to help them.
In spite of all the trials and difficulties of their life at this time, this mother expressed gratitude for being in America. Raising a family in war-torn Sudan is a recipe for hunger and starvation. I felt as though we had been called to serve a mission in some far off hopeless land. I have been haunted by the story this mother related to us. I am grateful to belong to a church that tries to help. I am grateful for the gospel which promises peace, and I am grateful to do what we can to be with and strengthen some of God's children who need help. I wish we had a magic answer that would take away the burdens and the uncertainty right now, but I know that these things take time. They take faith, and the take opportunity. I have faith that in the eternal scheme of things all will work out. In the meantime we will strive to seek out the needy and do what we can to lift them out of their difficulties. Maybe this is what Presidnet Uchtdorf was talking about in his conference talk some time ago when he counseled us to: "Stand where we are and lift where we stand." If we, as members of the Church are united we can make a difference. I pray that we, working together, will be equal to the task. May we all seek means to "cloth the naked and feed the hungry" and be with and strengthen them.
This is a picture of a Sudanese woman, not the one we met, and her children in war-torn Africa. The gospel of Jesus Christ is really the only true answer to the problems we all face. Everything else is just smoke and mirrors.
The situation described above is just one of several, though this is the most extreme, that we have encountered in our first week in the "mission field."
HOW ARE WE DOING?
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
