Friday, March 17, 2000
I got a letter in the mail saying there was going to be a Danish Missionary Reunion. Richard and I were invited. I was excited to meet all the missionaries who had served in Denmark while I had lived there.
Friday, March 31, 2000
It’s been 17 years since I last saw Dave. I wondered if he and his wife would be there.
Since it was the 150th missionaries’ reunion, there were so many people gathered. It was being held at B.Y.U. in the main ballroom. I ran into a few missionaries that I knew. Then across the large ballroom floor, I spotted Dave. I could tell that he had seen me too.
We both started to walk toward each other. Since the floor was so big, the walk seemed long. I could almost hear music playing in the background as we were walking towards each other.
When we were within 3 feet of each other, a woman came out of nowhere and embraced me. The music in my mind came to a screeching halt! I looked at the woman. She had tears of joy in her eyes. She said, “Oh, I was hoping you were going to be here tonight!” I had no idea who she was, and the way she was embracing me was starting to scare me.
The woman could tell I was not returning her excitement over seeing her, so she stepped back and said, “You don’t recognize me, do you?! It’s me, Lisa! I was in your Young Women!” I brainstormed. Then I thought it couldn’t be Lisa because she was just a child the last time I saw her. I said her last name and asked if that was her. She nodded with a big smile.
Lisa told me that she was sad that she had lost contact with me after we had moved. I asked her what in the world she was doing at this reunion. She introduced me to her husband. She said that he had served his mission in Denmark. Ever since she had heard about the reunion, she had been hoping that I was going to be there. I let Lisa know that I was sad, too, that we had lost contact. I told her I could never have imagined running into her at a Danish reunion. It made us both laugh.
Lisa and I talked for a little while. I looked over at Dave, and by now, he was talking to other missionaries that he knew. It seemed almost impossible for us to get a chance to say hello to each other.
When we were finally able to talk, I went to shake Dave’s hand. He embarrassed me. I felt awkward because both Richard and Dave’s wife were looking intensely at both of us. Dave started to talk. I could tell he was nervous because his voice cracked. Knowing that he was nervous put me at ease.
Because of the way his mom had treated me, I wanted to ask if he was on his way to being the next Prophet. But of course I didn’t. I asked Dave about his calling. Dave told me he was the Bishop of his ward. As we were talking, it was announced that we needed to sit down so that a prayer could be said to bless the food.
I was dying to tell Dave about my calling because I wanted his mom to know that I wasn’t as dumb as she had thought and that, even though I hadn’t gone to college, I was called by the Prophet himself to serve on the Young Women’s writing committee for the general authorities. (A calling I had been told not to tell anyone about.)
Dave said, “I will find you again after we have eaten so that we can talk some more.” I said, “Okay, I will keep a lookout for you.”
After we had eaten, I went to see if I could find Dave. I saw some of his missionary companions. I asked them if they had seen Dave. One of them told me right after Dave and his wife had eaten, they left because Dave seemed upset about something.
I wonder if seeing me upset him. I was bummed that I didn’t get a chance to brag about my calling. Then I thought it was probably for the best since I wasn’t allowed to talk about it. My calling was hard to explain, for all anyone knew, I could be lying since my name was nowhere to be found on the pamphlet.
Leave a Reply