I am an average 19 year old from Utah. Or at least, I was. That was until it happened. Everywhere everything fell apart, most people were at home; some were shopping; an unlucky few worked away from home; and the most unfortunate were on vacation, which was even further from home. I was not on vacation, but I was very far from my native state Utah. I was in Texas. And that was very bad. Texas was hit the third worst out of all fifty states. What happened, you say? Well this is my story. The story of The Righteous Dungeon Wrecker, The Missionary Power-Leveler, and the Baptizing Hero, My name is Elder Todd.
-
“Elder get up, it's six-thirty! We are going to be late again. You know we set a companionship goal to be awake on time.”
I opened my bleary eyes, and in front of me was Elder Pachu. He had a darker complexion. One more of an islander, another thing, he was built like an islander. The man was big.
“Ugh, Elder. I just got out of the Missionary Training Center. The real mission isn’t anything like what I learned there. I know they say stuff about exact obedience out here for the mission rules and yada yada, but look, I’m tired. We biked thirty miles yesterday. Let me sleep.”
I closed my eyes again. And unexpectedly, but blessedly, there was silence. My mind started to sway into the soft and blissful dreamy river of sleep, to carry me away. Just as I felt like consciousness was gone and I had succeeded in convincing Elder Pachu to let me rest longer, a frigid monster ripped into my soul and tore me from my slumber, immediately I sat up awake and tried to suck in a deep and unsettled breath, but I couldn’t breathe. At first I was in absolute shock. What had happened?
Then air flowed into my lungs as I gasped for life. And my eyes opened. And before me I saw the big Samoan with an empty wet pot. Anger flowed into my veins my heart pumped heat into every cold and wet blood vessel on my body.
“ELDER!”
I jumped out of bed in my sopping wet white underwear and t-shirt, while grinding my teeth I tackled Elder Pachu, but he withstood me and pulled me into a headlock. I flailed my arms trying to punch him, but the man had grown up with brothers, and they wrestled all the time. Quickly but swiftly, Elder Pachu disarmed me and had me pinned to the ground.
His natural Samoan accent started to slip through in the rush of adrenaline, “Elder Todd, I will let go only if you promise to get ready.”
As my mind was full of anger, but I was forced to be calm by his strength, I immediately realized that he was right, in my sleepy fury I hadn’t been able to think straight.
Sighing, I relented. “Elder Pachu thanks for helping me wake up.”
Elder Pachu also let out a breath of air that I think neither of us realized we were holding onto so tightly.
Then we busted up laughing. “Why did you use freezing cold water dude?!”
“Well, I actually didn’t check the temperature, I just filled the rice cooker pot with water because it was the closest thing to the sink.”
I wiped a tear of joy from my eyes, and then we both got up and performed our morning routine, which consisted of exercise, showering and preparing by getting on our white shirt and tie, and reading the scriptures alone, then together and sharing about what we learned.
As I was in the bathroom I looked at my outfit. Something was missing. I had the tie, I had the tie clip. I had my freshly ironed white button up shirt. I had my belt with the gold painted buckle and my black slacks with black socks and leather shoes just shined to look fresh.
“Hmm. Elder Pachu come here, something doesn’t feel right.”
“One sec.” His mouth sounded like it was full of something. Elder Pachu then poked his head around the open bathroom door, he was brushing his teeth. “What’s up?” He said among the constant bristly toothbrush sound.
“Something is missing, Elder, and I can’t tell what it is.” I scratched my head.
“Elder you playin with me. It’s your nametag.”
As I looked upon his shirt and saw his nametag, which said ‘Elder Pachu’ I looked at my shirt and I realized he was correct. I hadn’t yet inserted the slip-on iconic black nametag in the shirt pocket. I smacked my head. “Thanks Elder.”
As I walked to my study desk, I grabbed the nametag and before slipping it on, I decided to walk into the bathroom so that I could watch myself slip it on. Underneath my name ‘Elder Todd’ It said in even bigger and bolder words “The Church of JESUS CHRIST of Latter-day Saints”
I smiled. Of all the things I left back home to come here, this one thing every morning made it all better, I would get to go out there and represent Jesus Christ.
-
Elder Pachu and I were biking to get to our district meeting. It was one-hundred-and-two degree’s outside. The air was thick and humid. Sweat was causing my white shirt to stick to my skin. My undershirt and underwear, which we call garments, or G’s for short were also damp with sweat.
I sped up to reach Elder Pachu with my voice. “Elder! I am chafing! Can we stop to take a short breather?!”
Elder Pachu, his face thick with a sheen of sweat and his well styled hair covered with a bike helmet, looked over at me while pedaling hard and motioned with his hand for me to get behind him and to stop riding right next to him. “Elder for the fifth time! We are not allowed to ride side by side! As for stopping, you can rest when we arrive!”
All I can say is I was praying hard that my rash wouldn’t be too bad, and that I could keep up with his incredible pace.
-
Once we arrived at the building with the spire reaching into the sky, our church, we promptly locked up our bikes and then sped our way inside for the reprieve from the sun and sat down in the church classroom we usually used for these meetings. We were the first out of all fourteen missionaries to arrive.
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“Not bad Elder Todd.” Elder Pachu’s accent was coming out again as he was trying to catch his breath.
“Huuhhh.” Was all I could manage, as I tried to catch my breath. Finally we sat down in the nice cool room with AC.
Soon our district leader and his companion arrived. He was just another missionary like us—but he was assigned by the mission president to be the leader of this area for this transfer—A space of six weeks.
Then two sets of the sister missionaries arrived. They were 19 year-olds. Just like us. Elder Pachu, the normally obedient and dedicated missionary raised his eyebrow at me, as he knew that I thought one of them was cute.
I punched his arm then whispered, “Elder, you know that I have a girlfriend at home!”
All he did was beam a smile back at me.
“Besides, as missionaries, it's not like we can date. I’d have to reach out to her after the mission and that sounds so cringe.”
He just winked.
I rolled my eyes.
As we were talking the rest of the other companionships arrived, and all fourteen of us were now here. The district leader led the discussion of how the mission work was going as normal asking us to report our success, failures, and any miracles we saw, except today he said something I thought was strange.
“I was praying today, and I feel like God was telling me that I need to warn you all to stay out of the city today.”
“Uhh what?” An Elder in one of the other companionships who had a car and mostly worked in the city, had spoken up.
His companion elbowed him “Elder, watch your tone.” He whispered, but I was sitting right next to them, so I could hear him.
“I don’t know I felt weird bringing it up, but I feel very strongly about this, so please, everyone stay out of the city today.”
“Aye aye captain!” Another one of the missionaries said, and then saluted.
The sister missionaries chuckled at his comment.
I stared at the black chalkboard with scripture references scribbled all over it and then silently closed my eyes as the earlier missionary continued to challenge the district leader on his request.
In my mind I spoke a prayer: Dear Heavenly Father, This is a weird request. Is there any reason for this? Or has our district leader gone coo coo? As I prayed, I felt a feeling extend from the back of my head and into my heart. This was a feeling I sometimes associated with the Holy Ghost’s promptings of comfort. Oh, thanks. In the name of Jesus Christ Amen. I rushed through to end the prayer now that I had received my answer.
I raised my hand and said “I second the district leader, maybe we should stay out of the city today. Who knows. Maybe one of us will get mugged or put at gunpoint again.”
My words seemed to pacify the aggressive missionary, he was known as Elder Samuels, his companion was Elder Whu, a more soft spoken asian looking 19 year old teenager, but make no mistake, he was as American as any of us.
One of the sister missionaries, the one Elder Pachu had teased me about, glanced at me and smiled.
I tried to pretend I didn’t see it. Remember Jessica, be faithful.
The meeting went on otherwise as normal.
Elder Samuels made another comment “I had another guy today ask me if my first name was Elder. It was really funny! When I told him no, he was like ‘Oh? But you look so young, how can you be called an Elder?’ I think it’s so funny that people still don’t know that Elder is just a title we use.”
I looked at Elder Samuels and nodded in assent.
-
Elder Pachu And I were biking down one of the neighborhood streets to go to a teaching appointment when we got a call from our district leader.
“Elders, where are you right now?!” There was a strange sense of urgency in his voice.
“We are in our area, staying out of the big city like you asked.” Elder Pachu said.
“Have you seen the news?”
I stared at Elder Pachu, thinking that our district leader was probably just proud of receiving revelation this morning and was somewhat right about something happening in the city.
He met my eyes then said over the phone “Elder, you know facebook is our only source of news, and neither of us have been on it yet. Spill the beans, what's going on?”
“The Zone Leaders called me and told me that the seismic meters are indicating that small earthquakes are happening all over texas. Elders, they say that a big one is going to hit. Stay out doors and whatever you do, do not go inside any buildings. Also I’ve been directed to tell you to stay away from powerlines, they can break and fall.”
I won’t lie. I was a little shaken up by the information. An earthquake? I’ve never been in an earthquake before. And he said it's going to be big.
Shortly after our district leader hung up, my companion and I stopped traveling without reaching our destination for the first time. We both looked around and noticed the shakes, everything was slightly trembling. Cars were swaying just ever so slightly. The ground felt like it was moving from underneath us at .2 mph speed on a treadmill.
My eyes went wide and I looked at my companion. “We need to call Jonny and warn him.”
Jonny was the person we were about to teach. He could be somewhat of a shut-in, So perhaps he didn’t get the memo.
“Hello Elders!”
“Oh thank goodness you picked up Jonny, are you at home?” I said.
“Elder Todd!! It’s good to hear you! Yes I am at home waiting for you guys to arrive! I just cleaned my living room.”
Elder Pachu and I glanced at each other and smiled, his living room was a mess, and we had just taught him about how God is a God of order, and the Holy Spirit is better felt in clean spaces.
I silently pumped my fist and gave Elder Pachu a fist bump. I mouthed the words “Let's go!”
Then I remembered why I called. “Hey Jonny, there is supposed to be a massive earthquake soon, maybe you should get out of your house.”
“OH! That's what the shaking was? I thought it was because I just put my clothes in the washer, you know how those things can shake the whole house!”
Jonny lived in a trailer, and so it wasn’t unbelievable that the washing machine did in fact shake his whole house.
“Okay I’m outside. Are you guys still coming?”
Again Elder Pachu and I met glances. “Uhh, is it safe to bike on a road during an earthquake?” Elder Pachu asked.
“Actually, I’m looking it up, and it says to just stay in an open field. How close are you guys?” Jonny’s voice came over the phone.
“We are really close to you, I see an elementary school field, we can meet up there.” Elder Pachu said.
“Ah! Yes! Ok! I’ll be right there.” Jonny hung up the phone.
We walked our bikes to the field, as the earth around us trembled. Increasing in tremors. Not once did the earth stop to take a break from its constant shaking.
We reached the field first, then we saw Jonny walking across the field to get to us, and then it hit. The big one.