The Adventure Continues

So, after a 45 minute flight I landed at the Ilopongo International airport on the outskirts of San Salvador. I don't remember what time it was but it was DARK. Like a well-digger's shoe sole dark. Two missionaries met me at the gate and helped me collect my luggage and carry all my worldly goods to a bus stop. They had introduced themselves as the zone leaders one of whom was a short, fat, balding guy who said he was Elder Monroe. After several busses passed by we hauled ourselves and my stuff onto a bus headed for San Salvador Central. We rode forever-and-a-half then got off and got on another bus. More riding forever-and-a-half and switching to yet another bus.

Finally we got off of that bus and began to walk. And walk. And walk. Then walked some more, all the while hulking all of my junk. Eventually we turned down a rather poorly lit street that was lined with one-story buildings that were just one continuous building with doors and windows every so often with a step up to each door. Somewhere in the middle of the block they said, "Here it is" and knocked on the door. It took a bit for someone to open the door, then they took my stuff inside and invited me in.

When I walked in this is what I saw: four missionaries (I assumed they were since they were wearing white shirts and ties, this was before name tags) sitting at a table playing poker with lit cigarettes in their hands and drinking what looked like beer. A couple of others were looking at a Playboy magazine and discussing what movies they planed to see that week. They all had several days growth of beard. Elder Monroe showed me to my corner of the room where there was a blanket on the floor for me to sleep on and a bowl of chicken soup with the chicken foot sticking out of it. He said that I was quite lucky because they had saved the foot for me since it was my first day in the mission. I said thanks anyway but I had already eaten chicken at the mission home so I was not hungry.

That was all they could take and they all began to laugh and say it was all an act to welcome me into the district. They thought it was a real hoot and kept asking me if I believed what I saw. Of course I did because I didn't have anything to compare it with. For all I knew that was what missionaries did. It turned out that neither Elder Monroe or the other guy were zone leaders and Monroe had only been in the mission for two months. They had been the top baptizing district in the mission that month and had earned a trip to the Mayan ruins in Copan, Honduras. That was why they hadn't shaved for a week. Imagine how pleased I was to have supplied them with even more entertainment. It turned out that the "Playboy" was just the cover with an Era magazine inside (that was the church magazine before the Ensign).

I believe word got back to President Clark and hazing of new missionaries was forever banned. When I started working in the Mesa temple last January I ran into a guy who was there at my welcome. He is the coordinator of the Spanish session on Saturday. He apologized profusely and was quite happy that I was still active and hadn't been ruined by that experience.

Welcome to the Mission Field Elder Howe (August 13, 1968)

I left the Language Training Mission in Provo, Utah around 3:00 in the morning (without my plane tickets. Yes, it was a mess) on a bus bound for the SLC airport. I was with several other missionaries including my companion, Elder Babbit, none of whom were going to my mission (Guatemala-El Salvador). This unfortunate circumstance (no companion for the trip) came about because I had finished the 12-week Spanish course in eight weeks and he, being from the Mormon Colonies in Mexico, completed it in six. He was on his way to Mexico City I think. Being way before 9/11 my Mom, my sister Lorna, my girlfriend Jane-the-Older, and Elder Babbit were able to be with me at the gate. I gave him my camera and he snapped a picture of my last kiss with Jane before the two-year famine then he tossed it to me as I walked out to climb up the stair thingie onto the plane. I don't know if the kiss was a no-no or not but I'd seen it happen elsewhere that morning. Carrying all my earthly possessions that didn't fit in my two suitcases, to include three copies of the Book of Mormon in Spanish, several pamphlets, my scriptures, a raincoat, and a bleeding umbrella (this was before the collapsible kind) up those stairs into the waiting Frontier propeller-driven plane I went. Let the adventure begin...

I had never been on an airliner before and all I knew was my itinerary said: Frontier Airlines to Los Angeles, 2-hour layover there, Pan American Airways to Guatemala City then on to San Salvador if necessary. No problem getting to LAX. No idea how to find Pan American Airways once I got there. Every time I asked where the PanAM desk was, I was told over there. So I would go over there, ask the location of the PanAm desk and again be told, over there. I went through several iterations of this without locating the aforementioned desk when a kind gentleman came out from behind the evidently wrong desk in front of me and led me out the door, pointed across the parking lot that was the size of New Hampshire, and said, "see that little blue dot on the horizon?" "That's the PanAM sign.

Off I trudge across miles of steaming pavement in my dark blue three-piece, non-vented suit carrying 87 lbs of paraphernalia when, indeed inside was the PanAm desk! I checked in and the nice lady said, "You need to hurry to your gate." "Where's that?" I ask. "Over there" she says. Same as before I keep going "over there" until someone says "There you are!" "We've held the plane for you, go right on board." Perspiring rather profusely, I made it to my seat, shed the raincoat and such, then settled in for the trip. We took off out over the ocean and it was quite pretty and way joyous to be on my way at last. So much for the 2-hour "layover".

We had been in the air for quite some time and had been given lunch (this was back when they actually fed you real food) when the captain announced that we were over El Paso, Texas. EL PASO BLEEDING TEXAS?!! I'm on the wrong plane! I should be flying down the coast of Mexico! What the heck are we doing over El Paso? I had my sweaty fist on the stewardess' call button so I could have them turn around or throw me out the window or something when I heard the captain continue that we would be turning South to fly over the Gulf of Mexico on our way to Guatemala City. Phew! Crisis averted. In reality, which had little to do with my young geographically challenged brain, Guatemala City lies due South of New Orleans, Louisiana.

I had struck up a conversation with my seat-mate who was a monk on his way to serve in a monastery in Costa Rica. We had a fine discussion about the gospel and I gave him one of my Spanish Books of Mormon. We traded addresses and corresponded a few time then lost contact with each other. It made for a pleasant trip once my heart started beating again after the El Paso scare.

We landed well in Guatemala City where I was met by the APs and whisked off to the mission home to meet the president, David G. Clark. We had a nice interview then a very good chicken dinner. In the interview he saw that my ticket was good all the way to San Salvador so he said that's where I'd begin my mission; San Salvador 4th Branch with Elder Bruce Blaser from Boise, Idaho. Back to the airport I go and, once again I'm leavin' on a jet plane all by myself headed for the great unknown.

To be continued...

Three Days Before My 18th Birthday

March 10, 1967. It was my Dad's first day back to work as a diesel shovel mechanic. He had spent most of the previous year working in Australia for more money than we'd ever seen before. He had made so much money he couldn't afford to work without it all going to taxes so he didn't. It was a Friday and we were going to Pocatello that evening for a neighbor girl's wedding. I was a Senior at Snake River High School, some 30 miles from Atomic City where we lived. I was sitting in our living room watching for the school bus to go by a block away so I could catch it when it came back around in front of our house. The next thing I knew, it had gone by us and I had missed it. My Mom was not to pleased because that meant I'd have to drive to school, but there was no other choice since she had never driven a car in her life. I went to school but felt quite blah around 1:00 so I decided to ditch the rest of school and go pick up my girlfriend from her school. I was on my way there when I found myself 30 miles away and about a mile from my home. Weird, I thought, but figured I must have been daydreaming or something. I went in the house and my Mom said she was so glad to see me because she had had a bad feeling all afternoon and thought that I'd been in a car wreck. I told her she was looney and I was just fine. Less than 15 minutes later two men drove up to the house and asked to come in. Then they told us to sit down because they had bad news. My Dad had died of a massive heart attack at work around 1:00. My Mother would have been all alone if I hadn't felt "blah" and then come home instead going to see my girlfriend. My sister, Bonnie, was a Freshman at Idaho State university in Pocatello and we were supposed to pick her up for the wedding. We didn't want to tell her over the phone so we decided to tell her when we got to her apartment. When we got there we asked her how she was doing and she said she was fine except that she started feeling bad around 1:00 and ditched her afternoon classes to go home. Then she asked where Dad was... Dad was 57 years old when he died. He had smoked unfiltered Camel cigarettes since he was 15 and drank more than his share of beer. He drank EVERY day. He seldom was drunk but he drank beer every day. One of the best things I have ever done was to go to the temple the following May and be proxy for his endowment and sealing to my Mother. Then I was sealed to them. Almost two years later I was serving the Lord in Guatemala when President McKay died. He had been the prophet for as long as I could remember and I always knew he was a prophet. I knew I needed to know for myself that Joseph Fielding Smith was a prophet so I fasted and prayed to find out. One night I had a dream. In it I was seated in the Salt Lake Tabernacle for General Priesthood meeting. President Smith was conducting and was doing something that they don't do in that meeting. He was naming individuals who had been found worthy to receive the Melchizedek priesthood and having them stand for sustaining. As soon as he spoke I was filled with the absolute knowledge that he was a prophet of God. After a couple of names, he said Clarence Joseph Howe, my Dad's name. When Dad stood he was right in front of me. We embraced and wept. I learned two things from this dream. President Smith was a prophet and that after someone dies and has the necessary temple work done for him, it still takes time for him to overcome the addictions that kept him from temple blessings while living. It's all true.