Editor’s note: This is the second installment in a four-part series. For the first part of the series, please see the links below.
As friends and relatives made their way to James Tate’s house, he couldn’t help but reminisce about the world he was to leave behind. Wherever he was going, his family and friends couldn’t follow.
Tate was about to open a letter that would dictate where he would spend the next two years of his life as a Mormon missionary.
With 30 to 40 family members and friends looking on, he took hold of the envelope, his hands vibrantly shaking with anxiety. As he took out the contents, his curious eyes betrayed the formality of the event, reading the first few lines. With a deep breath, he announced the contents to those gathered:
“You have been called to serve in the Jacksonville, Fla., Missio—“ he got out before a storm of applause and cheers broke the solemnity. As tears of joy sprinkled from his family, he read on.
“You are to report to the Missionary Training Center in three we—“
“What?” his mother, choking back gasps of exasperation, yelled.
“Oh, I meant months, three months,” an embarrassed Tate clarified. All the wind in the room was pushed out by sighing releases of air.
“Oh, thank goodness,” said his mom, clutching her chest in relief. “Don’t scare me like that.”
About a year before Tate opened his mailbox to find his “call,” Marques Schroeder stood in virtually the same position, roughly 540 miles away in Ogden, Utah, when he was called to the same training center.
Schroeder didn’t see what the big deal was. Why were there all the tears? He was just doing what any good Mormon would do. He’d only be gone for two years; it would be like an extended vacation — a really long, holy vacation.
“I don’t really get too emotional. I guess there’s something wrong with me,” said Schroeder, who let a fleeting smile escape from his generally humble demeanor. “I knew it was coming, so there was no reason to get all worked up about it.”
For the Schroeder family, this was something greater. Had it not been for the Mormon missionaries who had brought his parents to the church when they were teenagers, this day wouldn’t have happened.
As the oldest of five brothers, it would be up to him to provide the moral compass and set the example. He would be called to give the same kind of love and effort that the missionaries had shown his parents more than 25 years ago.
He was ready.
The Many Faces of Faith
While the rest sleep at the Missionary Training Center, Tate creeps through the hall, holding a can of shaving cream. With a trail of repressed laughter following from behind, he carefully tiptoes toward his next target’s room, an impending casualty of teenage male humor.
Although this type of behavior won’t be looked upon highly by church supervisors, it helps to alleviate the sting of homesickness. That final day at the airport had been incredibly difficult, as wails of sorrow from relatives young and old echoed down the terminal as he boarded his flight to Provo, Utah, bound for the Missionary Training Center.
“I was so nervous, I almost spewed my lunch all over the seat,” he said.
Located on the foot of mountainous landscape, the MTC serves as a Mormon missionary boot camp. For anywhere from three to 12 weeks, young Mormon men and women from all across the world come to learn the ways of the missionary. There, church officials and ex-missionaries instruct the rookies on what to expect, as well as effective teaching techniques to incorporate when they go out into the world. If the trainees are to be sent to a foreign country, they must endure an intensive crash-course in the native language, which can be an exhausting process.
Softly shaking the can of shaving cream so as to not let the rattle thwart his plan, he unleashes squirts of white foam, turning the sleeping missionary into a clownish caricature. This prank is so much better than the time he used a bullhorn at six in the morning to wake up fellow missionaries.
The victim, feeling the foamy mass on his face, jolts out of his slumber, knowing that he has fallen prey to comedic levity. He knows the perpetrator before the lights come on.
“Tate!”
Looking back, Tate cannot help but burst into laughter.
“I’m such a jerk,” he said, shaking his head.
For the first part, click here.
For the third part, click here.
For the fourth part, click here.
