We were supposed to keep a copy of our agenda posted inside our apartment door, with addresses, so that someone from the mission could find out where we were just by visiting our apartment. Or find out who was the last one to see us if we went missing.

Who needs iPhones?

The first time, I was in the city of Cochabamba. We were in a Zone Conference, and upon leaving were told that there had been a military coup by Colonel Alberto Natusch Busch, and we needed to be careful.
Later that day, we were downtown (it was P-Day) to get some ice cream. As we walked toward the little ice cream store, we noticed a bunch of young people running the opposite direction. We wondered what it was all about, when tear gas came zooming by my head, missing me by just a few feet. Well, we figured it was time to move off the main street, and go back to safer locations, so we all went to the Zone Leader’s home.

One of the elders was preparing a cassette tape to his parents. He ran out of things to say, so he passed it to us. We began telling his parents to not worry about the current status of the country, and that their son was okay. Yes, with the exception of the minor bullet wound he received in the leg, he would be fine. The doctor said that the amputation wouldn’t take long and that there were some good prosthetic legs available in the States….

Later that evening, I was with my District Leader on an exchange, on a bus to his area, when our bus had to turn around due to rioting and tear gas blocking several streets.

As bad as it seemed, it was worse in the high Andes’ regions. Little old ladies sell out of their front doors there, where you can conveniently purchase bread, rice, candles and blasting caps.

In fact, the elders in Betanzos had two sticks of dynamite on top of their dresser for months. It wasn’t until visiting with them one day and I noticed that the dynamite looked like it was sweating, which was not a good thing, that they decided to dispose of them by blowing them up over the river….(hey, it was 30 years ago!).

We hurried back to the apartment and called the Mission President. He asked if we knew what pack the books meant and instructed us to do it. He would call us to tell us when to ship the books.

We then called the base commander and asked if there was provision for evacuating US citizens. He told us that if 19 to 21 year old young men showed up at his base during a shooting war, we would be sworn in as soldiers and given guns.

I can’t remember how long we sat in our rooms until we got the call from the mission president to unpack the books, they weren’t needed. I think it was several days. We missed the baptism of an airman because at the first sign of trouble, he was put on a plane and shipped to Japan. Evidently he had some top secret intellegence. We did baptize him later. We had several airmen from Mountain Home, Idaho visit the local branch the next week. They’d been deployed in case there was trouble.

Pack the book and ship the books, two phrases that still raise the hair on the back of my neck.

We didn’t have phones at all (the elders did). And the only telegram I ever sent was to tell my parents what day I’d be home. I didn’t need to do it that way, but I wanted the drama of an old-fashioned telegram. I discovered that a ten centime coin would allow me to make an overseas phone call with just time enough to say “Hi, I love you.” If I passed a phone booth at about 3:00 p.m., I’d call home just as my parents were having breakfast. Fun times.

No books were ever packed, though.

During those 2 1/2 years, I think perhaps I lived in one apartment, at the end of my mission, which had a telephone. And of course, we didn’t have such things as computers. So, it was either pay phone, or telegram. And, lots of letters. Do LDS missionaries still write letters, or are they allowed to send e-mails, I wonder . . .

The question would likely be whether local law required one to have evidence of his status in the country. The passport, with visa and entry stamp, would have been the evidence–but if it’s six or ten hours away in the safe at the mission office, what good would it do one?

In countries where one had to register his residence (like Japan), it may be that the registration certificate would have been sufficient to prove to the Japanese version of Immigration and Customs Enforcement that one was legally in the country.

Ardis:

Maybe they could change the codes to “Fish” and “Cut Bait.” That would confuse everybody.