Circling around the Tegucigalpa temple

 Circling around the Tegucigalpa temple

 (Circundando Aldredor el Templo de Tegucigalpa)

19 May 2013

This whirlwind month is containing circles of every kind.  Thirty eight years ago, as a high school sophomore faced with a decision of which language to choose on the ominous line up of electives, I asked my Wyoming grandparents. 

Even with their small town perspective, having lived over forty years in a metropolis community registering a population of 7,487 in 2010, they steered me toward a language of our neighbors to the South.  “There will be a day when Spanish will be the language to know,” said Weatherman Grandpa Gee.   Grandma concurred, as they set their sights to serve a temple mission in Washington D.C., a relatively new temple which included a significant group of Spanish speaking members.  Grandma Pearl put her shoulder to the wheel and began to learn. 

While my sister’s Latin was uttered exoticly (“Vini vidi vici”=I came, I saw, I conquered!)  

 

and my brother’s German expressed gutturally (“Du bist crank en dem copf”= you are not completely well in the head,”)

I planted myself on a wooden Bismarck High School seat

at the feet of my olive-skinned instructor, who taught confidently with jokes (“eso si que es”= SOCKS!) and always a zzhhh for a j or “doble ll,” definitely a Spanish south-of-the-border twang, with no feminine Madrid lisping allowed!

Unbeknownst to me, a few years earlier, 1971 found a tall blonde and handsome young man named Val K. Starkey preparing himself to embark on a Spanish adventure to Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Panama, and Honduras, a selection of four countries grouped together to comprise the Mission de Central America for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  

  

Mechanical engineer by design, language study was a mystery the first several days and weeks.  Somehow as Espanol and his neighbors speaking it, climbed under his skin and into his heart, he agreed to enroll the last two of our children in a Spanish Immersion, and he worked to make friends with every Spanish speaking neighbor he encountered.

Somehow, one of us (me), could picture a faint writing on the wall, of Val’s love for his Central American brothers and sisters.  Panic-struck (how in the world to live in a place where the bread and butter of life—communicating—happens in a foreign tongue—one I have looked at only lightly for over thirty years!) I ordered the church publication “The Ensign” with a South of the Border slant, namely the Spanish Liahona.  And serendipitously, in the May and November issues, all the articles matched.  Lucky for me!  And the words translate from modern day to modern day. 

 

As work and sitting for hours at a time has become more and more challenging at Boeing, Val leaned toward something different.  Considering together another course, we talked with my father’s first cousin, JoAnn Bennett, who served a recent mission in the Mexico City temple, not knowing Spanish before.  She was encouraging, and promised that reading el Libro de Mormon in Spanish would open up a door for me, which it has.  Thirty six chapters to go and I hope to enjoy the gift of “tongues.”  It is amazing how persisting can help even the unfamiliar to appear less daunting.   

The second whirlwind of “circling” came as both my father and Val’s passed within three weeks of each other, after Val and I had just begun serving as ordinance workers in the LDS Bountiful temple. 

We had talked of missions, but neither of us dared, with our family responsibilities, helping parents in their golden years with health challenges in the forefront.  As Val describes it, somehow when the doors of the lives of our fathers closed, a window opened up to submit mission papers. 

As Val’s brother and sisters shared their family happenings at weekly dinners with Mom Starkey, Val’s sister Sherryl’s husband told us about his brother who is on his sixth Spanish speaking mission with his wife in the new Honduras temple.  So we called Bob to learn.  He told us about his brother Don, who emailed us and the rest is history. 

A new temple, understaffed, with “participantes” from as far as four hours away, with 200 workers, wishing for 500, they begged us to consider.  Consider we did. 

Our papers (following doctors’ visits, some immunizations, work considerations to iron, and details to care for home and family) were submitted on Val’s birthday, Easter, March 31.   

April 31^st came and we still had not heard official word securing our call.  It was literally May 3^rd, when the letter came. To leave home to train (in the Salt Lake temple for three days) on May 13^th with airplane tickets for 12:55 a.m. on May 16^th. Val cried.  And he continues to choke up.  He can say “Teguc” (and the “igalpa” comes with a gulp and cloudy eyes.)  I should have cried, too.

It is the girls 

(and my mom

and all in the wake of such a whirlwind) who need to be crying, as debris flies in the wake of moving 7 years of bad luck (or bad stuff) into boxes from floor to ceiling—no room for exercise equipment in the exercise room, and kind helpers are applauded for avoiding the gym by lifting weighty Boeing material, books, and scrapbook boxes. 

Thanks to all who encouraged, helped, and continue to assist.  Bienvenido to Kristen and Zach in our little cul de sac, and thanks to friends for welcoming them and their self-declared “white” and red-haired bambinos.

Three days basking in the history of a temple of pioneers with couples heading from Cebu to Madrid to Montevideo, we attended the sealing of Bellevue, WA friend, Angie (Barnum Phelps) Neal, and practiced our fledgling responsibilities translated into a language of yesteryear. 

Then it was time to embark! 

After having fixated on Youtube videos of Toncontin airport landings, Val cheered the navy pilot captain who confidently commandeered our Boeing 737-700 to gracefully land in “one of the most difficult [airports] in the world to all aircraft” (see Wikipedia.)   

Interestingly, as the airplane prepared to land, we circled the Tegucigalpa temple, which stands in the very neighborhood that a young Elder Val Starkey walked forty years ago.  

Val and I are beginning to see that the temple, and other peaceful places in our home and in our lives, and as we circle, offers us bearings as we lift our eyes to the hills “from whence cometh [our] help.” (Psalms 121:1)

Blessings to you! 

Elder Val and Sister Laurene Starkey