Firm as the Mountains

           It was one of those days when the oppressive heat felt much more like a physical force than a mere sensation. Perspiration dripped down both of our foreheads and our shirts were just starting to stain yellow where the straps of our bags draped down. The humidity made every step like passing through a boiling cascade. It not only tortured our skin but entered our lungs and made every gasp a little more wretched than the last. I longed to set free the top button of my shirt, if only to help me breathe a little easier, but I knew I couldn’t. It was just one more thing I couldn’t do.

            I’d tried walking on the outside edges of my feet. For a while, it had helped me to ignore the blisters that had formed on the inside of my heels and under my big toes. Funny enough, I’d never had a blister until the week before. I’d meandered all over Zion National Park more times than I can remember, forged against the current in runoff-filled streams, slogged through patches of mud every bit as treacherous as quicksand, marched down uneven, slippery stone canyons that erosion had morphed and bent since the previous excursion, and climbed up treacherous cliffs of loose gravel, with nothing but occasional roots and weeds sustaining my feet from hundred foot drops, but I’d never had to do any of that in dress shoes. Unfortunately, new blisters were starting to rise on the other sides of my feet. I thought about telling my companion, but I didn’t know how to say “blister” in Spanish, and I didn’t want to have to explain it.

            He marched several feet ahead of me without looking back. He’d long been seized by that divine fanaticism that I so desperately lacked, and the heat wasn’t slowing him down at all. I tried to resent him, but I knew that he, even in his zealotry, was absolutely right. Somehow, that bothered me even more.

            I’d come out with a testimony, hadn’t I? Hadn’t I learned the scriptures better than just about anyone? Hadn’t I worked so hard in scouting and in Duty to God in order to be ready just for this moment? I was the best Spanish speaker in my MTC group, wasn’t I? Why didn’t any of that seem to matter now? I’d prepared longer and harder than any young man in the stake to be a good missionary, and it was doing me absolutely no good.

            It should be better than this, I thought. I should be better than this. That, to me, sounded much more accurate. I’d always done what everyone had expected of me. I’d been the ward’s golden boy, the perfect little future missionary who was going to do “just swell” in the words of my bishop. I had done my part. Why wasn't God doing His?

            “Pride cometh before destruction,” echoed an obnoxiously self-righteous voice in my brain, which of course just enraged me all the more.

            I hated it. I hated it all. I hated the heat. I hated the lack of mountains. I hated that I couldn’t understand what anyone told me. I hated that we were having absolutely no success, while everyone around us was already baptizing. I hated that my companion was infuriatingly right all the time. And most of all, I hated myself for hating everything else.

            Why did I hate it all? Why wasn’t I happy during what were supposed to be the best two years of my life? Why was it that, after only 3 short weeks in the field, I was already thinking of home?

            I hadn’t felt this way in the MTC. In the MTC, I had been focused. I had been determined. I had been positive. And I definitely had not been homesick. And yet, suddenly, I found myself once again thinking of what I’d be doing if I were still back there. I wouldn’t have woken up at 6:30. I’d be in a T-shirt and shorts, with a pair of nice comfortable tennis shoes on my feet. I wouldn’t have had to slog through another monotonous companionship study. I could have perhaps read a real book, or played a video game, or gone hiking once again.

            Hiking…

            It was strange, realizing that while loathing having to walk, I was dreaming, once again, of hiking. I was dreaming of the brilliant red rocks scattered across the valley – leaping over piles of them, shimmying and sliding, trying to figure out how to get on top of them without cheating by using rope, or a ladder, or a friend’s shoulder. My dad would follow, just a few steps further back every year. He’d tell me to stop so that he could get a picture while the light or the angle was “perfect,” and I never would. 

My little brother would be even further behind, trying to catch up to the big boys, but not wanting his clumsy body to be seen overcoming the obstacles. The best part was watching him, but from a distance. Knowing that this was so difficult for him, but knowing the passion he had for doing difficult things, gave us all triumphant ecstasy as he always found a way to defeat any barrier. He would try, often failing the first time, but eventually, he would always overcome. I don’t think he ever knew how proud of him I was for that. He was seven years younger. He was (to be honest) fat and clumsy. He had never been an athlete, but his body was oversized for his boyish face. In spite of all that, he never gave up. He always made it to the end, whether that meant entering a river up to his chest, or enduring across hot desert sands even after he’d run out of water, or climbing up rocks much bigger than he was.

            We would hike all day, finally attempting the highest summit of all. I would leap to the top, trying not to show how tired I was, hurrying to enjoy some time with myself and the spectacular vista. Down below, the rivers that had been so hard to traverse were nothing but blue-green lines snaking through the landscape. The clash of crimson rock with green vegetation worked a masterpiece far greater than any human imagination could design. And then there were the mountains…

            As my feet plodded along under the fierce, Argentine sun, an old song began to accompany this nostalgic episode. I vaguely followed my companion, but in reality wandered through my own past, and the lyrics came to me uninvited – a merciful message from God: “Firm as the mountains around us, stalwart and brave we stand on the rock our fathers planted for us in this goodly land...”

            As the song continued, I imagined those mountains once again: red, blue, purple, and white. On cue with the rhythm, my father joined me on the peak, and we observed the incredible landscape. A shock of guilt crept into the memory as the lines continued: “The rock of honor and virtue, of faith in the living God; they raised His banner triumphant over the desert sod.”

            My little brother would be just coming up over the edge, exhausted and filthy, but beaming. The thought of his face against that desert backdrop sent me a clear, resounding message: “Carry on! Carry on! Carry on!” with hills and vales and especially mountains joining in: “Carry on! Carry on! Carry on!”

I thought of that poor, adventurous boy doing something almost beyond his capacity. I thought of his smile once he reached the top. I thought of the sacrifices he was making at that time, letting his brother and his hero disappear for what to a twelve-year-old must have seemed like forever. I thought of the look of the dejection that would fill that face if I were to let him down. And from somewhere, another voice began to resound inside: Don’t you dare.

“Elder?” my companion was asking, looking back with a look of concern. “Elder, está bien?”

I hesitated in my response. I thought of my blisters. I thought of the heat. I thought of our lack of success. But most of all, I thought of those mountains, and I thought of that face—the face that represented home to me.

“Yeah,” I replied. “I’m okay.”

I knew it wasn’t going to get any easier. Somehow, however, being easy didn’t seem all that important any more. So be it; I would hold aloft the colors and march.

“Oh youth of the noble birthright, carry on! Carry on! Carry on!”
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