Running Away With Faith

There is a phrase in Portuguese that I love. 

Seguir na frente. 

Literally, it means to “follow in the front.” But to Brazilians, the actual meaning is to move on, keep going, or push ahead in spite of difficulty.

I’ve always thought that was a fascinating way to explain endurance - following in the front. It's sort of like acknowledging that while circumstances are not always in our control, this doesn’t limit our ability to be leaders of our own lives.

In our quest for growth, we might feel like we are always following or chasing after something in the future - whether a different circumstance or a better version of ourselves. For me, that can be deeply discouraging. I felt like that a lot on my mission. I just wanted to quit the chase.

My companions would often hear me vocalize a half-joking desire to “run away.” What I meant, of course, was that I wanted to quit serving a mission. If not that, I wanted to stop facing trials in the process. 

My mission was particularly challenging for me, which I think is common, and I struggled for months to reconcile my own trauma with the pressure to remain serving. It wasn’t until around twelve or thirteen months out that things began to change. In many ways, this hinged around my companion at the time, Sister Alarcon. 

On long bus rides to different parts of our area or to distant area and zone meetings, I would very often lean over to her and whisper mischievously. 

“Should we run away, Sister?”

Sister Alarcon was not oblivious to the challenges I had faced on my mission, and many pages could be dedicated to the patience and pure love she demonstrated in her approach to my struggles. She knew that my joke was just a confession of how hard things were going. 

In each of these instances, she would smile back and whisper, “Yes. But where would we go?”

I’d point to some obscure location in the distance, usually the top of one of the lush, rolling hills and declare confidently. “There. Let’s run away to that hill over there. Looks nice.”

She’d agree every time. Feeling sufficiently placated, I would settle back into my seat and silently recommit to finishing the mission. It seemed like the right thing to do. 

As companions, the two of us only ever really argued about one thing and that was money. Her family didn’t have much, and in our area we were often short on mission funds and food. Worse, Sister Alarcon’s shoes wore out. I think she borrowed a pair from someone. They were too tight on her feet and it hurt to walk in them. I insisted multiple times and with perhaps misguided compassion, that she let me buy her new shoes. She always resisted, ensuring me that her family would eventually find the money and she would buy her own shoes. 

In the meantime, there was only one situation where she couldn’t help but complain about the pain in her feet, and that was when we were running. 

We had an investigator family who lived in an old apartment complex at the top of a very steep hill. If you stood at the base, looking up, it seemed like you were staring straight up into the heavens. To visit the family each week, we’d always choose a much longer, less steep route that led us through a separate neighborhood. It was better than hiking straight up in the blistering Brazilian summer sun. 

We always stayed with the family until late. We loved them, and they were so close to baptism. Their testimonies were real, but their addictions were strong. The parents weren’t married and marriages in Brazil are expensive. They barely made much money - I saw a glimpse of a paycheck once and had to constrain myself from panicking for them. I hadn’t known anyone could be paid so little. 

Our Mission President knew about this family. He also knew that they lived a lengthy bus ride away from our apartment, so he gave us permission to come home a little later when needed. The only problem was that if we got out too late, we would miss the last bus that passed by our apartment miles away. So really, we only had one rule about time. 

Don’t miss the bus. 

That meant, inevitably, we often had to run. Since it was hard to leave our investigator’s house on time, we were forced to run wildly down that steep hill and then across various cobblestone streets, waving our arms to try and catch the last bus before we were left alone in the darkness of a small deserted town. 

It was running down that hill that occasionally elicited minor complaints from my companion. She knew we didn’t have a choice, but it still hurt her feet. Sometimes, I think she just removed her shoes altogether. I doubt it helped. 

But I loved running down that hill. Because every time it happened - which was often - I would close my eyes and imagine that I was actually, truly running away. Running away from fear, trauma, anxiety, the near-death experiences, the sadness, the anger. Running away from my inner conflict, my confusion about God. Running away from the mission. Everything. 

So for those few minutes until we reached the bus stop, I just ran. 

But gradually, things changed. The twelve weeks I spent with Alarcon turned into an almost sacred experience that included the beginning of a journey of healing for me. She knew what it was like to lose someone. She had experienced grief. In twelve weeks, we bonded over our understanding and excitement about the Atonement. I was in awe of her charity and compassion. I felt safe to suffer. I can’t speak for her, but I think she loved my natural enthusiasm, my drive, and perhaps my stubbornness. It was Alarcon, after all, that told me in her own way that I never had been trying to run away from my mission. 

“If you wanted to go home, you would have done it by now. No, Sister Sandra, you haven’t been fighting with God to try and go home from your mission. You’ve been desperately fighting yourself because you want so badly to stay.”

She was right. I knew that the moment the words came from her mouth. 

I had my own personal, spiritual experiences. And there were tender mercies. In a remote, almost wild area far away from other missionaries and from most accountability, we thrived. I let myself love the people. I forgot about myself here and there. And most important, I made a determined, self-aware decision, and I told it to God.  

I would finish my mission.

I hadn’t ever felt that conviction. Not since disaster started on day one of my mission, so it was a milestone for me. It felt symbolic of something else. 

Then, we received the transfer call. I would be leaving the area. Alarcon would stay and train. She locked herself in the bathroom when she heard the news and cried for an hour. She was afraid to train. But I knew what was happening. It was time for her to help someone else. 

We decided to visit our wonderful investigator family one last time so that I could say goodbye. That meant one last trip up to their apartment complex and one last stride down that steep hill. Shortly beforehand, Alarcon excitedly told me that her family had gotten enough money for her to buy new shoes. She was wearing them that evening when we made the long march up to their apartment.

It was the second hardest goodbye of my mission, but only because I knew in my heart that they weren’t going to get baptized anytime soon. I felt impressed that it was time to drop them. I decided against telling Alarcon, but she made the decision herself weeks later.

Still, I prayed for that family with all my heart that night. My soul split in two when I saw the tears in the eyes of the mother. She knew me better than almost anyone on the mission, which seemed strange. But it was true. I didn’t want to go.

But something in my heart had changed. It had been happening for a while, and maybe it wasn’t until we left their apartment and stood at the top of that hill for the last time that I realized what I was feeling. I looked over at my companion. The bus wasn't coming for a while. But Sister Alarcon smiled mischievously, looked down at her new shoes, and then asked invitingly, 

“Should we run, sister?” 

Yes. We should run. 

We ran as hard and as fast as we could. We probably screamed. I closed my eyes. And that’s when I felt like I understood what Brazilians meant by that unique phrase. To follow in the front. 

I wasn’t running away, exactly. There was a world and a past I had to leave behind, but I knew it would still define me. I knew the path forward wasn’t going to be smooth, either. But for the first time on my mission and maybe in my life, I felt like I was ready to take control of the uncertainty. To follow God and let go of everything else. To follow in the front. It was liberating and empowering. It was healing. I was an agent unto myself. 

I can’t say that I always feel that same confidence. Truth and conviction can be fleeting. Mortality is tricky that way. But the memory remains poignant and powerful to me. A reminder of what we are capable of doing and becoming when yoked with God. When we run with faith rather than fear, but we keep running. I am grateful I got to share that with my friend. 

I’m glad she let me run. 

 

Seguir na frente.