Grandma as a Missionary
In my journal #2, I indicated that on November 10, 1979 Violet and I were asked to be the speakers in Sacrament meeting and report our missions. Brent took our tape recorder and recorded what we said in our talks. Since the tape is noisy and not too good we thought it might be of interest to our family especially to those who were unable to be there to be able to read the contents of what we had to say.
Violet’s Missionary Report Nov. 10. 1979
They say that somewhere between the whirl of teenage activity and the rocking chair that you may find a strange creature called a missionary. I am a little reluctant to clasify myself in the rocking chair group but the rocking chair has felt good since we came home. Elder Bingham asked when we left the mission, “What are you going to do, Sister Bunker, when you get home?” I said, “Well, when I get there I am going to find my rocking chair and sit in it for three weeks and then maybe I’ll rock.”
It is good to be home. It is good to look into your faces and see our very choice friends. During Sunday school I saw so many strange faces that I thought maybe we had been transferred. I am very pleased today to see the members of our own families here, our brothers and sisters and children and we appreciate their being here. My mother and father had 12 children and there are only 4 of us left, my brother, two sisters, and myself. They are here with us today. I was the last of the twelve children and I want them to know that I love them. They have done so many good things to help me throughout my life and I appreciate them very much.
I also want you to know that this mission has been a choice and great experience. It was great to be on a proselytizing mission. I didn’t want to be a proselytizing missionary. I didn’t want to go knocking on doors or pushing door bells but I can tell you that I have a long pointed finger that fits door bells very nicely. It has been a choice, choice, experience for us and if I had known then what I know now, I would have chosen to go on a proselytizing mission.
Today I was asked to share with you some of our missionary experiences. We have had many, many experiences. Some which were very good and some not so good. Like the time that we went out tracting on Saturday morning and that is the time the Jehovah Witnesses always seem to do their tracting and as we past the window of an apartment, I saw a man standing near the window so I knew that he had seen us. He came to the door and before we could introduce ourselves he said, “Why don’t you people go home and mind your business. I have quit believing in fairy tales along time ago.” That was the kind of unpleasant experiences we had but by that stage of the game it didn’t bother me very much but I do feel sorry that he did not hear the message of the gospel. We did have many wonderful experiences. To go into the Mission home with President Byrd was quite an experience. I am sure there are returned missionaries here who were in the mission home with Pres. Byrd and they know what I am talking about when we left Brent said to me, Mother you will have to confess to Pres. Byrd before you leave the mission home. Well I don’t know what Brent thought that I had done but I could see why he said it. I really didn’t have to confess to Pres. Byrd but I can see why President Byrd was like he was and why he need to be that way because it is necessary for missionaries to free their minds from any kind of quilt or sin that they might have that would keep them from being the kind of missionary that they need to be to represent the Lord in the mission field. We lust not have anything on our minds that will detract or keep us from being a good missionary.
I have a greater appreciation for our two sons, Terry and Brent, who went on missions. I understand now what they did and went through. You see we spent a good part of our time in districts with the young missionaries. Elders and Sisters as we called mem and they weren’t about to have us bring down the record or stats, as they called them, as they sent them into the mission president. They didn’t want some one who would make them look bad. They expected that we put in hour for hour with the young missionaries so we did it. It was hard but we did it and now we are glad that we did. We have been blessed and enjoyed a lot of success on our mission. Success that in and of ourselves we would never have had had not the Lord blessed us. I hope that as I relate a few of our experiences that your testimonies will grow as ours have and perhaps you will gain strength from that which was faith promoting to us. As we left the mission home, we went to Arcadia, California. The mission office is located there. WE found that our first assignment was in Bishop, Calif. The Elders said, “Oh Sister Bunker, you are going to enjoy Bishop. It is the celestial kingdom of the missions.” I asked them why and they said, “The sky is so blue and the stars are bright and the air is so good to breath.: I didn’t think much about that at the time but after spending most of out time in the cities I can appreciate that because we didn’t see the blue ski nor the stars nor have fresh air to breath all of the rest of the time. They didn’t tell us that they had the biggest dogs in the world in Bishop. It seemed that I spent those first six weeks of our mission behind Ferren scared half to death.
We learned a lot of things in Bishop. It was a very humbling experience for us up there by ourselves with no other missionaries within 160 miles. We had our flip charts and our discussion books and we were supposed to leave our apartment at 9:30 in the morning and work until 9:30 at night. We thought how in the world are we going to be able to teach these discussions when we know only half of the first one. We can tell you that we had to humble ourselves and we spent a lot of time on our knees praying to our Father in Heaven and we spent a lot of time memorizing the discussions. They were early morning hours. I think I shall never forget the first discussion that I tried to give. We had decided that we would each give part of the first discussion and after that we would give every other one. We were sitting in front of these wonderful kind investigators. We love them and you must love them when you teach them. Ferren gave the first concept of the first discussion and told about Joseph Smith and what a beautiful job he did and then he handed me the flipchart that we use when we teach. I felt real confident because I had learned the next concept and I knew it. I probably felt a little smug as I said, “Suppose you put yourself in the place of this young man, Joseph Smith, and picture yourself as Joseph Smith.” My hands started to go like this (Shaking) I felt I was going to drop the charts as my condition became worse. My voice got funny and squeaky and I thought they could see daylight between me and my chair. I thought to myself, “I thought I knew this. I am to old to act like this in front of people and I knew what I had to do. I knew that in and of myself there was no way that I could teach them for all of the words that I might say would not teach the gospel unless I could teach by the Spirit. It is really the Spirit that teaches. I was grateful for having this experience because I remembered it all the rest of our mission. I prayed very hard that day in my heart for the help of my Father in Heaven. A calmness came over me and I felt a good and sweet feeling inside so that I could continue on with the discussion. That was a real growing experience.
We had many choice experiences in Bishop. I think I’ll tell you about one of them. As I think about it, I feel a great appreciation for my father and mother, who took the time while we were children to teach us how to pray from the heart. We had been teaching a man and his wife who was a retired manufacturer in his early fifties. As we taught them we were unable to get them to pray. One of the most important parts of the discussions is that we get the man to pray. We had tried to get them to pray and we had tried everything that we had been taught but he would not pray. One day just before we were transferred they invited us to lunch and they expressed their appreciation for the time we had spent with them. They said they felt very close to us and would like to do something for us. So Ferren said, “If you would like to do something for us, you will offer our prayer today.” His eyes began to fill with tears and his voice choked as he said, “I am ashamed to say this so please don’t laugh at me but I can’t pray. I don’t know how to pray. The only prayer that I know is ‘now I lay me down to sleep and pray the Lord my soul to keep’ and I feel to old for that” So we went again through the four steps of prayer and asked that he pray what was in his heart and he said, “I’ll try.” We bowed our heads, and for the first time in his life he prayed from his heart As we raised our heads, his wife’s eyes were filled with tears and she said,” that is the first time I have ever heard my husband pray.” This was a great experience for me because I had not realized that there were grown people in this world who didn’t know how to pray and how important it is to pray.
Well, we were only in Bishop for six weeks and if you could see the funny little apartment that we had to live in when we went there, you might wonder too. I said, “Hey, there is no way I am going to live in this missionary apartment!” It was up over the top of an old rickety garage and I said I just can’t live in this place. We had been staying with a member of the ward and the sister said, “Now Sister Bunker the missionaries have been living there for 15 years.” and I thought, “Yes, and it looks like it has been 15 years too.” She said, “If you don’t stay in the apartment when the Elders come to take your place they won’t have any place to live because they can’t afford any other apartment here. They are very expensive.” I concluded that we must stay in good with the ward members or we won’t be able to work with them and we must stay in good with the missionaries or we won’t enjoy this mission so I said give us two days and we will see what we can do with this apartment. Well we cleaned it up and the land lady had it painted inside and out and brought us up an easy chair and then we got transferred. I said that there is just no way that President has prayed about this because we are teaching so many good investigators and our apartment is livable. We were called into the zone meeting and I asked the President if he had and he said, “Yes, Sister Bunker I prayed about it. “so I had to learn to be obedient. I could not figure out why we were being sent to Glendale but we were and we spent 6 months in Glendale and I was told why. One of our very first contacts that came to us was a referral that came from the Hawaiian Temple Visitors Center. The name was Mariam Rosero. Sister Calvert, she was from Bogota, Columbia. As we came to her apartment she invited us in and she told us she had come to the United States to attend college. She said that one of her professors at the college was a Mormon and that he had been very kind to her and helped her. He kept her from becoming discouraged. He gave her a Book of Mormon and told her about the church. Because this professor had been a good member missionary, we were able to go in to teach her. While we were teaching her, we had quite an experience. It seemed like Satan was strong in Glendale. We had to contend with him all the time we were there. Miriam said as we were teaching her the third discussion, “you know when you were teaching the first discussion, I could understand everything you were saying. The second time it became more difficult but tonight I can’t even concentrate on what you are saying. She said it seems like someone is just pushing my head right in. Of course we knew that it was Satan’s effort to keep her from the truth. Ferren gave her a blessing and after that blessing we had no more problems in teaching Miriam. She told us as we continued with the discussions that she had been married and that she was expecting a baby and that because she would not have an abortion she was left by her husband. It was a great blessing for this lovely girl to become a member of the church and receive the guidance through a kind Bishop and have the help of wonderful hometeachers. Dear Sister Hale came to her home and showed her how to care for the baby. Brother Hale was the home teacher and they helped Miriam to really feel loved and cared for. Miriam has now gone back to Bogota where her family has a home. She felt it would probably be easier to raise her child there. We have received letters from her and she says she has found the church there and is so happy for it. She always expresses appreciation and tells how happy she is for her membership in the church.
We taught a man 72 years old there who was of a part member family. He said he had gone through a number of sets of missionaries. He told us that he was baptized a Prespytarian and he would remain a Presbyterian. But he said we could come if we wanted to. We felt we could help him to see the truth if we would remained close to our Father in Heaven. We knew the Spirit could touch his heart. His son was in the ward mission presidency and head been on a mission. He was an excellent teacher and knew his father. He said, “Don’t plan to much on my father being baptized. You shouldn’t spend too much time with him because he will never be baptized.” He said that he has always had his taudy in the evening before dinner, “as long as I can remember.” We told him that he need to have more faith in his father and pray for him. We went through all of the discussions and he promised to read from the Book of Mormon as indicated along with the discussions. He finally decided that he didn’t want to read just verses here and there but he would start from the first and read it all the way through. As he was reading it, he would say to his wife, “did you know this? Why didn’t you tell me about it?” And one day when we went he said, “Well, I guess I had better tell you how it is,” and I thought, “Oh Boy, I am afraid this is it!” I didn’t have enough faith either but he said, “As I read the book of Alma, I have found that I have not really been baptized by authority. I know now and forever that the Book of Mormon is true and that Joseph Smith is a prophet. We then challenge him again for baptism and he accepted. This was a Thursday evening. He called his son and asked “Will you baptize me?” I can tell you that the son’s feet didn’t touch the ground for a solid week. His eyes just beamed as he baptized his father that Saturday. It was a beautiful sight for us. We had a little testimony meeting at the baptism and a counselor in the bishopric bore his testimony and he said, “I want to tell Sister Bunker the reason for their being transferred to Glendale. This is the reason. This is worth all of your time here in Glendale. I have been this families hometeacher for a number of years. This is a great man and this is why the Lord sent you to Glendale. He needed the Bunkers.”
We have had many wonderful experiences but I want to take just a minute to tell you of a dear sisters testimony that really strengthened my testimony. She was a girl from Cuba and we have found in teaching the Cubans that they have special spirits. She told us that she, her mother, and her son had come to the United States. She was a beautician so she opened a beauty shop. Missionaries stopped in her shop and asked if they could come and tell her about the gospel of Jesus Christ and she said that they were so polite and clean cut that she couldn’t tell them no. They came to her home that night and told her about the prophet Joseph Smith. They asked her if they could come back but she was not to impressed and said, “Oh I guess not.” Missionaries hear that quite often. She didn’t want to take their time. The missionaries asked her if she would pray and ask her Father in Heaven before she went to bed if what they were teaching her was true. She promised them she would and she did. She said that during the early morning hours she had a dream. She dreamed that missionaries came to her home and as she let them in they opened a small umbrella and put it on the coffee table and put book behind it. Then she said they each went to the dining room and picked up a chair and placed them in front of the coffee table and sat down to teach her. She said one of them opened the Bible and handed her a scripture that was underlined with red ink and she said I had not seen that before. She then looked up and said, “I saw my Heavenly Father standing in the air above us and he said to me, “You listen to these young Elders. They are my boys.” At that moment she woke up and thought abut the dream. She decided that she must call the Elders and tell them to come back. She said when they came, “I had a dream about you last night,” and they said, “Oh is that right?” And then she said they put their umbrella on the coffee table and then each went into the dining room and got a chair and they sat in front of the coffee table. One of the missionaries turned in the Bible to the scripture underlined in red which she had seen in her dream. She said, “That is enough.” I know that you are teaching me the truth. They set a date for her baptism and continued teaching her. As they were teaching the commandment lesson and told her about the law of tithing, she said “I can’t pay tithing. There isn’t anyway that I can make my money stretch to take care of my family and pay tithing.” She said to us, “Isn’t that terrible because the Lord helped me to know that the church was true.” She said the Lord knew I was hard headed and he would have to hit me hard for me to believe. I knew it was true but I couldn’t pay my tithing. She said, “I felt bad about it and then I started to have a head ache and for three days the head ache would not stop.” It ached and ached and then she knelt down before going to bed and prayed for relief. During the night again she had a dream. She dreamed that she and her mother were walking down a long hall and at the end of the hall was an open door. As they got closer to the door, they could see there were people inside. The room was dark and the people were trying desperately to get out. She thought to herself. “I am not going in there. I just can’t!” Yet it seemed that there is where she was going. Then she heard a voice that said, “This is where you will go if you do not pay your tithing and get baptized,” She turned around and walked back. The dream was so real. Again she called the missionaries. She kept her baptismal appointment and now is her broken English she says, “I know that the gospel is true and I know that the law of tithing is of the Lord. I have never from that day missed paying my timing and I have never wanted.
I would like to bear my testimony to you today. It has grown and it is strengthened and I know with out any doubt in my mind that the church is true. I know that Joseph Smith was and is a prophet of God. And I am so thankful for a living prophet today. I haven’t realized how blessed we are. I am so thankful that we have a prophet and that he receives revelation from the Lord to help us to find happiness in the true way of life. I bear this testimony and give witness of these things in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
As I have copied this from the tape, I have enjoyed her remarks as I was able to live through these wonderful experiences. Mother was a good missionary and I am sure our family well appreciate her message as related here.
Source:Brent Bunker