Chapter Six, My Mission: 1939-1942

My mission was one of the most important experiences of my life.  It gave me the spiritual strength to withstand the corrosive effects of military life.  It strengthened my testimony in the Church.  It brought me into contact with diverse ethnic and racial groups.  And it exposed me for the first time to many of the philosophical, political, religious, and social currents flowing through Europe and Latin America.  Contact with so many refugees from Nazism, Communism, and Fascism opened my eyes to the tragedies that were sweeping Europe.  Although I may not have been as good a missionary as I might have been, in terms of my intellectual and spiritual development, my mission was worth all the money and time invested in it.  It is interesting to note that my father served his mission in New York state during World War I, while I served mine in Argentina during World War II.

My missionary farewell was held in the Holladay Ward House (now destroyed) on the Sunday of September 17,1939.  The ward house was filled with neighbors and friends who had known me since I was twelve years old.  The speakers, James E. Moss and Bishop L. Joseph Wise, were local Mormon leaders who had influenced me adolescent development.  To my great surprise, my father walked into the meeting as it began with Governor Henry Blood, who spoke at my farewell.  I was so thrilled and startled at having the Governor of Utah come to speak that I could hardly speak myself.

I entered the old mission home on North State Street the next day for a week of instruction.  Along with my fellow missionaries, I went through the temple for my endowments and was set apart as a Seventy by President Antoine R. Ivins on September 27th.  We missionaries were given a comprehensive tour of the Temple. Apostles discussed the importance of missionary work.  Returned missionaries analyzed missionary techniques, and we were given thorough physicals.

On October 5, 1939, I entrained for New Orleans with Elders John Edwards, Lawrence Jantzen, Leland McCullough, and James Barton (called to Argentina); and Ross T. Christensen, James Foust (now Apostle Foust, a high school friend), and Keith S. Jones (going to Brazil).  All my belongings, including a small collection of books, were packed into a large steamer trunk.  Our trip to New Orleans lasted several days.  As I was seeing new country, I was quite interested in the ever-changing countryside.  We were met in New Orleans by several missionaries and Dixie Nichol, a BYU friend of my sister, Sarah.  She gave us a tour of New Orleans and introduced us to southern cooking.

We boarded our ship, the Delsud, a heavily loaded American freighter on October 10th.  On both sides of the ship, large American flags were painted and illuminated at night by searchlights.  We suddenly became aware that we were sailing through wartime seas in which prowled German submarines and allied warships.  The ship sailed close Cuba, Haiti, Martinique, and St. Lucia.  We were always under the vigilance of patrolling American destroyers and seaplanes.  All the way through the Caribbean Sea and along the  coast of Latin America, Ross Christensen and I spent many hours observing whales, flying fish, sea turtles, and seabirds.  

Life aboard ship soon shook down into a daily routine.  Awakening between six and seven, we dressed, ate breakfast, went for a promenade around the small deck, played shuffleboard and other deck games, interacted with the passengers (primarily Argentines and Brazilians), and read.  Lunch followed with naps, more exercise, and games.  I observed that social precedence governed the placing of deck chairs.  Ross Christensen and I defaulted from the games when porpoises frolicked around the ship, whales blew, or when schools of fish or seabirds were sighted.  It was a good life.  The food was excellent.  The sea was calm and I did not get seasick, the nemesis of some of my comrades.  We were on a floating small world of our own that demanded nothing from us and met all of our needs.  However, the occasional warship that approached suddenly to look us over or a plane that flew low over the ship reminded us of the grim reality of the outside world.  We arrived in Rio de Janiero on October 29, 1939.

The bay and city of Rio de Janiero were incredibly beautiful, the bay would probably house all the shipping in the world, with space to spare.  Several Brazilian missionaries met us and took us on a tour of the city.  We visited the beaches, went on the cable car to the top of Sugarloaf, saw the enormous statue of the Cristo de Corcovado, and drove through the residential and business districts.  I was enchanted with the city, the people, and the sound of Portuguese.  Our ship sailed at night and arrived at Santos the next day.

Before leaving the ship, I must relate one incidence of our ship life.  both the crew and the passengers were constantly playing practical jokes on each other.  Having suffered in silence for several weeks, two of us secured a large piece of Limburger cheese at lunch and secreted it in the ship's ventilating system.  Soon the smell of Limburger penetrated throughout the ship.  Members of the crew hunted through every part of the ship to find the source of the smell.  Upon discovering the cause, the captain threatened severe penalties upon the perpetrators.  Fortunately, we were never discovered. 

President Bowers of the Brazilian mission, met us at the docks in Santos, Brazil,  with the news that he had not been able to get Argentine visas for us.  We debarked and walked through the city, which smelled of coffee, to the cable car station and rode the cable car up over the coastal mountains to Sao Paulo.  The ride was impressive, and I enjoyed every mile of the way, observing the small villages, the farms, and the patches of jungle.  Upon arrival in Sao Paulo, we were deposited at the German Hotel Baden Baden.

The next morning we were moved by the mission president to a cheaper Brazilian pension on Avenida Angelica.  The proprietors, upon discovering that we were Mormons, evicted us.  So, we returned to the Hotel Baden Baden, where we stayed until we left for Argentina.  The food and accommodations were excellent but, alas, my money ran out and I was forced to borrow from other missionaries.  While we were in Sao Paulo, we roamed the city, helped the Brazilian missionaries with their mission work, and studied Spanish and the gospel.  Finally, our visas arrived on November 17th.  We traveled back to Santos and sailed for Buenos Aires on November 21st aboard the ship Del Valle with three other missionaries--Jack Haley, Dale Christensen, and Jack Anderson.

Shortly after we put out from Santos, a British warship appeared out of the night and flashed a searchlight on our ship.  We learned that British ships were hunting a German cruiser, the Graf Von Spee.  We later saw sailors from the German ship in Buenos Aires.  After pausing for several hours at Montevideo, we sailed up the La Plata River to dock at Buenos Aries on the morning of November 27th.  We were met by several missionaries, who ushered us through customs and took us on a bus to the mission home.  President Frederick Williams quite impressed me with his humor, kindness, and sensitivity.

I learned a great lesson.  President Williams asked me if I would like to work in the German language.  Possessed by an Indian mystique, I mentioned that I really wanted to work among the Indians in a country in which there were few Indians. Thus I missed an opportunity to learn German as well as Spanish.

Elder Lawrence Jantzen and I were assigned to the Liniers Branch, the largest branch in the mission.  Out of about 600 members in the church, 100 belonged to Liniers.  The branch possessed the only chapel in the mission, a small one.  All meeting halls in the mission were called locales (singular local).  My senior companion was Elder Max Willis.

At that time, the Church had not established procedures for learning foreign languages or for preaching the gospel.  Each missionary learned Spanish as best he could, and the missionaries organized their own proselytizing activities.  At the time, we had only the book of Mormon, selected excerpts from the Doctrine and Covenants, and twelve tracts and pamphlets in Spanish.  During the war we often ran short of tracts, books, and money.  Everything had to come from the United States.  The mission monthly, "El Mensajero", printed news from each branch in the mission, ran translated excerpts from conference reports, and printed an occasional poem or short essay from a member.

Realizing that I had to learn Spanish on my own, I arose at 4:00 am each morning and studied Spanish diligently until 6:30 am. I subscribed to La Prensa, a major Argentine newspaper, and the several Argentine scholarly journals.  I learned Spanish rapidly and acquired one of the largest vocabularies in the mission.  Unfortunately, I also acquired a rather thick accent.

Our daily schedule began at 6;00 am.  We studied the gospel in Spanish and made plans for the day.  At 7:00 am we cooked our breakfast over a primus stove, which limited us to a small number of dishes.  By 8:00 am we were tracting.  this was a rather difficult procedure.  Houses in working-class neighborhoods were set on small lots surrounded by high stone or brick walls surmounted with broken glass.  The wall provided privacy, security, and room for a small patio.  People coming to the gate clapped their hands vigorously.  A person would come to the house door and call out "Que deseaba?" or "What do you want?"  Then we would tell them that we were the Mormon missionaries from the United States.  The working-class Argentines were so intrigued by the appearance of two North Americans at their door that they usually invited us in.  On the other hand, middle-class and upper-class houses were flush with the sidewalk, often with an interior patio.  Upon knocking, one was confronted with a maid.  As guardian of the privacy of the home, she was a formidable barrier.

Missionaries tracted until noon.  Then came a brief, missionary-prepared lunch.  After lunch one studied in Buenos Aires until around 2:30 pm and in Pergamino and Rio Cuarto until almost 4:00 pm.  The daily afternoon siesta was still a sacred institution in Argentina.  Businesses were open until 9:00 or 10:00pm  and one could visit until 11:00.  We converted far more recent immigrants and people in the lower middle-class that we did from other social classes.  Most missionaries coming from the American middle-class felt ill-at-ease in the homes of the very poor.  Few wealthy or prestigious people joined the church.  They had too much to lose socially and economically by doing so.

Every family visited in middle or in low income neighborhoods served maté with biscuits.  The maté ritual was an important rite of hospitality.  A small amount of the herb, the ground-up leaf of the maté shrub grown in northern Argentina, was placed in a small, silver-embossed, hard gourd.  The bombilla, a silver tube with a strainer at one end and a mouthpiece at the other, was then inserted.  The guest was asked whether he liked his maté with or without sugar.  In the interior of Argentina, it was considered more manly to take it without sugar; but in Buenos Aries, everyone used a little sugar.  Once the sugar was added, the gourd was filled with warm water and then given to the most prestigious guest.  He sipped the tube until a slurping noise alerted everyone that he had finished. The host then retrieved the gourd, filled it with warm water, added a little sugar, and passed it to the next guest.  Thus, the mate gourd went round and round the circle a dozen times or more.  Groups of close friends and neighbors came together several times a week in a mateada or maté session to discuss the news of the day.  By sipping the maté slowly, one could have the undivided attention of the audience for several minutes.  Upper-class Argentines seldom drank maté and middle-class Argentines in Buenos Aires were furtive about it.  In the interior of the country, everyone drank maté.

Most missionaries sent to Argentina experienced culture shock.  Differences in language, food, customs, and lowered living standards created serious emotional problems.  A few missionaries who could not adjust had to be transferred back to the United States.  Hostility towards North Americans was common in government circles, among college students, among some European immigrants, and among intellectuals.  Many missionaries found it hard to accept the fact that some Argentines looked down upon Americans as a materialistic people concerned about making money and lacking any real culture.  Most middle-and low-income Argentines were quite friendly and quite curious about North Americans and their ways.  I found it possible to disarm Argentine hostility by becoming knowledgeable about Argentine history, literature, music, and culture.  The ability to discuss Argentine poets, novelists, and historians helped me many times to make friends among the Argentine upper-class and among university students.  I must say that I feel that current restrictions about missionaries reading newspapers and literature of the countries they work in are unwise.

Argentina, was experiencing severe social, economic, and political strains exacerbated by the war.  The majority of the Arg4entine people desired an allied victory, but important elements in the ruling classes and the military were pro-Nazi.  The old Argentine aristocracy that ruled the country through a democratic facade was losing power to labor unions and to manufacturing interests.  I daily came in contact with workers bitter at their low salaries and harsh working conditions.  I was deeply impressed by the cosmopolitanism of Buenos Aires and the richness of its musical, artistic, and literacy cultures, but I also learned that the cosmopolitanism of Buenos Aires did not extend very far into the interior.  I felt that the country was entering a period of social strife, but then I did not realize the passion or the depth of social class divisions or the capacity for violence embedded in the Argentine psyche.

Hostility towards North Americans, including the missionaries, was present in government circles.  At the time, their greatest complaint was that the United States maintained tariff restrictions against the import of Argentine beef.  French, English, and German elements in Argentina propagated anti-American sentiments among the Argentines.  Considerable propaganda against the United States also emanated from rightist and leftist organizations.  However, few Argentines had ever known a North American and were quite curious about them.  A skillful missionary would utilize this curiosity to make friends and convert people to Mormonism. 

Missionaries in the towns of the interior and in low-income neighborhoods in Buenos Aires were followed by small troops of children, constantly begging the missionaries to speak English.  Some missionaries resented them.  I always carried a bag of candy with me to distribute to the children.  I found them an important source of information, protection, and good material for neighborhood primaries.  A missionary liked by children found it easy to meet their parents.

Buenos Aires was the first big city that I had ever lived in.  The city was European in planning.  Boulevards were wide and filled with strollers.  There were many theaters, a world-famous opera house, lavish stores, magnificent parks, upper-class neighborhoods filled with private palaces and lower-class neighborhoods scarred by terrible economic and social conditions.  It was a distinctive city with its own unique personality.  I was interested in the strong differences in culture, attitudes, and values between Buenos Aires and the interior of the country.  I loved to walk long distances through this cosmopolitan city inhabited by people from all over the world.  I especially appreciated its numerous bookstores and spent more money on books than I should have.

The city population was extremely heterogeneous.  During a morning's tracting we would encounter English, German, French, Russian, Lebanese, Greek, Italian, Spanish, Yugoslav, Dutch, and Balkan families.  The largest immigrant groups were the Italian, Spanish, and German.  The Italian influence on Argentine popular culture and language was immense.  But upper-class Argentine families modeled their behavior upon that of the English gentlemen, preferring English-type clothing and other material goods.  Buenos Aires was filled with tea houses and tea was a popular custom among upper-class and middle-class families.  The university students and intellectuals were Frenchified.  They longed to visit Paris, talked French among themselves, and were very knowledgeable about French literature, music, art, and culture.  Argentines were contemptuous towards other Latin American countries.  They knew very little about the culture, history, or characteristics of any other Latin American country, although they were very familiar with Europe.  The Argentine military, in contrast to most of the contrary, was deeply influenced by Fascist and Nazi ideologies.

My first senior companion in Argentina was Max Willis, president of the Liniers branch.  He was a very gentle, kind missionary from Arizona.  Much to my despair, he appointed me branch clerk.  I was never able to balance the books at the end of the month no matter how hard I tried.  My accounts were short by several pesos no matter what I did.  After many hours of work, I usually took a few pesos from my pocket and added them to the branch treasury.  

Athletics were extremely important in the Argentine mission.  A group of Mormon missionaries, known as Los Mormones, captured many basketball honors during the years that I was in Argentina.  They developed a devoted following throughout the country because of their clean style of playing and their sportsmanship.  Many young people became interested in the church through their interest in athletics.  Much to my surprise, I found myself an abashed member of the Liniers branch basketball team.  Everyone believed that all Mormon missionaries were excellent basketball players.  I could not let our reputation down and so worked hard to overcome my weaknesses.  No one had ever told me that the ability to play basketball was an essential element of missionary work in Argentina.

One of the most effective missionaries in Argentina was Domingo Quici, an elderly Italian member of the Liniers branch.  Employed as a janitor for the Liniers Chapel, he looked after the missionaries and did missionary work on his own. Almost illiterate and speaking a hard-to-understand, mixed Italian-Spanish dialect, this humble Italian worker, by the sheer force of his love and testimony, converted many Italian and Argentine families in working-class neighborhoods.

On February 8, 1940, I was transferred to a branch in La Plata, a coastal resort town near the city of Buenos Aires.  At the time, there were only seven members in the branch, all young people.  Four elders labored in the community--Elder Standing, my senior companion; Elder Brewer, whose companion Samuel Boren, was the first Argentine member, I believe, to be called on a mission.  I came to love him very much.  Elder Brewer left shortly after I arrived, being replaced by Elder Edmunds.  All of us belonged to the athletic club, Atenas, and played on its basketball team.

Two very effective missionary tools in La Plata and other communities were the primary and the mutual.  The primary attracted neighborhood children from the street. The children loved to color, learn English, play games, and study Mormonism.  Young people came to mutual, attracted by athletics, dances, dramas, and lessons.  There were very few opportunities for lower and middle-income Argentines to express or to develop their talents.

I was made a senior companion on September 21, 1940, with Elder Scoville as my junior companion.  He was shortly replaced by Elder Reed.  My camera was stolen several weeks later.  On December 21, 1940, I was transferred to the town of Pergamino in the interior of the Province of Buenos Aires to organize a new branch. I left La Plata with many regrets.  I did have the consolation of seeing many friends there join the church before I left Argentina.  As I caught a train at the Retiro station in Buenos Aires for Pergamino, I made my way through a large political demonstration.

I enjoyed the long train trip to Pergamino.  The rolling grasslands were marked by an occasional ombu (the tree of the pampa), sporadic herds of cattle, an occasional horseman, and numerous horneros or "oven" birds perched on telephone posts and fence lines.  The shabby pampa villages reminded me of the Southwest.  Pergamino was a small country town on the bank of a small stream surrounded by large ranches that restricted its growth.  The center of the town was a plaza with its bandstand. Around the plaza were the homes and businesses of the wealthier class.  Then a bit further our, came the middle-class district.  These two sections had paved streets, sidewalks, and a sewer and water system.  On the outskirts of the town were the adobe and small red brick homes of the poor--recent immigrants from Europe and of unskilled workers from the country. Here there were no sidewalks, no paved roads, and sewage trickled down the side of each street.  Many families had chickens, ducks, turkeys, goats, and an occasional horse.

A small branch of some twenty to thirty members of Italian and Argentine origin existed in the poorer section of town.  The core of the branch consisted of the Redes and Marinos, two Italian families--Brother Rodolfo Acosta, a tall, thin, dynamic young man with little education or income, who was an excellent speaker, a good missionary, and a fine organizer; and Sister Banuels and her family.  Rodolfo died from tuberculosis (a common disease among the poor in Argentina) a few years after his marriage to Maria the daughter of Sister Bañuls.  Almost every night the missionaries and members met at the home of the Rendes or Marino families to drink mate and to discuss the gospel.  The small cluster of recent converts to Mormonism huddled together for consolidation, friendship, and reinforcement of Mormon values.

Elder Barton, my companion, and I soon found a local near the center of town in a middle-class neighborhood.  We tracted from eight to ten hours a day for weeks on end.  Gradually we found interested people who began to attend our meetings.  By the time I left, we had formed a second branch with from thirty to forty people, many of whom joined the Church.

One major competitor was the Jehovah's Witnesses.  We constantly encountered them on our tracting beats.  They were disliked by the majority of the people for their persistence, their efforts to sell their books and pamphlets, and their refusal to accept "no" for an answer.  We had to emphasize constantly that we were not the Jehovah's Witnesses, or Testigos de Jehova, as they were called in Argentina.  They constantly tried to disrupt our meetings, standing up in the middle of meetings and demanding the right to speak.  I firmly resolved to put an end to their interference.  One Sunday after Sacrament had been passed, two of them stood up in my meeting and began speaking.  I told them to sit down and gave a very powerful condemnation of the Jehovah's Witnesses, their doctrines, and their behavior.  I felt the Spirit of the Lord burn through my soul and body.  I spoke Spanish as I had never spoken it before and felt a tremendous warmth, a lightness of spirit, and a great happiness.  We were never bothered by the Testigos de Jehova again.

I met a number of very interesting men who were important in my intellectual development during my mission.  One of them, Magnani, was an Italian refugee from Fascist Italy.  Magnani was born in Pennsylvania, the son of Italian immigrants who returned to Italy during his childhood.  As a college student he joined the Italian Socialist Party.  When the Fascists seized power in Italy, Mussolini¹ (a former Socialist) hunted down his former comrades.  Magnani fled to a seaport in search of a ship to the United States.  In fear of his life, he smuggled himself aboard the first ship that entered port, a freighter headed for Argentina.  Settling in Pergamino, he married and within a few years became editor of La Opinión, an excellent local newspaper.  My companion and I met with Magnani and members of his family to teach them English and to discuss Argentine and international events in return for free publicity in the newspaper.  He taught me much about Argentina and Europe.  Magnani returned to Italy after World War II.

Mullol was another important friend, the first spiritualist I had ever known.  He frequently came to our local to discuss religion, literature, and world affairs.  A Spaniard, he had fought in the ranks of the Anarchist troops in the Spanish Civil War.  At the end of the war, he escaped to Argentina.  Here he became an active anarchist organizer and soon was jailed.  When released, he apparently retreated from politics.  A printer in Spain, he ran a small button factory inn Pergamino.  I suspected that he might have been involved in clandestine anarchist activities.  The first anarchist to intrude into my life, he taught me much about Communism, Fascism, Spain, Anarchism, and Socialism.

The Barcia family were also Spanish immigrants.  They lived just across the street from our local.  Mr. Barcia worked extremely hard as a bill collector to support his large family.  His numerous children were named First, Second, Third, on down to Eight--Octava, a very intelligent and charming girl.  Then came Cora and Estrella and Alva.  Estrella almost joined the church but died shortly before from tuberculosis.  Theosophists in religion, the first I had ever met, the Barcia family turned their home into an academy of learning.  They studied a different language every day.  Possessing a very large library, they read, painted, sang, played musical instruments, and were conversant with the intellectual, social, and political philosophies of the world.  Octava joined the church and was the mainstay of the Pergamino branches when the missionaries were withdrawn during World War II.  Mr. Barcia and I became very close friends.  One evening he came over to see me.  Quite troubled in mind, he told me that his daughter, Octava, had fallen in love with me.  Fearing that I might respond, I called the mission president the next day, explained the situation to him, and requested an immediate transfer. On October 16, 1941, I was replaced by Elder Amundsen and after a farewell party, left for Rosario on the La Plata River to labor in the Sorrento branch.

I left Pergamino with many regrets.  I had worked with some very fine elders--Barton, Anderson, Palmer, Ellsworth, Harris, and Kerr.  Through tracting almost every street in the town during the year or so that I worked there, I developed many close friends that ranged from the very rich to the very poor.  Pergamino had become a home town to me.  At the time I felt that I could live there happily for the rest of my life.  When I came, there was but one small, struggling branch.  When I left, there were two flourishing branches. My companion and I were blessed exceedingly.  Many times when engaged in missionary work, I felt the power of the Holy Ghost.  Often when tracting, I was directed by the Spirit to visit a certain house in a certain neighborhood.  Once when obeying the suggestion of the Spirit, I was startled to have the father of a family say to us, "Why have you taken so long to find us?  We knew you were coming."  I have had my heart burn within me when preaching in church or at a cottage meeting or when presenting our message to a family.  At such times, my Spanish suddenly became very fluent, and words and thoughts tumbled from my mouth.  I came to Pergamino a callow, inexperienced missionary and left an experienced missionary at the height of my capabilities.

The climate of Rosario was extremely humid.  For the first time in my life, I came down with prolonged colds that would not go away.  I finally developed bronchitis.  The local sisters in the branch applied large mustard plasters and very hot, small glasses to  my chest without avail.  I was finally forced to leave Rosaria and return to Buenos Aires.  A doctor in the British hospital told me that my diet was deficient in calcium and vitamin A.  Recovering my health, I was transferred to Rio Cuarto in the semi-arid province of Cordoba to open up missionary work in that region.

Elder Jack Huish and I secured room and board in a local pension and again spent weeks tracting.  We gradually made many friends and succeeded in forming a congregation.  One of our most important contacts was with the Vogler family, most of whom later joined the church.  Brother Vogler was of mixed German and French-Swiss descent.  His wife was native Argentine.  They adopted the missionaries and helped us to meet new people.  Through them we were introduced into a French-Swiss farm colony in Cabrera, a farming community near Rio Cuarto.

Traveling to Cabrera, we met the grandmother of Mr. Vogler.  An elderly lady, she had joined the church as a young girl from Switzerland.  Her family later migrated to Argentina to take up land in Cabrera.  She had kept the faith through the years even though she had no contact with the church.  She welcomed us with tears and open arms.  She did all she could to interest her relatives in the church and assisted us in holding weekly meetings in the farm colony.

Rio Cuarto, a country town, was located where the Pampa intersected with the Patagonia, the dry , windy, cold southern part of Argentina.  The region was sparsely settled and still possessed many frontier characteristics.  We were isolated from other missionaries for hundreds of miles and completely on our own.  My American clothes wore out.  To conserve them, I wore the local clothing--accordion-pleated gaucho pants, gaucho boots, open shirt, and a gaucho jacket.  Using Rio Cuarto as a base, my companion and I traveled through the European farming colonies and the local Argentine ranching communities in southern Cordoba Province.  We traveled by car, horse and buggy, wagon, and oxcart.  By the time my mission ended, I had become thoroughly acculturated into the Argentine culture of the region.

One fascinating Argentine custom was the evening paseo.  Paseos took place in the major plazas of all Argentine country towns and often in neighborhoods in the larger cities.  Every evening bands played in the plaza bandstands or records were played over loud speakers.  Young women in threes and fours slowly walked along the interior of the plaza sidewalk and young men around the outside.  Each sex was intently interested in the other.  If a young man came to like a particular girl, he might whisper compliments into her ears as they passed on the plaza.  If she reciprocated by smiling at him, he then might follow her home at a discrete distance.  After some months of attention, he might be allowed to talk to her through the bars of her window.  Then, carried away by enthusiasm, the young man might come to serenade the girl with his friends or even with hired musicians.  Eventually, he was allowed to talk to the girl in the doorway of her home.  By this time the entire neighborhood knew about the affair.  After the parents and brothers had thoroughly investigated the boy, he would be invited formally to enter the home.  This, in essence, announced an engagement.  Then the couple could be seen walking hand-in-hand around the plaza.  It was not until marriage that many couples ever met unchaperoned.  Paseo as a courting mechanism has much to recommend it.  Missionaries sat in the plaza talking to friends who would introduce them to their friends.

I had many interesting experiences in Rio Cuarto and its environs.  One night I was seated around a campfire on a ranch talking Mormonism with a group of ranch hands when the dogs began to bark.  As we looked up, a large man rode up to the fire on horseback, leading a string of horses.  He had a large guitar slung across his back.  He asked for and received a traditional maté.  An elderly, dark-skinned man dressed in traditional gaucho clothing, he was given supper and then joined the maté. circle.  One of the men formally asked him to honor us with his music.  He sang and played far into the night.  I sat quietly, enthralled by the night breezes, the smells of the pampa, the guitar playing, and the singing.  He sang the old folk music of the pampa--what the Mexicans call corridos.  He sang of the revolution against Spain, of the fights of the caudillos or gaucho chieftains, the wars against the Indians, and of the injustices and sorrows of gaucho life.  I realized that I was listening to a payador, one of the last free minstrels of the pampa.  The man told me that he had never slept inside a house since he was a baby.  He traveled through the pampa singing and playing for food and shelter, inventing and composing new music and poetry as he went.  I could not help but murmur to myself the verses of Martin Fierro written by Jose Hernandez, the poet of the gaucho--poetry that I had memorized.

Another good friend of mine was the chief of police.  A plump, tough Guarani Indian from northern Argentina, he loved to play the piano, sing Guarani music, and talk English with the missionaries.  He maintained law and order with a ruthless hand over a large, somewhat unruly region.  I came to know some of his subordinate officers and enlisted personnel who told me many stories of police activities.   All during my missionary work, I made it a point to meet and to make friends with local police officers.

It was at Rio Cuarto that I became friends with several army officers and sergeants of the local army garrison.  They listened to my preaching and in return I listened to their hopes and fears.  They believed that Argentina needed a strong hand and they disliked the traditional Argentine upper-class, especially the Buenos Aires establishment.  They were tough, well-trained soldiers.  I spent many an evening in my pension talking with them.  The army was not well-liked by the Argentine people in general.

On April 9, 1942, I was called down to a mission conference in Buenos Aires.  I arrived in the city in the middle of the night without money.  As it was raining, my companion and I sat in an all-night cafe until well after dawn, waiting for the rain to stop.  The cafe was empty except for a waiter and several musicians playing tangos.  The waiter asked me if I wanted to order.  I replied that I was broke and came into the cafe seeking shelter from the weather.  An immigrant from Italy, he sat down at our table and discussed life in Argentina and Italy with us.  After several hours had passed, he suddenly said, "You must be hungry," and brought us heaping plates of food.  He refused to accept anything in return.  I learned from my mission that there is far more charity and compassion among the poor and working class people than among any other group in society.

At the conference, we were told that the church was calling home missionaries on the verge of finishing their missions.  I did not want to go.  So, I returned to Rio Cuarto and disappeared into the rural areas, preaching without purse or script.  On April 23, President Williams, the mission president suddenly appeared in Rio Cuarto and I left the community forlorn and unhappy.  Arriving in Buenos Aires, I visited friends, bought a few more books, and with Elders Anderson, Jantzen, Sorrenson, Edwards and McCullough, boarded a plane for the United States, my first plane flight.

T

he plane flew through the passes of the Andes, permitting us to see the famous statue of the Christ of the Andes.  We spent the night in Santiago del Chile and flew the next morning to Arequipa, Peru, and from there to Guayaquil, Ecuador.  We arrived several hours after an earthquake had destroyed a good part of the city.  It was my first sight of urban ruins.  From there we flew to Panama city.  Elders Brown, Madsen, and Farnsworth met us at the airport and put us up in government housing in the Canal Zone.  They had left Argentina before we did and, arriving in Panama, had found jobs with Pan American.  They mentioned to us that as we were not registered for the draft, Pan American would hire us at fabulous  salaries.  In a spirit of indecision, we called the church office in Salt Lake City, Utah, and were told to fly on to Salt Lake City.  Elders Anderson, McCullough, and I followed the advice, while the others remained in Panama City and found employment with Pan American, escaping the war.  Through their influence, the church was able to expand its missionary activity in Latin America after World War II.

On May 18, 1942, we arrived in Mexico City.  Elder McCullough's parents met us at the airport.  Coming down to Mexico City to reclaim their son, they gave us a wonderful two-day tour of the city.