Dear Creed,
From some of the comments you make in your letters, I sense that there are times when you get frustrated with what some of the idiosyncrasies of the local people. This is very common when you are in a foreign country. I have experienced it many times.
Often their actions might not make sense to you or might even seem foolish. But you must remember that the people are a product of the environment and the circumstances of their lives. Often things that seem ridiculous to us would make perfect sense if we had the same experiences.
In the years I spent in Russia, many things people did made no sense to the Americans who visited. But given the context of the mixed up situation in which they existed, their actions were reasonable. Let me give a couple of specific examples.
One of our American guests was struck by a car one day crossing a road in St. Petersburg. The accompanying photo shows the road where she was struck. She was crossing to get a closer look at the monument that was adjacent to our hotel. She was taken by ambulance to the best hospital in the city. Her leg was shattered and required surgery. I was right there through the entire process.
She was bleeding quite a bit when they wheeled her into the hospital. She was on a steel gurney that had no sheets or padding— just a slab of cold metal. The blood ran off the gurney and all over the floor from the entryway to the operating room.
The first thing that was apparent to me was that everything was dirty. The floors, walls, counters and everything else were coated with grime, just like every Russian building at the time.
The doctor and the nurses doing the surgery washed their hands with cold water. There was no soap. No one wore gloves and only the doctor had a surgical mask.
As I watched the surgery, I was shocked to see the nurses smoking. Even more shocking was that there was an American surgeon with our group. He was given permission to observe the procedure. As I watched, he also started smoking a cigarette.
Can you imagine a doctor smoking during a surgical procedure in the U.S.? Of course no doctor would do that. So after they got out of surgery, I asked him why he would do such a thing. His response was that his actions did not matter, because other people were already doing it.
While he was technically correct, that was a perfect example of why Russian society was in such a mess. Communism created a situation where one’s individual actions did not matter. No one derived any benefit from being outstanding. In fact, people who excelled tended to be ridiculed or even punished in a system that tried to make everyone the same.
Every doctor and nurse working in that hospital knew the importance of cleanliness and understood the dangers of infection. Yet it was not their job to clean and the people who were supposed to do the cleaning got paid little or nothing so they made very little effort to do it.
Three days after her surgery, the woman was released from the hospital to fly home. As I picked her up at the hospital, I noticed that her blood was still on the floor from when she came in. Once she got back to the U.S. she had three more surgeries and almost lost her leg to infection.
I was frustrated and angry–but at the system, not the medical personnel. It seems like it would be an easy problem to fix. You find the cleaning people and you tell them to do their jobs or else. But at the time, hospitals were run by the government which had no money and no power. People would go for months without getting a paycheck. So there was no incentive for them to do their jobs.
As a missionary in Iceland, I never had the opportunity to teach a family. I never taught a man and wife who were legally married. Married couples were taxed at a much higher rate. So legal marriage was an expensive proposition. As a result, very few couples ever got married. As you can imagine, that makes it very difficult for LDS missionaries and for the growth of the church. But for the people living under those conditions, it makes perfect sense.
One more example. You mentioned how the Dominicans use lots of fat in their cooking. In Russia I watched as our chefs took the fat that came off the meat when cooked and poured it back over the food on the individual plates. I asked why they did that and they told me it was because in addition to making the food taste better, the fat contains vitamins.
From our perspective, that seems stupid. But it is easy to understand why they might think that way. At the time, many Russians did not get a lot of food and they got none of the processed food that we eat. So their diets were fairly low in fat. Many of them needed all the calories they could get. While we know that fat does not contain vitamins, certain vitamins and nutrients can only be absorbed by our bodies when accompanied by fat. So it is easy to see how they could believe that the fat provided vitamins.
It took a lot of effort on our parts to convince them not to pour the fat back onto the food that they were serving to Americans.
So now I am finally getting to the point that I need to make. Heavenly Father loves all the people of the world—even stupid people or wicked people. As a missionary, you are his representative. That means you need to learn to love those people as well. If you are smarter or stronger or better looking that the people you meet, it’s probably because you were blessed with advantages they did not have.
Every day I am thankful that I was born in the United States. That alone made my life easier than 90% of the people in the world. Many of those are smarter than me. Many are more righteous and faithful than me. But because I was born here, I am able to live in a nice house, I have multiple cars, a boat, horses, dogs, and many other advantages.
I know some people who believe that many of the blessings we receive in this life are the result of our righteousness in the pre-existence. That seems a little arrogant to me. I’m not sure that the Lord worries much about temporal blessings.
As part of the plan of salvation, you teach that we came to earth to be tried and tested. That means we are all going to face challenges, no matter how righteous we were before we came to this earth. And if my challenges are easier than someone else’s, I will be held to a higher standard of behavior.
As the Savior taught, “unto whom much is given, much is required.”
The beauty of your role as a missionary is that by teaching people about the Gospel, you can introduce them to a better life. That doesn’t mean they will get a better house or a nice car. But they will find more happiness and joy.
As you learn to love and accept the Dominicans merely because they are also God’s children, you will find greater success and happiness in your labors as a missionary.
Love Dad
Utah Bloghive
