None of my sons had served in South America. Kenneth had gone stateside, like Samuel, but in New Jersey. Adam had gone to the US Virgin Islands, which he had loved because he could wear short sleeves all the time and all the baptisms were in the warm ocean, not to mention P-Day excursions to beautiful sightseeing spots. Zachary had gone to Germany, but had mostly worked with American servicemen or refugees from other countries, because native Germans weren’t often receptive to religious messages, particularly American ones.
“I’m not going to sit in judgment about him. If he baptized a lot of people, that doesn’t automatically mean he was scamming them,” Kurt said defensively.
“You think he was so successful just because he was filled with the Spirit?” I asked, skeptical.
“It could be.” Kurt had reached the point where he was only going to dig in further, so I gave up on this point. “And he married one of the women he baptized, after he was finished with his mission and had a chance to go back and date her properly.”
I’d heard about missionaries marrying other missionaries, as well as members or investigators from their missionary years. These stories were usually told with a kind of winking amusement. Young men between the ages of eighteen and twenty were notoriously unable to avoid making romantic attachments of one kind or another. But when they involved vulnerable women in foreign countries, I was skeptical. But I tried to refrain from judgment, supposing this was one of the reasons Greg Hope had been called to be bishop of this ward.
I sighed. “Well, what am I supposed to tell Gwen? Or Gabriela, for that matter, about the threat to call the police about the theft?” I asked.
“Just tell them that it’s all going to be fine. No one needs to panic about this. It’s taken care of.” Kurt had a great calming voice, but it wasn’t working on me now.
“Are you sure Bishop Hope isn’t going to call the police?” The kind of man who would baptize a thousand people in two years seemed to me all about rules and numbers.
“I don’t see any reason why he would do that to a member of his ward about such a minor problem,” Kurt said.
I thought about all the times Kurt had dealt with problematic ward members on his own without ever calling the police. He was probably right, that Gabriela was just exaggerating her fear here. It made sense, considering how stressed she must be with three little kids and her husband gone. But I felt a niggling sense of unease, since I didn’t know if Hope was the kind of bishop Kurt was.
“Gwen’s not going to want to go back to her without anything concrete,” I reminded Kurt.
“Linda, try not to get Gwen too upset over this. I don’t want this to become an issue between her and Brad.”
Another issue between her and Brad, he must mean.
After Kurt left for work, I checked on my membership in MWEG, which had been approved. Then I posted to the Facebook page, asking a few questions about someone being deported for embezzlement from the church. The responses were all messages of confusion, since that wasn’t supposed to be how monetary assistance from the Mormon church worked. Nonetheless, I was given some names and phone numbers I could call to ask for immediate help if something went badly and Gabriela did end up arrested. I took some comfort in that.
Then I packed my car with the food staples for Gabriela and drove over to Gwen’s to tell her what Kurt had said. She met me at the door and her face was swollen and red, like she’d had a rough night.
“Are you serious?” she said, her voice ice-cold. “That’s it? She’s supposed to trust the bishop will do the right thing?”
Gwen knew the man better than I did, and she clearly didn’t trust him. Did I think she was being paranoid, or did I take her word for his character?
“Whatever he gave to her, it’s a trivial amount of money when compared to the whole ward budget, surely,” I said, trying not to land in the middle somewhere.
“That’s not how Bishop Hope sees it,” Gwen said. “You haven’t heard the promises he makes at church on Sunday to these families about the American Dream and the covenants God has made with the Lamanite people. All about if they have problems with finances, it’s because they’re not paying tithing.”
I felt nauseated at the idea of people who had nothing in their refrigerators being asked to pay tithing. Blessings were one thing. Magic was another.
I told Gwen about the names and numbers MWEG had given me. “We can give them to Gabriela to call in a last resort situation,” I suggested.
“And she’s supposed to trust a group of Mormon women to help her when her Mormon bishop may be the one to turn her into ICE in the first place?” Gwen demanded.
I didn’t think that was what it sounded like Greg Hope would do, but I could see her point. To anyone used to seeing Mormon women as those who were most likely to fall in line and obey orders from men in authority, it would be hard to see them as anything else. Was it possible for women to be both politically outspoken and faithful? It had been in the past in Mormonism, but I wasn’t sure anymore. Were the founders of MWEG likely to end up in the same situation as Ordain Women, who had all been excommunicated or disfellowshipped? I hoped not.
“I can’t bear to go over there in person with this news.” Gwen stared at her cell phone.
“Do you want me to call her instead?” I asked, worried about the food I had in the car. Was now the wrong time to offer it? But how could I, in good conscience, just leave it there, knowing how hungry those kids were?
“No. That would just make it worse for her. I have to do it myself.” Gwen let out a breath and then pushed the number on the phone.
Gwen fake-smiled as if Gabriela could see her and then seemed to be trying to inject positivity into her voice. It didn’t last long. I could hear the rush of Spanish on the other end of the line and then Gwen’s face fell. She turned away from me and said a few words. More Spanish words on the other line in quick procession, and then Gwen was clearly on the defensive, saying “Lo siento” more than once.
In the end, Gabriela must have hung up on her, because Gwen called out her name a couple of times, glanced down at her phone, and put it away.
“What did she say?” I asked quietly.
“She said that she hopes we’ll think about her children when she’s in jail,” Gwen said sadly. It sounded like she’d been hit in the stomach and could hardly breathe.
“I’m sorry,” I said. Just because Gabriela wouldn’t talk to the names on the MWEG list, that didn’t mean I couldn’t do it for her, though, did it?
“She also said she never wanted to speak to me again,” Gwen said. “That was before she called me some pretty bad names—I didn’t even recognize half of them. She said that the Spanish ward was clearly just an attempt to breed complacent workers who don’t complain, who are so afraid they’d never demand more.”
I wanted to ask about that, but now didn’t seem like a good time. “Once she’s past this, she’ll realize it wasn’t fair to blame you.” If she did get past this. If she and her children were safe. Would they ever be?
But Gwen’s expression was desolate. “Linda, Gabriela doesn’t get angry easily, and she doesn’t make promises she doesn’t keep. She was my best friend in the Spanish ward, and I can’t undo the damage I just did.” Her voice caught on a sob and she turned away.
“Gwen, I know you’re upset, but let’s think about this for a bit.” I didn’t want her to despair. “There has to be another solution. Everyone is trying to help here.”
“I’m tired of making excuses for Mormons,” Gwen said tautly, looking out the window instead of into my face “I’m tired of waiting for them to catch up to the real world. It’s like we’re drooling infants being led by old white men who want to keep us that way. No one thinks for themselves. No one questions authority. We’re told that our leaders speak with God, but if they do, why the hell doesn’t He change things before it’s obvious to
every single person on the planet that the church is making a terrible mistake?”
“I don’t know,” I said dully. I had my own complicated feelings about all of this, and wasn’t sure I could untangle them here.
There was a long pause.
“Do you really think He’s out there?” she asked in a ragged tone, looking at me at last.
“I do,” I said.
“Then why is everything such a mess?”
“I hate to say this, but I think it’s mostly our fault. We blame everything on God, like he’s the source of all evil. But we’re the ones who glorify war and elect movie stars.” I’d talked to her about politics before, and we were both pretty upset with the current state of the country.
“But church leaders are supposed to speak directly with God. You’d think He’d do better than this.”
“Maybe He’s doing the best He can with what He’s got,” I said.
She didn’t seem appeased by these answers, and I didn’t blame her. I also wished people would change faster than I saw them doing. But if others like Gwen left Mormonism, we would never do better.
I drove over to Gabriela’s myself, but lost the nerve to knock on the door and simply left the big brown paper bag of food on her doorstep. I didn’t need her to know who it was from. I just needed to know that she—and her children—could eat.
Chapter 7
On Thursday, I got Samuel’s regular weekly email and found out he had been moved to yet another area. That made three transfers in two weeks, which was a definite signal that something was wrong. After rereading his email, I did my best to contain my motherly frustration and wrote back a quick note about how much I loved him and admired his dedication to the work. I thought about calling Kurt to talk about the email, because I knew he’d received the same one, but I didn’t want to chance that I’d break down in tears. Then Kurt would play the “too emotional” card.
So instead I texted him:
There’s obviously something going wrong on Samuel’s mission. We need to contact President Cooper and find out what’s up. Do you want to call him or should I?
We’d never reached out to a mission president directly before, but none of our other sons had faced the kinds of problems Samuel had. At risk of seeming overprotective, I had to intervene.
An hour later, Kurt texted back:
Samuel isn’t a child. He needs to learn to manage problems on his own, not have Mommy and Daddy come swooping down to save him every time. If this is about him being gay, he needs to learn how to handle that, too. There will always be other members who are confused about how to react.
Fine. I’d given Kurt a choice, and it looked like I’d be the one calling President Cooper. It wasn’t my fault he’d dismissed my justifiable concerns.
I looked up the Boston Mission Office online and called the number listed for President Cooper’s office. I spoke to the secretary first and waited patiently for about two minutes to talk to the mission president himself.
“Hello? Sister Wallheim, is it? Elder Samuel Wallheim’s mother?” There was a precision in his pronunciation that made me wonder if he’d ever been onstage or on television.
“Yes,” I said.
“It’s nice to meet you by phone. I suspect you’re concerned about the number of times Samuel has been transferred lately?” He spoke so calmly that I steeled myself. I would not be dismissed with a few words.
“It just doesn’t seem normal,” I said. “Is there a problem of some kind that my husband and I should know about?” I hated bringing Kurt into this, but I knew it would go more smoothly if it sounded like he had condoned this call.
“No problem at all. Samuel is the ideal missionary. I feel very blessed that he was sent here to Boston. I’ve been personally inspired many times over by his giving heart and his sunny disposition, as has every missionary, member, and non-member who has met him,” said President Cooper.
I had to admit, it was difficult to remain angry when someone said such nice things about Samuel. The way to a man’s heart might be through his stomach, but the way to a mother’s heart was through compliments to her children. “Thank you,” I said.
“You and your husband deserve a big share of the credit for helping Samuel become the wonderful missionary he is today,” President Cooper went on smoothly.
“I don’t know if that’s true. You know that children come to us as they are, and we can only have so much influence on them. I’ve always known Samuel was special.” I hope it didn’t sound disloyal to my other sons to say that. I didn’t have a favorite, not really.
“God has been saving the best and brightest spirits, His elect children, to send in these dark days of trouble. Samuel was sent to you for a specific reason, and I believe he was sent here for a reason, too.” There was practically a singsong to his voice now as he recalled the hymn “We Thank Thee O God For A Prophet.”
I noticed that for all his talk, he still hadn’t said one word about Samuel being gay. That bothered me, the way he was talking around my worry without naming it. Samuel had been very open about his sexuality since coming out, so it couldn’t be that his mission president didn’t know.
“Samuel’s gay,” I said bluntly. “I doubt that’s a problem with the general population in Boston.” Massachusetts had been the first state in the union to legalize same-sex marriage, after all. I’d looked that up when I’d found out Samuel was going there, and I felt strongly that it was the right place for him to be. Mormons get their mission calls through a process that we believe is inspired by God, where each applicant is looked at carefully and chosen for a specific mission by the Holy Spirit. I had never believed that more strongly than with Samuel’s case.
“He has a special mission to fulfill here in Boston, and he’s just started on that,” President Cooper said, as if I’d mentioned his coming home.
“Yes, but I’m wondering if there’s a problem with his fellow missionaries, especially the ones from Utah. Not everyone is necessarily accepting of homosexuality here,” I said.
There was a long pause. Too long. I suspected that President Cooper resented my forcing him to talk about this openly. Well, too bad. I would make him uncomfortable if it meant finding out what was happening to my son.
“Have his companions complained because he’s gay? Are they accusing him of not being dedicated enough? Or is it something else?” I said, since he still hadn’t spoken.
President Cooper cleared his throat. “Ahem, Sister Wallheim. Please have faith that any adversity he’s experiencing right now is God’s gift of a refiner’s fire for Samuel.”
I knew that many people saw missions as more important for the character development of the missionaries than for the actual baptism numbers, but why should the character building come from conflict with his own companions?
“He may be facing some difficult situations, but he’s doing it with God’s grace. And we all have to try to be kind to those who struggle with understanding and love,” Cooper said.
I felt a slow burn of anger. He was doing it again, trying to step around the issue—he still hadn’t even acknowledged that Samuel was gay.
“Are you saying that his companions are homophobic?” I demanded pointedly. “Are they asking not to serve with Samuel?”
He cleared his throat again. “Sister Wallheim, I’m not going to pass judgment on any of these young men. They may not see the bigger picture, but they’ve also given up two years of their lives to serve God and His children, and we have to accept that for the gift of faith that it is.”
“No, I don’t,” I said explosively.
He sounded confused. “What is that, Sister Wallheim?”
“I don’t have to accept that they have good hearts or that they are showing faith just because they’ve committed to serving a mission. If they can’t love Samuel and see that he’s serving God right along with them,
then I don’t know what gospel they have faith in, but it certainly isn’t mine. And it isn’t Christ’s, either. Christ sat with the harlots and the publicans and the Samaritans and the Romans, and I daresay he would have sat with gay men and women, as well.” I’d become very articulate when it came to defending my son.
“Well,” said President Cooper, drawing out the word for so long it could have been a psalm. “I know that as a mother, you have a certain point of view.”
And he had a different point of view about who Christ was, what our role as Christians was?
My words were clipped now. “You can’t say that these other missionaries are justified in their prejudice against him. What if this were about something else—race, class, gender? If they complained about someone being black, would you simply shuffle that person around to avoid conflict?”
“These young men work very closely together. It’s best to keep them away from conflict as much as possible,” said President Cooper, which I interpreted as a yes—he might well do the same thing if the issue was race-based.
I let out a sigh. I wished I knew more about President Cooper. Where was he from? Was he a businessman or a teacher? Was he a convert or born into the church? What about his wife and children? Did he have any close associations with LGBT Mormons? While he had plenty of information about my son in his papers, it wasn’t a reciprocal arrangement. I could try to look him up online, but some people our age didn’t bother making profiles on the internet.
“Don’t lose hope, Sister Wallheim,” President Cooper said soothingly. “Samuel is changing minds every day. He has made an enormous impact on many of his companions. There are a few who are unwilling to change, but they’re in the minority.”
“Thank you for your time, President Cooper,” I said, and hung up.
I then did what I always did when I was angry and didn’t have anyone to yell at. I went to the kitchen.
I loved making Christmas candies, and it was never too early to start. I began a batch of toffee, divinity, and caramels simultaneously. The divinity only required sugar syrup and beaten egg whites, which meant it went the fastest. The caramels needed little attention but an occasional stir, and they cooked slow and long. I buttered the toffee pot, then got the butter and corn syrup boiling. That should be ready to go right as the divinity was finished.
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