Sunday, June 23, 1991
It is early in the morning here in Lisbon, Portugal. A cool, clear day, the third day of summer. From my room in the mission home I can look out over the beautiful Rio Tejo (Tagus River) as it empties finally into the Atlantic Ocean. I hear early morning sounds of the day: a rooster crowing, birds chirping in the trees, an occasional dog barking, an owl hooting, the distant noise of traffic.
A jet just passed overhead on its approach to Lisbon's international airport, perhaps one similar to the one that brought us here yesterday afternoon some twenty hours after we left Salt Lake City. Appropriately, I guess, Rachael and I left home on the first day of summer, the longest day of the year. And it was a long day. A very long day. Had there been one more flight to catch, or one more airport to endure, I'm not sure I could have convinced Rachael to continue on.
From Salt Lake the two of us had flown to Chicago, where we boarded a second flight that took us way north over some of the Great Lakes, parts of Quebec, the Hudson Bay, out over the northern Atlantic, the southern tip of Greenland, past Iceland, and back down to the British Isles, where we landed at London’s Gatwick airport. On this eight-hour flight the sun, which was always to our left, never did set, even though we left Chicago at 4:30 in the afternoon and arrived in London at 7:30 in the morning.
From Gatwick we took an hour's bus ride through beautiful English countryside to Heathrow airport, where we caught our final flight to Lisbon. It was the first time either of us had set foot on British soil, the place of our early roots, and I could sense why my ancestors on both my father's and mother's sides had loved this fair land, this jeweled scepter, but had left it all behind in the century before this one to gather to Zion, a desert wilderness half a world away.
I reminded Rachael, who was beginning to find air travel a little tedious, that Charles and Eliza Batt (my great-grandparents) had taken something like nine days to cross the Atlantic and another week beyond that to reach Utah.
And here we are now in Portugal. I pinch myself to make sure it is not merely a dream. For twenty years, ever since I returned from my mission in Brazil, I have longed to visit Portugal. And now I am here, a dream come true.
Let me quote from the letter to Claudia I started Friday evening on the plane from Chicago to London (and may not get around to sending):
My dearest, far-away Sir:
The pilot just announced we were over Hudson Bay in Canada (5:40 p.m. Utah time). As we were leaving Chicago about an hour and a half ago, he said we would be flying over some of the Great Lakes, fairly far north into Quebec, then across the southern tip of Greenland, past Iceland, over Scotland, and finally to England. (Sounds like quite a bit out of the way to get to Lisbon from Utah.)
The flight from Chicago to London takes about 8 hours, although the pilot also announced that the winds would not be favoring us, so that we'd land at Gatwick around 7:20 a.m. London time instead of the 6:45 originally scheduled. That should still leave us plenty of time to transfer to Heathrow for our 10:25 a.m. flight to Lisbon.
This is the largest plane I've ever flown on. There are seven seats across: two next to the windows, an aisle, three in the center, another aisle, and two more by the other windows. We're on row 33, and it looks like there's about 10 more rows behind us.
Rachael has been next to the window on both planes we've been on thus far. She's a nice traveling companion (although you'd be better), but it's been fun being with her. She's already written two letters and a postcard. (I think she's doing an epistle to Mrs. Bean right now.)
As we overhear other passengers speak, it's obvious there are a few British citizens returning home.
It’s now 6:00 p.m. Utah time, and we assume Anna is home from Camp Piuta in one piece. We waved to her as we flew by that part of Utah. As we lifted off from the Salt Lake airport, we could see our minivan still parked a couple spaces away from Shuttle Stop 13. As mentioned in my former communication to you (a postcard mailed from Chicago's O'Hare airport), we had a bumpy but otherwise uneventful flight to Chicago: reading, eating, napping, watching the ground (or clouds, as the case may be) go by below us. That's mostly what you do on long flights.
It occurred to us that if we fly far enough north tonight it may never get dark on this longest day of the year. I'm not sure how far east we've come since leaving Chicago, but we must be in a time zone where it's at least after 8:00 or 9:00 in the evening, and it doesn't look too dark outside yet (in fact, not at all dark).
Dinner is slowly making its way down the aisle. so we'll be bringing this to a close here soon. The menu, which they brought by earlier, lists salmon roll and shrimp salad, filet mignon with mushroom sauce or Oriental chicken, served with selected vegetables, and cream caramel.
There's also a breakfast menu of what they'll serve before we land in merry old England.
Wish you were here. Really.
Today has been a delightful Sabbath day. We attended a small ward in Amora, where President Holt and I were the speakers in sacrament meeting. We had been asked by the bishop, a member of the Church only two years, to speak about temples. I spoke first about baptism, quoting the Savior (from John 3:1–5) and the Prophet Nephi (from 2 Nephi 31:4–12 and 16–18), emphasizing the need for baptism and other ordinances for all who would enter the kingdom of God and thus the glorious work in the temples for those who had not had an opportunity to hear the gospel while living. President Holt emphasized worthiness to go to the temple and reviewed the questions asked in the temple recommend interview. Between my talk and his, the Primary children sang "I Hope They Call Me on a Mission" and then presented us with bouquets of cut flowers.
After our return to the mission home, while lunch was being prepared, I called home to speak to Claudia. (Here in Lisbon it was around 2:00 in the afternoon; there in Bountiful it was around 7:00 in the morning.) Talmage was off to stake priesthood meeting alone—with Michael in Las Vegas working and me here in Lisbon visiting. All the other children who hadn't yet had the flu (as Claudia did last Thursday and I did Wednesday and Rachael and Mary sometime during the week before that) were all sick Friday and Saturday. Poor Camilla. Not only did she have the flu, she also had pneumonia all week and on Saturday a terribly itchy rash (the doctor said probably a reaction to the medicine she was taking for the pneumonia). Aside from all that cheery news, it was good to talk to her about our trip over and how wonderful it was to be here and how much I miss and love her.
This afternoon, after eating lunch, I went with President Holt to the mission office, which is not far away in Alges. He met with his office staff to tell them he'd be leaving the mission in mid-July when Fernando José Duarte de Araújo and his family arrive from Brazil to replace him. (Yesterday, after our arrival, I handed President Holt the letter signed by the First Presidency last week that officially released him from his mission, effective on or near July 1, as mutually determined by him and his successor, and announced who that successor would be.) He then met with his assistants to plan sisters' transfers to accommodate the six new lady missionaries arriving Tuesday morning.
After we returned to the mission home, Rachael and I walked up the hill above the mission home to visit an ancient little chapel, now mostly closed except for weddings and other special occasions, where centuries ago priests prayed for the great Portuguese explorers who sailed off into unknown parts of the world to make their discoveries. The chapel is in a park that overlooks the mouth of the Tejo as it empties into the sea.
An elder had come to visit President Holt, and while he did so I sat in the living room and had a nice chat with his companion. The two of us then joined President Holt in giving a health blessing to the first missionary.
In the evening the President and I drove down near the river, just below the mission home, to visit a monastery. We looked around some and attended a few moments of mass.
Monday, June 24
Today we were tourists. Doug and Martha took Rachael and me to various interesting places not too far away from the Lisbon area in what I would guess to be west and north from the metropolitan area.
First, we went to the spot, a rocky outcropping on the south side of the mountains near Sintra, where Elder Thomas S. Monson, then a member of the Quorum of the Twelve, on April 22, 1975, dedicated Portugal for the preaching of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. President Holt shared with me a copy of the text of the dedicatory prayer:
O God, our Eternal and Heavenly Father, we meet before Thee on this lovely day with the freshness of spring in the air and a feeling of peace within our hearts, and we express our gratitude unto Thee for the privilege to come before Thee in holy prayer. We are grateful for the blessings which we have received from Thy hand. We are appreciative of the manner in which Thou hast blessed Thy work upon the earth, and acknowledge before Thee Thy hand in our lives. We are grateful for a prophet of God, even Spencer W. Kimball, who has been able to influence all of us with a new desire to promulgate Thy word throughout the earth. He has called to the attention of the world the message which Thy Son Jesus Christ gave unto His disciples when He said, "Go ye therefore and teach all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost." In response to this call and in accordance with this divine declaration, we have assembled here today, in the land of Portugal, that we might dedicate this land for the preaching of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Assembled here, Heavenly Father, are splendid missionaries who have come here from America and Brazil, and we remember when we look upon them the words of the Apostle Paul, "How beautiful upon the mountaintops are the feet of those who bear good tidings and publish peace." Bless these missionaries, Heavenly Father. Grant them power beyond their own, and as Thou dost bless them we ask Thee to bless every missionary who comes to this land, that each may recognize that he is standing in a land which has been dedicated for the preaching of the gospel, that he might labor with his might, and that each missionary may recognize that the worth of souls is precious in Thy sight.
We ask Thee to bless these members who have assembled here this morning. In a very real sense, each one is a pioneer in that he or she is one that has gone before, showing others the way to follow. Grant, Heavenly Father, that our membership may increase, that the blessings of the gospel may come into the lives of the Portuguese people. We recognize, Father, that from this land went navigators and seafaring men in days of yore and that the Portuguese people have an adventuresome spirit, as they trusted in Thee, as they looked for lands unknown. Grant that they may trust in Thee as they now search for those truths which will lead them to life eternal.
O Heavenly Father, bless the government of this land. Thou knowest the turmoil and the difficulty which have transpired. Wilt Thou touch the hearts of men in influential places and grant that they may make those decisions which would be favorable to the advancement of the cause of the gospel. And bless the people that they may take an active role in their government and that they may be lead of Thee in the decisions which they make, that all might be done for the furtherance of Thy work.
And bless those individuals who may be lead of Thee. We acknowledge that they have come as a result of Thy inspiration. We acknowledge Thy hand in their lives and in ours.
Now, Heavenly Father, there is burning within our hearts the words of Thy prophet, Joseph Smith, when he declared in a letter to Mr. John Wentworth the truth that the gospel will go forth, when he declared, "No unhallowed hand can stop the work from progressing. Armies may assemble, mobs may combine, and calumny may defame, but the truth of God will go forth boldly, nobly, and independent, until it has visited every country, swept every nation and sounded in every ear. That the Great Jehovah shall say the work is done."
O Heavenly Father, we seek Thy blessings now upon the advancement of Thy work. We ask Thee that Thy gospel may be taught with testimony and with power. That the missionaries might be like the sons of Mosiah, who had searched the scriptures diligently that they might know the words of eternal life. That they may give themselves to much prayer and fasting. That they may have the spirit of prophesy and of revelation and that when they teach they may teach with the power and authority of God. We acknowledge, Heavenly Father, that this is a beginning, and we invoke Thy divine blessings to advance the cause which we have undertaken in Portugal. Wilt Thou open the way. Wilt Thou prepare the people, that those persons who are here who have prepared themselves for the message of truth may receive it. O Heavenly Father, be patient with the people. Extend Thy loving hand unto them. Thou knowest how long they have been without the truth of the gospel. And wilt Thou now bestow upon them Thy divine blessings in great abundance that they may rejoice in spirit, that they may praise Thy holy name, that they may know that Thou hast intervened in their lives.
We are aware, Heavenly Father, that the Portuguese people in Brazil have accepted Thy gospel. The stakes of Zion are now established in great number in Brazil. And a temple dedicated to Thy holy name will be erected. O Father, these are the same people here. Wilt Thou look upon them with as kindly a spirit as Thou hast favored their descendants and relatives in Brazil. Heavenly Father, grant that all Thy wishes may be manifest in the lives of these people, and wilt Thou now hear our plea, for in the authority of the holy Apostleship which I bear, even the authority of the holy Melchizedek Priesthood, I hereby dedicate the land of Portugal for the preaching of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and invoke all Thy divine blessings upon all that pertain thereto and, likewise, invoke Thy blessings upon mission leaders, branch and local leadership, upon the missionaries themselves, and upon all who could help bring to pass Thy purpose. And this I do in the name of the Redeemer, the Savior of all mankind, Thine Only Begotten Son in the flesh, even Jesus Christ, the Lord. Amen.
From the place of dedication we drove to Cabo da Roca, the western most point of continental Europe, aqui onde a terra acaba e o mar começa ("here where the earth ends and the sea begins," a line from the Portuguese poet, Camões).
Then we visited the Convento de Santa Cruz dos Capuchos, a Capuchin monastery in the Sintra Mountains built in 1560 and in use until 1834, when the monks suddenly left. Cork was used so extensively throughout its construction that it is also called the cork monastery. Most of the rooms were built of rock, some carved right out of the giant boulders we saw elsewhere in this mountain forest, and I suspect the cork had excellent insulation properties as well as acoustical value. The monastery was in a beautiful, quiet setting, and there were very few other visitors while we were there.
Our next stop was at the Castelo dos Mouros (Moorish Castle), high on the mountaintop overlooking the town of Sintra. The castle was started in 711 and was primarily built in the 8th and 9th centuries. At 1350 feet above sea level, the fortress offers a commanding view of Sintra, the Atlantic coast, and the area off toward Lisbon, which is some 15 to 20 miles distant. (From atop the castle, you can see the towers of the 25th of April Bridge in Lisbon.)
While at the castle, Martha and Rachael had gone on ahead of us to climb the 500 or so steps to the highest tower, and President Holt and I decided to wait for them. We got talking to a visitor from Colorado, and we remarked to him that Doug from Arizona and I from Utah were almost like neighbors. The follow from Colorado then mentioned he had just seen two young men—one from Utah and one from Idaho—and said they were missionaries here for their Church.
President Holt replied that he was their boss. So we waited for the two elders to get to where we were waiting for the girls, and the president was glad to see them dressed in proper missionary attire and from the zone that had permission to visit this particular spot without prior special approval from him. He has mentioned on several occasions since I've been here that the missionaries are faithful and obedient, a tribute to Doug's loving leadership, and that the mission is in good shape, much better than it was a year ago, to turn over to a new mission president.
Finally we drove down into Sintra itself, where we ate lunch and toured the Palácio Nacional de Sintra (the National Palace of Sintra), which was a royal palace until 1910 when Portugal rid itself of kings. Perhaps the most distinctive thing about the palace are two large cone-shaped chimneys that tower over the Sintra skyline. Also, according to one of our guidebooks, "the glazed earthenware tiles, or azulejos, lining many of the chambers are among the best you'll find in Portugal." I decided a nice azulejo would be an appropriate souvenir to find and take home to Claudia.
Visitors are taken through the national palace in groups with a guide explaining features of the various rooms. Our guide, interestingly, spoke in the first room in Portuguese, then again in somewhat-difficult-to-understand English. (I remarked to Rachael that I hoped my Portuguese was not so difficult to understand as was his English. It may well be.) It was apparent there were visitors from many different lands, as I overheard English and Portuguese and German and French and perhaps Spanish all being spoken among members of our group, so for the rest of the tour he spoke only in his halting English. The husband of one young couple was translating back into Portuguese for the benefit of his wife.
We had planned some further visits—such as to the national palaces at Pena and Mafra—but the weary pilgrims decided we'd seen enough for one day and headed back to the mission home. After we had eaten dinner, President Holt and I this evening went to the mission home for a while.
Tuesday, June 25
This morning President Holt and I drove out to the international airport to welcome six lady missionaries arriving from the United States. In addition to the six for the South mission, there were also six sisters and an elder for the North mission being met by two of the office elders from that mission.
After returning to the mission home, I spent the rest of the day with Elder and Sister Holladay, a missionary couple from the Holts’ ward in Tucson, visiting downtown Lisbon.
We went first to the Alfama, the old quarter of the city, where the ancient houses and shops are tucked tightly along narrow, winding, steep cobblestone streets, interrupted periodically by small praças or largos with Catholic churches in front of them. This section of the city dates from the Visigoth era, and some of the buildings were spared from Lisbon’s great earthquake of 1755, which leveled much of the city and killed perhaps 60,000 people.
We visited the Sé or Cathedral, a huge old church that from outside looks as severe as a medieval fortress, and except for its antiquity and size and some beautiful stained-glass windows was not particularly interesting architecturally. It was rebuilt in the 1100s, shortly after Alfonso Henriques, Portugal’s first king, captured the Lisbon area from the Moors, and is thus the oldest church in Lisbon.
We then hiked our way up the maze of streets to the hilltop Castelo São Jorge (the Castle of St. George). I especially enjoyed our visit here. First of all, the place was filled with olive, pine, and cork trees that offered refreshing shade from the midday summer sun. Second, from atop its walls and towers the castle afforded an excellent panoramic view of the entire Lisbon area in all directions. The original fortress on this spot predated the Romans. From the 5th century it was in the hands of the Visigoths, and then in Moorish hands from the early 8th century until Alfonso Henrique’s conquest in 1147. Most of the walls that still remain were built during the centuries of Moorish domination. The name, borrowed from the English, dates from a pact between England and Portugal dating from as early as 1371. (Portugal and England have been traditional allies for many centuries.)
We found a little corner restaurant in the Alfama, where we ate a lunch of cod and potatoes smothered in garlic and hard bread, with plenty of water to drink for the three thirsty hikers.
Next we walked some streets in the central district of Lisbon, heading off from the Praça do Comercio. We looked in many shops and even bought a few things (including an azulejo, a glazed blue tile that I got for Claudia, and a CD of traditional Fado music sung by Amalia Rodrigues, and some postcards of sites we had visited). We rode up a several-story-high free-standing elevator, visited a roofless cathedral destroyed in the earthquake of 1755 and never rebuilt, and just generally looked around. I was plenty tired by the time we returned to the mission home.
This evening—after the welcome dinner of barbecued chicken that we ate with the Holts, the Holladays, and the six new sisters—Rachael and I joined Elder and Sister Holladay for a wild ride through the crazy Portuguese traffic out to Guincho, a windy point on the Atlantic within sight and just south of Cabo da Roca, where we watched the red sun sink into the sea and fizzle out.
The Holladays are a delightful couple to be with, and we enjoyed being with them—through the white-knuckled traffic and all. Elder Holladay served as President Holt’s counselor in the bishopric back in Tucson, but as far as we could piece together they were out of town the weekend two years ago in May when Claudia and I flew to Arizona to stay with the Holts and speak to the youth in their stake. The Holladays’ youngest of four children, their only son, now 20 years old, is serving a mission in Michigan as they serve here in Portugal.
Before returning to the mission home we stopped by the Torre de Belem (the Tower of Belem), bathed in white light in the now dark night, sitting in the water at the edge of the Tejo. Built between 1515 and 1520, the quadrangular tower is a monument to Portugal’s golden era, the age of discovery, and is the country’s classic landmark, often used on documents and in brochures as the visible symbol of the country, much like the Eiffel Tower for France or the Statue of Liberty for the United States.
The moon, which is nearly full tonight, reflected across the shimmering surface of the Tejo and was really quite pretty. This would be a romantic setting to be honeymooning again with Claudia.
Wednesday, June 26
President Holt had planned to announce his early release to his missionaries next Tuesday, the day I leave for home, but the new group of sisters that arrived yesterday had already met the new president at the Provo MTC, so he decided he had to do it sooner. This morning he called a meeting in Oeiras for all the missionaries on this side of the river, with a similar meeting this afternoon in Setúbal for all the missionaries on the south side of the river (except those down on the southern coast in the Algarve and those way out in the interior of the Alentejo).
Rachael and I did not accompany the Holts to either of the meetings. Instead, we went on our own to visit sites here in the Belem area and then back over to the Alfama, where I had gone yesterday with the Holladays.
Our first stop was the Torre de Belem, which we saw from the outside last night. This time it was open, so we paid the admission and wandered through its several levels. Except for a large and unruly group of visiting students, we enjoyed being inside Portugal’s most famous landmark. We stood on the balcony where the kings and queens in the 15th and 16th centuries stood and waved good-bye to the departing explorers as they sailed out the mouth of the Tejo into the Atlantic.
Next we walked over to the Padrão dos Descobrimentos (the Memorial to the Discoveries), which also stands on the north shore of the Tejo a few blocks to the east of the Torre de Belem. Many of Portugal’s memorable explorers from the Age of Discovery, chiefly Vasco da Gama, are immortalized in the giant stone figures—along with navigators, monks, cartographers, and others—on each side of the monument. One of the figures is a woman kneeling, Philippa of Lancaster, the English mother of Henry the Navigator, who is also portrayed as the central figure at the outer point of the monument. We went to the top for a breathtaking view of the area.
We then crossed the street to see the monastery of Jeronimos, the same one that President Holt and I visited Sunday evening when a mass was in progress. We arrived just as it was closing for a two-hour lunch break, so we could not go in.
Instead, we grabbed a taxi and went back to the Castelo São Jorge, where I went yesterday with the Holladays. Rachael loved the place, and together we found new parts of it that I had not seen the previous day. We walked down the hill through the winding, narrow streets of the Alfama until we reached the downtown commercial area.
We did stop on our way down the hill to visit the cathedral, where a gorgeous organ concert was in process the whole time we were there. Rachael tried some tricky things with Grandpa Lange’s camera trying to get pictures of the gorgeous stained-glass windows and backlighted statues and such. We hope they turn out.
After some window shopping down in the central district, we walked through Praça do Comercio, where King Carlos I was assassinated in 1908, to catch another taxi near where passengers came off the ferries.
We returned to Jeronimos cathedral, which was now open, and walked through it. We decided not to visit the monastery or the nearby naval, coach, or folk art museums. We were just too tired from all the walking we had done, and we still had to climb the hill back up to the mission home. We returned about 5:00, sunburned and tired, and both took naps.
The Holts returned sometime later, I guess while we were asleep, from their two meetings with most of the missionaries in the mission. The experience was emotionally draining and therefore very tiring for them, too.
This afternoon, following my short nap, I started rereading Elder Bruce R. McConkie's Millennial Messiah.
Thursday, June 27
Today is the anniversary of the martyrdom of the Prophet Joseph Smith. President Holt, who has given a lot of thought to types and shadows in the scriptures and in life, particularly as they point to or testify in some way of Christ, mentioned an interesting pattern concerning the Prophet Joseph as we were talking several evenings ago. Joseph Smith's birth on December 23, 1805, came just at the winter solstice, when the days begin to grow longer, when there begins to be increasingly more light in the world, and surely no one short of the Savior himself has brought more light into the world than His chief latter-day servant, Joseph Smith. Likewise, he was martyred on June 27, 1844, just after the summer solstice, when the days begin to grow shorter, when there begins to be a daily decrease of light, and the end of the Prophet's mortal life surely took a great light from the world.
As with many of the ancient prophets—such as Isaac, the well-beloved son who was willing to be sacrificed; Joseph who was sold into Egypt, who was a savior to his people; Jonah, whose three days in the belly of the whale foreshadowed the Savior’s death and resurrection; and David, who in many respects was a type of a latter King of Israel—the Prophet Joseph was a faithful servant, and his very life was a type and a shadow of the Master he knew and loved and served.
Today we made a grand tour of much of the Alentejo (literally, beyond the Tejo), the largest province of Portugal, the heartland and breadbasket of the country. Although the least populated of the provinces, it is so large geographically that it has been divided into two political provinces, Alto Alentejo in the north and Baixo Alentejo in the south.
This is a varied region of the country that includes forested mountain ranges, gently rolling hills, flat stretches of plains, vast wheat fields, endless stands of olive and cork trees, and in the south numerous rice paddies. I read today that more than half of the cork produced in the entire world comes from this part of Portugal. The cork comes from the bark of the tree, which can be stripped off only every nine years. It was fascinating to see many of the trees that had been harvested recently, although we never did observe any in the actual process of being stripped.
This part of Portugal also suffers the most severe weather—sometimes bitter cold in the winter, scorching heat in the summer. What we experienced today was apparently mild for summertime, but it was the warmest day we've had during our week here in Portugal.
After dropping a sister off at the airport who was returning home early to Illinois because of health problems, President Holt and Rachael and I headed a little north and mostly east out of Lisbon toward the Alentejo. Our first stop was in Estremoz, a fortified city in the center of the marble-quarry region. We visited the 13th-century castle that dominates the town and climbed up to the top, where we had a panoramic view of the surrounding countryside, which was filled largely with the golden fields of wheat ready for harvest, punctuated heavily with the cork and olive trees. We also visited a little museum that housed items of local folk art: azulejos (the glazed blue tiles), dolls, household items, furniture, swords, guns, etc.
We drove north from there to Portalegre, one of the few towns we've visited that is not built on a hilltop. It is nestled in the foothills of the Serra de São Mamede, much like our original settlements in Utah were at the bottom of the mountains. This town, rebuilt in the mid-13th century on the site of an ancient ruined settlement, was built as the customs gate through which medieval trade with Spain was processed, hence the original name Portus Alacer—Portus for the customs gate, Alacer for joy because of the beautiful setting. The town, which maintains its medieval feeling even now, is on the winding mountain road that is still the shortest route between Madrid and Lisbon.
About 15 kilometers further north is Marvão, an ancient walled hill town that also dates from the 13th century. We drove up into the town through the exceedingly narrow streets to where the castle was situated on the highest part of the rocky promontory. We were within 4 kilometers of the Spanish border, so we had an excellent view of a large area of both Portugal and Spain. I was impressed that every house in town was brightly whitewashed, the streets were meticulously clean, and flowers grew everywhere, mostly in pots and window boxes and hanging baskets.
We came back down from the mountains, through Portalegre again, and headed to Borba, where we stopped to take pictures of an ancient Roman aqueduct just outside the town and where President Holt stopped to visit an isolated member family (the closest branch is more than an hour away) to tell them he was leaving the country and to pick up several boxes of little marble blocks that he had ordered from them. He has spoken much over the past year to his missionaries about being founded on the rock of Christ, and he planned to give a marble block to each departing missionary as a reminder. Borba is surrounded by marble quarries, several of which we saw as we drove into and from the town. (President Holt had been tired, so I drove for a while before we reached Borba.)
We also drove through Elvas, another ancient walled city, although to be honest I don't particularly remember anything about the place. It is only 7 miles from Badajoz, Spain.
By late afternoon we reached Évora, the provincial capital of Alto Alentejo. While here we visited the little branch of the Church, which meets in a rented building on a narrow street, and two of the four elders serving in the town happened to be there, so President Holt met with them briefly and told them of his departure in a few weeks. We went into a church (the Royal Church of St. Francis) that had a chapel of bones lined completely with human skulls and other parts of skeletons. It was weird, and I did not enjoy being there. We took pictures of another church where medieval stone carvings of the twelve Apostles graced the entryway.
We also visited the ruins of a Roman temple, believed to have been dedicated to Diana, that stood on the highest hill of the walled city. It dates, depending on which guide book or brochure we were reading, from the 1st or 2nd or 3rd century. The twelve remaining Corinthian columns are granite with bases and capitals hewn from local marble.
We also stopped at a restaurant that President Holt knew of and had a delicious supper of local foods. I had green bean soup (which tasted far better than the name would suggest), hard bread, and pork served with rice and French fries.
Évora predates even the Romans and has had varying degrees of importance through the centuries as it passed from the hands of the Celts to the Romans to the Visigoths to the Moors to the Portuguese to the Spanish and finally back to the Portuguese. The largest of the cities in the Alentejo, Évora has a population of more than 50,000 people, virtually all of whom live within the town’s Roman walls, apparently one of the best preserved and most complete of city walls in the country.
Évora is known as the museum city. According to one of the guidebooks, "Évora is the largest and most important of all the Alentejo towns. It is a superb city, full of fascinating sights, all of which are in a good state of preservation. They are likely to remain so as the entire city has been proclaimed a historical monument by the international preservation organization World Patrimony, therefore qualifying for its financial aid."
Our final stop was near Beja, the provincial capital of Baixo Alentejo. The town existed in its present location at least as early as 48 b.c. In the summer it is said to be the hottest town in Portugal (and apparently in all Europe), although it was nearing sunset by the time we arrived and the temperatures seemed moderate enough. Our primary interest here was not the town itself but some Roman ruins near the town that one of the missionary couples had visited and told President Holt about.
Incredibly, we found the spot we were looking for along a dusty path out through the wheat and sunflower fields. Fortunately, few tourists have ever visited or would even know the ruins were there, or they would probably no longer exist. Virtually all that remains are some exquisite floor tiles, the low walls that give a sense of where different rooms might have been, and some toppled granite columns. It appears to have been a large place, perhaps some Roman villa a few miles out of Beja, which was called Pax Julia at the time because that is where Julius Caesar made peace with the Lusitanians.
There was also an ancient Roman olive press, which was our real reason for seeking this place out. Unlike the presses used later in medieval times, where the olive oil was ground from the olives between two massive stones that moved against each other, the Romans pressed the oil from the olives by placing a massive weight on top. This undoubtedly would have been the type of press known in New Testament times. The word Gethsemane, where the combined weight of the sins of all mankind pressed down upon the Savior of the world, means "olive press."
After our visit to these Roman ruins, we drove for about three hours back to Lisbon. It was in this part of the Alentejo where we noticed rice paddies near the Sado River.
It seems incredible that the major north-south highway route from the Algarve and lower Alentejo back to Lisbon is simply a two-lane road that bogs down at any time from slow-moving tractors and trucks and on weekends from too much traffic. From Setúbal to Lisbon, a distance of perhaps 25 miles, there is a four-lane freeway that crosses the Tejo over the 25th of April Bridge (which was Europe's longest suspension bridge when it was completed in 1966).
We drove by but did not stop in Setúbal, located on the north bank of the Sado near where the river empties into the Atlantic Ocean, on what is known as the Arrabida Peninsula. It is one of the larger and oldest cities in Portugal. Quoting from one of our guidebooks, Setúbal is "said to have been founded by the grandson of Noah."
A different guidebook says: "According to local legend, it was founded by Tubal, the son of Cain. It is said that Phoenicians and Greeks, finding the climate and soil of Arrabida similar to their Mediterranean homelands, brought their grapes and started vineyards. Setúbal is known to have been an important fishing port since Roman times."
There are two wards in Setúbal, and it is the headquarters of one of the two stakes currently located in the Portugal Lisbon South Mission. (The other stake is headquartered in Oeiras on this side of the river.)
We arrived back at the mission home after 11:00 at night. A long, tiring, but richly rewarding day.
Friday, June 28
Being a tourist is tiring work, so today Rachael and I thought it would be prudent to take it easy and just relax around the mission home. And catch up on some reading and writing and such. A couple days ago President Holt showed me a book, Keys to Successful Scripture Study by George A. Horton Jr., which I finished reading today. It contained some valuable insights and was overall an excellent summary of some important ideas about scripture study.
An overall impression from all I have seen thus far of Portugal is that there is an overwhelming sense of antiquity about the place. We think of the 500th anniversary we will be celebrating next year of Columbus’s first voyage to the New World in 1492, or the earliest beginnings of the United States a couple centuries back, or the 200th anniversary of our republican form of government, or the settling of Utah a mere century and a half ago, or the centennial Bountiful will celebrate next year of its incorporation as a city in 1892, or the fact that my children think I'm getting pretty ancient when I turn 42 next month—and yet much that we have seen here in Portugal was already very old before Columbus ever sailed or before North America was ever colonized.
Virtually all that has survived through these many centuries that people have lived here on the Iberian Peninsula is made of rock—the castles, the ancient walls, the churches. Rock has staying power. It endures.
On November 1, 1755, a great earthquake hit Lisbon, destroying much of the city and killing perhaps as many as 60,000 people in the earthquake and the accompanying tidal wave, fires, and diseases that followed in its wake. Most of the old stuff that can be seen here in Lisbon dates since that time, except for one section of town that was built on rock and was mostly not damaged by the earthquake. The Savior spoke of the importance of building our houses on rock rather than sand.
As I thought about the supply of little marble rocks that President Holt picked up yesterday in Borba to leave with his missionaries as a reminder that they are to be founded on the rock of Christ, I thought of this passage from the Book of Mormon: "And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall" (Helaman 5:12).
A further impression concerning this place: In comparison with what I remember of Brazil from twenty years ago, I have found Portugal to be amazingly clean and tidy. The water everywhere has been safe to drink, the food safe to eat.
Tonight Doug, Martha, Rachael, and I crossed over the 25th of April Bridge and drove south and east to Montijo, where we attended a Corrida à Portuguesa, a traditional Portuguese bull run or bullfight. Unlike the Spanish counterpart, the Portuguese do not kill the bull, so there is no matador (killer). Instead, there is a cavalheiro (a horseman), who sports with the bull from atop his horse and jabs colorful little spears into the top of the bull's back. These spears or darts draw blood, and I thought Rachael was going to be sick when she saw the dark color running down the bull's side.
Three cavalheiros, apparently among the best in the whole country, each performed twice. After each cavalheiro was through, a group of perhaps eight to ten young men lined up in a line across the campo (the bull ring) facing the bull and waited for it to charge the first one in the line. In an incredible act of bravery (or stupidity) they tried to tackle the bull, with one of their number holding on the bull's tail. Only once during the six times we watched this happen was anyone hauled off the field on a stretcher.
The bullfight did not begin until 10:00 p.m. and ended after midnight. There was considerable pageantry involved, and the atmosphere provided an authentic cultural experience for us.
Saturday, June 29
This morning President Holt and I split for several hours with the zone leaders in Oeiras. I went with Elder Olivio Gomes Manuel, a native of Angola who joined the Church here in Portugal a little over two years ago and who has been on his mission about eleven months. He said that about a fourth of the Church members in Portugal are Angolans, some of whom have returned home to Angola. Elder Manuel is the only member of his large family who is here in Portugal. He came originally to play basketball and met the missionaries a month after his arrival.
During the couple hours we worked together, Elder Manuel and I called on several people, mostly inactive members, he had planned to visit, most of whom were not home. We visited quite briefly with one active member, a Brazilian from São Paulo, whose wife and two children had returned to Brazil for their summer holidays. He planned to join them soon. We stopped a few men on the street, and one was willing to have the elders visit him and his family Tuesday afternoon. We also tracted out one block of a street near a praça with no result. Finally, we visited a man and his eleven-year-old niece (I believe that was the relationship), both inactive members, and read and discussed with them Alma's teachings on the resurrection from Alma 40. The man's wife had died sometime recently after having surgery for cancer.
After we met back at the stake center, President Holt took me to lunch at a sidewalk café down near the Jeronimos monastery. We ordered traditional Portuguese food: a soup with green stuff in it that looked something like grass, olives, hard bread, and charcoal-grilled sardines.
Rachael had gone with Marianne and Martha to a Fourth of July picnic celebration sponsored by the U.S. embassy and spent much of the day. Martha came back earlier than the other two girls, who after leaving the picnic had gone to the stake center in Oeiras to help decorate for a seminary graduation dance being held this evening. President Holt took me grocery shopping (the sort of Saturday afternoon thing I might be doing at home with Claudia) at a local supermarket that looked something like an American supermarket but not quite, and there we happened to run into Marianne and Rachael and some others. Rachael was pretty tired from her activities of the day and decided to return to the mission home with us.
Sunday, June 30
This morning we attended sacrament meeting in Moita, a small branch in the Setúbal stake somewhere down near Montijo, where we attended the bullfight Friday night. President Holt and I were the two speakers.
With the inadequacy I feel with the language, I find that in speaking in church in Portuguese I rely more heavily on the scriptures (not a bad practice anyway), since reading is an easier skill than simply speaking. It is not my normal style to preach from a prepared text or even from extensive notes, but this morning I decided to outline my thoughts first in Portuguese. This is a translation back into English of some of what I said:
We are met here this morning in a sacrament meeting, where we've had the privilege of worshiping the Lord and renewing our covenants with him as we've partaken of the sacrament.
This is a small branch of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. There are not many of us here today. But the Savior, when he was here upon the earth, foresaw occasions such as this: "For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them" (Matthew 18:20).
The Church will continue to grow here in Moita and throughout all this lovely land of Portugal. But whether small or large, the Savior's Spirit and influence will be in the midst of us.
Today I would like to speak about some of the fundamental doctrines of our faith. The Prophet Joseph Smith wrote in the Articles of Faith:
"We believe in God, the Eternal Father, and in His Son, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost" (A of F 1:1).
And also, "We believe that the first principles and ordinances of the Gospel are: first, Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ; second, Repentance; third, Baptism by immersion for the remission of sins; fourth, Laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost" (A of F 1:4).
Most if not all of us here today are members of the Church. We already believe in God and in His Son and in Their gospel. How can we, as members of the Church, increase or strengthen our faith? How can we obtain more faith?
The Apostle Paul taught that "faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen" (Hebrews 11:1).
The Prophet Alma, in the Book of Mormon, said that "if ye have faith ye hope for things which are not seen, which are true" (Alma 32:21).
What are some of the things that are true that we have not seen? The creation of the world? The atonement and redemption of the Savior? The restoration of the priesthood and the ordinances of the gospel through the Prophet Joseph Smith?
And where is the evidence of these things we have not seen? The Apostle Paul wrote that "faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God" (Romans 10:17). If we desire to obtain more faith in our lives, we need to obtain more of the word of God in our lives. And how do we do that? One way is to get more of these [the standard works] into our lives, to read and study them every day of our lives.
President Ezra Taft Benson, our prophet today, has counseled us often to read daily from the Book of Mormon. Why? There are probably a lot of reasons, but at least one reason is that the Book of Mormon is another testament of Jesus Christ. Its purpose is to convince all people that Jesus is the Christ, the promised Messiah, who came to redeem his people.
In the New Testament, the Apostle John wrote near the end of his gospel that "these [things] are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name" (John 20:31).
The Prophet Nephi, again in the Book of Mormon, gives us an excellent summary of these things we've been talking about:
"And now, my beloved brethren, I know . . . that unless a man shall endure to the end, in following the example of the Son of the living God, he cannot be saved.
"Wherefore, do the things which I have told you I have seen that your Lord and your Redeemer should do; for, for this cause have they been shown unto me, that ye might know the gate by which ye should enter. For the gate by which ye should enter is repentance and baptism by water; and then cometh a remission of your sins by fire and by the Holy Ghost.
"And then are ye in this strait and narrow path which leads to eternal life; yea, ye have entered in by the gate; ye have done according to the commandments of the Father and the Son; and ye have received the Holy Ghost, which witnesses of the Father and the Son, unto the fulfilling of the promise which he hath made, that if ye entered in by the way ye should receive.
"And now, my beloved brethren, after ye have gotten into this strait and narrow path, I would ask if all is done? Behold, I say unto you, Nay; for ye have not come thus far save it were by the word of Christ with unshaken faith in him, relying wholly upon the merits of him who is mighty to save.
"Wherefore, ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men. Wherefore, if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ, and endure to the end, behold, thus saith the Father: Ye shall have eternal life.
"And now, behold, my beloved brethren, this is the way; and there is none other way nor name given under heaven whereby man can be saved in the kingdom of God. And now, behold, this is the doctrine of Christ, and the only and true doctrine of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, which is one God, without end. Amen" (2 Nephi 31:16-21).
This afternoon, back at the mission home, we fixed and ate lunch, napped, read, and visited. I have had some marvelous talks with President Holt during the week I've been here. During the week I've also been reading Elder Bruce R. McConkie's The Millennial Messiah: The Second Coming of the Son of Man and am nearly half way through the 711-page volume. (I started the book some years ago, shortly after it was first published in 1982, but I never did finish it.) We had planned to attend a baptismal service late in the afternoon, but too much napping was going on.
At 8:00 this evening there was a fireside at the mission home with 75 people—missionaries, investigators, and members—present, the largest attendance they've ever had for their monthly fireside in the year the Holts have been here. (Doug said they have sometimes had as many as 50 people attend but never as many as came tonight.) President Holt taught masterfully from the scriptures on obtaining a testimony of Jesus. He asked me to bear my testimony at the end, which I did briefly.
Monday, July 1
Time passes so swiftly. Today begins the second half of the year. And it is my last full day in Portugal.
During much of the day, from 10:00 until about 4:00, I joined President Holt here at the mission home in his monthly meeting with zone leaders. There were nine companionships of zone leaders and the two assistants to the president—Elders William Shane Bangerter and Scott Wade Bisson—a total of twenty of his most seasoned, best trained missionaries.
After some preliminary business, the two assistants led workshops on how to introduce the Book of Mormon to investigators and how to help members in using it with nonmembers. During a lunch break, President Holt showed them the video Called to Serve, which most of them had not yet seen. The assistants then gave talks on different aspects of service, I conducted a question-answer session and spoke about love and unity in the work and bore testimony of the Savior and his latter-day work, and President Holt concluded with another masterful discourse on types of the Savior in our own lives and ministry.
As I was speaking about the marvelous growth of the work worldwide, I shared with the elders the account written by President Kiril Kiriakov, who begins serving today as the first president of the new Bulgaria Sofia Mission, concerning the Lord's hand in his escaping from Bulgaria many years ago and his eventually joining the Church in France:
Our native land of Bulgaria is a beautiful country, graced with the majestic Balkan Mountains that traverse the center of the country and many fine resort towns along the Black Sea. But living in Bulgaria was not a beautiful experience. The Communists had been in power in Bulgaria since 1945, and they controlled everything. We suffered a lot under a Communist regime and lived in fear every day. We prayed to God constantly to help us to solve our problem and to give us and our children an opportunity to taste freedom. This opportunity came suddenly. Twenty-eight years ago, in 1963 when Algeria became an independent country, they needed specialists in many occupations in order to increase their economy. Algeria asked Bulgaria for assistance, and the Bulgarian government responded by contracting to supply one thousand specialists. Of these, ten were to be dental technicians.
At that time I was working as a dental technician in a state laboratory. When I learned that our lab was to furnish one technician for Algeria, I hoped that I would be the one to go. There were seven candidates for the opening, and so the possibility of my being chosen was very remote. Most of my colleagues had a contact or a relative who held a high position in the Communist government, someone they could rely on for help. I knew of no one who could help me, so I put my entire faith and hope in our Heavenly Father. My wife and I decided that only our fervent prayers to the Lord could open the door to the free world.
The next day, after many hours of sincere and fervent prayer, I went to work as usual. The climate in the laboratory that was not one of the usual restraint, but one of nervous excitement over the selection of the technician that would be going to Algeria. A lively conversation was underway as several methods of selecting the fortunate technician were being considered. One of my colleagues proposed that we decide the matter by drawing lots, placing seven folded pieces of paper in a hat, six of which would have the word no written on them and one would contain the word yes. This seemed to be a fair approach, and all agreed that this would be the method used. The decisive slips of paper with their six no's and one yes were prepared and placed in a hat, with each of us getting progressively more tense and anxious to draw. As my colleagues began withdrawing their slips of paper, my heart was beating so hard that I could barely manage the motor responses necessary to withdraw my slip of paper. When I opened it, I could not believe my eyes. The piece of paper I had drawn had yes written on it. I was overcome with excitement and happiness, but my colleagues were not. They protested the outcome as unfair, since I had been in this laboratory for only eight months while some of the others had been working there for nearly a lifetime. They felt that each of them deserved this choice opportunity much more than I did and insisted that we repeat the drawing. Their objections had some merit, so with a downcast heart I reluctantly agreed to submit to another drawing.
We drew our slip of paper from the hat, and again I drew the yes piece of paper. Again they objected, and this time I had no choice but to comply with their demand for another drawing. When this same experience was repeated the third time, I was stunned and unable to utter a word. Those about me were also highly surprised and highly agitated. Some of them simply refused to believe that this was really happening and demanded a fourth drawing. Not knowing what to say and still being in a state of shock, I just nodded my head that I would agree to another drawing. We drew again. Everyone was trembling as they opened their slips of paper. I opened mine, and it said yes again. The others grabbed it from my hands and just shook their heads in unbelief. We repeated the drawing two more times with the same results. By now my colleagues were not only shocked but also extremely disturbed and becoming openly hostile and angry. Their envy was quite evident, for I suspect I was not the only one in this laboratory hoping to use the position in Algeria as a passport to freedom. Their anger subsided somewhat, and they decided that they would try drawing lots one last time. This time I was not permitted to take my slip of paper until each of them had drawn their chosen piece of paper. They did simply inform me that this was how it would be done. After the others had drawn their lots and there was only one left in the hat, I was permitted to draw my slip, which again read yes.
This time, instead of objecting in rather strong terms, they marveled that the only way I could draw the yes slip seven times in a row would have to be with the help of God. They readily acknowledged that it was a miracle, even though one was not supposed to have religious convictions in Bulgaria.
Several weeks later I received my assignment to Algeria, and after a month and a half my family were permitted to join me. To us, the limited freedom of Algeria was like living in a paradise, which only whetted our appetite for the complete freedom to be had only in the free world. As my two-year assignment began to draw to a close, I completed arrangements to receive permission from the Bulgarian government to return by way of France. My family, however, were required to return directly to Bulgaria, which was the Communist method of discouraging their people from defecting. Then the idea presented itself to add the words "and family" on my exit permit, which we did, and we were then successful in obtaining tourist visas to France for the entire family. Fortunately, we lost no time in leaving for Marseille, for fifteen days after our departure a bloody coup d'etat led by Defense Minister Colonel Boumidienne toppled the Communist-leaning Algerian president Ahmed Ben Bella. All Bulgarians residing in Algeria were immediately flown home to their country, but we were already in France and had safely defected from our Communist homeland.
About a year later two missionaries of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints came to our home in France and brought us the truths of the restored gospel, something that never would have happened in Bulgaria. I have been deeply impressed that the reason the Lord answered our prayers and helped me win the drawing to go to Algeria and eventually to the free world was so that my family could have this precious opportunity to find the true church.
According to my patriarchal blessing the prophecy is beginning to come true, as it says that I'll preach the gospel to my people, to my kinfolks in my native country Bulgaria. I'm grateful to the Lord for the opportunity He gives me to serve Him. And I'll put all my strength and efforts to serve Him diligently and successfully. I would like to bear my testimony that God lives, that Jesus Christ is His beloved Son, our Savior and Redeemer. I know that Joseph Smith was a real prophet of God, through whom the Book of Mormon was translated. And this is my testimony in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
The three girls had gone shopping and came home and baked a large cake for the elders to eat at the conclusion of their meeting.
Rachael will stay on to continue her European adventure after I leave tomorrow morning. Wednesday morning Shelley and Tom Harper (and two of Tom’s friends) will arrive by train from Munich to spend some time here in Portugal, including a two- or three-day visit next week down in the Algarve, the southern coast of Portugal. On July 13 the group will leave by train for Vienna, where they will attend a youth conference for all the mission kids in Europe. On July 19 they will travel to Munich to stay with the Harpers, on July 25 to Frankfurt to stay with the Condies, on July 31 to Dusseldorf to stay with the Wolferts family, on August 4 to Paris to stay with the Joneses (and where on August 7 Rachael will celebrate her sixteenth birthday). And then on August 11 Rachael, Marianne, and Martha will return to Lisbon to fly home on the 13th (hopefully). Rachael is currently ticketed to fly on August 21, and we’ll need to see if Kathy Bertasso can get that changed.
In the evening we visited, ate dinner, and watched a video of an old movie classic, Magnificent Obsession, while President Holt attended to some mission business. I then packed before going to bed.
Tuesday, July 2
I am now sitting in the Lisbon airport awaiting my flight to London. This will be a very long day. We left the mission home at 6:15 a.m. Lisbon time (11:15 p.m. Monday night in Utah) and, assuming I make the necessary connections in London and Chicago, will arrive in Salt Lake at 8:51 tonight, nearly 22 hours later.
I am grateful for this marvelous week I have just spent, which I feel is in further fulfillment of the Lord's command early in this dispensation that we come to an understanding "of things both in heaven and in the earth, and under the earth; things which have been, things which are, things which must shortly come to pass; things which are at home, things which are abroad; the wars and the perplexities of the nations, and the judgments which are on the land; and a knowledge also of countries and of kingdoms—
"That ye may be prepared in all things when I shall send you again to magnify the calling whereunto I have called you, and the mission with which I have commissioned you" (D&C 88:79-80).
The early dawn over the Tejo was a beautiful sight from my room this morning. I hope to treasure the memory of it as a symbol of my wonderful week in Portugal.
As I mentioned to the elders yesterday, the Church is still in its infancy here in Portugal, and someday the five struggling stakes will become numerous strong stakes. Someday a temple will grace this lovely land. And a generation of faithful Portuguese saints will arise to bear off the work triumphantly in this place and among this people. It truly is the dawning of a new day.
President Holt is truly one of the noble and great ones, a Christlike servant of the Lord who has a marvelous vision of the work. I cherish my association with him. I love him as a dear brother and friend. And I thank God Almighty for this marvelous week we've had together.
