La Segunda Venida

LDS Missions are hard. Don’t let anyone fool you They are hard. There are plenty of good times and lots and lots of blessings and spiritual outpourings if you are doing it right BUT they are still very hard. There is pressure to see results from your work. There are feelings of loneliness.  There are many insecurities that you try to hide. During one of the harder parts of my mission I received one of my greatest blessings on my mission. Elder Vidal.

Elder Vidal was my first junior companion. He was with me when I was supposed to be strong and lead and be in charge of the work in our area. I had just been forced away from my companionship with Elder Baggiore. Baggiore and I didn’t have much in common. He was tall, I was short. He loved everything about cars, I knew very little about cars. I loved everything about girls, he knew very little about girls. What we did have was a wonderful time together as companions. The days flew by and we worked our tails off. Things were going great when I was called to leave the shadow of Baggiore and fly on my own for the first time. Heavenly Father knew what he was doing when I was assigned Vidal. I was transferred to the area right next door to the area where I was with Baggiore and so that helped. I remember the night before I left and Baggiore sat with me telling me that I was ready and that I would be a great senior companion and all those things you tell people when they are stressed about climbing the mountain before them. I went forward in faith. I stumbled, I fell, and I made plenty of mistakes. Through it all Vidal supported me and stuck by my side.

Elder Vidal was a recent convert from Las Vegas. His father was from Cuba and his mother from Puerto Rico or something like that. They met working at a casino in Vegas. She was a blackjack dealer and he worked security. These details could all be wrong but this is how I remember them. The point is that he wasn’t raised in a stereotypical LDS family. He was baptized somewhere close to his 18th birthday if I remember correctly and went on his mission somewhere close to his 19th birthday. He was solid. He had talents that were needed. Talents I didn’t have. When we were teaching a man who was trying to quit smoking he came up with a great idea of cleaning out the tobacco from the cigarettes and then rolling up scriptures and putting them in each cigarette so when he wanted to smoke he could read a scripture and help him stay strong. He knew how to empty cigarettes from things he had seen in his former life before joining the Church. I remember him telling me he never thought this particular skill would come in handy while on his mission. Irony at its best.

One day while in the city on one of our free days we saw a man painting. He was making cool pictures with planets and such using only spray paint and various objects to make the shapes he needed for the picture*. Vidal was fascinated, well most people around were fascinated... Vidal was utterly captivated. We watched for probably an hour or two. Vidal was absorbing as much as he could. We headed to the store, bought some paint and paper and spent the rest of that p-day and a few more painting in the little area behind the house where we lived.

I don’t have any artistic ability in me. I can see things in my mind but to make my hands do what is in my head is not a gift I possess. I was amazed at how Vidal could take a paper and create a painting full of heavenly orbs and vibrant colors using only spray paint. I wanted to try. I had an idea, an artistic vision. I didn’t have any talent. I am not being modest here, I am being honest. My “art” successes consist of a pottery mask I made in high school and a picture of a dinosaur I drew while in college.  The mask looked ok because the goal was to make it look abstract. If looking messed up meant abstract then I succeeded. The picture of the dinosaur was a success because my roommates hung it up on the wall of our kitchen. When people would come over to visit they would ask what 4 year old little brother or sister had drawn the picture. Everyone got a big kick out of it. I like to make people laugh so I was fine with it. I hope you now understand that art is not on my list of things I am going to use to get rich. I had my vision...La Segunda Venida...The Second Coming. I was so excited. Vidal patiently worked with me and we completed what I would call a masterpiece. I was so excited. I cherished that picture from that day on. I packed it each transfer with care in my suitcase and moved it around from town to town. When I got home it hung in my room. After I got married it hung in various rooms before all the children took over my extra rooms. It has since been forced out to the garage until I get a bigger house where it can take it’s rightful place back on the wall of my office.  If you look at the corner of the painting it is signed by C. Anthony Vidal y RGL. His signature deserved to be larger and first since he did most of the work.

My life is like the painting. Elder Vidal is like our Savior Jesus Christ  (don’t get a big head Vidal, it was only meant in an analogy not a direct comparison!) I will do everything I can do and it really isn’t that great. Jesus will then take the talents I have and make it like a masterpiece. Others may laugh and say that my life isn’t a masterpiece just like some do with my planets painting but I know and Jesus will know that it is my best and it is good enough. I will be proud of my work and I know he will be proud of my work.

I’m not sure we had much success in the time Elder Vidal and I were together. I take the blame for that. Vidal never got on me, never doubted me that I know of. I left him stronger than when I became his companion. Thanks Vidal for teaching me how to paint planets, but more importantly, thanks for teaching me how to be more Christlike.

*You can watch a short video here that kind of gives you idea of how these paintings are created. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXC7ol2Mmtc