Elder Lopez

We had an interesting email from one of the "old guys" from the mission Elder Lopez. Elder Lopez was in Kharkov when we arrived in the mission. He was one of the first missionaries I ever went tracking with while in Ukraine. As I remember it, we entered the stairwell of a four or five story apartment building and Elder Lopez explained to me that he always started at the top of the stairway and worked his way down. He asked if this would be a problem for me. I replied that it would not. He then started running up the stairs and did not stop until we reached the top of the stairs. I was still in fairly good shape and I stayed up with him and was trying to catch my breath when he asked me to say the prayer before we knocked on the first door and between deep breaths I said the prayer. He walked with a purpose, had a daily schedule that was programed down to the minute, and had a no nonsense approach to missionary work. He was less than thrilled when I called him to be my secretary in the office. He did not want to leave the "field". In the office, we worked through the crisis of missionaries getting kicked out to Kharkov, the Ministry of State Security guy telling us we had to get a law firm to take over our registration of missionaries in each city, and our first mission tour. I really felt I let him down because I had told him and his companion that they could sleep in one morning after they had been up late with us getting new missionaries on the late train to Kharkov. The missionaries were asked during the mission tour if they had gotten up at 0630 in the morning during the past week and he had to reply with a no. He looked at me as if he had let me down and I could only whisper to him from the stand to not worry about it. The fun thing about working with the office elders was Sue and I got to know them very well. They usually helped us eat the leftovers from the missionary arrival and leaving meals and every once in a while we had them for breakfast when we were in town. He also helped us with numerous Christmas functions in 1999. Elder Lopez quickly came to the understanding that he was privy to lots of confidential information, that he was given a great deal of latitude in making decisions, and that when we were away he as the defacto leader of the mission. I had full faith and trust in his abilities as I did with all of my secretaries. Along with his leadership abilities, was a deep sense of humility for being able to serve in Ukraine. He expressed his love for the mission, the church, the prophet, the scriptures and most importantly the Book of Mormon during every zone conference testimony meeting. Those of us who were privileged to hear his final testimony before getting on the train to come home will never forget the tender way he touched his worn Book of Mormon and testified about what a wonderful missionary tool it was and how much he loved it. I think we all started crying at about three o'clock that afternoon and didn't stop until the train had pulled out of the station in Donetsk. His most current email touched on the same firm testimony about the church, the prophet and his local leaders. It was our honor to serve a season with him.