Hey! This is Post 501! Kind of a Big Deal, Right?

On September 11, 2001, I was serving an LDS mission in Quebec City. My companion and I had visited a less active member in the morning, and she explained how, "America really had it coming to them." She often said off base things, and somehow her comments failed to raise any alarm.

We returned home to eat lunch around 11 or 11:30, and there we received a phone call from our district leader. He informed us that upwards of 10 million people had died, that the pentagon was gone, the White House was gone, the Lincoln Memorial was in shambles, the President was dead, and that, until further notice, "MISSIONARY WORK WAS ON HOLD."

It's funny to me, looking back on it, that the outrageous death count and the supposed death of the leader of the free world didn't alarm me beyond reason. However, the cessation of missionary work was personal and frightening. I had been tracting in negative 40 degree weather, for heaven's sake. At that temperature everything in your nose freezes and icicles form from your eyebrows. I had taught discussions to the dredges of society, with porn wallpapering the cubicles that served as apartments. I had spent one unpleasant evening being yelled at for hours and lectured on the severe brainwashing my parents had pressured on me. Nothing stopped missionary work. No unhallowed hand shall stop the work from progressing.

The gravity of the situation pressed in on me, and my companion and I spent the rest of the afternoon in the apartment and looked up scriptures about the end of the world.

You become a little bit crazy on a mission.

The next day, missionary work resumed, and because I had no access to TV or media, life seemed to carry on as usual. My father wrote me a letter that served as my talisman, and said "I guess my only comment on the terrible events of this last week are that this world desperately needs the message you are called to share." And so I continued to teach people about Christ.

I returned home three months later. America had changed in that space of time. People seemed to hand together more, even with LDS missionaries, the pariah of Christianity. And everywhere there were flags. Flags on flagpoles, flags on front porches, flags in advertising, flags on bumpers. Each proclaiming their support and commitment to not be vulnerable, but to still be the Unites States of America.

I still feel a little inadequate seeing flags. 11 years beyond the event, I'm less crazy now about the missionary "end-of-the-world" obsession, but I'm probably more crazy because having children has made it possible to weep during cotton commercials, so I'm consciously decided to ignore the detials of September 11--the phone calls good bye, the blockbuster heroics, and above all, the films of the attacks. But I can honor America. I raise my flag in honor of the time where a divided nation pulled together. I may not be so proud of me, but I'm very proud of us.