Pressed Down, and Shaken Together
“YOU NEED TO SHARE.” My refrain to my eldest daughter Eliza is an echo of what my own mother said to me. But while my mother was a solid example of generosity, I am not. I tell Eliza to let her little sister use her things, yet she sees me check the caller ID before I answer the phone, just to make sure it’s not someone who needs my help, money, or time. I tell her that giving will make her happy, and then I stumble over my reply when she asks, “Why did you go to the extra meeting if it makes you so grumbly?” I gave a presentation about Guatemala to Eliza’s second grade class a few weeks ago. They laughed at the indigenous clothing I put over the top of theirs, screamed when I told them that in Guatemala, chickens really do ride the bus, and were mildly surprised to see from my photos that most of the buses there are actually old yellow school buses from the United States, school district name usually still intact. No longer good enough for here, but plenty good enough for Guatemala.
I wanted all of them to know how rich we are. But I wanted Eliza to know it most of all. I wish I could show her what I learned in Guatemala as easily as I showed the class my photographs; I want to slip knowledge down over her head as effortlessly as I did my Guatemalan guipil. I see so much of myself in Eliza, and I want to save her the pain of my own tight-heartedness. But it’s hard to teach half-learned lessons.
I served part of my mission in an area in Guatemala so dirty that I can no longer donate blood (though given my fear of needles, I am quick to claim this as a mission blessing). I saw mangy packs of dogs roaming the streets and am fairly certain that I ate some of them at members’ houses. I became hooked on Coca-Cola there—drank it at breakfast, lunch, and dinner—because the mission nurse told us to drink some after any questionable meal to help kill the parasites and amoebas we’d ingested.
The day I arrived in my first area (“the armpit of the world,” according to my mission president), it rained. Rainforest rain. My new green Samsonite luggage was needlessly packed to the hilt with everything I thought I would need to survive for eighteen months. My mother had filled one bag entirely with vitamins. Another bag held unscented deodorant (just in case all they could offer me was “peach” or “spring rain” or something else that would alert people to the fact that I was sweating). My companion and I dragged that luggage endlessly onto and off of old American school buses.
My companion had us stop at the first church member’s house we passed and insisted I leave all of my belongings with Hermano Caseres until the rain stopped. I glanced around his one-room home—complete with dirt floor and camp stove—looked into his smiling face with four missing front teeth, and was certain he would steal from me.
* * *
In the book of Luke, a multitude gathers to have Christ heal them. Christ speaks to the people and says, “Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that you mete withal it shall be measured to you again.”[1]
* * *
One day in Guatemala, a ten-year-old boy named Wilmer came into our room while we were gone teaching. He took stickers from the American stash I had carefully tucked deep into my suitcase and put them all over his notebook. When we came home, his mother laid into him in front of me (she couldn’t afford to have us leave and not pay the rent). I was slightly embarrassed that I felt glad he was being punished. But stealing is wrong, right? Later that night, when Wilmer brought me a sucker shaped like a root beer bottle (he said it was because he’d noticed I liked Coke) and apologized, I felt an immediate urge to give him all my remaining stickers. The moment passed, though, and I gave him two sheets of my least favorites.
Even in the face of all that need and all that want, I usually came up with solid excuses to keep the little locks on my suitcases locked. In contrast, the people I met were eager to give. My companion taught me to never compliment any tangible item in a Guatemalan home because it was so likely that the owner would offer it to me as a gift. Some items I did bring home: the snippet of lined paper where my twenty-two-year-old investigator wrote her name for the first time as I was teaching her how to read, a baby photo of one of the women I baptized (her only one), a notebook with a picture of gumballs on the cover, a stuffed quetzal bird, a broken tape recorder. These objects were literally everything people had to offer.
I went on my mission to proclaim the gospel—and I did. I taught people about forever families and tithing and sacrament and baptism. And in between the cracks—when people kissed my cheek and let my companion and me sit on their only chairs, when Hermano Caseres delivered my luggage intact in an old wheelbarrow after the rain abated—the good news of the gospel, the really freeing news, started to flow into me and heal me. So when Hermana Puente, the lady we paid to wash our clothes, asked me if I would still need my green skirt back in the States, I decided to give her the green one and the red one.
My stuff, my time, my self. It is not mine.
The Coke I drank so dutifully never washed the parasites away completely. I still have them, specialists and herbalists and doctors later. I also brought home a lot of other things—things that I deeply appreciate. Because of my mission I’ll never choose to own a large home, and I don’t think I’ll ever buy a new car (even though these things haven’t been options yet). Because of my mission I often pray with thanks for my appliances. Even ten years later, I marvel still at the ease with which I throw a load of laundry in the washer. The fact that I can buy raw tortillas at Costco, and all I have to do is flip a switch and put them in the pan, is amazing. I am grateful on a daily basis for the temporal things I can give my children, especially things like visits to the dentist. Maybe I would have come to these realizations without Guatemala. But probably not.
I tell Eliza it’s because of Guatemala that my favorite Primary song is “‘Give,’ Said the Little Stream.”[2] We always sing all three verses for family home evenings, if only to get to the words, “Do as the streams and blossoms do: For God and others live.” But I know I need to hear those words more than Eliza does. And she’ll hear them more clearly from me when I get to the point that I answer the phone without hesitation and offer my time without resentment. I want to give like the many Guatemalans who went hungry so that I could be fed. Will I ever learn such generosity? Some of my clothing I left behind. Some of my money I gave away. I finally let go of those stickers that seemed so precious. But on my way home, my luggage was still way too full. And I do not yet fully live the gospel that I preached for eighteen months, the good news that I received in good measure from the very people I taught. For Eliza’s sake, for my own sake, I want to truly learn to “Give, oh! give away.”
[1] Luke 6:38
[2] Fanny J. Crosby, “‘Give,’ Said the Little Stream,” Children’s Songbook (Salt Lake City, Utah: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1989), 236.
Rebecca earned a master's degree in marriage and family therapy from BYU and has worked as a therapist for adolescents and couples. She currently teaches writing at BYU. Rebecca enjoys reading, gardening, and sharing family moments with her husband Sam and their two daughters.
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