Elder DeMarco

So often I have to try and think of something exciting to blog, when nothing that exciting has really happened. But now, here's a good story. So, a couple of weeks ago I got an e-mail from the guy who runs our mission website, Karl Kamper. I have met him once or twice, but I definitely was not expecting to hear from him. Anyway, the story goes that he had attended a baptism in Lehi, and one of the missionaries in attendance turned out to be from Argentina, where we served our missions. Well, they got to talking, and this Elder said that he had been baptized 7 years ago by an Elder Draper. So, Karl looked me up on the website and e-mailed to ask if I had baptized an Elder DeMarco on my mission. Sure enough! I taught and baptized him when he was 12, along with his Dad and brother, about three days before I left Argentina, and I had never heard what had happened to him. I tried to mail letters to his family, but to no avail. Mail service in Latin America is unbelievably bad.

Anyway, I assumed the worst, that he and the rest of my converts had gone inactive years ago. But no! He shows up serving a mission in Lehi. How crazy! Anyway, I got his phone number, but by the time I tried calling he had already been transferred to Payson. So, I had to call the mission office for his new number, and finally we were able to get in touch. Neither of us could believe that we had finally found each other so many years later under such incredible circumstances.

So, this past Monday I was flying out to San Francisco for a training seminar in the afternoon, so I decided to take the rest of the day off, too. We drove down to Utah County and took he and his companion out to lunch at the Olive Garden. Here we are with Ruben Dario DeMarco (or Elder DeMarco for the next two years).

We had a great visit with him, and it sounds like he and his family are doing extremely well. He's only been in the mission since December, but had 8 baptisms while he was serving in Lehi! He's a great missionary. Well of course he is, since I taught him and all.:) In fact, during lunch he gently reprimanded me for digging into my food before saying a blessing. He is well trained.

While we were in Payson, we decided to visit Jenny's grandparents, who live down that way. We had a nice chat with them. They met as missionaries in the Great Lakes mission 50+ years ago, and dated and married after they returned. They have since served missions in Mexico City, Costa Rica, and Tonga. We had a good talk about missionary work. It was a very missionary day. It was also a good chance to have Madeleine and Tori play with their great-grandparents. We didn't have any pictures of Tori with them, so we snapped a good one while we were there.

It was a great day. Elder DeMarco has already put me in touch with his family via e-mail, which is awesome. No one in Argentina had the internet while I was there, so it's so nice to have a quick, reliable way to communicate now. I am so grateful to be able to see some of the fruits of my mission so many years later. Now, that was a good story, wasn't it?