Steadily Mobbing

The Beginning is the End is the Beginning
or
Milagro de Milagros

(This is the long version of something that happened during this post if you’d like to see more pictures)

I have a friend who is really good at saying “Wow, what a blessing” or “Wow, what a miracle” about just about everything he encounters in his life and, well, I admire that in him but that’s not me. Not my way of seeing things. But I’ve found myself in a chain of circumstances that I could look at no other way than his. I want to share a story and I won’t be short on words about it.

Last fall a generous friend gifted me with an airline voucher and it was really burning a hole in my virtual pocket, except I had begun a new job and didn’t really have the time to do anything with it. But when Thanksgiving started creeping up I began to wonder how I might use it…my first thought was to go over to England, which I hadn’t visited since Thanksgiving 2003. Flights looked OK but kind of full, I reached out to some of my friends over there and they were moderately available. It was looking so-so for England. Then I thought about what I always think about, which is Mexico City. I had been there just two years before, but I always want to go back. I wondered if I could handle going down there by myself. I’d probably be fine. It would probably be fun. But I was iffy on it. (By the way, this thinking is all being done on like the Monday  or Tuesday before Thanksgiving…week of…my parents had been in New York just the week before asking me what I’d do for Thanksgiving and I was like “I don’t know, nothing?” and suddenly a few days later I’m planning an international getaway). But then I remember a Facebook post by a dear old college friend I had seen weeks before asking for any recommendations on what to see in Mexico on a trip her little family would be taking. When was the trip, where was the trip, I wasn’t sure…but I shot her a message (over Instagram, of all apps) asking if her family was on their trip and if they were going to be in Mexico City that week because I was thinking of running down there myself. I’ll trim the exchange to the short of it: Yes, not only were they going to be in Mexico City over the Thanksgiving weekend but I was welcome to crash at their Air BnB with them as well!

Suddenly everything fell so much into place I couldn’t believe it. I was 100% headed to Mexico City for Thanksgiving! OR at least the plan was made, the next day (Wednesday) I brought my passport to work with me to book an early morning Thanksgiving flight on a plane with so many empty seats that my getting down there looked like an extremely sure thing. Everything was set!

[Ok I just cut three paragraphs explaining the particular circumstances that lead me to realize I had left my passport at the office when I was halfway home from work that evening and was able to go back down and get it no problem. But that was whole thing, and the thought that I could not have realized I left my passport at work until Thursday morning chills my bones.]

Wake up Thursday morning. My early flight is out of Newark so the only option is an Uber. But Ubers are $270? No, really. They were! I check Lyft. $80. The “normal” price. Get to the airport fine, wait at the gate fine, get assigned an Economy Plus seat, fly down fine. Everything’s super! I’m going to have to start skipping details if I’m ever going to get to the meat of the miracle but I need to stress what a grand first day I had in Mexico City:

Just being in Mexico City puts me in such a good mood, I stood in line for passport control looking at all my fellow travelers, hoping they’d have a great time in Mexico. Thanks to my trip to Mexico City in 2017 with my mom I know all about how to get an Uber in Mexico City now. Traffic is bad, but my driver is great, eventually we get to the Air BnB in La Condesa and it’s a wonderful apartment and the building’s security guard gives me the key as Rebecca had arranged, no problem. Drop off my stuff, drink a glass of water, walk through Condesa to Roma to meet the Wrights at Taqueria Orinoco, have the most wonderful and spectacular Thanksgiving lunch there. Am in pure Heaven only two or three hours into my trip. We explore Roma with their two kids, a couple of very fun 2 and 6 year old boys. Rebecca and Derek are cool fun parents so there’s no going home, no taking naps, they commit to a day and make it work. We go up to El Centro, I help some teens with their English homework, we see all the old famous stuff, we stuff that’s just famous to me, we eat a first dinner at Taqueria Orinoco, truly among the greatest restaurants on the planet, and then have a sit down second dinner at an Huequito next door where the boys, after so many hours, are just awful. Absolute breakdown. It’s fine! We hit up Pasteleria Ideal after dinner to buy some pastries that we actually never eat and grab a taxi home, Rebecca doing her best to make sure the boys don’t fall asleep until we reach the apartment and she succeeds. Sometimes your best = success! I go to bed absolutely aglow with Mexico City joy and fire off an Instagram post so the world (of my few hundred followers) know what I time I’m having.

The next morning I get up moderately early to stand in line for the famous tortas de chilaquiles sold just a few blocks from our apartment—what a location, I can’t believe it! I also can’t believe I had loved Mexico City so much for 23 years and NEVER been to La Condesa until that trip. What did I love so much if I wasn’t loving Condesa? I am about 15th in line and, once the stand opens at 8am, I still wait 45 minutes to make an order. Most people ahead of me in line are buying about two dozen tortas to take into the office, I only buy 3 or 4 for my crew who join me much later in the operation…which is the plan! This is my joy, to get some tortas for my miraculous and generous hosts. Anyway, we’re almost to the real miracles and blessings, I promise. Just a little bit more.

I check Instagram and the post from the night before just doesn’t have as many likes as my ego would like it to. So I post it to Facebook, too. Not something I do often, but I really needed the Likes.

This is a key event in this story. The hunger for Likes is the thing that sets the real story in motion.

After we finish the tortas my hosts head off to Coayacan to see Frida’s house and such while I have made some plans to do something else, I can’t even remember what it was those plans got erased so hard just a few minutes later. What happens is I go into a 7-11 across from the Tortas (super awesome tortas, by the way) to pick up a new garaffón de agua for the apartment since I had drunk most of the first one the day before and I check my phone while I’m in there and I’ve got a Facebook message from one Alejandro Peñuelas (along with some Likes).

A gigantic footnote I’ll put right in the middle of the text: The Peñuelas Family, who are they? Well, they were a family I knew on my mission in my fourth and final area. They lived in the same apartment building as my companion and me and we’d eat all our meals with them—this was the common practice of my mission, to find a family to pay to prepare all our meals. I had had many families like this, all terribly precious to me, but none more precious than the Peñuelas. Their home was our hearth and over my four months in that area (so odd to me to realize the time was so short now) I became very close to this family. Which was: a mom, a dad, three sons, a daughter. All the kids were roughly in the area of my age. Alejandro was the youngest and my chief antagonizer so also my favorite. Of the kids. But only a favorite by the tiniest bit since I really liked all of them so incredibly much. And then when my mission came to its sudden end with the sudden diagnosis of an osteosarcoma growing throughout most of my left leg the Peñuelas were at the front line on that chaotic day and getting me to the airport. And on the frontline of sending extra strong Mexican prayers my way during my illness and recovery. I went back to Mexico just a couple years after leaving and saw the Peñuelas then, but after that many many years passed without contact. Until Facebook. And then a Peñuelas would pop up in my messages or on my wall every now and then (or I in theirs). But nothing major. Just good feelings.

SO anyway, I’m at the 7-11 and I get this message from Alejandro (who lives in Monterrey now, btw) and he tells me I should go see his parents. And I say “Yeah, but your mom told me they moved out of the city” and he says “Yes, but they work at the temple during the week, you should go see them there.”

Upon reading that, whatever plans I had were swept off the table onto the floor like in a movie. Dropped. Erased. Forgotten. I took the giant jug of water back to the apartment and got an Uber to the temple. Immediately.

I arrived knowing only that they worked there during the week and stayed in temple housing while they were there. But I was certain I would find them because how could I be in Mexico City and have gotten this info from Alejandro and not find them. The Mexico City temple is quite the compound with all sorts of additional buildings on its grounds, buildings I am already slightly familiar with, so I go over to the office of the temporary housing where people traveling to the temple can stay. In other words: I go to the motel office? When Alejandro tells me his parents stay at the temple during the week, this is the housing I think of first.  In the office I explain I’m looking for the Peñuelas, they’re temple workers, I knew them on my mission, they don’t know I’m looking for them, but I’m here to find them. (and I’m doing this in Spanish, too, by the way. Just want to brag.) The woman at the desk she checks some things, but I’m not sure why she checks things because it turns out she knows they don’t stay there, that housing is not for temple workers, it turns out. She recommends I go ask for them at the temple itself.

 I’ve got my recommend, but I’m dressed for a reunion, not really for going into the temple, but still I go in and up to the recommend desk. Again I explain what I explained at the office. The Mexico City temple is big and heavily staffed, so it is a lofty hope that the recommend desk men would know the Peñuelas by name, and they don’t. They recommend I go to the temple office inside and call for a fellow to help me out. The fellow, young-ish, built a bit like a football player, appears and walks me, underdressed to say the least, through the lobby and back to the temple office past many sets of completely non-judgmental eyes (I’m not being sarcastic! I’m praising the operation!). I explain to him what I explained at the office and the recommend desk, everyone that hears about my undertaking thinks it’s a very good undertaking. In the office a secretary to the temple presidency taps at a computer to look the Peñuelas up. Yes, they are temple workers. And they work on Friday, in the afternoon…so they aren’t in the temple right now (oh absolutely my radar was up to bump into them in a temple hallway, definitely it was a possibility to me, I was that confident of our reunion happening) but they haven’t gone home for the weekend, either. There’s more clicking and tapping and I try not to be like spying on her computer but I do at least see their photos. And in the Temple President’s office adjacent to us a member of the Presidency overhears my undertaking and taps at his computer, too. After so much tapping a note is written out to me with a phone number and the address of where the Peñuelas stay. The football player guy explains to me that it is very simple to find this address. You just go behind the temple and it’s right there. I ask him to explain this to me again, because so many things could be “behind” the temple…is he talking about the temporary housing, that was “behind” the temple. Or, like, on another block? What is “behind” the temple? It’s so simple!, he explains, he draws me a map—it is of one square (the temple, or the temple compound?) with a line to another square (where the Peñuelas are). But also there’s the address, it’s like 5 Ignacio Allende or something (the number I have to make up now, but the street is real, I checked the internet). By instinct I take out my phone to check where Ignacio Allende is. Suddenly everyone looks at me like I’ve taken my phone out in the temple. I look at myself like I’ve taken my phone out in the temple. I put it away, we talk a bit more. I thank them for their help, I leave the temple.

Only now do I wonder why they didn’t call the Peñuelas’s number for me from the office. That would have been easier.

So I come out of the temple with some slight understanding that the Peñuelas are in some kind of apartment somewhere on the street behind the temple. I walk down the street in front of the temple, planning I guess to walk around the block and find this apartment, and there’s a couple sister missionaries (hermanas, you could say) contacting strangers on the sidewalk. Boy sister missionaries are glad when a stranger just walks up to them to talk like I did. In my Spanish I explain to them what I explained at the housing office, the recommend desk, and in the temple office and ask them if they know where the apartments that the temple workers stay at is. They don’t, I mean they confer back and forth with each other and really try to know where it is, but they don’t, but recommend I go ask inside the Visitor’s Center.

(In the Temple compound there’s a big, nice Visitor’s Center with a Christus statue and everything directly across the driveway from the temple)

 So I go into the Visitor’s Center and tell the Hermanas at the entrance (in Spanish!) what I told at the motel desk, the recommend desk, in the president’s office, and on the street. They confer, they don’t know, but then a senior missionary couple, from the United States, appear and I tell them in English (the wheels move so much quicker and better this way!) what I’d told at all those other places. Now when I came to the Visitor’s Center in 2017 with my Mom the US senior missionary man we met there was just an awful jerk but this 2019 missionary couple is great and, sensing a chance to get out of the Visitor’s Center and go on a little mystery hunt, this elder Elder volunteers to come with me to find the Peñuelas, or at least their apartment.

We walk to the back of the temple compound, past a little security post/building, and he opens a small gate that leads out to Ignacio Allende street. We go directly across the street to a wall with a door (this is how apartment complexes look a lot of the time in Mexico: a wall and a door) with the number 50 painted on it.

—Here you go, this is 5.

—But it says 50?

—It’s 5, he assures me.

There’s a numbered buzzer and I press whatever number seems to match their apartment number and nothing happens. Then the Elder offers me his cell phone and I call the phone number from the piece of paper. It rings and rings and then there’s a voice asking for the extension of the party I want. (In Spanish) I press a number that seems to correspond to their address or phone number. I get like voice mail or something. We stand on the street a little stumped and then go back into the temple compound. The elder suggests we ask the security guys.

So we knock on the door of the security office and I explain to the security guards inside what I had explained at the housing desk, the recommend desk, in the temple office, to the sisters on the street, to the sisters in the Visitor’s Center and to the senior missionary couple. They ask me what number I have, then call it themselves. They hang up. They say that they aren’t there. Which I know isn’t exactly the case because I’ve heard the message and it’s a message asking for an extension and the guards clearly didn’t mark an extension number (“mark”---that’s Spanish thinking popping up in my English writing) so I’m a little frustrated but also must add that absolutely everyone up to this point have been very friendly and helpful, as Mexicans are but also as friendly and helpful as Santos de los Ultimos Dias are, so it’s an amazing combination of friendly and helpful. I take a deep look at all the various security camera displays displayed on the posts giant monitors and then the Elder and I leave.

He suggests we check at the mission office. Why not! Myself I didn’t know there was a mission office at the temple, but it turns out there is, inside the building just outside the complex where I made several visits to the missionary doctor while my leg was hurting with cancer before anyone (least of all that old doctor, a long-retired fellow from St Louis) knew it was cancer. It’s the office of the Mexico City East mission…back in the day of my mission the East mission was the “rival” to my Mexico City North mission (and no one seemed to even be thinking of the South mission) but now there’s 7 missions in Mexico City and the mind just reels. (Likewise, the Mexico City temple was the only temple in Mexico back then and now there’s 13.) It seems this visit is mostly an opportunity for my elder elder to chat a bit with the younger elders staffing the office because, even though I explain to them what I explained at the housing desk, the recommend desk, in the temple office, on the street to the missionaries, in the visitor center to the missionaries, in the visitor center to the senior missionaries, and in the security hut these elders are really the people least likely to know where I can find a pair of temple workers and, nope, they really don’t know where I could find them.

So we leave and my senior missionary he’s very at a loss of where to look next, in fact, he wishes me luck and heads back into the visitor’s center. And this makes perfect sense for him to do because really he’s done all he can do and what more could I ask of him? So I wander the compound a bit, wondering what to try next. At this point I’ve been at the temple for like an hour and a half already. It’s sunny and bright and approaching lunch time. I have a sit and think. I cannot leave, I will not leave, because surely I did not find myself looking for Brother and Sister Peñuelas at the Mexico City Temple on the day after Thanksgiving only to not find them… this is conversation I have with myself and a line of reasoning I chase in prayer…so I cannot leave until I find them and I will find them. But how? Really that is the thing I can’t wait to find out.

I decide to try that door behind the temple again. So security lets me through the gate and I ring the buzzer of building 50 (or is it 5?) again, and this time someone answers. The voice, it is most definitely not Brother Peñuelas, I try explaining what I explained at the desk, at the desk, in the office, on the street, in the visitor’s center, again in the visitor’s center, in the hut, and at the mission office…and the man says he’ll come to the door. So he does and I explain again who I’m looking for and I show them the address…now I add that this man is a temple worker himself and this apartment is temple worker housing, and he doesn’t know the Peñuelas but he looks at the address and says “Oh, you want building 5, this is 50!”

SEE, I KNEW 50 wasn’t 5!!

He explains that 5 is at the end of the street. Now we’re getting somewhere! I walk to the end of the street where I find a door numbered 5 right by the corner and I knock or buzz and nothing happens—I should have already said that this entire time nearly everything I do is done with the anticipation of seeing the Peñuelas at any moment sizzling below the surface, like even crossing the Temple compound, the chance that I might just see the two of them coming from the other direction is extremely present and real to me. I peer through the tiny gap at the side of the door into the courtyard behind it. I see cars parked, but this door is too skinny for cars to go through it. So I walk the rest of the way to the corner and see that, yep, around the corner there’s a (closed) set of doors wide enough for cars to go in and out of.

At this point I feel like I’ve really got something, if I can just catch some people coming in or out of the apartments, they’ll know the Peñuelas (if not be the Peñuelas).

Now, the thing is twenty and a half years earlier I had found myself back on this same corner behind the temple one time and back then there was this funny store called “La Manzana del Templo” which translates to “the Apple of the Temple” but is also how they say “Temple Square” in Spanish. La Manzana del Templo cracked me up because it sold a bunch of pirata copies of LDS videos and pictures…like color copies of famous church photos and artwork and unlicensed copies of all the church videos. Selling pirated stuff is a major industry in Mexico and it was very funny to me back then that there was a business selling pirated church materials, right behind the temple, also because those church videos and pictures were already available super cheap from the church. Anyway, always remembered that curious little Manzana del Templo and I looked across the street and, Yep, there it still was all these years later. So I go over to take a look at it, sort of wondering if I’ll go inside or not but probably not (*I’d like to add that I just checked the Manzana’s Facebook page and their wares look far more legitimate these days. From humble beginnings! Really wish I had gone in.) But then I look away from the Manzana and see a couple entering Building 5 through the big car doors.

This is my chance! I shout out to them and rush over their way. They either don’t hear me, or don’t pay any attention to me, and close the door behind them. I would’ve done the same if I were them! I take a coin from my pocket and tap on the metal door with it (this is how we did it on the mission!) and tap and tap, not obnoxiously, but with commitment. And the woman of the couple she opens the door a smidge. I explain to her what I explained at the housing office, the recommend desk, in the temple office, on the street to the sisters, in the visitor’s center to the sisters, in the visitor’s center to the seniors, in the security hut, in the mission office, and to the man at building 50 and she tells me that oh yes she knows the Peñuelas and they stay in this complex but they’ve gone home for the weekend.

What?

This cannot be.

No they’ve gone home, she explains. Gone home for the weekend, Definitely not here. Gone! I mean, come on inside (she opens the door to the complex and lets me into the patio) That’s their little apartment right there, but they’ve left. They’re not here, they’re gone. Definitely gone for the weekend. I mean, you can come over and look at the apartment, they are not here. Their car is gone, too. They are not here. This is the apartment and they’re gone, the car is gone too. I mean, we could knock on the door, sure, she suggests, in fact let’s even do it, but the Peñuelas are most definitely gone.

So she knocks the door.

And Sister Peñuelas answers it. “Barnes!” she exclaims, she recognizes me immediately.

With a dumfounded hug she welcomes me into the apartment. She brings me into the small living room, shutting the door to the bedroom as I glimpse Brother Peñuelas within, pulling on a pair of Sunday pants. She looks at me in sheer wonder, and I look back with the same. I explain to her about Alejandro’s Facebook message. I explain what I had explained and that I explained it at the housing desk, at the recommend desk, in the temple office, on the street, in the visitor center, in the visitor’s center again, in the hut, in the mission office, at building 50 and at building 5.

And you didn’t give up?

No!

A deep breath, more looks of wonder, tears of long years. Then the pulling of selves back together. An attempt to recount what Brigham has been up to. I do not know how well she understands what I call my Spanish these days, but she listens intently. I snap her photo to send to Alejandro. One we’ve covered Brigham business she speaks so gratefully of her family, her children, their family, her new home that I must visit outside the city. She goes on and on, so much pride in her family and the opportunity she has to work at the temple. Blessings. Not afraid to claim a blessing or acknowledge a miracle. I hear the bedroom door open.

Gordo! Come look at who came to visit us, do you recognize him? He looks just the same!

Brother Peñuelas emerges with a broad smile. His pants are on and over his undershirt he wears, well, it can only be described as a kimono.

Yes I know him, it’s Barnes, I heard there was a visitor and thought who can it be.

We hug, he sits and marvels at me. She explains to him how I came to be in their living room but they also both can’t understand how it happened and I don’t understand either except that it is a blessing and a miracle.  

We all just marvel at each other and this reunion. He tells me about his family, their new home, their work in the temple. He has shaed his mustache. Oh who knows how long he hasn’t had a mustache, I didn’t have a beard as a missionary. It is so good to hear them speak about their children with such pride and joy. I’m so glad we’re not talking about me. I suggest we take a photo, “tomamos una foto” I say “sí, sacamos una foto” Sister Peñuelas corrects without correcting and I can’t believe the dumb mistake. But first she needs to get dressed for the temple! (I had caught her in a sweatshirt). But before that, she’ll make me a nice treat!

I sit at their kitchen table with Brother Peñuelas and she hands me a bowl of canned guavas in syrup. Among the miracles of the day: I ate most of those guavas, a fruit I had always struggled with. Brother Peñuelas gets out his tablet and speaks proudly of his grandchildren and nieces, shows me some photos, then goes on to talk about their current branch and the branch president, of whom he is very proud, and something about the pulpit of the chapel. He searches his tablet for pictures of the inside of the chapel. Keeps winding up back at the pictures of his grandkids. Really can’t find those right pictures of the branch. We get a little quiet as we wait for Sister Peñuelas. I don’t know what else to say in the moment but I am so glad to be there, silent with Brother Peñuelas, until his wife comes out. I take their picture, we take selfies, I send the selfies to a missionary I served with while I lived above the Peñuelas family with the caption “un milagro” and get an immediate response of “Genial” from him.

We leave the apartment, it’s time for them to be heading to the temple. With pride they show me their car parked beside their apartment, and then we go over to the apartment of the couple that let me in. With great joy Sister Peñuelas explains to me what I had explained to the sister before she let me in and then we head to the temple, entering through a different back gate and crossing the big hot parking lot.

Over to the temple we mostly talk about what a thing it is to be reunited that day, so unexpected. With a few minutes to go before their shift begins we dawdle outside the temple, Sister Peñuelas asks some other people outside to sacar our photos and we get some great ones. Then a few final near tearful goodbyes, effusively kind words from Sister Peñuelas, earnest best from myself and Brother Peñuelas. I tell them goodbye. Oh I could have stayed forever but also I was still in Mexico City, I had to go see what other good my favorite city had for me that day. More hugs, more goodbyes, I walk away towards the Visitor’s Center (to avail myself of their drinking fountain and other plumbing). I look back over my shoulder, the Peñuelas are still standing there, they wave, she blows kisses. I walk on, look over my shoulder again, still there they wave more. As I enter the center, one more look back, they’re still watching me, they wave farewell, and we enter our respective buildings.

I see my guy. “I found them,” I am blessed to be able to proclaim.

I marveled for the rest of the day, the rest of the trip, and for weeks upon weeks, at the miracle of miracles it was to have been reunited with Brother and Sister Peñuelas, the blessing beyond belief to have wound up down in Mexico that weekend so that I could see them again.

The rest of the trip was grand beyond words, or let me say I’ll spare you the words, and my getting onto the last flight out of the city that Sunday after a day at the airport was it’s own miracle too.

Months pass. Spring/Summer 2020. Everyone is stuck at home. Sister Peñuelas sends me a greeting on my birthday, reminding me that in Mexico April 30th is their Day of the Child. More time passes, I stay inside. I’m on Facebook in the middle of June, scrolling through my feed, and am surprised to see one of the photos I took of Brother Peñuelas posted in November posted there. They really can’t get over my visit! I smile. But then I am more surprised when I read the caption, an announcement that he had passed away that day. Or I should say more totally shocked. I’ve never so literally felt nearly knocked out my chair in spite of using that expression a little too often in my day to day conversations. I message what I can to the family, send more photos, watch Sister Peñuelas post daily happy photos of the two of them, read encouraging posts from her friends and family. Marvel, again, at the miracle of having been reunited with them that November. Literally my last chance to ever do so and so glad I swept aside whatever the plans I had were and grateful to my helpers at the compound and to myself for not having given up. Alejandro tells me that one of my pictures is what they used for the funeral. Edna (their daughter) thanks me for my infinite love for her parents (but really the infinite love is for all the Peñuelas but ok). Eventually it turns into another one of the numbing terribles of these corona days. Everything seems to have calmed down until I get a message from Sister Peñuelas in early August, in response to a message I had sent to the whole family earlier (y hermana lo siento por compartir esto aquí en público pero al menos lo dejé en español) :

se me hizo un nudo en la garganta, por la emotivas palabras por Brigham Barnes gracias de corazón usted sabe que le apreciamos mucho que siempre está en nuestro corazón y si efectivamente, recuerdo cuando nos despedimos a la entrada del Templo, mí esposo me dijo ésto y hasta hoy lo recuerdo me dijo sentí algo muy raro en mí, al despedirme de Barnes, como si ya no lo veré más, le contesté, ni digas eso lo volveremos a ver. Y usted entro al Centro de visitantes y ya no lo vimos más, pero el lo recordaba por muchos dias. Y si efectivamente, el ya no lo verá, hasta vernos con el Rey

Really, miracle of miracles, I cannot leave it at anything else. I look back at all my Peñuelas time as just time that I benefited from their kindness towards me, really all I can do is thank them for it forever and ever but that they have thankful words for me as well, I rank that with the miracles, too.