La Gran Aventura Day 7: Ancestors, Church, and the Choirside
Sunday December 17, 2023
A few weeks ago I had lunch in Hillsdale with my good friend Kelly Franklin and the local Catholic priest, Father David. It was a great opportunity to meet, express mutual faith and willingness to work together, and to talk about the Camino. I told them that I’ve been thinking a lot about a dialogue between our two faiths related to the Camino. There is so much that we have in common, and then interesting points of divergence as well. One of those points has to do with the fact that Catholicism has a long tradition of pilgrimage, while in our church we tend to place more emphasis on pioneers than pilgrims.
But the more I think about it, the more I realize that we do have a strong pilgrim tradition in our church -- we just don’t call it that. Anyone who has taken a long trip to visit Salt Lake City to see the temple, or the church history sites in Palmyra, New York; Kirland, Ohio; Nauvoo, Illinois; or Independence, Missouri, has taken a pilgrimage. These are all places we consider sacred, and our faith is strengthened for being there.
One difference, though, is that a traditional pilgrimage is a journey to a sacred site with the goal of forgiveness of sins, or a request for healing, or to give thanks for a miracle. In our church, we go on these pilgrimages to learn about our past, to have our faith strengthened by being in sacred places, and to feel connected to our ancestors. When I pointed this out to Father David, he talked about how when he hiked to Santiago, he felt the same connection that I was describing. It was an important part of his pilgrimage.
This theme of connection with our ancestors is definitely a theme for the trip so far. So much of what we have done has had to do with connecting with family -- past and present.
All of this is a prologue to say that on this trip we are definitely feeling connected to our ancestors. This morning, especially, Betty felt that her grandmother was very close to us -- accompanying us on this journey.
Betty and I with Abuelta Acosta on our wedding day
It’s Sunday, so we got ourselves gussied up and headed off to church. My sister Annie was singing in her church in Orem, and my cousin James’s daughter Samantha was speaking in church in advance of going on a full-time mission to Tennessee, so we decided to divide and conquer. Betty went to support Annie (who did an amazing job and had the added bonus of a Spanish-language Sunday school class), and I took the kids to Provo to Sam’s talk.
Samantha gave a beautiful talk about how God has been working in her life. She has a powerful testimony of the simple message of the gospel, and I’m sure she will be a great missionary. I took advantage of the 2nd hour to conduct an interview with someone from our ward over Zoom. I’m so grateful that technology is allowing for me to continue with my calling even as we are so far away. I’m also super grateful for our ward and stake leadership who has been so supportive of all of this.
After church it was off to a delicious dinner at Annie’s house (another birthday celebration for Zack), and then we went to my Mom and Dad’s church for their annual Christmas “Choirside,” in which all of the choirs from the different wards in their stake (@8 congregations) take turns singing a couple of beautiful Christmas songs for the other choirs (who are listening in the pews and waiting for their turn). As one choir moves off of the stand and the other moves onto it, the entire congregation sings a Christmas carol.
We were all amazed at the quality of the choirs, and we felt the spirit as we sang the beautiful songs of the Savior’s birth.
After the Choirside, we ran into our old friends Lisa and José Lobos, who got married about the same time that we did. When we told them about what we are planning, Lisa told me about a book about the Camino that she had just read called Winds of Change, that she had just read. I’ll add it to the list.
In the night, I took a look at the kids screen time use, and it was way more than they are used to. We knew it would be like that during the driving time, but we had not been on the road for a few days, and it was still really high. So we gathered everyone together and we talked about how one of the purposes of this trip is to spend less time connected to the internet and more time connected to each other. We set a goal to reduce their time on their phones by a pretty significant amount, and they agreed. We’ll see how it goes.