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Don’t Push, Buddy

Dave Trujillo was a talented athlete—a good runner. When he came of age, his bishop and others
wanted him to serve a mission. Dave was reluctant but finally agreed, if they would promise him
that he wouldn’t be called to a Spanish-speaking mission. The year was 1965. The papers were
filled out. The Bishop actually wrote on the papers that Dave would refuse the call if he was sent
anywhere where they spoke Spanish.

The call came. Dave opened it and saw that he was called to San Jose. Great, he thought. He’d
always wanted to spend time in San Jose, California. Dave felt good until his father read the call
more carefully and saw that Dave was called, not to San Jose, California, but San Jose, Costa Rica.
To his eternal credit, Dave accepted the call anyway. How do you turn down a call from the
Lord? You don’t!

He went through his training. The language did not come easily to him, especially when his first
companion did everything he could to belittle him and make him feel like he would never learn
to communicate in Spanish. However, as Elder Trujillo served in different areas, his Spanish
improved and he became an effective missionary.

One day while street contacting in the gorgeous mountain city of Turrialba, Costa Rica, a young
man came up to Elder Trujillo and his companion and asked them who they were. His name was
Churchill and they began to teach him at the chapel. After a couple of visits, they told him they
could not teach him further until they met his parents.

They met Churchill’s mother who gave her consent for him, and his siblings, to be taught in the
home. Each time they would have a lesson Elder Trujillo would ask the mother to come and join
them, and each time she would refuse, saying, “Don’t push, Buddy.” She never joined but
listened far away in the background.

Then, one day the elders began to teach a lesson about the Plan of Salvation. Elder Trujillo felt a
strong prompting. He stood up, walked into the kitchen, and faced the mom. He looked her in the
eye, and said, “You need to come now and listen.” She did.

As the elders explained the plan of salvation, and particularly the part about the salvation of little
children, the mother began to cry. “She’d had a baby who had died, and the priest had told her
that the child would go to hell because it was not baptized. [He] also told her that in order for
him to pray for the baby to get out of hell, she needed to pay him $100 (a big amount of money
to her) and also pay for the professional mourners to come and to have the bells of the chapel
ring so the heavens could receive the child.”

Not having that kind of money, the grieving mother was heartbroken. Can you imagine her joy
when Elder Trujillo and his companion explained to her that the baby was with Heavenly Father
already and that in a coming day she would be with the child again?

Not long after that, the mother and other members of the family were baptized in a river on their
farm. Just before entering the waters of baptism, she said to Elder Trujillo, “I am going to call
this spot the Waters of Mormon” today. Most of the family received baptism and their lives were
changed, bringing hope and a knowledge that Heavenly Father loved them.

Forty years later, the reluctant Spanish-speaking missionary, Dave Trujillo, and his wife,
Neweleen, returned to San Jose, Costa Rica. There were many familiar places even after all that
time, but perhaps the most sacred place we visited with the Trujillo’s was the San Jose Costa
Rica Temple—the fruit of Elder Trujillo’s labors to teach the restored gospel of Jesus Christ in
Spanish.

Later that week, we drove through the city of Turrialba, and Dave recognized the home where he
had been prompted by the Spirit to ignore the words “Don’t push, Buddy.” He went back and
knocked on the door. He knew them and they remembered him. He learned that that faithful
mother had passed away and Dave rejoiced in the knowledge that just as he had promised so
many years before, she was now reunited with that little one– not in hell, but in the loving
presence of Almighty God.