Kidnapped in Argentina!
As a young 19-year old missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I had just arrived in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
My missionary companion and I were walking back to our apartment at 9:00 at night on a dirt road, with nobody else around. A car drove past and then stopped. A man got out of the car and yelled, “Hey Mormons, do you need a ride home?” My companion politely declined and we kept walking. The man then pulls out a long barrel pistol and says, “Get in the car now!” Scared, we both got in the back seat of the car.
One man kept a gun on us while the other drove. My companion asked, “What do you want?”. The man replies, “Give me everything you have.” We gave him our watches and wallets. He asked for more, so we handed over backpacks, scriptures and pictures of our families. The man then says something, but just learning to speak in Spanish, I didn’t understand. I saw my companion taking off his shirt. I whispered, “What are you doing?”, to which he responded, “Dale! Dale!”, (“Hurry! Hurry!”)
I took off my shirt and tie and gave them to the man with the gun. Then he said, “Give me your shoes.” I had just bought nice, expensive, black shoes to last me my entire mission. Begrudgingly, I handed them over. Then the man continued, “Now give me your pants!” In my broken Spanish, I replied, “Por favor, un poco dignidad” (“Please, a little bit of dignity.”) The two men argued and finally snapped back, “Fine! Keep your pants!” I said thank you and proceeded to ask for my books and pictures back. To my surprise, they gave them to me.
The man then asks where we live and my companion lied and told them the water tower in the middle of town. They dropped us off there. We must have been quite the sight — two foreign missionaries, one Chilean and the other American, stranded on a street corner, without shirts and without shoes, our books in our hands. We made sure we weren’t followed and then booked it home and locked the door.
I was terrified. I wanted to go home. I had not signed up for armed robbery and near death experiences. But after talking with my mission president and thinking about it, I decided to stay. I spent six more weeks in that town, terrified every night.
That wouldn’t be the last time in Argentina I was robbed, or even the last time I faced someone with a gun. It was the last time I was kidnapped.
Why do I tell you this? Sometimes things happen that make us want to quit. Scary, hard things. But every day, I am glad that I stayed. By staying, lives were changed. I helped people. I made a difference.
My time as a missionary was hard, it was tiring, it was scary. And it was wonderful and rewarding and faith-building. I wouldn’t trade those experiences for the world. Sometimes you have to push through the scary, hard things to accomplish truly great things. Although next time I try to do great things in Argentina, I think I will stay away from dirt roads and men with pistols. Been there, done that.
