20 minute read

David Evans

Following the Mormon custom, Spanish instructor David Evans traveled across Chile during his missionary trip over 20 years ago. Although there were challenges along the way, Evans connected with his faith and mastered the language he now teaches without any prior instruction.

His hands are shaking as he opens the envelope.

He’s nervous but excited.

Ever since he sent in his missionary papers a few weeks ago, he has waited to see where the next step of his life will take place.

Today is the day he finds out where his mission is. Today is the day that determines where he spends the next two years fulfilling his role as a Mormon missionary.

As his hands are shaking, 19-year-old David Evans unfolds the paper. He opens his eyes, takes a deep breath and reads… OSORNO, CHILE. ––––

• Growing up, the tradition is for young men to go on a mission. It used to be from the age of 19 to 21. That has changed now to start at 18, but I went when I was 19. • You fill out your missionary papers, and you wait for your call in the mail and open up the envelope. You find out at that moment where you’re going. I remember opening up the envelope and seeing

‘Osorno, Chile.’ • The Osorno, Chile, mission within the church spans the entire southern half of Chile starting directly south of

Concepción to the tip of South America. It goes to Punta Arenas, which is the furthest south you can get until Antarctica. • You’re sent to the missionary training center in Provo, Utah, for a couple of months after you get your call. You have to live in the training center where you learn how you’re going to share your message and also have a crash course in the language. I hadn’t learned any Spanish before I went, so it was very difficult. • It was daunting on the airplane. You see the Andes Mountains rising in the background through the airplane windows. You hear the people speaking very quickly in a unique accent, and you don’t understand it. It was a feeling of both exhilaration and challenge with a little bit of doubt, but you know that so many people have done it in the past, so you can do it too. • When I got to Santiago and stepped off that airplane, I couldn’t understand a single thing anyone was saying. It took me months to really communicate, listen and understand. It took me a few more months to actually converse and be comfortable. • Once you get there, you go to the mission home, which is in a really nice neighborhood in Osorno, and meet the mission president. • The first night I went out with other missionaries, we walked to this house and

shared our message. It was amazing. The family was so receptive and wanted to hear the message. The other missionaries were so good at what they did. It was exhilarating to see what they did and know that someday I would be doing it, too. • You get paired up with a companion.

A companion is another missionary.

Usually there’s a junior companion and a senior companion, so they pair up people who don’t know what they’re doing with someone else who does. You’re together for protection, so if anything were to happen, you’re with someone else. It’s like a buddy system. • We lived in what’s called pensiones. Those were either houses of members of the church down there or someone who we rented the house from. We’d live in the pensión with a companion. We’d do all of our missionary work, service, preaching, baptizing –– all of the stuff we do as missionaries –– together. • You go through many companions throughout the mission because we go through many different places. You spend maybe a month or two in one place, and you’re off to another place and you spend a month or two there. Maybe three or four months in some spots. Sometimes it’s fast.

Sometimes it’s not. You never know. They keep you on your toes. You’re always going to different places and are paired with different people. • I started out in a small town called

Loncoche with an American companion.

He trained me how to do what they do down there as a missionary. He was wonderful. He helped me out a ton. • After that, I got a native speaker as a companion, and he was great too. We didn’t get along too well all the time, but he taught me a lot. He kind of laughed at my Spanish, which I didn’t like because I wasn’t very good at it yet, but he wasn’t trying to hurt my feelings. • In these rural parts of Chile, they burn

Across Chile, Evans interacted with native Chileans in a number of ways, from visiting families (left) to preparing sheep for meals (below) to helping local chop down trees and transport the wood to their homes.

wood for heat, so they have woodburning stoves everywhere. They do that even for cooking and heating their water.

We had plenty of opportunities to chop wood. We were chopping wood all the time for folks. • We would go around and set up appointments with people who wanted to learn about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. The people who wanted to join would get baptized, so we would facilitate that. • Over the course of a few months, I became a senior companion, a district leader and a trainer. I would train my own new missionaries. From there, I became a zone leader as well, learned the language and preached the Gospel. • One time, we were walking along some railroad tracks, and there happened to be a man with us who had had a little too much to drink. He was asking for money, so he said “Pesos, por favor.” I said, “No tengo pesos [I don’t have money],” and he said, “Oh, besos? Quieres besos [Do you want kisses]?” He started to chase us down the railroad tracks, trying to give us kisses. • We were walking down a dirt road, and there was a house off to the side. In the front yard, there was a guy who had a sheep tied up to his tree by its legs, and he was cutting it open and processing it for food. But this was in his front yard, out in the open. They put a casserole dish underneath the sheep and let the blood drip out into the dish, and it coagulates, and it’s like jelly. They added spices, took a spoon and ate it. • One day I was in our pensión, and the lady who owned the house, one night, came in with half a cow. And it was skinned, but it was the meat and bones of half a cow. She took her knife and just started cutting it up. Being from the

United States, we don’t see things like that very often. • There were times that were harder than others, especially because you’d get homesick. We could only call home two times a year: Mother’s Day and

Christmas. We were not in contact with our families really at all besides a few letters. That was a very military-type custom. The idea is that you go and devote yourself, so you’re not distracted by things at home. • I went through a really hard time in the middle of my mission. I was given the opportunity to lead my own sector, but then the mission president called me to a different area. I also had a girlfriend in high school, and she ended up writing me a letter saying that she was getting married to someone else. On top of that, I received the news that one of my friends passed away. • It ended up being the case that the mission president just wanted me to be trained for a higher level position. My friend’s death helped me learn that I could get through things like that, and my girlfriend leaving me allowed me to meet my wife later on. When you’re young and focused on something, it’s easy to get tunnel vision, but looking back on that now, I realized that things really do work out. • I wanted to be an accountant before I headed out on my mission. Had I not learned Spanish, had I not had the rich experiences down in Chile that I had, I never would’ve come back and wanted to teach Spanish. • I don’t think anyone who serves a mission, who wants to go and who really devotes their time and themselves to what they’re doing comes away with it and has any regret. They will say that it was the best time of their life.

Story Peter Orsak, Han Zhang Photos Courtesy David Evans

Evans also engaged

in the Chilean community during his mission trip by building houses (left) and visiting the Andes Mountains.

Charles Kaufman ’71

To Kaufman, a signature is much more than a scribble: it’s a work of art. He’s always had an affinity for the unique nature of autographs and artwork and has amassed a diverse collection of both.

Charles Kaufman ‘71 began collecting autographs, mostly signatures from baseball’s biggest names, early on in his childhood. It was a part of the sports culture of his youth.

“When people went to the ballpark, collecting autographs was just part of the baseball experience,” Kaufman said. “Players were certainly amenable to meeting with young fans and signing autographs. You would always see kids waiting in line to connect with their sports heroes.”

Kaufman came to ballparks to meet childhood heroes and leave with meaningful mementos. But he’s witnessed the autograph change from a mainstay of any young fan’s trip to a game to the center of a commercialized industry.

“The real charm about collecting [autographs] has changed a lot because now people have an idea of what this stuff is worth,” Kaufman said, “and I certainly, as a kid, didn’t go into it with that in mind.”

The aesthetic of athletes’ autographs has changed as well.

“Nowadays, players try to meet the fan demand so much that they have a shorthand autograph or a squiggle,” Kaufman said.

Yet, even with the commercialization of autographs, Kaufman believes they still possess their artistic significance. He connects each person’s unique autograph to an artist’s “signature” style. Kaufman began to collect artwork and has assembled a collection of both autographed memorabilia and art pieces in his home.

“Art is something I’ve always just appreciated, but I didn’t really pursue it until I was working as a columnist in a newspaper,” Kaufman said. “I noticed nobody was really writing about art. Something I discovered just in pursuing this passion is that [artists] are very interesting people.”

It was the artists themselves, the athletes themselves and how they gave each signature or work of art their own personal twist that intrigued Kaufman.

“Art was certainly a great diversion from sports,” Kaufman said. “I really appreciate the artists, not only from their work but from who they are and the various slices of history that they represent.”

Here are some of Kaufman’s favorite autographs and works of art in his home:

Story Henry McElhaney, Arjun Khatti Photos Courtesy Charles Kaufman

Louis Freund, a painter who began producing murals and wartime propaganda pieces during the beginning of the Great Depression, created this piece, titled ‘The Storm,’ in 1946, not long after the end of World War II.

Kaufman was working as a newspaper columnist when he discovered this work. At the time, he was interested in protest art, which brought him closer to works like Freund’s.

“I was doing this article about protest art,” Kaufman said, “and someone introduced this piece to me. It blew me away. There are other themes that are similar to this one, but ‘The Storm’ is his own interpretation of this theme. I just think it’s an incredible piece, and I feel so honored to own it.”

Freund used lithography, a method of printing that uses water- and oil-based inks, in many of his wartime propaganda pieces. But ‘The Storm’ stands out to Kaufman.

“There were only ten prints made,” Kaufman said, “but it’s such a powerful, expressive work. It’s probably one of the favorite things I have in my collection. Even though this guy is far less known than the other people whose art I collect, I just love his work and this one in particular.”

This Boston Sports Lodge

autographed piece features some of the greatest baseball players from the 20th century — Cy Young, Joe McCarthy, Lefty Grove and many more who were inducted into the earliest classes of the Baseball Hall of Fame.

“This is a good piece to illustrate the uniqueness of an autograph,” Kaufman said. “Cy Young (bottom) is a folklore character of baseball. He was born in the 1800s, and this piece was signed in 1955, so there’s a good chunk of time represented in this signature.”

Kaufman emphasizes how each signature is different in its own way. Some signatures evolve throughout a person’s life, and others stay more consistent.

“The actual crafting of the names is something that I find fascinating,” Kaufman said. “Signatures are like fingerprints. They’re really unique to that person. And they can change, so the way you write your name now might look completely different in 20 years.”

Donald Roller Wilson is a super-realistic painter known for his portraits of unique subjects, from dog breeds to baby orangutans. The photo realism in these pieces fascinates Kaufman.

“I like to get up close to the canvases and see brush strokes,” Kaufman said, “and it’s just amazing to me how real this is. He writes a narrative with his painting, and only Roller knows what all this stuff in his work is.”

Kaufman admits that Roller’s goofy style isn’t for everyone. You either love it or you hate it. But for him, it’s the technical virtuosity matched with the whimsical narrative of these paintings that excites him the most.

“This world he paints with animals in Victorian clothing, it’s just the crazy wacky world of Roller,” Kaufman said. “I’m sure all of these are real people in his mind, but I guess he portrays them as animals. And every hair follicle is in such detail, it’s just amazing.”

Reyno For Lt. Colonel Reyno Arredondo, a 30 year career in the Army wasn’t just a chance to serve his country — it was an opportunity to transform his life.

Arredondo ’87

Late summer in Baghdad is hot and dusty, and this July evening was no exception. Even the cool breeze that wafted off the moat surrounding the Al Faw palace — built and once occupied by Saddam Hussein — couldn’t keep the sweat off Major Reyno Arredondo’s face as he arrived at an auditorium inside for the 17:00 evening briefing.

The auditorium itself looked like something out of a movie. The walls, ceiling and floor were littered with Hussein’s signature gold and marble accents. A live feed from a Predator drone played 24/7 on a projector in front. And in the rows ahead of him, dressed in wartime fatigues, were the commanders of the Iraq War.

“The generals got to sit up-front and in the middle,” Arredondo said. “Behind them were the chief of staff and a couple of colonels from military intelligence and Infantry. And then my Intel section sat behind them on one side.”

After the briefing, just as he was getting ready to leave, Arredondo saw the 6’5” figure of General Raymond Odierno, commander of all U.S. troops in Iraq and Arredondo’s “boss’s boss,” approaching him.

“I had no clue what was going on,” said Arredondo. “But he said ‘Hey Rey, I need you to pack your stuff’ — he didn’t say stuff, he used an expletive — ‘You’re going to Kurdistan.’”

Odierno explained the mission. Arredondo would have 30 days to fly to neighboring Kurdistan’s capital, Erbil, and convince the Kurdish president to have a summit meeting with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and support the current Iraqi government. Arredondo was shocked, and so was the colonel sitting in front of him.

“My colonel thought they would pick another colonel,” Arredondo said. “He didn’t expect Odierno to drop down two ranks and choose a major: me.”

Arredondo doesn’t remember exactly what he thought as the plane to Erbil took off. But it’s not hard to imagine that a single phrase stuck in his mind — one which, 30-years later, he recites as if he memorized it yesterday.

His West Point class moto: “Defenders of the Free.”

Arredondo came to St. Mark’s in the third grade, riding an hour and a half each way on the city bus from his barrio —or neighborhood — in West Dallas to the stop just outside 10600

Preston Rd.

“The bus ride to downtown was normally

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just me, but once I caught the Preston Hollow bus I always met a few [St. Mark’s] cafeteria workers,” Arredondo said. “And one of them, Miss Maxine, would always check up on me and give me a snack if she thought I was hungry.”

The ride back was much less comfortable. As soon as Arredondo got off the stop near his home, he was bullied and beaten up by other kids in the barrio, all for carrying a backpack and wearing his school uniform. For Arredondo, this environment added to the appeal of a more regimented lifestyle.

“Growing up as a Latino on the wrong side of the tracks, I saw a lot of drugs, violence and alcohol abuse,” Arredondo said. “I knew that if I joined the military, it was going to give me an opportunity to start my life out knowing nobody else would have to worry about me.”

When he began seriously looking at colleges freshman year, West Point stood out.

“The leadership focus is what really drew me in,” Arredondo said. “In the army, the major component isn’t technical like it is in the Air Force and the Navy. It’s soldiers. So at West Point, leadership is tantamount to your success.”

But a few obstacles stood in his way. Arredondo was a top wrestler, winning the Texas state championships his sophomore and senior years, but his focus on training had let his grades suffer. So he took a more circuitous route, spending a year enlisted at Ford Ord before applying again to West Point and

Currency of excellence

Challenge coins are given for courageous service or for completing a difficult mission. Here, Arredondo discusses his favorites:

Dead center, the coin in the shape of a pentagon was given to me by General Raymond Odierno, my commanding officer in Iraq who was a terrific mentor to me. And below it to the right is my own challenge coin, the one I gave out in Afghanistan to the troops I commanded there.” making the Division 1 wrestling team, where he found yet another community he could bond with.

“I got to meet and serve with some lifelong friends,” Arredondo said. “It’s funny — of my 11 teammates in the Class of ’93, seven now live in the Dallas Fort-Worth area. We get together on a fairly regular basis.”

He also quickly learned the “West Point culture,” the moral qualities of honesty and honor the academy instilled in its cadets. These proved useful when he served on an Honor Board his senior year.

“Some cadets had a disagreement and just exploded, and we were tasked with assigning a punishment,” Arredondo said. “And while there were some officers there to supervise us, it was really neat to see how everyone — there was a representative from every class — tried their best to give a fair punishment.”

In his final months at West Point, Arredondo picked his specialty — military intelligence — and graduated. His first deployment, to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, came soon after.

“In 1994, we had Haitian refugees, and Cuban refugees that were trying to migrate to our shores in makeshift boats, which was not very good,” Arredondo said. “So we would go out in Coast Guard boats and bring them to the base [at Guantanamo Bay] so they could be processed and taken care of.”

Just a year out of college, Arredondo was assigned 100 military service members, who

he ordered to interview asylum seekers and to quell riots and other unrest within the camps. He would also advise commanders at the base on any larger issues among the refugees. That taught him an important lesson: trust the process.

“The military decision making process allows staff officers to make arguments or plead cases,” Arredondo said. “And I always felt that the process worked.”

Over a decade later, as he sat in an auditorium in Baghdad, that trust gave him confidence he would succeed in his mission.

Arredondo knew that as soon as he landed in Erbil, the 30-day clock was ticking. So he soon met with a Kurdish intelligence officer and they hit it off — over soccer.

“We both loved Bocca Juniors [an Argentine soccer club],” Arredondo said. “And he wound up inviting me to the soccer championship between Baghdad’s team and the Kurdish team. I ended up sitting with governors, mayors and all kinds of leaders from Kurdistan. That gave me incredible legitimacy.”

Soon after, Arredondo met with the Kurdish President’s Chief of Staff, Dr. Fuad Hussein. This time, the connection he made was far more personal.

“When I met with Dr. Faud, everything opened up. Amazingly, he reminded me of my grandfather. So we had an instant connection, because I almost felt the reciprocal feeling from him.”

Arredondo immediately invited him and the president to come to Baghdad and meet with Secretary Rice. While Dr. Hussein wasn’t sure at first, after a week of internal discussions he and President Masoud Barzani agreed to the summit. For Arredondo, the mission’s early successes felt like destiny.

“I’m a Catholic,” Arredondo said. “And my first Sunday in Erbil, I heard the bells of a Catholic church. I never felt more that God was in control of my life. Things were happening because they were supposed to happen.”

Weeks later, the first-ever summit between President Barzani, President Jalal Talabani of Iraq, U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker, and Secretary Rice took place. In a working lunch with President Barzani and General Petraeus soon after, Arredondo walked in after making sure the security teams and pilots were taken care of, expecting to sit in the corner and grab a quick bite. Then, President Barzani gestured to him.

“He calls me up in front, stopping all discussion that was going on around this huge table,” Arredondo said. “He yells ‘Kaka Reyno, Kaka Reyno’ — ‘Kaka’ is a friendly term in Kurdish, like uncle — and he sits me down next to him, opposite General Petraeus. I was floored. I knew he looked at me in a way that was great.” Story Alam Alidina, Dylon Wyatt Photos Jerry Zhao

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