In Memory of Kim Cha Bong at Sodaemun |
Thursday, 31 May 2001
by Bruce Grant
Yesterday about 2:15 PM Audrey and I drove around the corner from our Provo home to Eastlawn Memorial Cemetery. We spotted the new grave about 20 yards east of where we will be buried. Family and friends had just left, and the black vault surrounding Kim Cha Bong"s casket stared like a blind eye up from its earthen socket. Cha Bong rests on a ridge that juts east from the Cascade massif, a Second Peak. ("Second Peak" is the translation of the characters in Cha Bong"s name.) A big kid, about 17, walked up and began shoveling soil into the grave.
The earth banged loudly on the plastic vault, animating my mind's eye. Time dissolved to March of 1961, and I saw a figure wearing the dark-blue Mao jacket of the college freshman bent over against a strong wind, struggling along the street at Seodaemun Rotary. Cha Bong and I met that frigid night in western Seoul, and now, almost exactly 40 years later, we parted. The loop had closed in an astonishing way. We made our last greetings 8,000 miles from the first, but Cha Bong"s earthly remains rest only yards from where mine soon will lie, so close in death, so far from where we first met.
Cha Bong's legacy is broad and deep. I counted no fewer than 300 people at the funeral yesterday. I listened to Cha Bong's bright and respectful children and sons-in-law on the funeral program, returning filiality to the paragon of that virtue. I thrilled to the reading from the pulpit of paeans submitted by missionaries who served under Cha Bong at Seoul West Mission. I thought both of Cha Bong's smile and his resolve -- we agreed to disagree about Chinese-character pedagogy in our BYU classes. Last November at Spence Palmer's funeral, Cha Bong and I fell into each other's arms, sobbing. Spence and Cha Bong now rest only 10 yards apart. Few proud Korean men I know would cry in public as Cha Bong did that morning. Those tears set him apart, but I already knew he was exceptional.
It was early March, 1961, and I was a new senior companion. I'd taught three or four 'cottage meetings' at the church that night, and the clock had ticked around to 8:30 PM, at which time I'd scheduled my last batch of appointments. None showed up at the old barn of a school we used as church and residence because the wind from Ulan Bator was gusting to 30 miles per hour, and the wind chill plunged to zero. I'd done more than my missionary duty that day. I'd arisen at 4:00 AM, and mandatory turn-in time was only an hour away. There was no more proselyting to be done at that late hour or in that bitter cold. Something compelled me, however, to face my Junior Companion's wrath, something outside of myself. "Elder, let's go out and do some street contacting." He looked at me, and I read "Are you crazy?" in his eyes, but I was the senior, so out we went.
I knew I'd made a mistake as soon as the gate closed behind us. The wind whipped through my overcoat, the dark was ink. We stumbled down to Sodaemun Rotary. I clutched slips of paper bearing my name, a brief introduction to the Church, and a map to the barn, but no pedestrian was in sight. Nobody was foolish enough to be out on a night like this.
My companion mumbled something against the wind; he wanted to go home. I yelled over the gusts that we'd stay out until 9:15, but my toes had frozen, I was sure, and I steeled myself to persist until 9:00. Not a single pedestrian hove by. I finally gave up, salving my conscience by determining to read the D&C Commentary when we got back. Then I saw him. He was just a shadow at first, a bit darker than the ink, walking west from Kwanghwa-mun toward the Rotary. There was a dull street light where he'd have to cross, so I made for the light. I beat him there, warmed my frozen lips with a glove, and quickly rehearsed my street-contact spiel.
As the shadow neared, I could see he wore a freshman Mao jacket. Great, I thought, a college student! I pushed a church map at him and launched into my pitch. The howling wind made it hard to hear, and my fractured Korean didn.t help, but he agreed to meet to study the gospel. Then a clear idea originating far outside my frozen neurons sailed directly to my vocal chords. Would Mr. Kim care to get warm by having a study session right that minute at our nearby church in Sinmun-no? The blast rose higher. The cold must have decided it for him.
"Sure," he said. We spent an hour going over the Joseph Smith story. Cha Bong was baptized later in 1961. Decades after my mission, I remember the details of only two conversions, Ko Won Yong's and Kim Cha Bong's. I remember them because in both cases my contact with them was extraordinary. I functioned merely as mouth for a larger power. I shall never forget that shadow bent against the gale, or those distinctive eyes, or the surety that Cha Bong was never my investigator.
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