Hartley and Ibarra's Carolita

One Saturday morning in the summer heat of March 1997, Elder Leonard Ibarra and I were finishing up a morning knocking doors on the outer border of our sector of Santa Fe, in the zone of San Miguel. The usual time had already passed for us to head in for lunch, when I said, “Let’s just knock three more doors.” The first two amounted to nothing, but at the very last door we met Carola Santander.

She seemed like a typical 20-year-old Chilean girl, living with her parents and studying. I thought it a bit odd that she had never made any contact with missionaries before, so we taught her the first discussion, and she committed to coming to church that Sunday morning. We agreed to come by the following day to pick her up for church and walk together so that she didn’t feel uncomfortable amongst people she didn’t know.

Sunday arrived, and in typical fashion Elder Ibarra and I split up to go pick up the long list of people who committed to come to church with us. It was a hectic Sunday morning list for me, running from place to place. I left sacrament meeting two or three times to go get more investigators while dropping off others. Sometime at the end of the third block Elder Ibarra leaned over to me and said, “Hey Hartley, what happened to that one girl (Carola)? Was she not home?” My heart immediately sank. It was then that I had realized I had completely forgotten about her. She was written right there on my “agenda”, and thoughts of her waiting on her doorstep waiting for us began haunting me. Had she really been eager to come, or would she have not been there anyways? “Oh, that’s just great!” I thought sarcastically. “The very first time she makes contact with the missionaries and we lie to her about coming to pick her up for church. Who is she going to think we are?”

After church ended, we ran to Carola’s house, not knowing what to say. It was almost one o’clock by then, and I was almost hoping that she wasn’t home. But, of course, that wasn’t the case.

“Nine o’clock, huh?” were the first words that came out of her mouth. “I thought you guys said I could come to church with you, but you never showed up! I was here waiting the whole time!”
Now what do you say to that? Needless to say, apologies were made, and we regained her trust. It turns out that the gospel was exactly what she was looking for, and we taught her the discussions and (this time around) took her to church. Ten days later she was baptized and within two months she was made a stake missionary. She was progressing nicely.

As I neared the end of my mission, I had the distinct impression to talk to Carola about a mission. I asked her what she thought about going on a mission, and she laughed, saying, “Are you kidding? I’m a new member. I’m just learning myself.” By then she had been a baptized for ten months. “Carola,” I said, “I’m not saying you should go, but I think that you’d make a great missionary and maybe it’s something you should consider.”

Six months later Hermana Santander was called to serve in the Chile, Osorno mission. She helped bring many others to the gospel and came home eager to serve in the church. Two years later she met a Chilean returned missionary at institute and was soon married in the Santiago Temple. They now have two children born under the covenant.

In a recent letter she said it best, “Siempre me acuerdo de mi bautismo y del dia que me dejaron plantada!” (I always remember my baptism and the day you left me hanging!”
-Elder Brad Hartley 1996-1998