Trip to the Zoo
January 22, 1990 (Monday)
P-Day!!! On this nice cold day, Elder Benjamin and I decided to go to the zoo. No Elder Shumway, and no Elder Riley. Just Elder Benjamin and me. We left around 10AM in our jeans and heavyish coats.
“Who could have known Taegu had a zoo?” said Elder Benjamin as we walked to our bus stop. “What don’t they have?”
“They don’t have one of our temples,” I said.
“Not yet. But just wait. One day there will be a temple here, bigger than the one in Seoul.”
“We’ll see.”
“Hey,” said Elder Benjamin. “Aren’t you excited? I just love zoos. They’ve got lions and tigers.”
“Yeah, and bears, too.” I think he was more excited about this than I was. I would much rather stay in our apartment and work on my letters, as I was always behind.
And I had already had my fill of zoos, too. My parents loved them. We went to Atlanta, Greenville, South Carolina, and even San Diego. And this zoo would be smaller than all of them. With no charge to enter, I didn’t have high hopes.
“Imagine being on Noah’s Ark,” said Elder Benjamin. “It was like a big zoo, but for survival, not for show. Do you ever wonder: when the animals received the call, how did they knew when and where to go?”
“Wait — what call?”
He suddenly stopped and turned around to explain, but then at that very moment, a car backed out of a small alleyway zooming in front of us at high speed, not pausing at all on the sidewalk we were about to walk on.
Elder Benjamin and I looked at each. “What the heck?” he said.
“Interesting. How did you know to stop walking?” I asked. “That guy would have hit us.”
“It must have been the Spirit. It made me stop. Whoa.”
“I didn’t see him coming.”
“Neither did I,” he said. “The Adversary must be working hard. But the Spirit is protecting us.”
“Or it was just a guy not paying attention. I’m glad you stopped.”
Elder Benjamin resumed walking. “Oh, so you were asking about the call?”
“Oh yeah. I thought Noah was supposed to round up all the animals.”
“Yeah. Two, and or seven of each kind. Do you know how many that would be in total? Thousands. There’s no way he could have done that by himself. That’s why God told the animals to go to Noah. In Genesis 7, it says that the animals went into the ark just as the rains were about to hit.”
“Well, yeah,” I said. “Noah opened the door and let them in.”
Again he stopped in his tracks, right as we were about to cross another alleyway, and this time a motorbike came whooshing past. But this time, it happened behind Elder Benjamin’s back, and he continued talking. “Just think about it. Those elephants walk pretty slow, and all the way from Africa. God must have called them years before the other animals. And what about the polar bears?”
He went on but I wasn’t listening. I was just in awe that he had done it again, and he didn’t even know it. Several onlookers looked at me, and at the bike that still whooshed down the street, and they stared at the oblivious Elder Benjamin. How did he not hear the bike?
I tried to interrupt him to let him know what had happened, but he was enjoying the miracle of the animals. I gave up trying to get his attention.
Eventually, he started walking again, we got on a bus, and then we arrived at Dalseong (달성) Park. Set upon a hill next to downtown, we went through an old Korean gate and entered the park. Tall buildings rose above the trees around us.
At the zoo, an circular path led to all the exhibits, and every now and then cross paths interrupted the middle area. The landscape looked impressive, but as I had expected, the animal exhibits seemed to be rather small.
We were practically the only ones there, probably because of the near-freezing temperatures. Elder Benjamin smiled and said, “Looks like we have the place to ourselves!”
I laughed, thinking about how many people were smarter than us.
We went off to the right, checking out the first exhibit. Birds in small enclosures surrounded by chainlink fence. To my surprise, there was a decent selection, representing all the colors of the rainbow. Elder Benjamin was excited, knowing what each species was, while to me they were just pretty birds.
They did have a peacock — at least I knew what that was.
Next came the monkeys. Or maybe they were chimpanzees. I didn’t know the difference. We talked with them, and they responded, seeming to enjoy our attention. They were in a slightly larger enclosure with chainlink fencing.
At this point, I could appreciate there being hardly anyone around, as we could go crazy with the monkeys. We were there longer than we probably should have been.
Next up — a water exhibit with a few birds, but not much else. Was something missing?
“So, Elder Benjamin,” I said. “Did you not see the bike that almost hit us back there?”
“It was a car,” he said.
“No. Not that. I mean after that. The second time.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You know,” I said. “When you stopped to talk about the animals being called to go to Noah’s Ark?”
“Oh yeah. That was some miracle, wasn’t it?”
“Oh, so you did see the bike.”
“What bike? I’m talking about the animals.”
“I see.” Maybe I could try again later.
Next up was a bear exhibit — a somewhat larger area, and no chainlink this time. Except, we didn’t see any bears.
“Well Elder Elder,” said Elder Benjamin. “Do you see any bears in there? I want to see a bear.”
“Nope. They’re probably inside where it’s warm.”
“Inside where?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Wherever they go when they’re tired? Maybe in that building behind those big rocks?”
“Oh, maybe.”
We continued walking around, but just like with the bears, there were no other big animals. No tigers, no lions, no elephants. Just a few small animals here and there. I suggested that we could go back to the monkeys or chimpanzees and play with them some more.
“I don’t know,” Elder Benjamin said. “I came to see lions and tigers and bears. Maybe we can find someone to help us out.”
That was the other thing. We didn’t see any zoo hands anywhere — just a couple of other random people, and yeah — I think we did see two other visitors who looked just as disappointed.
Elder Benjamin said, “Let’s go back to the tiger exhibit. I saw a building over there.”
“Okay,” I said. We went back, and Elder Benjamin was right. There was a mid-sized building attached to the side of the empty tiger exhibit. And no zoo-hands to be found. We walked around the building as much as we could, but there were no windows, and we couldn’t hear anything from inside. All we saw was a singular door — just a regular metal door you’d see on a shed or warehouse.
“Maybe we can find a trainer inside,” said Elder Benjamin.
“I don’t think we’re supposed to go in there.”
“Nonsense,” he said. “If they wanted to keep us out, why would they put a door there? I’m just going to check to see if it’s locked.”
“Hmmm … the building that’s in the back with no signs saying ‘come in’?”
“I came here to see a tiger, so let’s go find someone.”
He walked toward the door, and then something hit me. I’m not sure what it was — a flash of everything at the same time. The chainlink fences everywhere? The absence of zoo hands? The fact that the building was attached to the tiger exhibit? The building’s relatively small size and the absence of some other alternative area where the tigers could be resting? The idea that we shouldn’t expect this zoo to keep dangerous doors locked?
“Elder Benjamin!” I ran past and got between him and the door. He was only a few seconds away from opening it. I said, “I had a sudden prompting that we need to leave this door shut. I think there’s something on the other side of this door, and it will not be happy to see us.”
“A tiger — right in there?” He backed away in silence, and then said, “Wow. That was close. Elder Elder, do you get the sense that something keeps trying to hurt us?”
“I’d say that’s a distinct possibility.” We started walking away.
Elder Benjamin continued, “Someone doesn’t like us doing the Lord’s work. Trying to take us out of the picture on our P-Day when our guard is down. But it won’t work.”
“No, it won’t,” I said.
“Okay. Let’s go home.”
“Sure,” I said. “I still got some hot chocolate left. We could go warm up. Maybe come back here later in the spring.”
“Sounds good, if we’re still tongbanjas.”
As we walked, I put an arm around him and gave him a quick sideways hug. “Elder Benjamin, I’m so glad you’re my tongbanja. We’re going to get a lot of work done, and we’ll protect each other.”
“That’s right,” he said.
