The Invitation

It wasn't supposed to happen this way. But it did. She invited me. And it made all the difference.  When it comes to my faith, I am usually the one doing the inviting. I'm not sure why it happened differently this time. It was unexpected, unintended and unsolicited. But boy am I glad.

There was a special building being built in her town. Just down her street actually. A house of faith — interestingly not of hers, but of mine. Which only deepened the irony of what was about to happen.

LDS Cordoba Temple

She had been watching it being built for a few years, just a few blocks from her house. One day she asked me if I knew about it. I didn't. So I looked it up and informed myself. She asked about the Open House — I explained that the building would be open to the public for a few weeks before being dedicated. And then she invited me to come down and go through it with her and her family.

I think you can guess what I did.

What is it about invitations that do something to us before we even respond? Think about a recent one you received. A wedding, a graduation, coffee with a friend. You probably don't remember consciously registering it — but you remember feeling glad. Even if the event itself was forgettable, the invite wasn't. That feeling of being beckoned toward something, of being seen as someone worth including — it lingers. It creates anticipation. It whispers that you belong to something bigger than yourself.

That is what an invitation does. It doesn't demand. It hopes. It draws you in and then quietly asks — do you see yourself here?

A real conversation always contains an invitation. You are inviting another person to reveal themselves to you, to tell you who they are, what they want, what they need.

And then there are those rare ones that invite you home. The ones that produce that particular burn in the chest that only ignites when something deeply familiar is recognized. When you find home you find yourself — the best version, the truest version. You remember that you matter to someone. That you belong somewhere. Both people feel it at the same moment and neither can quite explain it. No conditions, no expectations, no promises. Just complete trust and the quiet sharing of what is most important. Differences in culture, language, background — they dissolve instantly, like magic powder in water, producing something that satisfies but never quite sates.

I traveled halfway around the world to walk through a building I already knew. What I didn't expect was what I would witness inside — a labor of love that humbled me completely. People giving everything they had for others far less fortunate, never treating anyone as anything less than equal, always with ultimate dignity and respect. I had come to share something of mine. What I received in return was worth so much more than anything I brought.

"And there are those who have little and give it all. These are the believers in life and the bounty of life, and their coffer is never empty. There are those who give with joy, and that joy is their reward." — Gibran

I left quietly changed.

But here is what I have been sitting with ever since. None of it happens without her. Not the invitation, not the journey, not what I witnessed inside that building. And she didn't become someone who could invite me home overnight. That took decades. It took e-mails, and phone calls across hemispheres, it took her in Argentina and me in Utah, it took years of life lived separately but somehow still together — the kind of friendship that doesn't require proximity to stay warm.

She invited me to my own temple. A woman of different faith, different continent, different everything — and yet somehow, she knew exactly where I belonged and beckoned me toward it.

It wasn't supposed to happen this way. But it did. She invited me. And I am still, quietly, on my way home.

Gracias Maria Jose