Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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hour earlier to run or train the best he could. By 8 a.m. he was studying scripture and planning what he would teach and where he would go for the rest of the day with his partner. From 10:30 a.m. until well after sunset, Badger and his companion walked the streets of their city, knocking on doors and finding people to help. After an hour-long recap of the day and planning session for tomorrow, he was in bed with the lights out by 10:30 each night getting ready to start again in the morning. Badger's frenetic pace started six weeks before landing in Ecuador with immersive Spanish lessons, a language he knew noth- ing about but would soon use exclusively. Missionaries live and work in pairs. They learn most of what they need to know about the local area from their mentor-companion in the first few months before breaking in the next round of arrivals themselves. around the city of Guayaquil, home to nearly four million people and as many dark corners to avoid as one would ex- pect in a major metropolitan area. Badger was robbed three times, once at gunpoint, which he said is something like a rite of passage for the missionaries living in Ec- uador. His worst brush came a little more than a year into the mission while walking home on a dark street at night. Two men with a gun approached him and his new roommate and demanded his money and cell phone. Badger gave him the four dol- lars he had and explained that he was a missionary and all he had with him were books about God. Most of Badger's time was spent in or LIFE IN ECUADOR he actually gave me a dollar back," Badger said. "People there are pretty superstitious. They're all religious, so you tell them that you're representing Jesus Christ they usu- ally don't mess with you." Other than a few close calls and the stan- "I think that kind of scared him because dard bouts of homesickness, Badger said his mission was overall a great experience. He tries to focus less on the robbery stories that most of his friends ask about and more on the people he met and still talks to occasion- ally. He said seeing the relief on people's faces when he baptized them or their grati- tude when he helped with a community project was well worth the effort. The rest of the time he looked forward to the one afternoon each week that he was allowed to check in with family via e-mail. Badger's older brother, Troy, sent recaps and YouTube clips of each Notre Dame game during the fall and made sure that Chris was sticking to the workout plan they developed before he left. Troy Badger was an all-state running back in Utah and was recruited as a walk-on to BYU's program prior to leaving for his mis- sion. He tore his hamstring as a freshman and decided not to return to the Cougars team when he got back from his mission. He helped lay out a plan to make sure Chris could jump back into action when he re- turned. "One of our old neighbors in Provo was [former BYU offensive coordinator] Norm Chow," the older Badger said. "He men- tioned on a mission strength always comes back, weight always come back, but speed and those fast-twitch fibers, those are what is going to make it or break it for the guys coming home." AUGUST 2012 47