(I'm going to leave out many details here, lest the guy be too recognizable.)
My worst companion was an absolute jerk. He'd leave me behind going to appointments. He once threw me against a wall. He even once left town on an unauthorized split to hang out with a buddy.
He was an jerk to everyone, and people were too afraid to turn him in, but when we had zone conferences, every one of his ex-companions would wind up commiserating over having had to put up with him.
He conned two members to haul his personal free weight, bench press and squat rack to the assigned parking space in front of the apartment on transfer day. Was told that he would work out 5 days a week and no missionary work or companion study in the mornings. He got another set of elders to come over in order to work out because I told him that I wasn't going to be his "spotter".
Called me a vagina, 20 times a day (the P-word ending with y ).
Best revenge.
He climbed over an eight foot fence to knock a door (gate was padlocked) and I told him not to. He called me a wuss.
American terrier dog showed up and bit him in the ass before he could jump back over the fence. He actually got stuck on the razor strip on the top and I couldn't stop laughing. A man came out and gave us hell for harassing his dog. He actually threw Elder Stud over his fence.
Stud had a serious dog bite. I could see blood streaks seeping through his trousers. I told him that he should seek medical advice.
He told me to shut the F -up. Yes, he cursed a lot. He was angry that I hadn't raised my arm to the square to order god to kill the dog. Yes, he actually was upset that I did nothing for him.
It got so bad that he couldn't sit down and hobbled. I have empathy, but I loved seeing him in pain. A member became concerned and drove us to a clinic for medical attention. He was too chicken shit to call his parents without calling the mission president.
Long story.
The MP was upset with me during the next zone interview. Why?
Because I did not give my POS companion a priesthood blessing, which would have cured the swelling according to the asshat MP.
messygoop Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > The MP was upset with me during the next zone > interview. Why? > > Because I did not give my POS companion a > priesthood blessing ===============================
Hope you informed him a priesthood laughing is far more effective
heartbroken Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > your mission must have really sucked.
That's the crazy thing. I swapped mission stories and notes with two others who had served from my ward around the same time.
None of them had shitty experiences from their mission. Bored to death, yes! But not mission presidents screaming and making both elders and sister missionaries cry during worthy interviews.
My MP is STILL a practicing lawyer in a particular state. I do not want to be sued. And he is still making the rounds giving talks to mormon audiences.
None of my companions were bad people but all were annoying to be around after a long period of time. That's one of the main struggles of the mission: not having any alone time. It's not natural to be tethered to a person 24/7/365.
These are the main things that annoyed me with each of my companions.
First companion liked to initiate her new companions by saying "I'm a steam roller" and then proceed to roll her overweight body on top of them. I didn't enjoy it when she did it to me. She was also very accident prone. She was recovering from tripping over a curb or something and was hobbling around with a metal plate and screws in her ankle. After it healed she was bitten by a chained up guard dog she decided to pet. That put her back in the hospital.
Second companion was the most depressed person I have ever been around. She was nearing the end of her mission and was totally worn out. I was still green and hopeful of a baptism but she stifled my enthusiasm whenever I showed any signs of hope. She would say things like: "you have to play the game" when it came to all things having to do with the mission. She was Debbie downer.
Third companion was my favorite. We are still good friends. The only thing annoying about her was that she wouldn't do any of the cleaning. She felt it was beneath her. She left most of the cooking and cleaning to her companions.
Forth companion always had to be slightly ahead of me when we walked. It really got on my nerves. I became so irritated with her I had to be transferred.
Fifth companion was nice but really annoying. She really didn't need a companion at all because she liked to do everything by herself. She would give the opening and closing prayers during a discussion forgetting that there were two missionaries in the room. She would answer all the easy questions. The only time she would shut up was during the law of chastity discussion when she all of sudden became deaf and mute. She was also very uncoordinated, frequently falling off her bike. I'd hear a crash and turn around, and there she'd be, sprawled all over the pavement.
sixth companion was really great. I can't say anything negative about her. I often wonder if she's still a Mormon.
Seventh and last companion was nice but we didn't have much in common. I was her "greenie" trainer and we were together for 6 long months. She didn't speak English so we had a tough time communicating. She spoke the language of the country but wouldn't open her mouth during discussions. She let me do all the hard work. A deaf/blind person welcomed us into her home when we were tracting. I decided to keep my mouth shut and let my companion do all the talking, knowing she couldn't do much harm because the person who let us in was handicapped. She still wouldn't say anything. We all just sat there in silence until my comp and I finally just left. I must not have been a good greenie trainer. She was nice but we just didn't click.
I don't know which was more difficult: knocking on doors for 10 hours a day or being tethered to a companion 24/7. I don't know how I endured 18 months of mission torture without losing my mind.
I realize that it wasn't funny to you at the time, but thanks for sharing that.
There was an unfortunate incident involving some sisters in my district. One apparently went off her rocker during her monthly visitor. One became so delusional during the night that she attempted to beat "the bad spirit" out of her companion while the other one was asleep. The one in bed suffered a black eye and bruises. It was one heck of a wrestling match.
I was told that the police was called during the mayhem. I looked over at the one who went cuckoo and asked her "Did that really happen?" And all she did was giggle with a smile.
My MP transferred the poor sister who was attacked. To my knowledge, the cuckoo sister was still serving when I finished my mission.
My last Senior had a need so intense to be seen as superior in every way that he was unbearable. Anywhere he went he walked at breakneck speed and I actually got shin splints trying to keep up. I finally just quit trying and he'd get a block ahead and then turn around and yell, "C'mon Elder. There's the Lord's work to be done!" like he was reprimanding an errant five year old. Think Bednar here. I can't think of any differences between the two, except this Elder looked liked his father was Tweety Bird--pinched little mouth and nose to go with the personality.
On D-Day he dragged me two trains and several buses to the main customs office in B.A. for an important package I thought was from the Mission Home. Once we got there we sat on the hardest wooden benches all day until he finally got the package-----from his mother--which was strictly against Mission rules to receive any packages from home. Turned out to be some special vitamins. I was pissed. They did have vitamins in Argentina for hell's sakes.
I found out from the mission secretary later that they had given him to me because no one else could stand him either and I had this stupid reputation of being good with the "problems." I guess "good with the problem elders" translated to doormat.
Besides the guy above, I got one comp who the first day we were together said: "Elder, you're new, and I know you're going to make mistakes in French, and that's okay. I'll correct you when you do. But you know, I know my French isn't perfect either, so if you hear me making a mistake, it's okay to let me know."
In fairness, I had been in the field something like four months and he had been in well over a year, so it kind of made sense, except that I pick up languages *really* easily.
So you can imagine, he made at least ten times as many mistakes as I did.
We quickly gave up that silly arrangement, but he badmouthed me behind my back the whole time we were together. Only when he left, did I find out from the other elders how much he hated me, despite my liking him pretty well.
I was pretty naive and thought that other elders would be honest and forthcoming. It took me almost to the end of my mission to realize that people who I thought were appreciative and well liking of me were in fact back stabbers. They didn't think twice about complaining about your imperfections and flaws. I was the victim of 3 elders conspiring against me in writing false narratives. How do you defend yourself against a lawyer MP who believes in the rule of three?
I never wrote nasty letters about my companions. I believed in good karma and the golden rule. Yet, here was my MP acting like he had the gift of discernment. -Tell me Elder Goop, why do you cough and stutter when teaching the first discussion?
Yet, he knew all my flaws from gleaning the dirt from my companion's letters. I really had to smile and try to laugh as my way of coping with his brutal questions.
My first companion threatened to beat me up during an argument over transportation fares. He had his fists raised and pushed me, trying to get me to fight back. Had I done so, he would have pummeled me.
Around that time, we had mission trainers. I made a sarcastic comment to one about his fanaticism. He berated me for several long minutes leaving me in tears. This wasn't mild criticism, but a devastating attack on me as a person.
Then there was the companion who, when I got what I believe was dengue fever, mocked me and hauled me around anyway. When he came down with the same or similar, he stayed in bed until he recovered. He never apologized. He was quite the narcissist and emotionally abusive.
I had a companion who was a brand new Zone Leader. Was an unbearable fanatic. I dreamed of killing him. To his credit, he later mellowed out and earned a reputation as a good zone leader (he later said that he had no idea what he was supposed to do, so he mimicked all the overbearing church leaders he'd had over the years and on his mission.)
Then there was my last companion. We would invent ways to most efficiently waste time.
He was from a tiny farm town in southern Utah. The youngest of 16 children born late in his parents thirties. I was thinking there was some sticky chromosome splitting in the donor egg and sperm because, well... he wasn't in need of baptism was my final conclusion because he just wasn't all there.
Would only communicate in the mission language which he really didn't know. But we were assigned to teach US military members at the time. OK, he would speak to members and investigators in English, but not me or any other missionary.
Would stare at his hand for hours at a time while ostensibly studying the scriptures. Move it closer to his eyes and away. Again. Pry his eye open a little further with his other hand and repeat. Would zone out this way in discusssions, on trains, in cars, on the street, in church.
I saw him starting to zone in a discussion once and tried to turn the discussion over to him to bring him back to NOW. Didn't work. He repeated what I had said for the last few minutes word for word instead. We never talked to that investigator again, though we shared some odd freaked out eye contact during my companion's echo discourse.
Ate a pound of moldy bread because he wouldn't throw it away and waste it. Would lick the frying pan after I cooked in it. Licked out the honey tub that came with his chicken nuggets at McDonalds one day. Dinner appointments became scarcer with him...
I had to teach him to use deodorant.
He got pulled in to the security office of a major store on suspicion of shoplifting because he had such strange behaviors.
Had no sense of direction or internal map. He couldn't figure out how to get anywhere in a city. If you got ahead of him and turned a corner, he was lost. He was an inobservant driver. I got him trained so if I stamped my foot, he would hit the brakes knowing he had missed something and we were about to crash. This in heavy European traffic. My license was invalid for a few weeks and he had to drive everywhere those weeks. We never did crash.
He never did figure out how to get from our apartment to the church in the time I was with him.
I begged for a transfer starting at week two in my weekly letter to the president, but had to spend two months with the guy.
One day he just picked me up, threw me over his shoulder and started doing wresting spins and moves from pro wrestling. This was in the pedestrian zone of a major city. I was way outclassed in size and strength. Performed random "martial arts" moves on me. I have a few scars still from kicks and things.
He had been on his mission about 16 months at this point.
Apparently he was good at ping pong as I was informed by the elder who got him after me. They had a ping pong table at that apartment.
My worst companion was my first one. I was a "greenie" and she would not let me go out with her until I memorized a bunch of scriptures. There was another sister who was at the end of her mission in 2 weeks so they went out while I sat and memorized. She would repeatedly remind me that her father was a stake president, and I the lowly convert needed to read the entire BOM again. Now miss perfect liked an Elder and we would go by Camelback Mountain so they could makeout behind the rocks. His companion and myself just sat there. I told him we need to bring a book next time and he laughed. I just remembered him through this thread. He and I became good friends while he was still on his mission. He was at the end of his mission and already engaged. Mmmm maybe I will look him up.