Posted by:
apikoros
(
)
Date: October 22, 2011 02:25PM
Ah, the memories! A sweet young boy from southern Utah was up here in NW Canada on a mission when he realised that he had to leave in order to keep his sanity. He tried to fly out of Calgary, but the MP caught wind of what was up, went to the airport, and was able to hold the plane up long enough to talk with my friend, ordering him, "in the sacred name of Jesus Christ," to get off the plane. Scared and confused, he obeyed. He bowed his head and said, "Yes."
As 'punishment,' my friend was transferred up to Edmonton. One day he showed up at the school where I taught, totally panicked, telling me that he HAD to get out, or he was afraid of what he might do. Since he had served in Edmonton before, and it was known he was a friend of mine, I realised that I couldn't let him stay at my place, so I took him to a friend who had already deep-sixed the church ... she and her husband agreed to let him stay there until a propitious time for him to get out of the country. In those days, before a recent delusional U.S. president, no passport was needed to cross the Canada-U.S. border - a birth certificate and/or driver's license was sufficient ID. For some days, I was visited regularly by sundry APs and ZLs wanting to know where my friend was. I could honestly tell them that - at that particular moment - I had no idea where he might be. [In my friends' living room? Bathroom? Den?] Meanwhile, we checked a few times at the Greyhound depot, the two airports, the train station - always crawling with the aforementioned APs and ZLs and their little helpers.
After a few days the surveillance seemed to have died down, and I was able to put my young friend on a train headed to Vancouver, B.C., whence he was able to take Amtrak to Seattle, WA and then fly home to Utah. My friends and I had outfitted him with civilian clothes so he would not attract any unwanted attention, and his trip home went off without a hitch. He had contacted his parents by pay phone, so they knew what was coming down ... the MP hadn't bothered to do so, obviously embarrassed that a mere missionary could just disappear without a trace. The kid was excommunicated a.s.a.p. by his local 'authorities,' since he celebrated his new-found freedom by telling them that he was gay and thought that the church was a crock.
I never publicised my role in his escape, but I was blacklisted by the MP and every subsequent MP as a deleterious influence on the missionaries. Too bad! I was 'gone' anyway, and gone officially in 2005. My young friend now lives happily with his partner near Las Vegas, NV; and I always delight in telling our 'escape' story!