One more than one occasion while a missionary in Chile, my companion and I were called “maricon” by kids as we walked together on the streets. Maricon is a slang word for homosexual, but has a more derogatory meaning, like faggot. We just laughed it off.
Being with somebody 24/7 can be very suffocating, but I seems to do well with the constant shadow of a companion. This being the 1970’s, and a foreign mission, we didn’t hold the fanatic emphasis on always being with your companion that is so prevalent today. Once we were at church, we would go our separate ways to help out the ward/branch. Often I would be teaching the youth and my companion would be in primary. Once we had a mission wide Zone Leaders Conference. At that time, ZL’s were not in companionships with another ZL, so while I was the ZL for the Zone, my companion was not, in fact he was a fairly new missionary. So all the ZL’s from the mission traveled alone via train/bus to a central city (Chillan) to meet with the Mission President. Nobody got lost, and nobody fornicated despite us all being alone for 3-4 hours of traveling. I also went a week without a companion, just getting local youth from the ward to go out with me. Lots of alone time walking the streets.
I had 12 companions in Chile, not counting the ones in the Language Training Mission (LTM).
My first two were gringos, Elder Rome and Shafter. Rome was from New Mexico, and was pretty chill. It was a nice transition to mission life in a foreign land to have a companion that was not anal. That all changed with Shafter. Elder Shafter was very by the book, and was itching to become a ZL and then AP. He once tried to exorcise an evil spirit out of a developmentally disabled boy. He also slept with his alarm clock under his pillow because it stopped working when it got cold and he was so afraid of sleeping in past 6:30!
My next seven companions were Chilean. There was no temple in Chile at that time, so all my Chilean companions were not endowed. They also had no MTC type training. They came straight from home to the mission. My Spanish (or Castellano as they called it there) got very good, as none of them spoke any English.
In the middle of those seven Chilean companions I had a two week stint helping a gringo missionary stay sane. By this time I had earned the reputation of being able to get along with difficult companions, as explained by my MP as he told me about Elder Christiansen. He had recently received a Dear John from the girl he was going to marry, who told him she would not marry him unless he went on a mission. He was devastated, and he had just 6 weeks left of his mission. My MP told me to try to keep him going as long as possible. One week into our companionship, he gets permission to call home, and I hear him yelling, then he stormed out of the house and he is gone for hours alone. When he finally comes home, he tells me his girlfriend had been disfellowshipped for having sex with her new boyfriend. I manage to keep him another week, and then the MP sent him home a little early, but an honorable release.
I had one Chilean companion that had a girlfriend from before his mission that lived in the same town we were in attending school. He would arrange to meet her on the street and talk several times a week. I had two that were 26. I was only 20 at the time, but senior companions to both, so that made it difficult for them to take directions from me.
My best companion was Elder Soto. He was older, but very fun, and had traveled some outside of Chile. He had been to a rally in Bolivia with a friend and listened to Fidel Castro speak.
For those that have been missionaries, what were your companions like? did you get along with all of them, or have some problems?
Wheat & Tares 
I lasted about a week with my first companion. He had two months left and I think my mission president was just trying to give him one last chance to really work hard before he went home. We did about four hours of actual missionary work the first week and I nearly lost my mind. In retrospect, I probably could have been just a tad more relaxed and met him half way. But then again, I never would have had my awesome new trainer. My first mission president seemed to do everything in his power to keep a missionary out the whole two years, even if they were practically begging to go home. It had mixed results. We even had one missionary who refused to wear suit pants and wore jeans instead. President asked his companion to do the same. That was actually one of the milder things missionaries did.
The rest of my companions were some of the best parts of my mission. Although I could do a better job staying in contact with them, I feel like all of them are friends for eternity. I lucked out in those regards. My new trainer succumbed to a terminal disease just a few years after he got home, but he had already made a huge impact on people. I had companions who were passive and some who were more aggressive, but we generally all got along fine.
Despite the incident with my first companion, my second president hinted in an interview that I was a missionary he could send more eccentric elders to. Glad I was of some service in those regards. Makes me wonder what my own eccentricities might have been and if they were a factor in forming those companionships.
Of my 9 companions, I had two I truly loved and those were the best periods of my mission. 1 that we worked well with even if we weren’t really friends. The rest I didn’t relate to in any way. Sometimes that meant we just didn’t have anything to talk about. Sometimes that meant we argued. Mostly it was miserable though. One of the things I didn’t know about myself back then though that I do now is that I am an extreme introvert. Not having any personal space or quiet time meant I never relaxed. My best hope was Pday and shutting myself into a back room of our piso alone (if we had a backroom). The times I had highly extroverted companions were some of the worst because they wanted to spend Pdays with the elders and I got no mental breaks at all. I’d get so angry about this (inwardly only. My comps never knew), but I didn’t understand what the problem was at the time. There was one companion that was particularly bad on this and I’m pretty sure she just thought I was weird.
ReTx, I was to apologize for being an extrovert. I was the companion that wanted to be with the group on P-day, play futball, eat Capt Crunch at a Zone Breakfast party (found at an import specialty store). Needing “alone time” and being a missionary are not compatible!
My first companion was a water skiing fan from St. George. Think surfer dude from California. Then I trained a new guy. (This was normal in my mission.). Only reason he served a mission was because of girlfriend. Then she dated an rm and he freaked out and had a series of panic attacks. Then he overdosed on prescription. Hospital wanted to send him home. Mission president said no. I was it stressed out by the end of my 3 months with him. Next companion had weird obsession saving 2 liter pop bottles. When kitchen flooded due to burst pipe, I decided good excuse to throw away. We got in a fight and I body slammed him after he put me in headlock. It was ugly.
I was straight laced, by the book missionary. Mission president sent me every lazy companion who didn’t want to be there. So after a year I quit caring. They loosened me up.
Last 6 months I had some amazing companions who were great, and I learned how to be friendly without being over bearing. If I had gone home after a year or 18 months, I would have been pretty disillusioned, but last 6 months were amazing and I had great companions and a lot of success that turned around my mission.
I’m glad we don’t force people to stay in missions anymore. It was pretty miserable to be with those guys.
Went to what is now the Detroit Mission. Average baptisms were 3 people over the 2years. I was average.
1st companion was awesome and worked really hard
2nd was an obnoxious bully
3rd was emotionally unstable. I woke up one night to him coming into he apartment – he had been outside trying to ward off the “wolf dogs” that were trying to get in. He had to have a few days R&R.
4th companion was a greenie. Very earnest and hard working. His first faith crisis was with me, but not my fault. A 12 yr old girl we were visiting in the hospital died and he struggled with why her priesthood blessings didn’t cure her. We reconnected a couple of years ago and are now great friends.
5th was 32 years old (I was the new district leader) – a former biker gang member and body-builder – and he had a 9-yr old child. Amazing that he was allow on a mission being a father at his age. Sweet, humble, peaceful and grateful for what God had done for him.
6th – broke his ankle in another mission and went home to recuperate. His mission president didn’t want him back so I got him. I can see why.
7th had been my zone leader in my first area and I was looking forward to being a junior ZL under him. But he was the definition of trunkie – couldn’t get him out of the apartment some days and never did put in a full day’s work.
8th – not much better than the previous.
9th was another amazing man. He was my best man at my wedding. A real worker.
10th kind of a party elder. We were only together 3 weeks before I became an assistant to the president.
11th was headstrong, but really good guy. We didn’t have much (any) opportunity to proselyte with our travel schedule.
12th was a 27 year old business graduate. We did get a chance to baptize a fellow who Mitt Romney referred to us (he worked at Bain Capital). Very quirky companion. We hung out a lot as newlyweds (although he married a 17 year old girl he was writing on his mission – bit of an age difference). He became a seminary teacher. Eventually he was overwhelmed by mental illness and his wife needed to leave. He lost his seminary post because single seminary teachers weren’t allowed at that time.
I really loved my mission. Having so many very different companions was a good experience and I learned about how to get along with and work with diverse personalities (sometimes within the same companion).
The reality of being “yoked” with someone in a work was a valuable lesson. You get more done together when you adjust to each other’s pace and abilities.
My fondest mission memory are my companions. I used to tell people I really liked and got along well with all of my companions except companion #2. Who doesn’t have issues with their second comp? But as time has passed, I gotta say, they were all great. I learned a lot and laughed a lot with all of them. Obviously the ones with shared interests were easier to get along with. While none of us were perfect at keeping all the convoluted and contradictory rules, we generally were cool doing the work and staying out of trouble. I have no war stories in that regard.
I guess the real question is if they liked me back. 🙂
I went to the Irish mission 68 to 70. I am Australian but My family were on a building mission in England. I put in my papers while we were building a chapel in Coventry, but were moved to Leeds, as my Father was made a area manager for building supervisors. I was called to the Leeds mission, the mission home was just down the road from our new home, so my father and I met with the mission pres, and it was agreed I should go somewhere else. My second call was to Ireland. There was a civil war between the catholics and the protestants at the time in Ireland. Our mission president was reputed to be a sheep farmer who was reactivated by calling him as a mission president. I do not remember ever having an interview with him. I was moved about 20 times.
We lived in places where we were supplied a bed and food. The first place was a boarding house, in a tourist area (near the giants causeway) but in the middle of winter so no tourists. The landlady was also the cook, and she provided 4 cooked meals a day, all of which included fried potato bread. I put on a stone in 6 weeks. The next had 2 young ladies and 2 missionaries. We had to go through their room to get to ours. We went through their room to get to the bathroom and dining room. There was also a cat. When the call for breakfast came there was a mad scramble because the cat would get on the table, drink the milk, and shed hairs in the cereal. I lost the weight.
We had a mission rule we were to go home if we heard shooting. There were barricades across most side streets made of car bodies piled up, to stop military vehicles entering, and sandbagged military posts with machin gun emplacements on most roundabouts. You would see military patrols on the street among the shoppers, they didn’t like to be photographed.
My favorite companion was an undertaker by trade who was 6ft 4 and a crew cut. Whenever a funeral procession passed we stopped stood to attention and took our hats off.(undertakers etiquette) We wore hats to keep off the rain and to keep our heads warm (mission rule).
One of my DLs had his girl friend come to vist from California, and they disappeated for a week together.
We sold books of Mormon in those days. We tracted in an housing estate built to house travelers . My companion at the time sold a BOM to a lady, but when I asked she could not read, and bought the book because she thought we were catholic priests. That was the only house we got into in 6 weeks tracting in that area. We did shelter and rest in the catholic church. We did not live in the area and walked an hour to and from.
We lived in another housing estate where someone had decided to replace the coal fires with gas fires, but the gas did not heat the water, so once a week we went to the public baths, which were on the balcony of the swimming pool. There were swimming pools for males and next door for females, each with baths on the balcony there were no partitions. But the women came through the end of the mens pool to get to theirs, and we went out through theirs to get out. We sat in our baths judging when we could get out modestly, and then walked through the womens watching to see how modestly they managed.
The milk in this area was deliver by an electric truck with a swastica on the side.
I was involved in the baptism of one family, and a young lady university student, don’t know if any remain active. I had one companion who wrote musicals, the one I remember “the sex life of the outer mongolian wood ant”
In the October conference before my mission was due to end there was a talk telling missionaries they should get married as soon as possible after their mission, so I phone and proposed to my girlfriend, and we were married in the London Temple 6 weeks after I returned. There were also talks about the evils of birth control, which became a problem as we had 3 children in 4 years, and were told my wife would not survive another pregnancy. We lived in poverty for the first 10 years of our married life, as a result of this obedience.
My companion experience was all over the board. Counting the MTC time, I had about 14 companions. I served in Mexico and most were Mexican (I had two American companions). The worse companion I had was a young man who (looking back on it) had some mental health issues. He was very unhappy and a bit paranoid. One vivid memory is listening to him rant to me one night for over an hour about all the offenses and slights he had received since he’d been baptized. But as a rule, they were all good guys trying to do their best. Some I just had a hard time getting along with. In hindsight, though, I recognize that I wasn’t always the best companion particularly to one of my first companions, Elder Polendo, a cheerful, happy-go-lucky guy getting ready to go home who drove me up the wall. But he was always very nice to me even when I wasn’t nice to him. Ironically, my very last companion was a brand new elder who, I could tell, was very homesick. But he hardly spoke to me, despite my best efforts to make some kind of connection with him. He was also sometimes not very nice. But time and many many companions had softened me considerably and, by then, I was able to respond to him as Elder Polendo had responded to me….with patience and tolerance. (And hey, I was going home! That probably made it easier).
My most difficult companions struggled with mental and personality disorders. Their docs wrote them prescriptions for two years, but they received no counseling or checkups during their service. While there are some conditions that can be managed on missions, hefting the stake’s most troubled and obnoxious people on a companion for 2 years in a difficult or dangerous part of the world is not ok. Repeat- not ok.
The relationship with a missionary companion is close to being as important to your happiness with your spouse, but intense and temporary (you just can’t take a break from a missionary comp).
Mine seemed to be a bit on the ends of the spectrum as far as getting along and liking them.
My first comp was a sweet guy – nice as could be. I think I heard he went on to be a therapist.
My second comp was checked out and only stayed with me for a week as he was too tied up with a girlfriend from his previous area. Once Pres found out, he was gone so I had 3 weeks in a trio. That turned out to be interesting as one of the them was on his mission because his grandparents promised him tons of money. He was OK, but not into it much. But the other comp was wacko. He would stay up all night “praying for investigators” and then be too tired to go out and do the work during the day. I heard he was scheduled to marry his girlfriend back home within a week of his mission completing. Don’t know if I heard he did or not.
Then I trained a new elder and we were just great together. We worked hard, got along well, and just enjoyed the time together.
My next comp was reasonably good, but his rubber band was wound a bit too tight. He really needed to relax a bit. He rubbed others wrong more than me. We were DL’s and the companions in our district were all having at least mild issues and my comp was NOT like the first (the therapist in the making) and he just made things worse for those companionships.
My next companion was my fav companion. We stayed together for quite a while. We had a lot in common and enjoyed each others humor. I still keep in contact with him. The only issue with him was his gut’s reaction to cheap (free) Mexican fast food. No tracking after lunch. I guess that proves “there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.”
My next comp was when I was moved into the office (not AP). He was a good hard-working guy from a cattle ranch. He gave up drinking to come on his mission. When we ate pizza he said he really missed topping it off with a beer or two. He is a SP now.
My next comp was an out of control over-doer. I think he was brought into the office just to be close to the pres as he was driving everyone crazy – and I was the next. I had lots of work responsibilities in the office and he felt as missionaries we should only spend a few minutes in the office a day. That was a HARD 2 months.
My last month was with someone from my MTC group. He just came off being a AP. We did great until the last week and trunkiness kicked in. I remember we had to help the office and we took the mission van and on the way we stopped and picked up a Lionel Richie cassette and jammed for the 30 minute ride. Then we put the tape away and went back to work.
I do remember there was one elder that never wanted to be on a mission. You could pull him along, but it was a bit like dragging a dead weight. He came to the city where the mission office is and had some young men he meet in one of the wards bring him out into a field. He took all his clothes except what he had on and burned them. Then he went to the mission office ready to leave on a plane the next morning. Well his travel plans were messed up and he had to stay almost a week. The Pres found out and was pissed, so he assigned the guy to a buff super hard worker and told him, “work his butt off!” and he did. He had to borrow undies to sleep in and hand wash his shirt and undies each night. I still laugh at that a bit.
I served as a sister missionary back in 2000, way before the age change so there were, at most, 14-20 sisters in the entire mission (depending). The thing about sisters back then is that we were all (mostly) on the mission because we wanted to be missionaries, not because we felt obligated, so even though there were personality conflicts, our collective dedication to getting out there and working mostly saw us through.
I definitely didn’t get along with all of my companions, especially not at first, but there was only one that I don’t think back on fondly. I never considered it my job as a senior companion (or a companion in general) to police my companion’s behavior. I offered honesty and respect and expected the same in return. But she went to great effort to engage in an romantically emotional relationship with an elder in our district, even calling him in the mornings while I was showering. It all came to a head when I made a complicated decision that she, looking back, definitely manipulated me into. It’s a long, stupid story, but it ended with the elder being emergency transferred and me calling the mission president to, as senior companion, take responsibility for my bad call. She was transferred at the next transfer and I started training, so all’s well that ends well. And I got some respect points from the zone leader who thought my call to the MP was pretty metal. So that was nice.
Missions are such a hot-bed. I wish I’d kept in better touch with my companions. They were a pretty good bunch.