No Really, Just Friends

In the past few days, I've reconnected with a former missionary companion. Stephanie Haws and I were companions in Ibaraki, Japan back in the Spring of 1995. We spent three months together, even weathering an earthquake (the 7.1 Kobe quake) and Haws Shimai was my last companion before I returned home. Our district was actually pretty tight -- 4 elders and 2 sisters. We worked well together and had some great successes. We were much like a family.

Because I grew up in a family of all girls -- my first experience having brothers was on the mission. I had dated a lot pre-mission and had some guy friends, but those experiences were completely different from the "brothers" I had on the mission. Having this brother relationship was very eye-opening and cathartic for me. I loved it! I learned how to relax around the opposite sex and to understand a lot better how the male mind works -- completely free from the constraints and obvious attachments that are part of male/female relationships where attraction and flirtation are involved. I can honestly say that I was never attracted to, nor felt the slightest desire to have a relationship other than elder/sister or brother/sister with the elders I served with. That's right -- NONE. It was just great to have brothers. Brothers who fixed my bike for me, appreciated my attempts at Western cooking in an Eastern country, who made fun of my bike-riding antics, and who snapped hideous photos of me and then used them to tease and make fun of me. All very brotherly behavior.

So, in reconnecting with Haws Shimai, I am reminded of the weirdness of meeting up with some of my former "brothers" post-mission. Even though a lot of them acted the same toward me, others interpreted friendliness on my part much differently. While still on the mission, two of the elders, Haws and myself, had concocted a plan to go to each other's homecomings. Well I was the first to return, so none of them came to mine, obviously. But when I went to the next returning's homecoming, people were weird. It was icky. I couldn't understand it. I tried to explain to people -- "He and his comp used to call me 'beast' after a ridiculous comment I made one day. We all used to play volleyball on Fridays with our investigators and he and his comp would make fun of the way I would hit the ball, or rather the way the ball would hit me. I used to make fun of his skinny legs and loud breathing in district meetings." It didn't matter... no one wanted to hear it. So, I stopped keeping in touch with people from my mission. I went away. Which, of course, was easy enough to do because I got married and started having kids and that takes lots of time in and of itself.

But I just want to say, that those brothers and sisters -- that family I made as a missionary, they were great. We had some fun times and I learned so much from them. And I am grateful that for a year and half, I got to have brothers -- who were my friends and never more than that.