Mission Stories - Companion(ship)s

As you can imagine, being with someone 24/7 for two months is intense. So the whole constant companion -thing is a pretty prominent element of your mission experience. A lot depends on your companion. You learn so much from a companion. Having an amazing companion can make a transfer the best ever - and the opposite is also true. But boy it is amazing when it is amazing. I was blest to be with some companions that we just worked well together, personality-wise etc. It makes the always-together -thing easy: is does not suck to have an awesome friend with you all the time y'know.

But most transfers are not like that. They are not the best ever nor the worst ever, just something in between, a mix. And it is those fluctuations that make the relationship stronger, make the work feel like work a bit more. It makes it more interesting and complex.

But sometimes complexity turns into complication. Sometimes we do have drama with our friends or family, even if we love them very much. That's usually when we have distance, take a break to calm down. With your companion you can't do that (unless it is really bad, in which case you might get emegency transferred if you tell the president there is a problem). You live with your companion and you have to go everywhere with them and you share all your friends and acquaintances. So in a time of trouble you really do need to just suck it up and be professional. Even if you can't work it out at all ("you don't like the way I chew?"), you still need to work in unity.

Unity is a big missionary buzzword. "If you are not one, you are not mine," the Lord said, and if the missionaries aren't the Lord's they are wasting their time. So there's a lot of talk about unity and building unity and how to work and teach in unity. And so it should be. Because it's tough to not be in unity: you feel unequally yoked and it's heavy. But when it works, when you really are in unity, it is one of the most wonderful feelings there is. You basically read each others' minds- no, better, you think the same thoughts; you understand what the other one means; and the best is that you can trust your companion to do stuff as well - or better - as you would do them yourself.

The companionship is the most intense relationship I've ever been in. It's just... not normal. o.o I think of it as an xkcd'esque graph:



Your companion is basically a near-stranger, but you work together, you share the house with her, she is a friend, she is your sister, you are responsible for her (and if you train a new missionary you are referred to as her "mom") and you are "companions" (in the church we use "eternal companion" as an euphenism for spouse. My English-mum used to console me in her letters "if you don't get along with your companion, just remember: you're not sealed to her forever!" :P)

I tried to express this idea to a companion once, and she didn't like it when I said "we're not friends, we're companions." I didn't mean it in the way that I don't consier her a dear friend, or that I won't consider her a friend once the transfer/mission is over. It's a bit more like the notion of "more than friends." Anyone who's heard the phrase "we're friends" (or the even worse "we're just friends") from the mouth of a person who you considered more than a friend knows that that sucks. In like manner I think it sucks to say "yeah she's my friend" when in reality we were once missionary companions. That makes me consider her much more than a friend. And during the mission, in the companionship itself, it was so much more than just friends.

My companions are like my divine sisters. There are only eight of them and there will never be any more. They are irreplaceable in my life, in my heart.