Blogging My Autobiography - Chapter 20

It took me another 6 months to fully get Japanese. In that period, I had a Japanese companion for about 2 months so we spoke Japanese exclusively. it’s really the only way to become completely fluent. He was one of 17 companions I had over 2 years. Being in a companionship someone once said is like being married with none of the benefits. This is a true statement to a point. Companions can be highly annoying and they can be your best friend, listening to all your troubles. I had both along the way. In fairness, I was both of those myself. At the beginning of my 2 years, highly annoying, for the rest, I tried hard to be a friend and that seemed to work until the end. My last companionship was a trial for both of us. I am not here to dwell on the difficulties, though. Just the good times.

My first companion in Japan was from Wyoming. He was obsessed with whizzers (Japanese men who urinated in public. It was a pretty common practice at the time) and ice cream and could walk faster than anyone I had ever met. It helped that he was 6’ 6“ and had long legs. I was only two inches shorter and had to run at times to keep up. He was a good companion, aside from the whizzer thing, and had great enthusiasm for the work.

There are maybe 3 or 4 companions that were the best for me. All of them brought something special to my time in Japan. Elder Durham was my model for a perfect missionary. He was my 2nd companion in Japan. Always calm, always kind, never ruffled ever. His testimony was tremendous but not obvious as some are. To me, he glowed with the Spirit. We taught some awesome investigators, including Ken Saito who became a friend and joined the Church just before I was transferred. The work was effortless for Elder Durham, a spiritually gifted man.

In my next area, I had some great companions but the area after that was special. Nagaoka is a midsize city northeast of Tokyo about 3 hours by bullet train. I had 3 special companions there. One was my Japanese companion, the others were Elder Richins and Elder Checketts. Two more different people you will never see. Elder Richins was like Gary Cooper, the strong, silent cowboy. Like most real cowboys I know, he was a worker. Always up and at ‘em and worked constantly. In this smaller town, there was not a lot of street proselyting. Mostly we went house to house, trying to lend Books of Mormon. Elder Richins excelled at this and we had a lot of investigators, more than any missionary pair had ever had in that small branch. Church on Sunday was usually 7-8 members. It was a close community and I felt a part of it from the beginning. Elder Richins had been there a while and was well loved. I loved him too.

Elder Checketts was a truly unique individual. I have always called him Screamin’ Chad Checketts because that was his favorite word. Everything was screamin’ for Elder Checketts. It was screamin’ good or screamin’ awful or anywhere in between. It makes me laugh just to think about it. We baptized more people that any companionship ever in that branch up to that time, 5 people. We almost doubled the size of the active branch in large part because Checketts was a driver, a bundle of energy that was so contagious you couldn’t help but get caught up in the excitement. Here is an excerpt from my diary about Elder Checketts.

We had us, as my dode (a slangification of the Japanese word doryo or companion) would say, ”A screamin’ weird day“ today. It started out real fine with a 3rd at (kanji I can’t remember) they are really keyed. the mother said she might have problems with the Word of Wisdom-but she would live it anyway. When we asked them how the benkyo (study) was going-they said, ”Well, we read aloud to each other every day and then pray about it.“ Wow, that’s the greatest, just like our study class. They are getting a good testimony, we were really keyed.

The weather cleared up nice today for a while. All was going well until it started to rain. Then we had a hard time lending books and my dode was getting down again. We had a FHE (Family Home Evening) scheduled with Yoshihara and Ishizuka S. (S is for Shimai or sister in Japanese) but they didn’t show. My dode got madder and madder. Finally in the middle of a downpour Ishizuka came and apologized, said she couldn’t make it. She was really sad. Boy, lo Checketts didn’t give her any mercy-though I really felt sorry for her. After she left, he just blew up! I’ve not seen too many people get that mad before. Sa, I thought it was stupid. But he really blew. About the same time Brough C. (Choro or Elder) came in soaking wet and as mad as a ”wet hen“ (joke). Well, they were both mad together. I thought it was all pretty funny and just laughed to myself.

We went to a camera shop on a dendo (proselyting) day --- TODAY! I couldn’t believe it! But my dode was feeling down so we did. Boy, I don’t know!

We both loved cameras, so it was a forbidden indulgence. I liked it as much as he did, I just had more guilt.

One missionary who I worked with or along side of for 3/4ths of my mission was Elder Memmott. He is the only one I regularly keep in touch with. He was the Zone Leader and I was the Zone Language Leader. We had more fun as companions than I can detail here. We were traveling Elders, responsible for 24 other Elders over a large section of Eastern Tokyo. He was the leader and I was the language teacher. Imagine, I was now in the position of the person who helped me with Japanese a year before. Elder Memmott was more than anything a friend. He respected everyone and everyone respected him. Many ZLs would cause the Elders to run when they came to town. Everyone wanted to work with Memmott because he made you feel good about yourself. He is still doing that today as an oil executive. He has 7 children, all great people and a wonderful wife today. He was for me and is for her, a great companion, though I haven’t forgiven him for not getting a ticket for racing on the freeway at home when I did. Ah well.