Slovene Sunday - Vse Najboljši

My 29th birthday is this week and I got to remembering past ones.

In Slovenija I celebrated two birthdays, my 20th and my 21st. On my 20th birthday I was in Ljubljana with Elder Hudson. We probably had some appointments or other, but I seem to have misplaced my records, so I couldn't say for sure who they were with. I do remember being at the Ljubljana church in the afternoon though. It was one of those days where the church was a thoroughfare, and the entryway was Grand Central Station. At one point I'd been in the "lobby" (ha!) and heard Sister Hubbard arrive. I loved Sister Hubbard and so I went to greet her. She'd come with Sister Bangerter, the senior sister missionary over Ljub. As I said hello Sister Bangerter, who always remembered these things, put her hand on my shoulder and said, "It's your birthday today Elder Young!" and Sister Hubbard pulled a package of Ferrero Rocher chocolates out of her bad. Sister Hubbard was a trained opera singer back in England, and she began singing the traditional Happy Birthday song. Sister Bangerter joined in with with her funny scratchy voice, "Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you! Happy BIRTHDAY Elder You-oung!" They held the note.

And suddenly, from the other hallway, burst Sister Strong, wife of the mission president. I'd known she was about, but I didn't know she'd been paying attention! She always brought a whole lot of energy to any place she was at! And right now - KA-BAM! - here she was leaping into the tiny foyer from the other room to belt out the last line with arms flung wide! "HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOUUUUUU!" I couldn't stop grinning. It was the best birthday song I'd ever had.

That night was also the wedding reception-thing for Robi and Breda Posl, two members who had gotten married the month before. That's why there had been so many people around that day, I think. There was lots of food, and a little bit of it was dedicated to me, though I was happy - as a missionary - to fade into the background. However, one of the members, Anton Rafolt, dedicated his fruit soup specifically for me, and I was expected to eat some and take the rest home. He was forever making food for people, made out of twigs, and sugar water, and cloth fibers. No denying he was a peculiar one, but this fruit soup topped anything I'd ever seen from him before - looked like he'd taken fruit flavored cookies, and Jaffa Cakes, and mixed them all together in a bowl with a lot of water. Yummy.

My 21st birthday was worlds and worlds away from the other one. A lot had happened to me in the last year. I'd had lots of companions by then, and sent most of them home. I'd moved all over the country north to south etc. For this September I was back in Maribor, my true home. My birthday was on a Sunday that year, so I didn't expect anything too big. In fact, if I remember right, I didn't make a big deal out of it myself. I was companions with Elder Pierce at the time, and there was also Sisters Durham and Edwards in the city with us. Also, the senior couple The Andruses. Elder Pierce and I had done our usual for Sunday mornings, and then afternoon church. I don't remember it seeming any different than any other Sunday. It was still nice weather out, just a bit cooler than in the summer.

Church had ended, and the Andruses took off like a shot for home. Elder Pierce said he had some things to talk about with one of the members, so I hung around in our church building. The sisters stayed after, too, and we probably spent the time straightening up the place. Elder Pierce's meeting ran long, and so it was about an hour after church ended that we all left. I asked wht the plan was then, and he said that he had one more thing he needed to talk to Elder Andrus about, and the sisters did too, so we began walking about the mile and a half to the Andruses apartment.

And about halfway there was when it hit me. I should have picked up on it faster - we had no after-church appointments with investigators. The Andruses had run away home right after the church meetings. Sister Edwards was trying not to laugh.
They were having a surprise birthday party for me. I smiled to myself, but I didn't want to spoil anything, so I just kept going. We arrived at the Andruses beautiful, quaint building, walked up the two flights of stairs, and knocked at the door. Sister Andrus let us in, and Sister Edwards and Sister Durham took off for the kitchen. Elder Pierce steered me into the living room, and Elder Andrus asked me to help him set up the extra table that they set out when we were all over to eat.

After maybe another half an hour things were finally ready, and the table was set, and everyone was sitting down, and kind of looking at each other, because at this point, really, how do you pop out from behind furniture and yell "SURPRISE!"? I'd not said anything yet, which was making me laugh and the rest of them awkward. Sister Edwards, in her wonderful sardonic way said, "If you couldn't guess Elder Young, this is a party for you." Then I yelled Surprise! and everyone laughed. Sister Andrus had made me meatloaf, which I hadn't had in YEARS and had missed very much (because my mom makes a mean one), and all in all it was a very very nice meal. And a very nice time with my Maribor family.

Later that night I used my camera's time delay to take a picture of me and Elder Pierce sitting together on our couch, in our pajamas. I was flashing my previous companion's finger-sign - Elder Wettstein's Wettsign. The only picture of me on the day I turned 21. It seems so long ago, and yet so close. Happy times.

Reading development curiosity

Were you a voracious reader? Were you ever made fun of as a child for this characteristic? At what age? How did you handle it - did you hide it, or ignore the boozh-wah-zee? (bourgeoisie, I can spell)

Did you grow up amongst readers? Did you feel support for your readerly traits? Was it just out in the rest of the world that you were the odd duck? Or did you never feel out of place no matter where you went?

Have you ever felt discriminated against because you're a reader? Did it fade away along with childhood? Or do you find vestiges left in your adult life from time to time?

I ask because I was recently reading a thread where people were remembering times that adults had tried to make them stop reading "for their own good" - with one person saying that her teacher went so far as to staple her book closed so she'd go out to recess. It got me to thinking how I would have handled something like that as a child versus as an adult. Which in turn led me to wondering what the reader-developmental-lives of my reader friends were like. Thus.

~~~

I don't remember a time when I couldn't read. I learned early and fast - one of my three earliest memories involves reading a book to myself because my mother was taking a nap. She was a reader and I followed her example. The rest of my siblings, for many years at least, were not readers. Being defined as not just A reader, but THE reader in the family made me feel special and lonely na enkrat. My parents defined me as a reader, my teachers defined me as a reader, and I came to define myself by that term for a really long time, too. I wore it like a badge of honor at the same time I knew it's what separated me from most of my peers.

The way I saw and experienced it during my scanty years in elementary school, there was almost no one else who read on the same level as me. I'd been reading for YEARS by the time I wound up in kindergarten. My first 1st grade teacher put me on a special 6th grade reading program, gave me special books that no one else in the class got, and even had a special teacher's aid come in just for me to read to him. They eventually put me in an accelerated program 2 or 3 days a week based solely on my reading skills - it had to be just that, since I was remarkably ordinary at almost everything else that 1st grade offers.

During my second 1st grade experience there was no accelerated program, and everything was in Spanish, so I was on the same footing as the other kids again (sort of), but I still defined myself as The Kid Who Read, and always had a book in my backpack. Finding other kids who liked to read as much as I did was rare for me, and if there were any others in my class I don't recall them. Most of the boys played sports or ran around outside, and the girls didn't really have any use for me, nor I for them. This was they year I spent recesses indoors, sitting on a radiator reading the Chronicles of Narnia for the second time through. This was also the year a bully jumped on me from behind, and I asked what was going on in Shakespeare ("Who art thou?! WHO ART THOU?!")

The next year, homeschooled, there was much more time to read anything and everything and to easily ignore the aspects of school I disliked. (Don't ask me to do long division for you). Mom frequently took us to the library, and while I loved it, I think my brother and sisters just tolerated it. My mom read, and she read TO us, but for years it felt like just she and I. I knew my dad read, but he read boring things like politics and the non-funny articles of the Reader's Digest. I read all the books of the Wizard of Oz. And all the Happy Hollisters. And anything Dr Seuss. And Hardy Boys, and Nancy Drew, and the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew together. I read and read and read and read. I borrowed lots of books from my neighbors, who had lots of books, but never seemed to read them or care about them. I think I still have one or two from them that I never returned.

From the neighbors I started reading the Baby-Sitters Club books, because they were there. Words printed on paper HAD to pass before my eyes at one point or another. And it was at this point, 11 or 12, when I first was told to not read something. "They're girls books!" Dad said. "What do you get from girls books?" I'd always felt like the only reader around, but at least in my home it was accepted. The only meal Jeremy didn't read during was Dinner - all other food-on-table situations were fair game. Home was safe. Home was trusted.

And then it wasn't for some reason. After that talk with my dad (really, he'd come up and sat me on my bed just to tell me he didn't want me reading the girly Baby-Sitters Club books anymore) I began to feel like there was something oddly wrong with my compulsion to read. The next day, after that talk, I made a hole in the fabric that covered the underside of my bed and hid all my borrowed Baby-Sitters Club books in there. For a long time any book with a picture of a girl on it went into my Vault.

I tried to get my brother and sisters interested in reading, maybe so I'd have someone to talk about books with. On lazy Sunday afternoons when we had to be quiet and demure, I would offer to read to them while they drew, or played with toys or whatever. I was just ambient background noise, but I was okay with it. Maybe something I read would stick with them. I read them The Headless Cupid until one afternoon when my dad sat in on the reading, and I ended up reading the chapters where the kids are trying to join their step-sister in her practice of the occult. It's a very funny sequence in the book with all the trials, and the resemblance between what's in the book and what is REAL occultism is absolutely laughable, but my dad hit the roof. He didn't take the book away from me, but he lectured in a very stern voice about introducing things Satan likes to my brothers and sisters. In addition to wondering why I liked girl-books, now I began wondering if I was The Bad One of us kids, too.

And later, as I was reading them The Minden Curse my dad blew up again. There's not even anything resembling magic in this book - curse is used because the protagonist hates that he's always at the center of any excitement. But I got yelled at again for potential witchcraft indoctrination. And both The Minden Curse and More Minden Curses went into my Vault.

After that I stopped sharing the things I read with my family. I stopped even hoping that anyone would ever want to talk about books with me. I eventually became defiant, reading all sorts of books on magic, and the occult, and the supernatural, and girl books, and boy books, and everything that made me scared to let my dad see it, and frankly anything and everything I could get my hands on. My brothers and sisters all eventually grew up to read, particularly my sister Gretchen and my youngest brother Isaiah who reads at the table like I did, but for the most part I don't often feel that I have anything bookish in common with them, and even more rarely will I share with them a book I've read.

I still always have a book to read at work, during lunch, which I realized I use as a shield and a flag - as a shield, being immersed in a book keeps me from having to socialize with my co-workers who might walk by. As a flag I hope it says to any other readers, "I will put down my book to get to know you if you'll ask what I'm reading!"

I have lots of reader friends these days - my friend Rachael and my dearest Nancy are kindred book spirits. My Players Anonymous friends are a good support and allow for critical discussion of any book. But at home I still feel odd - my parents dualistic examples still confuse me, I guess, with my mother on one side, stocking our shelves with any book you could want and encouraging me to read anything the piqued my fancy; and my father on the other side encouraging me to hide books, setting boundaries for what was appropriate. It was all over, many years ago now, and no hard feelings are left, only amusement at it all, but it's certainly influenced my life.

Kranj - The Rock-Noggin Epic

Talking about it last week brought up the whole story again in my head, so I have decided to work through it by writing it out.

I need to preface this whole story by saying that I try not to think about this month and a half of my mission very much. I generally prefer the odd, interesting anecdotes that come back to me in flashes, or stories I've told enough times that I've got them by heart now. This experience I never told my family. I never told my ex. I never tell people on Players Anonymous. I didn't even write anything down in my journal during that time, except for one very odd and incredibly obscure entry, made cryptic because I knew there was no place I could hide my journal that it would not be found. Nevertheless, this whole period of my mission is indelibly written in my memory. It was the only time in the whole two years that I felt scared, unsafe and unhappy.

It was February of 2000. We'd survived Y2K and I had been with Elder Newland, who I loved so much it hurt. He was the first companion where I really felt like an equal, and who really seemed to believe in me as a person and as a missionary. And then it was time for him to go. His leaving is another story in an of itself, but suffice to say I was traumatized. I stayed with Elders Jensen and Roberts for two more days in Maribor, and then transfer day happened - I got on the train by myself, said good-bye to my family, and headed out to the city of Kranj. I made it about an hour, to Celje, before I couldn't stand it anymore and had to read the good-bye letter Elder Newland had left me, even though I promised him I'd wait until I was coming home on the plane. I read his letter telling me that for two years his mission had been dull and hard and boring and he'd wanted to quit, and then I came on the scene and everything was exciting and colorful again, and that I motivated him to try again for the first time in two years. He reminded me of some of our inside jokes, about the blueberry juice intended to get us through the collapse of the world, of the hotdogs in eggs, of the Spinach Rice, and of all the wonderful, hilarious things that had happened to us together. I couldn't help it - I broke down in tears, and cried for the next hour and a half, from Celje to Ljubljana. I had just lost someone rare, and wanted so much to have things go back to the way they were, and not move on.

And that, I guess, was my folly. It was with this unfortunate mindset that I alighted from the train in Ljub to meet my new companion, Elder Rognon. I tried to be okay with this new companionship, but right then at that exact moment, I was worn out from weeping, and I just wanted to retreat into myself. I don't know if he could sense that or what. I did try, however, to invest myself in this new working relationship, and on the bus ride from Ljub to Kranj, I asked about the work in Kranj and if he had any investigators who were taking the missionary discussions and what the door-to-door was like there. I tried to ask him about himself and get to know him, too. Found out he was from a privileged family from the next big city above Salt Lake (I've forgotten now, Bountiful I guess though that doesn't seem right).

I'd known Elder Rognon for a couple of months already, he'd gotten to Slovenija about 8 months previous or so, and he'd been trained by one of my favorite elders when he first arrived. I remembered meeting them on the street in Ljub once when he was headed to a doctor's appointment to fix and ingrown toenail. I knew hew was kind of quiet, I had figured because the language was hard for him, and it was all so new. But at the time I was working in my own sphere while in Ljub, and then he moved away to Kranj, and really I didn't have much of a chance to get to know him because then I moved all the way across the country to Maribor. From then on I'd hear bit's and pieces about him through the missionary grapevine - things like he and Elder Towner were doing amazing work in Kranj together and turning out amazing numbers, and also that he'd recently been dumped by his girlfriend back home. Us Mariborcani just figured that the dumping had spurred him on to do well, and the amount of time he'd been in the country just gave him more confidence finally. Up to my meeting him on the train platform in Ljub that day, that was all I knew about him.

Kranj was a half hour or so away from Ljub by bus, and though there was another companionship of elders there, the city was divided in such a way, and there was so much to do on our own turf, that we barely saw the other two. It was a hell of a long walk from the bus stop to our apartment. It was a relatively new apartment to the mission, and I'd heard it was kind of a bait and switch - you see, the lady who got the contract from the church to rent it out to us had to do a bit of finishing touch work to it, so she let the elders live for a time in her other apartment, one neighborhood over. THAT one was FAN-CY! decorated beautifully, and had all sorts of cool amenities, which I can't remember now, having only been in it once, but I think there was a statue of an elephant, and thick carpeting. While I had been in Maribor, she finished the work on the apartment she intended for them to rent, and they'd moved over.

Well, it was still bigger than any apartment I'd lived in before. The Planina apartment had two bathrooms, two bedrooms (one of which was turned into a study room since missionaries had to sleep in the same room), and a large living room. I even had my own walk-in closet.

And yet something was off. The apartment smelled vile, like B.O. and farts made from sugar. Elder Rognon had taken over the study-bedroom and covered one ENTIRE wall with photos of his ex-girlfriend. There was a lawnchair and an ironing board in the living room and that was it. The astroturf on the balcony had a huge burned spot, and melted wax all over the railings. I took it all in, but decided to hold my tongue for now, and see about cleaning it up on our free-day. I went to put all my stuff away, and Elder Rognon came up and stood in the doorway, I realize now, effectively trapping me in the walk-in closet, as he told me some of his house rules. I said ok to everything at the time, figuring I could make a push to changes stuff later when I was more established. He didn't seem threatening at all right then.

I don't remember what else happened then. I assume we went out to knock on doors. No, wait - he hated doing that. We rarely did work the way I thought was most effective. No, if I cast my mind back, I think that very first night we went to meet some of his investigators. We started out from Planina, our neighborhood, to go into Center - along the way I asked about these investigators, and he told me that he and Elder Towner had run into them tracting (going door-to-door) one evening, and that they were a band and had been rehearsing, and invited the two missionaries in to play pool with them. And that's how those two got 6 investigators at once, teaching them all separately, counting playing pool with them as missionary visits. They inflated their real numbers, counting hanging out with these people as missionary discussions. I pursed my lips, but decided I needed to meet them before I decided what to do with them.

And so we got into the Center of town as the night fell. Elder Rognon lead me down an alley and up a couple flights of stairs, and we entered a bar.

By my sorry memory it was probably a very pretty, very classic, traditional European bar, with muted yellow glass and lampshades all about. And I'd actually taught lots of missionary discussions in pubs before, and gone in for a drink of orange juice or blueberry juice many a time before. But there was a different, uncomfortable aura in this one. As soon as Elder Rognon walked in, the three people inside welcomed him heartily. The bartender, the cocktail waitress and a girl sitting on a bench against the wall and near the bar. All three were members of the band, all three were supposedly "investigating" the church. He introduced me, and the girl sitting told me to come sit by her and tell her about myself. She looked at my name tag, and said in English, "Elder Young, what is your real name?"

I never ever used my real name in Slovenija. We were supposed to be professionals, teaching the people about the church and then moving on, and letting the members care for the new converts. Letting people know your first name created an intimacy that I was always uncomfortable with. Nowadays I wouldn't object to doing it that way, but really, in the cases I was familiar with, if the people got too attached to one missionary, when he was inevitably transferred they lost their connection to the church and stopped trying to learn more. It was more 'economical' for me to remain a professional, to remain Elder Young, to remain just a little bit apart. That never seems to stop investigators from finding out anyway, and I had my full name printed on my Bible if they cared to look, but it was something I felt very uncomfortable giving out at first meeting.

So she asked, "What's your real name?" and I said my little joke that I'd come up with, "It's Elder." "No, what is it really?" "It's Elder. Elder Young. They cancel each other out. My parents were weird." Ha ha, barrel of monkeys I was. She dropped it, figuring, pretty correctly, that I was going to turn out to be a stick in the mud. She pretty much dropped all conversation, I was forgotten and all attention went to Elder Rognon (who they all called David), with the cocktail waitress hanging off his shoulder, and the one (who I secretly called Whore in my head from then on) going over to sit on his lap.

Oh yes, that is SO against missionary rules! Improper physical contact with the opposite gender! I looked away, sure I couldn't be seeing what I was seeing, unsure how to proceed. He and I were now companions, which to me had always previously meant that you watched out for one another, helped them keep the rules, and were always ALWAYS a team. I couldn't tell now if he was breaking the rules because he was intending to, or if he was too naive to see what the girls were up to.

Or if perhaps, my viewpoint was out of whack. As much as I wanted to, I couldn't rule it out. And so I held my tongue still, watching the two girls climb all over him, and wondering if I was missing something.


The second day who knows what we did. Nothing of note, I guess, until that evening when I was supposed to be in Ljubljana to baptize someone. David Bunderla, a wonderful wonderful young man who I first met the previous summer when randomly talking to people on the street, was finally getting baptized.

So whatever else we did that day, Elder Rognon and I made sure that we caught a bus in time to get the Ljub that evening. Two other men were getting baptized that same evening in the little room in our rented church that we all jokingly and very aptly called The Dungeon - Jeremiah Mupartusu and Tomaž Something-or-other. It was the first time in Slovenija history that this many men were getting baptized at once. Usually it was bunches of women. This was also going to be my first appearance back in the Ljubljana Branch Society in around 2 months, and I was very excited to see everyone. We got to the church early where I dressed in my white clothes, and was ready.

And yes, it was lovely to see all my old friends, missionaries and members. But at the same time, as everyone expressed gladness that I was back, they also asked me how it was going, and I didn't have a sure answer to that yet. I didn't feel I could really express any concerns to any of the other elders because I didn't want them to think I was weak. So I kept my sadness at Elder Newland's departure and the confusion I felt toward Elder Rognon inside.

The baptism was as lovely as one ever is, and though I didn't know it, it was the final time I'd ever baptize anyone myself. The after-baptism party was wonderful, and had wonderful food, as usual, and had Anton's DISGUSTING fruit soup - as usual - and the members were so kind and nice to David and the other two men. It was a brilliant evening.

As Elder Rognon and I walked back to the bus stop later that evening he said he guessed it felt pretty good to be someone's missionary, to be the one to have baptized them. He said that I could go home right that moment and have been a successful missionary. I remember feeling embarrassed about that, since I didn't feel like a success - I felt like a screwdriver in God's hand. I also remember mentioning to him on that walk back to the bus for some reason that I wanted a Pony - an old-style Yugoslav bike that folded in the middle and was incredibly portable.

The next day we got down to serious business, and I seem to remember the first of several visits to people from the band, our "investigators". We spent a couple hours with one guy who lived with his mother in an apartment right on the edge of Old Kranj and New Kranj. And those hours were spent with me trying to ascertain how much the guy knew about our church, how much he wanted to know, and how much work he truly wanted to put into finding out (not much). Meanwhile he and Elder Rognon watched TV, played darts, shot the breeze and drank huge glasses of Coke.

That was something I noticed about Elder Rognon - he seemed to drink Coke non-stop all day every day. Coke isn't exactly against the Mormon Word of Wisdom but it was kind of an unspoken, unofficial rule. I personally never drank it, mostly because I hate carbonation, but I'd never before had a real problem with anyone who did. However, the more I watched him drink it, the more I felt sure it was affecting him adversely. He was always hopped up on caffeine and since it was his ONLY liquid of choice, I began to realize that he sweat Coke too. I realized THAT was the source of the foul oder in the apartment - his coke-sweat. He was a very sweaty boy, and he even told me once, probably that same day if memory serves, that as a child his high-acid, unbalanced ph caused his cheap-ass CTR ring metal to turn black over and over, and he thought as a kid that it mean his soul belonged to Satan.

At any rate, during those first few days as I observed him and his Coke-habit, I realized that maybe this could account for his mood swings, and other oddnesses. After another visit with an "investigator" where he had drank most of a 2 liter bottle of Coke, I tried broaching the subject with him. I guess I didn't do it right, and he got very defensive. "The prophets don't care if I drink Coke, Elder Young, and neither should YOU!" he yelled at me while we were walking down a street. I quoted something Gordan B. Hinckley (the prophet at the time) had said about how it wasn't against the Word of Wisdom, but he personally wouldn't drink caffeine drinks, and he would hope that we wouldn't either, or something like that. Elder Rognon called me a liar, which I HATE and I went on the defensive, too. He told some fable about an elder he knew back in the Missionary Training Center, who had somehow been interviewed President Monson, the 1st counselor to the prophet in his own office, and how President Monson opened a refrigerator in his office and offered the mysterious friend of a friend of Elder Rognon a Coke and that PROVED it was okay!

Okay, he could do whatever he wanted, and he certainly didn't have to listen to me, but I didn't have to talk to him either, especially not if he was going to call me a liar. So I stopped talking, and needless to say the day was a long one, fraught with stress, and not a single person let us in to talk about the church.

The next day started out with more of the same - terse words at breakfast and on our way out to the country to knock on doors. After arriving at the designated place, and knocking on three doors to no avail, I knew I had to do something. I apologized to him, to get the ball rolling, and when that didn't seem to do it I did what I do best - make an absurd and shocking choice that's difficult to ignore. I told him to follow me, and stepped off the road into a pasture, and walked to the middle where I sat down amongst the cow pies. Shaking his head he followed me and I told him that there I was, trying to be humble, sitting there among manure, ready to get to know, sympathize, and empathize with him.

We both opened up that day, and he explained to me that he suffered from manic depression - he was bi polar, and it ran in his family. I listened as carefully as I could. He told me that he had been depressed for the first several months in the country and that was how I first got to know him. He told me that for a long time, every bridge that he had walked over in Slovenija, he had wanted to jump off. He said that I could never understand what it was like to be suicidal. I told him I thought I could understand actually, and that in high school I had felt so alone during one period that I once wondered what would happen if I opened my bedroom window and just rolled off the bed, out the window and let myself fall two stories to the cement below.

I thought we had bonded, I thought we had understood each other there in the field of cow pies that day. I thought that if I let myself be open to him, emotionally vulnerable, he would be able to trust me, and we could work through his depressions, and his manic episodes, together. I didn't realize what I was doing. I didn't know that he had no intention of giving up control of his show in this town.

For the rest of the week I tried to help him find worthwhile investigators, I was a peppy as possible about going door-to-door, I talked him into finally saying goodbye to the band members, since it was obvious that none of them were really interested in the church and only liked hanging out with the Americans (one of whom acted stoned a lot of the time). I thought everything was going well, but at the same time I was getting more and more confused about Rognon and his interactions toward me. I was technically the senior companion, but I had to run everything by him first. He was the first companion I'd had who was taller than me, bigger than me. I was afraid, somewhere in the back of my head, that if he was unhappy with me, he could beat me up. I kept trying to make each day as normal and productive as possible, and yet I could feel him lagging. I didn't know if it was because he was tired or if he was trying to hold me back.

One evening I was sitting at the kitchen table, studying the Book of Mormon, while Elder Rognon was on the phone in the bedroom talking to one of his friends in Croatia, a missionary he'd arrived with. For some reason he thought it was okay to call Croatia when he felt like it, and he'd always call other elders throughout Slovenija just to chat. I felt that the phone was a tool, and using to idly chat with others where were also supposed to be working was wasteful. Plus, we were expected to pay the phone bills from our own pockets. In the back of my head I knew I was going to itemize this next phone bill instead of splitting it evenly down the middle like usual.

At any rate, I knew I wanted to talk to him again, get us on the same page again, express my dismay at some of his behaviors and see what we could do to compromise. I just couldn't figure out how to, since I was afraid of his temper, though I couldn't even admit that in my head as such. As I was reading the Book of Mormon, a scripture stuck out to my mind, where Alma and I believe Amulek had been tied up by the bad guys and forced to watch as the sacred scriptures, and the believers were thrown into a fire. Amulek was getting high strung about it all, but Alma was all, "If they burn us, then they burn us, but the work WILL go on." It felt like a rallying cry to me - "If he gets angry then he gets angry (and maybe beats me), but the work WILL go on!" I steeled my nerves and went into the bedroom to talk.

And I thought the talk went well-ish. According to my vague journal entry, he tried to burn me, but I persevered, and came out with both of us understanding more...

I thought.

The next day was a P-day, a day off, and we ended up in Ljubljana again. Most of the other elders were going to play basket ball, but I didn't want to, and had prepared to write letters home instead. However, it turned out that Elder Budge didn't want to play basket ball either, but instead invited me to go with him to take a walk around Ljubljana with David Bunderla. That was a pleasant idea AND an escape from Elder Rognon, who was only getting more and more trying by the day. His bipolar medicine made him loopy, he claimed, and ADHD. So I took the opportunity and ran away with Elder Budge.

As we walked to the meeting place Elder Budge had a chance to fill me in. We'd known each other from the very beginning, since the Missionary Training Center, and when he asked how I was, I felt that I could finally open up about how stressful it all was. He told me that everyone could see Elder Rognon's deterioration for the last month, and as the direct supervisor over that area he had wanted to get Elder Rognon fixed. He told me that he had prayed me back from Maribor, that I was an answer to his prayers about how to help Elder Rognon, that I seemed to have a calming influence over anyone I was near, and that he had hoped I could work that same magic over Elder Rognon. He had trained Elder Rognon when he'd arrived 8 months previous and he thought that Elder Rognon was a good missionary who just needed someone like me to guide him. I told him that I had sensed that very very thing from the mission president and all the senior missionaries, too. I could tell that everyone was hoping I could fix him, but I admitted to Elder Budge that I hadn't a clue how.

The Sunday before, I'd spoken to most of the senior missionaries about it all, explaining that I was still missing Elder Newland and I didn't know what to do about Elder Rognon. Sister Hubbard had said to me, "Treat Elder Rognon the way Elder Newland would have, with patience and dignity. You have to be your most calm now, and most mature. He's acting childish, but you and I both know that the only people who are truly allowed to be childish are those who are mature, because they already know who they are."

Elder Wilding patted me on the back, and Sister Wilding clasped my hand in hers and whispered, "If it helps Elder, we all know..." I had wanted to talk to President Strong and find out what he wanted me to do with this situation, but he was in Croatia that Sunday, so I'd have to wait. I decided to hold onto all that the other adults had said to me, and it had gotten me through to this P-day where Elder Budge was now essentially telling me the same thing. I wished I could say, "Why didn't you pray someone ELSE here instead?!" but thinking about it, it did seem like I was the only one equipped to do what needed to be done. The responsibility felt ENORMOUS.

At any rate, Elder Budge and I met up with David Bunderla, and walked around Ljubljana, and on up to the castle (which I think is the only time I ever visited that castle). From the tower you could see the apartments of each companionship of missionaries in the city. I kept looking at my old house way over in Fužineand thinking that as much as I felt like an awkward little kid then, I'd give anything now to go back to that moment. But life can only go forward, as I was wont to keep telling myself those days, and after a couple more deep breaths, I steeled myself to go back and join up with the other elders again, and go back to Kranj with Elder Rognon, and work our tails off, and do what everyone was hoping I could, and fix him.

Breathe, just breathe.

We dropped David off again, and walked back to the park where the rest of the missionaries were. Everyone began to split back up to go home; I saw Elder Rognon coming toward me, gritting his teeth and hobbling.

Elder Rognon hobbled over to me, grimacing, after playing basketball all afternoon. I wasn't particularly sensitive towards his plight since I certainly didn't put it past him to fake an injury just to get out of work. On the way home to Kranj I asked what had happened, and he admitted that he had some shoe inserts that the doctor gave him which he was supposed to wear when playing sports, and that that day he didn't use them. I asked what the inserts were for, and he said that he'd had a known hairline fracture across the top of his foot that they were trying not to exacerbate.

The next day he was moving slow and seemed in a lot of pain, so we reported the Elder Budge, the district leader, that we were taking a sick day, and then Elder Rognon scheduled an appointment with a doctor for the next morning. I think we must have had an appointment set up for that next day, because what I remember was NOT going with him to the doctor - I believe I went on splits with Elder Moss, and ... could it have been Elders Swapp and Begic who took him to a doctor? That's the way my memory is running. At any rate, I went out and worked that day, and arrived home to find Elder Rognon laid up in bed with a giant cast on his foot.

Slovene medicine is not subtle. They put people in casts for everything. I met someone on a buss once who had a cast from his fingertips to his shoulder and covering his head but for right around his eyes and nose, who'd only had a hangnail. They put people in casts for sunburn and cancer.

And now here was Elder Rognon in a walking cast. Whichever elder had taken him to a doctor pulled me aside and said that the doctors, who usually liberally apply the plaster, didn't feel it was necessary in this case, but that Elder Rognon had insisted. Ok, so he had not needed the cast, but instead had gone and added another hindrance? Oh dear. We stayed in that day, too. Someone somewhere had produced a pair of crutches, but Elder Rognon was awkward on them, so when I coaxed him out of the house the next day to go to the old folks home a couple neighborhoods over to visit the old lady we were assigned to for service, he wandered away from her room, leaving me alone with Gospa, and came back eventually with a wheelchair. Yes, he stole a wheelchair from an old folks home even though his cast was equipped to be walked on. I rolled my eyes, but felt I had little control over any of this anymore.

Elder Rognon was a large lad, and the cheap-ass wheelchair was small for him, so he made me push him around in it. I simply conceded and did it. Sometimes, in the story I tell in my head, I say that he made me push him around town until one day I pushed him down a long hill, a la Little House on the Prairie and Nellie Oleson - as much fun as that would make my story, I have to admit that that didn't happen. I didn't stand up for myself. I pushed him around in the stolen wheelchair from place to place, from neighborhood to neighborhood, through the center of Kranj and everything. After a few days I decided the embarrassment wasn't worth it and I suggested that we stay in, to which he gladly agreed, apparently achieving the goal he'd had all along. So we stayed in, doing no work, until more word from the doctor came, which we were expecting the next week.

I continued to get up at 6 or earlier and had personal scripture study, but no companionship study, since he remained in bed until late each morning. The house was big enough that we were able to keep out of each other's way during the day. I found a hand-held electronic solitaire game in one of the kitchen cupboards behind some soup, presumably left there from the previous Elder Towner. I remember one day sitting at the kitchen table playing that game from 9 am to 7 pm, when it got dark. That was the day I felt the most useless. Other days that week, I would read church magazines or study the Bible or the Book of Mormon. Elder Rognon would spend part of each day tying up the phone, calling around to the other apartments in the mission to see if any one was home and would answer, or calling Croatia.

I also remember one day where he sat in the "study" that was actually a shrine to the girlfriend who dumped him with all the pictures all over the wall. He sat there listening to a tape she had made for him pre-breakup, and I could hear her "David, beyond a shadow of a doubt I will always love you." Brzzzzt, as he rewound the tape. "David, beyond a shadow of a doubt I will always love you." Brzzzzt, "David, beyond a shadow of a doubt I will always love you." Brzzzzt, "David, beyond a shadow of a doubt I will always love you." Brzzzzt, "David, beyond a shadow of a doubt I will always love you." It was sad and creepy.

During this period he manipulated the phone, and if I spoke on it at all he'd listen and monitor me, to make sure he knew what I was saying about him. Each week we were supposed to write a short letter/report to the mission president to let him know how the work was going and how we were, but Elder Rognon made me show him the letters I wrote (and I complied WHY?!?!), so I didn't write too much in there. I had no life line to President Strong, I had no way to talk to the other missionaries, I couldn't even see the two elders who lived and worked on the other side of the city. I felt so alone and helpless and trapped. I spent all day inside the house with him, and no one else to talk to.

Sometimes, at night after he went to sleep, I'd get up again, and go stand in my walk in closet. There was a window in there that looked out across the way at another apartment building. I remember a couple of times standing there for an hour or two with my face pressed against the glass, just watching all the other people in their houses, wishing I was anywhere but trapped in a closet in a house with a man I didn't trust. Then I'd go back to bed, having to do it all over again the next day.

The next week Elder Rognon got word from the doctor that he should be fine walking on his cast, so I made him return the wheelchair when we went to visit the rest home again. I could tell he was disappointed, I believe having hoped that the doctor would send him home instead. But he gathered up his crutches and away we went again, to try and be missionaries. His heart wasn't in it anymore though, and we were not very effective at all, tension between us, him a lumbering giant on tiny crutches, knocking on doors. No one wanted to let us in, of course.

His behavior seemed to get more and more erratic and unpredictable. One night we were walking home across town, when he spotted two men together, almost a mirror image of us. "Look, Jehovah's Witnesses" he said. "Mmhmm," I responded. "Hey Jehovci! C'mere!" he yelled, and while I blushed in embarrassment from my crown to my toes, he lumbered over to them, and demanded a copy of the Watchtower. They said no, and that they objected to being called 'jehovci' a nickname they apparently didn't like. They asked how he would like being called a derogatory nickname, and he said he'd respond to it and he didn't know why they wouldn't.

He kept pestering them for a magazine, and they kept denying him, saying that he didn't even know what the magazine was for. I knew the only way to make him stop was to get him a magazine, and since I had actually read that month's Watchtower I asked for one nicely, explaining that I knew it was the issue with the article about the Argentinian Dwarf-ladies who preached, and that there was a picture of one of them being menaced by a large dog. They were impressed with my knowledge of their stuff (but it was really only because Elder Newland and I had received a copy earlier that month and were so amused by the Argentinian dwarf-ladies and cut out the pictures to use in humorous cards to each other before he left), that they gave me a copy, asking that I not let HIM have it. I said I'd do my best.

And of course when we got home he snatched it from me, got bored with it minutes later, and threw it away. I picked it out of the trash and saved the dwarfy pictures to make more funny cards to send home to Elder Newland.

Kranj is such a pretty town, built on a group of hills, bisected in a couple of places by ravines and a river, if I recall. Old town Center looks very European with cobblestones, old square buildings, and three churches within spitting distance of each other. To the north, I believe, is the direction the town grew during communist days, complete with large muscular statues of people farming. To the south-east the town was still growing, much more modern in its building style... relatively. It was a chore, but an attainable one, to walk from one end of town to the other. I was there just as winter gave way to spring. It should have been a lovely time.

A short time after I made him return the wheelchair to the old folks home, Elder Rognon gave up and pretty much set his sights on home. It was nigh to impossible to get him out the door, and when I did I always regretted it or felt ashamed. One day we were actually out, knocking on doors in a lovely neighborhood near where a new grocery store had recently been built. It was maybe close to lunchtime, and Elder Rognon suggested we go grab something to eat at the Interspar. I wasn't too hungry, but had given up fighting him, so we went into the store, and I picked out a good-looking apple. I turned around, satisfied with my choice, and found him running up and down the aisles, loading up a cart with all sorts of food.

"Elder Rognon, what are you doing?!" I said.

"It's called impulse shopping! Elder Hubbard told us to do it at the last zone conference!" he claimed.

"No, he told us about PULSE shopping, which was something about buying grains and how foods that help the heart are generally cheaper." Elder Hubbard was the financial person for the mission, and often gave us lessons about budgeting or wise spending.

"No, he said IMpulse shopping!" Elder Rognon claimed. "Whatever you have an impulse to buy, get it! Don't you listen?" And he kept tossing stuff into his cart. Shaking my head, I followed him all over the store, holding my apple. When we got to the checkout finally, he intended to pay with his American credit card. The girl at the till explained that she could take cash, but not his foreign card, so as he loomed over her, he asked if he could leave all his stuff, bagged, behind her counter and we'd be back for it. She simply nodded, wide-eyed. Watching people not familiar with him was pitiable - they just had no idea what to make of this giant, ox-like American in an ill-fitting suit who sweated on them and spoke funny Slovene. All I could do was shrug at her.

We walked three blocks to the bank, and after quite a lunchtime wait he finally withdrew enough cash to pay for his groceries. I had already eaten my apple, and threw the core away in a bin at the bank. We walked back to the Interspar, whereupon he paid for his stuff and we left. With a bunch of groceries we couldn't get back to knocking on doors now - we'd have to go home. Clever of him to buy bags and bags of food all the way across town when we had a grocery store right next door in the first place. As punishment I made him carry all the bags, some of which were filled with canned food, all the way back himself. I'm not the one who decided to go impulse shopping in the middle of the day, and I certainly wasn't the one to take pity on him as his fingers cramped from the heavy bags as we walked the three or four miles home.

Another day when we happened to be out, near that same grocery store incidentally, he got it into his head that he wanted a set of Slovene license plates to bring home with him. Other missionaries had been gifted some, or found abandon ones on the roads. He didn't have time to wait for some to fall into his lap - he decided to take some that were currently in use. Though I initially protested, I eventually just watched as he tried several plates off cars in the grocery store parking lot to see if he could find any that were loose. Eventually he prised off a set and, with me sighing, we set off home to store them away.

I had mentioned to him once that I wanted a Pony - the Yugoslav folding bike, so he decided that he wanted one too. When one was left unattended in our apartment building's courtyard he took it. He didn't seem to hear me at all when I said that it wasn't his to take, simply saying "You wanted one, I got you one!" When I refused it, he rode it himself, to make it easier on his cast, he claimed. It was such a hassle to go out with him, that I finally gave up myself, and we just planned to stay in most of the time. At least it stopped his heists.

He was sure he was going home any time, and began calling the friends he'd made in Kranj to come over to our house to say goodbye. It was my opinion that people not know where missionaries lived - I'd rather them believe that we formed from the morning mist to do our work, knowledgeable in the ways of God, and when the stars began to winkle in the sky, we faded into the shadows to wait the return of the next day of work. I know, it's silly, but I liked to be private and professional - kind but not overly familiar. That's just me. So I objected to his inviting people over - I had work to do and things to study, and was hardly in the mood to play host.

Especially not with girls. It was a rule, a principle, a law that members of the opposite gender were NOT to be in an elder's apartment, and same with the sisters. When the doorbell rang one night, and there stood his friends Skank and Whore with a plate of cake, I was taken quite by surprise. He was resting in bed, and invited them into the bedroom to see him, which completely short-circuited me. I went into the kitchen and stood there clutching my nails deeper and deeper into my palms. At first I thought, "Well, it's his grave he's digging, let him do whatever he wants!" But then I realized that it seemed to me a very likely possibility that sexual relations might happen in that bedroom, and IT WAS MY BEDROOM TOO! I had every right to take control of that room, of the situation, OF MY HOUSE!

I barged into the bedroom where they were all on his bed, clapped my hands and said, "Okay, time to go!"

"Elder Young, this is their plate," he said, pointing at the food they'd brought him. "They can't go until there's no cake left on the plate."

For all the world I don't know where I got the moxie. I stared at them all, took a breath, grabbed the plate, dumped the cake in the trash can, and slammed the empty plate down on top of the desk in the room. "It's empty. You can go now," I said. They all gave me disgusted looks but got up anyway. I followed them down the hall to the door, saying in Croatian "Idemo Kući," which means "We all go home now", but kind of in the way you talk to children or dogs. They walked out, I locked the door, and then I stayed out of his way for the rest of the night.

He kept claiming that it was his bipolar meds that were making him this way, but I swear by all the Divas on Broadway that he could have controlled his behavior if he wanted, he just plain didn't want to. And for the most part he found in me someone he could walk all over. At this point, when it was time for bed I'd lay down, and he'd get up, saying he just wanted to take a bath. We weren't really supposed to do that, but I was too tired of it all to care anymore. So I'd fall asleep to him running the bathwater every night.

This is how it went for nearly four weeks. We had weekly meetings with our district, but he was always there so I couldn't tell anyone what was going on. We had church in Ljubljana each Sunday, and I got a few private moments here and there with the Hubbards or the Wildings but not enough to explain the depth of it all, and they mostly thought I just still missed Elder Newland.

And I did. One night in the middle of all this I dreamed I was standing on a high, jutting cliff, all by myself, way up in the sky amongst the stars. For a long time I just stood there looking into the blackness, breezes blowing around me gently. Then Elder Newland flew up on a levitating purple couch. I sat down next to him and the couch flew away from the cliff into the dark sky. I leaned on his shoulder and he put his arm around me and stroked my hair and said, "Don't worry Elder Young, everything will be okay." When I woke up all I could do was hope that he was right.

During all this President Strong had been busy in Croatia and so on, so it was with great relief that finally finally finally we were going to have another zone conference, and with zone conference came private president interviews. Somehow I made it through the day sitting next to Elder Rognon, and lunch with everyone, and then the afternoon session of our conference. I remember it was getting on in the evening, with dusk lowering, when President Strong finally called Elder Rognon into the room where he was doing the interviews. I had a blessed few moments alone with the other missionaries, and I remember feeling nervous but not sharing that with anyone.

After a while Elder Rognon came out and told me President Strong was waiting for me now, and as I passed him on the gangway he whispered so only I could hear, "Don't talk about me in there." I looked down at my feet, nodded and knew I was going to do just the opposite. I went into the far office the President was in, shut the door and sat down.

President Strong looked at me in the piercing way he had and asked in his deep rumbling voice, "How are you Elder Young?"

I slouched back into my chair, and let all the tiredness onto my face finally. "I need to scream, President."

He looked back at me with understanding. "Then scream, Elder Young."

For a moment I considered it - it would be such a release. But then I got self-conscious that all the other missionaries and any member who might be in the main part of the church would hear and wonder what on Earth was going on. So instead I breathed deeply for a few seconds, and then admitted, "I'm too tired."

"Tell me what's been going on, Elder Young," he said, and I opened up for the first time in a month, safe, and in private. I told him about all the things that had been going wrong, I said that I felt like everyone was expecting me to magically fix Elder Rock-Noggin, and that I didn't think I was strong enough. I admitted that he was the first companion I'd had who was taller than me, and that there were moments that I really feared for my own physical safety. I told him that I felt like a failure, that I felt like I was letting him down. I told him I'd do whatever he needed me to, but that I was plain tired out by this all.

President Strong listened quietly, and at the end told me that he would be making changes soon, and for now I was to just sit tight. I wanted to cry because there was no indication of how long "soon" was going to be, but as we stood up to end the interview President Strong pulled me into a strong, tight hug. I didn't want that hug to end. Why? Because when it did, I'd still have no idea what to do, and would still have to go home with Elder Rognon alone.

Meta-post: I have GOT to talk about my niece!

Last week I was over at my brother's house. He and his wife were cleaning vigorously, so I was all set to entertain the kids - little did I know Lily intended it to be the other way 'round.

She was carrying a miniature hymnbook, and said, "Ok, I will tell you a story. There once was a boy named Jeremy who was almost sixteen."

I smiled.

"Then, before he blew out his candles Ursula the sea witch came and took his voice and all his breath!"

"Oh dear!" I said.

"Then Ariel came and saved him, and Ursula died because she was bad. The end."

I told her that was a very good story, and wondered at a world that was so black and white that people just died from being evil.

"Ok," she said, "I'll tell you another one. There once was a boy named Jeremy..."

"No," I said, "I don't want a story about me. Tell me one about a goose! Named Crystal!"

Lily looked at me askance, and then said, "Ok, once there was a goose named Crystal. She lived on a river, and she had lots of babies, but one of the babies was blind, and always swam in the wrong direction. Then it got lost and started to cry."

"Wait," I said, "what does a crying baby goose sound like?"

She did a pretty good imitation for me.

"Ok, thanks," I said.

"Now the baby goose was called Blagle, and it was blind, and lost and crying, and then it found it's way back, and Crystal was happy and glided with glee, the end."

Glided with glee?!?! I wanted to clap my hands at her alliteration, and wondered if she did it on purpose or not. I grinned big and told her thank you.

"Now please tell me another story about a pencil," I made up wildly off the top of my head, "named Bob!"

"There once was a pencil named Bob, and he was thiiiiis big," she held up her fingers.

"He was a small pencil, huh?" I asked.

"Yes. He was smaller than a button!"

"Oooh, tell me about Bob the pencil who was smaller than a button!"

"Well, he had an eraser for hair. It was his birthday, and before he could blow out his candles Ursula the sea witch came and took his voice..."

Every story after that contained Ursula being all threatening, and a birthday, and candles at some point. I kept trying to make up crazy characters to stump her but she rose to every challenge, and kept surprising me with her little observant ways, and her seeming natural gift at alliterative prose. It was the best story I've been told in a long time.