Leaving home for the first time was no joy ride. Knowing this, I went on one just before I left.
I was staying at the Salt Lake Mission Home for a few days of missionary training. Although one of the General Authorities had just set me apart, I was assigned to a study group and did not have a missionary companion. While in Salt Lake City, we were encouraged not to wander away from the mission home unless we were with family members. Things were different back then. Some of the missionaries from SLC actually went home each evening after training ended.
Karen, my first cousin, was the head cheerleader at the University of Utah. She called and suggested that we go to lunch and say goodbye. Lunch with Karen sounded like a superior option to the 250-man missionary march back and forth to the basement of Hotel Utah where we had our meals. When she pulled up, I was waiting on the sidewalk and hopped into her bright red Pontiac, top-down convertible. Karen was simply stunning—as usual. As we pulled away, I waved goodbye to a few of my envious fellow missionaries. I thought to myself, I shall never pass this way again—riding through downtown Salt Lake with a beautiful girl in a red convertible. I was right.
Back in front of the mission home, I ran into some turbulence. Karen and I were not kissing cousins, but as I was getting out of the car, she moved over and planted a non-romantic, cousinly farewell kiss on my cheek and slid back across the seat. News like that traveled fast. When I turned around, the windows of the mission home had filled with drooling-gawkers, observing our farewell. After that, there were two camps—those who knew that Karen was my cousin and those who did not. The first group wanted an introduction after their missions. Some of the others thought that I had done something wrong and broken the rules. Not knowing that Karen perfectly fit the definition of a family member, they misconstrued our car ride into an offensive lolly-gag. Possibly it was because they wore their underwear too tight, but I could see from their body language that they could not believe that a beautiful woman like that, would be allowed to come to the mission home, driving a fancy convertible, wearing a cheerleading outfit, and kiss the likes of me goodbye—instead of them. What fun. The woman they really should have worried about was being chaperoned by my parents and was on her way to Salt Lake City at that very moment.
A vision of loveliness, MK came with my parents the next morning to see me off at the Union Pacific Station. I had faked her into believing that I was a 10, when, in reality, I was only a 2. She vowed to wait for me until I returned. It was like a heartstrings movie. Missionaries were seated on the train looking backward as the train pulled out of the station. I watched MK on the platform sadly waving and slowly shrinking in the distance as we went down the track, trying to get one last glimpse. All that was missing was romantic background music, a fade to black, and rolling credits. It was so perfect that it took three months for me to get over myself. Even today, I can make myself homesick just thinking about it.
Ever vigilant, RT
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