Elder Newman

Elder Newman

by

Paul Adams

“I’ve been in touch with the General Authorities in Salt Lake, and it’s been decided that you should be sent home.”

I sat in silence, my mouth hanging open, too stunned to speak, as President Spain delivered the soul-shattering news. It was the final nail in the coffin. That metaphoric straw on the camel’s back that proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was a useless failure.

“You will receive an honorable discharge from the Massachusetts Boston mission, and you will continue your service at Temple Square in Salt Lake as a service missionary.”

I continued to listen to the mission president’s explanations in a state of numb stupor. I couldn’t think. I only managed to offer weak replies of “okay” and “I understand” as the words “sent home” bounced through my brain, ricocheting off all the other words jumbled around in there, tearing me down and driving me insane, all in the same harsh voice full of condescension that I had heard every day since I started my mission.

It all started six weeks before, the day after I arrived in Boston airport. The other six new missionaries and I sat in a row of cold, hard folding chairs in the back of a large room in the local church building. Soon the room was filled with at least a hundred other missionaries. President Spain stood at the front of the room, announcing the new companion assignments.

“Elder Newman,” he announced.

A tall missionary with short brown hair and a face reminiscent of high school jocks from a thousand different movies stood up.

“You’ll be serving with Elder Adams in the Amherst area,” President Spain said.

It took me a second to register that he had called my name, as he had been calling names for some time now, and I stood in hesitation. Elder Newman turned to look at me, a grin as wide as his face spreading across it. He let out a “whoop” and ran back toward me, jumping on me in a strong embrace that left my shoulders aching.

This initial warm reception left me hopeful that things were going to go well with this new companion. But it was not to be. Ever since I was in Elementary School, I had been shy and introverted, struggling to make any sort of social interaction. I had been working on improving this condition but at the time I started my mission, it still left something to be desired.

This was where our troubles began. On our first day working together, I had determined that it was best to watch and learn, taking a backseat in our discussions so that I could learn by example. When we returned home that evening, Newman retired to our study area immediately so that he could write a letter to our Mission President, reporting that I was doing nothing.

As the weeks passed, our companionship grew steadily worse. My lack of social skills severely hampered my ability to do the work we needed to do, and Newman grew steadily more cruel and critical. Over the six weeks we were together, he managed to find something wrong about everything I did. He made me his project, determined to weed out everything that made me the failure I supposedly was and correct them. He insulted my mother, father, brother, sister, and grandmother, criticized my choice of tie and what wrist I wore my watch on. None of the groceries I bought for myself were good enough, and sometimes he would even stop me in the middle of a sentence just to criticize a word choice.

One day, we were conversing casually and had been on the subject of my wanting to become a writer. I was describing to him one of the stories I wanted to write when he interrupted me midsentence.

“You know something, Elder,” he said, “I’ve decided something. I think I know the reason you want to be a writer. Your life is so pathetic and miserable that you have created these worlds for yourself that you can control to make yourself feel better.”

Several nights were spent with tennis balls being thrown at my head in an attempt to improve my poor hand-eye coordination. Every day, I had to watch my step as we went out and taught, or else on the way home, he was sure to fall deathly silent, let out a deep breath that oozed with distaste and irritation, before he would launch into a tirade spelling out exactly where I had gone wrong that day. One day, as we were eating lunch in a Subway and he had just finished criticizing my choice of sandwich toppings, he took his deep breath and said, “You know, Elder, I’ve met a lot of people who seem stupid on the outside but are actually really smart underneath. I thought it was going to be that way with you, but you are just stupid.”

The worst part of it was that I let it happen. Through it all, I kept quiet and held my tongue while he pushed me around and treated me like an idiot. This happened for two main reasons. First, I was on my mission. My job was to teach the gospel, not get into fights. I knew that if I fought back, it would only lead to contention and disrupt our work. Secondly, everything he said to me played on fears and insecurities I had already been harboring inside my own mind. So every time he threw a new insult at me, I didn’t bite back. I simply took it as uncontested fact and took it upon myself to change and be better.

At the end of our six weeks together, I was told that I would be transferred back home to Salt Lake. I was crushed. After weeks of constant mental and emotional battering from Elder Newman, it now felt like God himself had rejected me and written me off as a failure. I put on a good face for the other missionaries and held my composure until I was on the flight back home, at which point I leaned my head against the cold window and cried. It was on that flight that things changed. I determined within myself to stop beating myself up and feeling sorry for myself. My God was not someone who wrote people off. I knew that He always had a plan and that I should trust Him. I made a promise there in that airplane seat, to myself and to God, that whatever my new assignment was, I would fulfill it to the best of my ability and that I would prove I wasn’t a failure.

When I got home, I learned that I would be serving in the Family and Church History Mission in Salt Lake City, working mainly in processing many important church documents as well as finding and preparing family names for temple work to be done. In my first week alone, I accomplished more than I ever could have back in Boston, and managed to get the temple work done for over three hundred ancestors.

Newman’s words haunted me for months, but eventually I came to realize that he was wrong. I took from his words anything that was truly beneficial to me, and mentally threw away everything else, refusing to let it damage me anymore. A few months into my new mission, Elder Newman showed up at my doorstep, dishonorably discharged. It turns out my mother had taken matters into her own hands, writing to President Spain and bringing Elder Newman’s actions to light. I wasn’t there that day when he arrived, busy at work down at the Church History Library, so it was my mother who answered the door. She described later to me how he had apologized and expressed remorse for his actions in Boston as he sat at our kitchen counter, wringing a napkin in his hands. I haven’t seen him since that day.

Nearly two years later, I walked out of the Church History Library for the last time. The sky was clear and the November air felt nice in my lungs. A strange sense of peace filled me, a palpable peace that refused to go away for two whole days afterwards, no matter how much my worrying nature tried to dispel it. There are stories in our church about missionaries finishing their missions and hearing an audible voice telling them “Well done, my good and faithful servant,” or some other confirmation that their efforts had been accepted. That peace was mine. I was not a failure. God had not given up on me.

I was good enough.

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