Mission Reunion

When I was younger, I served a mission for my Church in Chile. This Friday, I flew out to Utah to participate in a reunion of my old missionary friends. I must thank two in particular, Zach and Shawn, for making it possible. Shawn hosted it at his house and let me stay the night, and Zach offered to fly me out when I told him I didn't think I could justify the expense this year. Then he did. (Thanks, Zach!)

It was great to see so many people I hadn't seen in over ten years. They're all approaching middle age now, but to me they will always be the young men I knew and loved during my mission. We were all full of potential then, but I was amazed by the things many of them have done since we came home.

Shawn, for example, was someone you could always count on to have something fun going on (like the reunion) or for a good laugh, but it never occurred to me that he would become a stand up comedian. Or an entrepreneur, for that matter. But he is both (see below for a clip of one of his bits) and doing quite well for himself.



Another good friend, a former AP (for non-Mormon readers, that's "Assistant to the President", the highest leadership position a missionary can hold while in the mission), caused a bit of a scandal by discussing the movie he wrote, directed, and produced. It's in distribution now. Below, I've included a clip of the trailer and a link to the IMDB entry for the movie.



As you can see, it is not your typical Mormon movie (hence the scandal). But, I have to say that Brian never really was your typical missionary. (He used to do some pretty crazy things during mission conferences to get the other missionaries motivated.) Before the movie he helped with the research and production of "Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't" by Jim Collins and traveled the country speaking to companies about his research.

Another friend turned down an offer to join a prestigious Wall Street firm and instead started his own business. Eventually he made enough money to spend a significant amount of time traveling the world with his family. But living on vacation wasn't for him. He wanted to continue making a contribution and got back into the business world investing in several new businesses. Now I think he's into something like 20 companies. Of course, he's still the humble guy I remember from the mission - he didn't tell me about most of this. The other missionaries who've stayed in touch with him did.

My favorite mission friend, one who served with me when I was assigned to the mission office for a month, is a writer in Los Angeles. He's written for several well known "reality" shows and some that are lesser known, including "Fat March", "Dancing With the Stars", and currently, "Supernanny". Who knew that they had writers? (Alright, I did - because he told me so about two years ago when he told me about "Fat March".) In any case, this is the guy who told me to follow my heart and become a writer. Well, he's still working at it, while I'm just pursuing it as an occasional hobby.

I only mention these stories because they are so amazing. The other guys from my mission days were also all doing well. It was great to see them and catch up after so many years. For my next post, I'm going to have to scan in some pictures from our mission days and do a little "then and now" post.