ELDER KINDLY'S OTHER BALL

By J.D. Sundstrom

As I boarded the train for Barcelona, I already knew why I was going to visit with the mission president. I was getting a new companion. A special companion. President Findlow had explained to me in a prior visit to the mission home that it was my amiable nature that blessed me with certain qualities which allowed me to get along with almost anyone. As a result, the Lord had frequently inspired the mission president to pair me with companions that were deemed "difficult to get along with".

For the uninitiated, the transfer process in the mission field is kind of like rolling dice at a craps table in Vegas. Sometimes you win. Sometime you lose. Rarely does one break even. As the name "Kevin Kindly" rolled off President Finlows lips, all I could think was "snake-eyes".

Kevin Kindly was something of a legend in the mission field. Shortly after I had arrived in the mission field, a story had circulated like wildfire about one particularly horrific evening when Elder Kindly's companion had walked into the bedroom and discovered him standing in front of a full-length window wearing only his birthday suit. The companion, in a frantic and futile effort to look away from Elder Kindly's pale ghostly body, looked past him and out the window only to discover that a young lady in the apartment complex next door was similarly attired.

"Well, I'll finally get a chance to find out if the stories about Elder Kindly are true," I mumbled under my breath as I shook the president's hand. Judging from his deeply furrowed brow and worried look, I'm sure the President had heard me.

After a much needed word of prayer, President Findlow patted me on the back, gave me a few more words of encouragement and pushed me out the office door and into a waiting vehicle which would drive me to my new apartment and my enigmatic new companion.

As we drove along Barcelona's busy streets, I found it difficult to contain my excitement. Sure I was getting a companion that everybody had tagged as a little eccentric and weird. But hey…I was in Barcelona, one of the truly great European cities. After having spent my first winter in Northern Spain in a chilly frozen city called Pamplona, I was excited to be in a sunny climate and to be tracting in a metropolitan city with warmer more sophisticated inhabitants.

Thirty minutes later, I was out of the car and climbing up three flights of stairs to my new home. Upon reaching the door, I stopped for a moment realizing that the loud heavy metal music I had first noticed outside of the building was emanating from the apartment currently being leased by messengers of the Lord. I turned the key and walked in.

"Elder Sundstrom!! Dude!!! Welcome to our humble abode!" shouted someone from the kitchen.

I could barely hear Kindly above the thumping drums and loud guitars that I recognized as Van Halen. I loved that band!! However, for some reason, this seemed like the wrong place and the wrong time. I walked over and turned the music off.

"Hope ya don't mind the Halen," said Elder Kindly as he walked out of the kitchen with a huge bowl of what I suspected was some sort of variant on macaroni and cheese.

My first impression of Kevin Kindly was that he looked like a cartoon character from one of those cheesy Hanna Barbera cartoons of the sixties. Flaming red hair. Freckles all over his face. Slightly heavy but not fat. He could have been a regular on Scooby Doo.

Elder Kindly settled into a worn armchair, grabbed a Spiderman comic book from the coffee table next to him and began to eat.

"This is my final month and if you've heard rumors that I'm just a little bit trunky…we'll that would not be a lie," he said as he continued to woof down his cheesy concoction.

For those of you unfamiliar with missionary jargon, the term "trunky" refers to a missionary whose bags are already packed. In the case of Elder Kindly, not only were his bags packed but he was mentally half-way out the door and on his way to the airport.

As I looked around the apartment and surveyed my surroundings, I realized that the next month would definitely be something of a trial. I knew that living with the one and only Kevin Kindly would be a game of "give and take". I was certain that I could make this missionary's final month worthwhile but I also knew that Elder Kevin Kindly would not allow me to completely shut down his going away party. Fortunately, for you, the reader, this story is not about that endeavor. Instead, this story really begins the first evening I noticed a strange thumping noise coming from the bathroom.

We had been companions for a week when I first noticed the bathroom noises.

"What are you doing in there?" I yelled.

"Nothing," he shouted back.

For a moment the noises stopped. Then the toilet flushed and I thought I heard, for just a split-second, the loud thumping again. Suddenly the door open and Kindly exited. He looked kind of sheepish, as if he had been caught doing something wrong. Clearing his throat, he headed for the kitchen, making no further effort to explain the strange sounds.

I didn't think about the noises again until two or three days later. After a long day of knocking on apartment doors without much success, I skipped dinner and hit the sack early.

A couple of hours must have passed before I was jerked out of my sleep by the same loud thumping noises I had heard emanating from the bathroom earlier. This time the noises were close. As a matter of fact they were coming from the very bedroom where I had been sleeping!

Rubbing my eyes, I looked around and focused on the sight of Elder Kindly's large body jumping up and down. Every four or five jumps, he would stop and place his hand inside his pants. The moonlight shining through the window allowed me to witness this eerie yet comical spectacle. It was like he had lost money in his pants and now he was frantically looking for it. Over and over he would jump. After each jumping session, he would hurriedly search his crotch-region for some unknown treasure. Finally, I couldn't take it anymore.

"What the hell are you doing?" I mumbled pretending to be just barely waking up.

"My balls. I've lost one of my balls!!" he replied in a voice that captured every man's ultimate fear.

"What!!" I exclaimed. "How could you have lost one of your balls?"

"I don't know," he said forlornly. "I had two…now I have one."

I turned on the light so that Kevin and I could talk. It didn't take long for Elder Kindly to tell me the whole story. A couple of weeks earlier, Kindly and his former mission companion had played a game of soccer with some of the local kids in the neighborhood. At some point during the game, Kevin had been the recipient of a soccer ball directly in the groin. From the bug-eyed manner in which he described the precise moment in which the ball connected with his body, I gathered the experience had been extremely painful. About a week later, a couple of days before I had arrived, Elder Kindly noticed that his left testicle was no longer in its usual resting spot. Kevin said that he had been jumping up and down whenever possible in a valiant yet vain effort to return everything to its proper position. I couldn't help but laugh.

"Man, we have got to get you into see a doctor," I said, still trying to suppress a laugh.

Elder Kindly frowned. "What do I say?" he grumbled. "How do you tell someone that you've misplaced one of the family jewels?"

"I don't know what you should say," I replied. "But you better figure it out because we're going to see a doctor tomorrow." With that said, I flipped off the light and fell asleep.

The next day, Elder Kindly and I made an unscheduled stop at a clinic located just down the street from our apartment. One of our church members worked as a receptionist there and I had a hunch we could get in to see a doctor without much difficulty. After explaining to the wide-eyed woman what problem was afflicting poor Elder Kindly, she assured us that a doctor would be able to see him momentarily. We had only been seated for moment when a nurse came out and butchered Kevin's last name. As he stood up, slowly and nervously, I suddenly felt very sorry for my companion. Remembering the night before, I started to feel a little guilty about laughing at his predicament.

"Good luck," I offered.

Smiling, Kevin turned around and gave me the "thumbs-up" sign. I smiled back. Seconds later, I was swept with guilt again because the thought had just crossed my mind that it was better him than me. I could really be a self-centered jerk sometimes.

A few minutes later Kevin returned.

"How'd it go?" I asked.

"Fine. No problem. Everything's good," Kevin replied in a hesitant fashion. I could tell something was up. He wasn't being completely honest.

"What did the doctor say?" I asked.

Kevin lowered his head. "I didn't tell him," he muttered. "I told him I was here for a physical. I thought he would find it. I didn't know how to tell him in Spanish."

I knew that Kevin DID know how to say it in Spanish because we had been practicing all morning. He had just gotten scared and lost his nerve. I tried not to be too judgmental. After all, I had no idea how I would act if I were in the same position.

"You've gotta go back in there," I said trying to sound firm yet sympathetic at the same time.

Looking defeated Kevin turned around and marched back down the long hallway, turned to his left and disappeared.

About an hour later, my companion returned. Calmly, Elder Kindly explained that the doctor believed that he may have experienced an extreme hernia which caused his testicle to be drawn up and away from the scrotum. The doctor also told Kevin that because of the time in which the testicle had been out of its proper location, it was very likely that it had shrunken to the size of a large pea. Sensing Kevin's greatest fear, the doctor told Kevin that one working testicle would still allow him to bring many little Kindlys into the world. I can only imagine how relieved Kevin was to discover that the garden could still be planted.

On the way back from the clinic, Elder Kindly was jubilant. We stopped at our favorite Chinese restaurant and he bought me lunch. Kevin was so happy he insisted we order dessert. We even broke the mission rules and stopped off at a local arcade and played Galaga and Foosball. The day that had started so grim had turned out pretty good after all.

Later that evening, Kevin explained that the doctor suggested that since he would be returning home to the United States soon, he should wait and have the surgery to remove the defective testicle then. Elder Kindly agreed. Frankly, I just think he didn't want to worry about it anymore.

A week later, Kevin called home for Mother's Day and told his family about his ordeal. His dad laughed and told him that he had lost a testicle as a young man as well.

"Kevin, I think when something that weird happens to both father and son, it has got to be in the gene pool," his dad told him.

From that point on even Elder Kindly joked about his (and his father's) misfortune. By the time our month together had run its course, I had grown very close to my companion. I was sure that we would be friends for life. Sure we hadn't had much success as missionaries. However, we had learned a lot about each other and we had matured just a little bit more because of our experiences together.

As he got in the cab and headed for the airport, I grabbed my own bags and started for the train station. I was going to another city, Valencia. Waiting for me was another companion. Almost completely deaf and 30 years old, Elder Carlos Alvaredo was another in a long line of "projects" that the Lord wanted me to work with. I was confident everything would be fine. I felt good about what could be done if I extended my hand in friendship to Elder Alvaredo. However, at the same time, I knew I would never have another companion quite like Kevin Kindly.

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