My first missionary companion

 My first missionary companion 

I recently tried to find out what had happened to my first missionary companion Richard Mac Crandall. I could not find him on Find a Grave or in Family Search. I Googled his name and didn’t find a match. I did find someone who might have been his father in Family Search so I sent a message to some individuals who had added sources with the surname of Crandall.

“My first missionary companion in Germany was the son of this man. His name was Richard Mac Crandall. Are you related ? I would appreciate knowing something about him.

Laurence Gee, M.D.”

His daughter Shauna Jorgenson emailed me back and related that he was still alive and living with his second wife in Oregon. He is no longer a member of the church and does not believe.

While I was in Germany I heard that he was going to go to the Swiss temple to marry a young lady that he met in Berlin when he got released.

Apparently that didn’t happen because of the Swiss regulations. They got married in the Los Angeles temple. Her name was 

Christel Gerda Luise Brandt

They had three daughters and then they divorced. Christel moved back to Germany and raised her daughters there and eventually did come back to the United States. She married again and died in Utah in 1985.

The daughter that I talked with is a realtor here in Utah and an active member of the church.

I did not tell the daughter that I talked to about a number of times that Elder Crandall left me alone. I was assigned to Hildesheim when we met with the mission president in Hannover to receive our assignments and after three days in Hannover he left with someone else and I had to travel to Hildesheim on a train with a German sister missionary Anna Ernst who was assigned there.

After I had been in the country 20 days I took 4 Boy Scouts on a camping trip to Hamelin by bicycle and he said he was sick and sent me alone.

There were a number of other times when I was left alone to travel.

We were teaching a young lady Lillie Goetz. She was working for the British army. We had arranged to go with her to a concert at the cathedral given by the children’s chorus, the Regensberger Domspatzen. When I was ready to go he said he had some branch work to do and sent me to go to the concert alone with her.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXWXpCM8p44&list=OLAK5uy_kt359u1yRwD_rIO_2o-69ieVR2kPHsoOw

He left me to go off with a soldier friend when we were to attend the mission conference in Laboe. I was left to go by myself and missed my train to Hannover where I was to join the missionaries from the district to travel to Laboe. Fortunately the train going north was late and I was able to join them. I had only been in the country for about two months.

I did not think it necessary to share this information with his daughter.

It is not surprising that he has lost his testimony. When we do not obey the mission rules we will be tempted to disregard God’s commandments and find ourselves on shaky ground or out of the kingdom.

My counsel to my grandchildren is to keep the rules and the commandments. 

 

Love. Grandpa