So I went.

It was scheduled from 9:00am to 9:30pm and I bailed around 2:30. I found that five hours was plenty this go-around. And the “spiritual meeting” was last on the agenda — and was something that I had no desire to see, hear or feel.

I ran into several close companions and mission buddies — Rodriguez, Emerick, Brino, Serra, Neves, Homolka and Gava and it was truly a great experience. I felt so welcomed and we all shed a few tears, choked on a few laughs and shared remembrances.

This emotional pleasantness reminded me that real relationships are built on trust, mutual respect and friendship — and that those outlast and outweigh anything built solely on mutually-shared beliefs.

While I was asked several times if I was, “married, have children?” I responded that I was not married and had no children. And then came the , “Were you ever married?” followed by, “Just didn’t find the right one?”

I happily agreed that they had hit it on the head and we left it at that. This was not the time nor place to discuss my sexuality or my relationship with my honey. Those who are my friends on Facebook should have already figured it out — and seem to have no problems with “it” or me (and four of these are listed above).

Only one former missionary and his wife asked me, “So, Elder, are you still “firm” in the church?” — fully expecting that I would say yes.

When I responded, “No.” they actually flinched and then he said, “That makes me very sad”.

I responded that I was very happy and that he had no reason to be sad on my behalf.

They both thought carefully for a moment and then we continued our conversation in another direction, with me not perceiving any appreciable change in how they were treating or talking to me.

I had expected the worst today and was willing subject myself to this reunion in order to gut-check my own feelings, beliefs and emotions.

I did okay.

An old mission companion and former LDS bishop, mentioned to me this week that he thinks the LDS church will have to change its policies on gays and marriage equality in the coming years. To quote him, “I think this will happen before women get the priesthood, unfortunately”.

He said that much of what is paraded about as “doctrine” is in fact, simply policy and is not based on anything more than cultural and passé contemporary bias.

We discussed how the church is on the wrong side of history and will have to adapt and change or run the risk of becoming irrelevant. He mentioned that the secrecy and whitewashing of LDS leaders’ and church history needs to change.

He cited how the former RLDS (Community of Christ) church has adapted with the times and mentioned specifically how they have been open with church history and simply shrug and say, “That’s the way it was; let’s learn from it”.

We discussed my own homosexuality, excommunication and other related topics and he said that he felt that I was still a missionary — albeit for a different reason than perhaps I knew. He also said that our excommunication was “really mishandled”.

While I had previously noted that this man was somewhat liberal in his thought, I was surprised to hear just how liberal he is — and a real example of unconditional (and could it be? Christlike) love.

ADDENDUM: One of the things mentioned in the conversation was that he felt that the church’s Proclamation on the Family needs to be “quietly retired”. He said that it is an embarrassment to the church and will be seen as such in the future.

I arrived this morning for my 2nd trip to Brazil this year. I’m here for a full three weeks this time because my honey and I are taking off the last half of March for vacation and I won’t be able to be here again until April.

On that note, we are celebrating our 25th anniversary on March 17th and have planned a trip to Prague to visit an historical and storied city that neither of us have yet visited. When I posted that fact on Facebook, every single comment was positive about what a great choice Prague was. Good to know!

We are also planning a big celebration for our family and friends at the Salt Lake Marriott City Center in July to celebrate both our anniversary and my honey’s 50th birthday (Note that we have been together exactly half of his life — and just slightly less than of mine). This will be a large occasion that we wanted to share with all who wish to attend.

When I mentioned that the U.S. Supreme court may actually have cleared the way for us to marry by then, he actually commented, “That would be so cool. Wouldn’t that make a nice surprise announcement!”.

I agree.

Something sparked an interest the other day and I made a mental note to check, but forgot until this morning: A sister missionary from my mission in Brazil who had ‘friended’ me on Facebook last year and then proceeded to bombard me with personal (non-viewable to others) messages asking, “What happened to you since your mission?” has indeed de-friended me. I assume she did not like reading about my happiness and normalcy in the midst of my supposed “wickedness”, as it kind of flies in the face of everything in which she has put her faith.

I am so sorry to disappoint her.

And so begins 2013.

I’m still in São Paulo and more than ready to head home, but my flight is not until 11:35 p.m. and the logistics of having to check out of the hotel and to kill time for many hours while schlepping a bag around is tiring.

I was able to talk the Renaissance Hotel into letting me camp out in the 23rd floor lounge and just had a nice nap in a chair, a light snack and am now taking advantage of the free wireless service to update the old blog.

I met an old mission companion for lunch today. We had previously lunched last month after communicating via Facebook for a year or so. Really nice guy. Never mentions the church in any form and that is actually quite nice. I suspect that he is not active, but am content to also not discuss the church.

He asked me to take an envelope of cash to his nephews in Utah. I would have thought either sending an electronic gift certificate or using PayPal would have been a better solution, but am happy to to haul the envelope to the U.S.

I start traveling back to Brazil in mid-January, after taking a couple of weeks of vacation and then working in SLC for a few days.

I’ve been back in São Paulo all week and am feeling more and more like I live here. Instead of being able to just go to my hotel room and vegetate, friends invite me to dinner, lunch, to walk in the park, etc. This has subtly changed over the year and I think they are thinking more of me as just “one of the group” instead of “the foreigner visiting our country”.

While I actively participate in conversations when I have something to add, for the most part I listen and absorb new contextual words, slang, thoughts and a general sense of Brazilian cotidian life.

Yesterday three of us went to the Mercadão — an old and very large indoor market in the old downtown area. Not since I went to Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York in 1985 have I been in such a large, crowded group of people: Literally bumping elbows and shoulders and hips at every turn and at every step through the masses of people shopping, eating, playing and generally enjoying life.

While I can’t think that I was the only one in this crowd of thousands feeling claustrophobic, I suspect I may have been the only one showing it on my face!

Walking from place to place, we were able to taste different (and for me, exotic) fruits and to see huge swaths of color and feel the vibrancy and sound and ambiance.

I would love to have had my honey here, but suspect that he would have freaked out with the sheer numbers of people and inability to navigate quickly.

Tonight I attended the viewing of the man who gave me my patriarchal blessing the year after I was baptized, in 1974.

Later, after my family moved to Laramie, Wyoming, I became good friends with his daughter who was my age — and eventually several of their six daughters. I have kept in touch with the daughter my age ever since that time, but had not seen her in perhaps 30 years, so it was especially nice to be able to be visually reacquainted with her and her sisters again tonight.

The Asplund family were stalwarts and yet very down-to-earth. The one my age has never married, which in several ways is kind of sad (not the marriage part, but the relationship one). She is at peace with it and explained that has a familiar relationship with a friend whose “husband is a jerk”. She lives with the family and seems to be a buffer between the couple and a surrogate mother for the children.

Families are made up of more than many in the church would have you believe. Here is indeed more proof.

I woke up in São Paulo to a very foggy morning and even though it is now noon, the haze has not completely burned off.

I spent a couple of hours walking around Parque de Ibirapuera and taking photos. Many great shots incorporated the fog, so this set of photos is not just more of the same.

Yesterday I had a meeting at the HQ building for my company’s parent company and got to experience a different part of the greater city. The area was an older town with small, narrow streets and many corporations have built (and continue to build) large modern buildings there. It’s amazing to see the amount of construction going on in this city!

An old Brazilian mission buddy of mine has sent me a message saying that he will call me tonight after he gets off work. Elder Fóz was laid up in the mission office for several weeks in 1979 with knee surgery and we became friends at that time. I haven’t seen nor spoken to him since then, so it will be interesting to see where he is in his life.

Many old mission companions and friends are on Facebook and I see their incessant posts bragging about children on missions, temple marriages, their callings. etc. Reminds me of old friends who are still “dragging Grand” in Laramie — something they did in high school but without ever outgrowing those “glory years”. I feel like I have graduated and moved on. Many in Brazil have contacted me and want to talk, but I really have nothing to share with most of them and am not really ready to rehash the mission and “what happened to you since?” question.

Today a long-time good friend is moving into a room in our basement. He had put his house on the market and much to everyone’s surprise, it sold rather quickly and he has been scrambling to find a place to live, so we offered him a private room and bath — not to mention a dog and two cats who will appreciate more company.

Our circle of friends got together this morning and helped him move stuff into storage, Deseret Industries and his new home. He was completely organized and it was almost more of a social gathering than the older Elders’ Quorum guilt-induced moving obligations.

All-in-all, a good day.

A really good friend of ours died Tuesday night of a sudden and unexpected heart attack.

H. Francis Sellers was an artist, inventor, inveterate tinkerer, musician, traveler and unconditional friend. He was a stellar husband to his wife Patrice and a father without peer (and artistic mentor) to his 13-year-old daughter Frankie.

Harry always has a ready story or joke and even though we had heard many of them multiple times, there was as much entertainment in his telling as in the actual content.

We always laughed at his stories of learning how to smoke pot at BYU in the late 1950s.

He avoided hypocrisy, religion and crippling belief systems that he felt served no one well. A friend said, “he was true to himself”. I think that hits the nail on the head.

We’ll miss him.