I doubt that Romney had some real cushy deal when he was on his mission. The Mormons are pretty strict about how their missionaries are handled. [isthisnickcool]
#1...Romney was quickly moved up to "assistant" to the Missionary Prez (as the article states). That doesn't readily happen for first-year missionaries.
#2...Don't confuse 21st century strictness re: how Mormon church handles their missionaries with some laxity that occurred at times during the 20th century. (IOW, Mormon officials have too often had to learn the "hard way")
The hundreds of missionary rules Lds mishies now have to follow have been posted on FR numerous times. So now the Lds church goes legalistically way overboard ("never be alone" for example is one Lds rule) -- treating adults like kids.
But what's the alternative? Well, most Lds mishies aren't allowed to drive vehicles. Mitt was. The article mentions the Lds missionary president was a guy named Anderson. The missionary president's wife was killed in the car driven by Romney. (Romney apparently wasn't at fault).
Even then...I'm still waiting for the Media to do a piece comparing the two candidates that ran against each other in 1994 for Massachusetts Senate:
* In the Dems' corner, we had Teddy Kennedy. Chappaquidick. A woman dies in an auto accident.
* In the Repubs' corner, we had Willard Romney. Paris. A woman dies in an auto accident.
Kind of eerie.
Mr Romney’s time in Paris was marked by tragedy when he, the president and the president’s wife were involved in a car crash as he drove them back from Bordeaux in June 1968. Mrs Anderson was killed and Mr Romney, who had not been at fault, was admitted to hospital after initially being presumed dead.When the president returned to the US for surgery, J. Fielding Nelson, the president of the Geneva mission, was sent to Paris to take over. But Mr Romney had things so under control that he soon returned to Switzerland. “It was astonishing,” Mr Nelson said. “This 20-year-old kid was running it”.