...and I forgot how skeptical I was back then. Entry after entry I kept telling myself I needed to find out the truth and gain a testimony. I only wrote for about half my mission, perhaps I gave up trying to get an answer.

It's been nearly 20 years since my mission and I suppose I got too busy when I returned home to really deal with those doubts until recently.

I heard a quote recently from JFS that said something along the lines of "testimony will fade without proper and consistent study." No doubt he was referencing 'faith-promoting' material. If that's not brainwashing or conditioning, I don't know what is. It seems that the mission brainwashed me and it took almost 20 years to snap out of it.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/27/2013 05:27PM by Hold Your Tapirs.

I read mine recently also.

About half the days read, "Today was a good day, I got 2 letters!" the other half: "Today was slow, no letters from home, tracting all day"

It has been 50 years since I was in Argentina. I dont even know where the journal went to. It really doesnt matter anymore

I wrote rather extensively before, during, and after *my* / THEIR mission that I was compelled to serve. I have several journals, and a box full of letters that I wrote. They are full of heart wrenching reflections of the MORmON abuse, mind control and exploitation that I was being subjected and trying to reconcile in my own mind. The fact that my parents and grandparents could so willingly go along with this program of abuse is very disconcerting.

While I don't know your situation, most parents and grandparents don't know enough about the hard times on a mission to really be complicit. Even those that went probably had a bunch of the bad memories fade away.

I would like to. My system was unique. I had my "mission journal" in which I would place a blank piece of paper. I would daily write in my "journal" which was the blank page. then at the end of the week, I would take my pages and send the home to my mom. That was the bulk of her letter. She kept every one of them and I've kept them since. So my journal is in a hundred envelopes that need to get organized.

Gotta dig my mission journal out of storage one of these days....