I was totally TBM, so I saw this as my key to becoming a great leader and forming a great family. I also REALLY wanted to attract a good woman, which I think is the reason 90% of the men are out there. And leaving is not an option. To come home in shame is worse than not serving.
I never wanted to go but didn't feel like I had any option.
Once out there, I just tried to make the best of it, but I was literally counting the days. Like roger said, coming home early isn't an option either. Unless you plan on leaving the church as soon as you get back.
In other words, I mostly hated it.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/26/2011 12:33PM by brett.
Yeah, I wanted to go cause it was the next step on the chart of life to check off on. I believed in the church, wanted to serve the Lord and wanted to one day marry in the temple as a faithful RM to a worthy LDS woman. I was programmed exactly as the system was designed to do so at that age.
Now, as a ex-Mormon, I don't entirely regret serving cause of how much I learned, gained self confidence, and got to see the world outside of SLC, Utah. The skills and life lessons learned have been a boon to my career and marriage. However, I do regret every person or family I baptized or influenced along the way now and wish I could contact each one and say I'm sorry; had I only known!
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/26/2011 12:49PM by Comfortably Numb.
Absolutely! I was so morg soaked that I wanted to go, wanted to stay, and sopped up every minute of it. Mind you, I was older (22) and just out of the military. So being in the Netherlands was like going on leave for two years.
I was a convert at 14 years old. I went even with no family pressure. So, yes, I went because I wanted to go. Do I regret going? No. But a big part of that particular "No" is because I went to Germany and met alot of different people and absorbed a foreign culture. What I do regret is wasting all that time going door to door trying to sell something that people didn't want. I wish I had taken more time to see the country and do a little more sightseeing, but that's really hard to do with only a half-day off. I was bred to be a hard worker and that carried into my mission. That and my sense of commitment kept me going.
Thanks for sharing. I just joined this group today. I dropped my son off yesterday at the MTC. He is going to Germany. A decision he totally made on his own. Wow, did he ever get a lot of support from family members and everyone else who belongs. I am feeling left out because I don't belong. I worry that we will grow apart. Let me know if you have any advice.
I thought I did... although I didn't really feel I had any other option. Less than 6 months into my mission I knew I didn't want to be there. During one zone conference we were going around the room telling why we went on a mission. All the mishes were giving answers like... "to serve god" and "to grow spiritually" and "to save souls." When it came to me I said, "I am on a mission so I can still attend family reunions." No one laughed.
And it was no surprise to me that I had a nervous breakdown and was home one month after leaving. Being a closeted-gay non-believer is not a good combination if you want to be successful missionary.
I initially went on my mission because I did not want to disappoint, hurt or embarrass my parents. Sometime during the mission I became very committed and wanted to stay and be a good missionary.
I didn't really want to go, but my Freshman year at BYU got me pumped up to go. Every guy I knew was going and the RMs seemed to have had a good time on their missions. If I'd gone to UTx, my 2nd choice school, I likely wouldn't have gone.
I got to go to Paris, which was very exciting for me. I was taking French 301 when I got the call, so I was more than ready to go to France.
I hated the mission. Loved France, love the French, hated everything to do with the church. At first, it was the rejections that bothered me, but by the end it was the church that bothered me. 2nd MP was a major jerk, numbers, numbers, numbers. It was obvious that they didn't care about me except what I produced, and they didn't care about my investigators as people.
It took me a few more years, but the mission sowed the seeds of my discontent with LDS, Inc. If I hadn't gone on a mission, I likely would be a Jack Mormon or semi-active Mormon now instead of a full fledged ExMo.
Yes. I really wanted to go because the church was true and people needed to hear about it. I was willing to sacrifice my prime years in that endeavor.
Yes. I wanted to stay because I wanted to show Christ my devotion, and perhaps help out some lost soul. Even if the family shame and girl things weren't issues (which they were), I still would have stayed, despite the fact that I was miserable.
I would have done anything for the Lord, partly because I felt it was the right thing to do, and partly because it was in my best eternal interest to do so. My own interests as a young man were distantly secondary.
I was appalled when I once expressed some of my difficulties to a companion and he asked if I was considering going home. No way in hell!
By the way, I too hated my mission. Worst two years of my life. One of the happiest days of my life was the day I got released.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/26/2011 01:29PM by kimball.
I really really wanted to go. I saved to pay for my own mission working 3 jobs in college at times to show the Lord how much he means to me and to share this "precious gift" with others. I wanted so much to show him my love and devotion. Everyone said it was hard, but I was used to life being hard, I wasn't afraid...what I didn't realize is that the "hard" part isn't the work or the buffetings of Satan...it's constantly dealing with the church itself, it's stupid systems, and it's totally messed up 19 year old boys and 21 year old girls and shitty, shitty leadership.
No, I didn't want to stay, but I could never have left...it was something that I felt I had to endure.
I, like many others here have pointed out, was programmed very well and by the time I was 19 it was simply the thing to do. I also knew that if I had told my parents I did not want to go my mother would have had a nervous break down, so there was pressure from my parents as well. Once I got there I simply decided I had to spend 2 years there so I might as well enjoy myself. I was not a perfect missionary. I didn't work from sun up to sun down. I played a lot, but then my mission was very lax in that we could listen to music and go to movies. Every P-day was movie marathon day and we totally enjoyed it.
I saw the sights, I even got permission from my mission president to go to the beach to celebrate the new year with an American family that was there for business. Of course we didn't swim but we waded.
All in all I completely enjoyed my mission and although I too wish I could tell those I baptized I am sorry, I really gained more from that than any other thing I could have done at that time in my life. I grew up tremendously, I learned Spanish which I still use, and I learned more than I would have spending that same two years in college. I have told my youngest son, who does not believe in the church at all, that if he wants to gain what I gained without going on a church mission he could join the Peace Corps and travel around the world for a while with them and actually make a difference in the world.
...and the bigger war that would have happened with my parents.
But I lucked out in two ways. The war ended before I got back, and I saw up close and personal that the the Lord's anointed leaders were, at best, uninspired, unexceptional guys like you'd find out in the gentile world, and, at their worst, thugs, liars, jerks, nitwits and egotists. That started me out of the church.
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/26/2011 01:41PM by Stray Mutt.
I didn't go right when I turned 21 because I really wanted to get married and graduate. I managed to graduate from the Y and moved back to CA - dated a lawyer for a year but it didn't work out so I was fishing around for the "next thing" to do with my life. I'd applied for a MA program but chose the mission instead. So I wanted to go eventually but wasn't driven to go at my first possible (or second or third possible) opportunity.
But I don't regret it. I was old enough by then not to be bullied, although the constant surveillance freaked me out - I still have anxiety attacks, although I'm much better since I quit Mormonism. I enjoyed living in Spain, finally mastering Spanish which I'd been trying to learn for years, and I really didn't care if anyone got baptized. I felt if they were interested, I'd teach them but if they were already happy Catholic, fine. I was looking for anyone looking for something more and not given to harassing perfectly happy people. I didn't take it seriously - it was just another job.
I didn't really want to go by the time I went. I was a junior at BYU by the time I turned 19 and I was loving school. But in my family it wasn't really an option to say no. Or so I thought, at least.
It didn't take long for me to hate it enough that I wanted out. I feared for my physical safety and mental health the whole time (thankfully, I hit the brief 18-month mission window).
On the other hand, as a Latino raised in a non-Latino environment, being in Mexico had a huge impact on my sense of identity. I gained an understanding of certain family dynamics and attitudes that had puzzled me before. And it was also on my mission that I had a sexual relationship with a companion and had to face up to the fact that I was gay. That was a painful episode but it had to happen.
I was lucky in that I didn’t have to go- no one was pressuring me and most just assumed I wouldn’t go. During my first semester I “got the spirit” and decided it was something I had to do.
I was lucky in where I ended up- Chile Orsorno- the end of the world. As such I didn’t have to put up with a lot. Saw my first MP twice and my second one twice. Most of the time my companion and I were the only ones in a town that could be hours from another missionary and we didn’t have a phone. (I probably would have hated my mission and left if it were like many I have heard of with the constant MP encounters.)
Over all I had a great experience and learned a lot about a different culture. Could it have been better, yeah- being there as a student or on some type of secular charity mission would have been much better and most likely it would have let me experience the culture in a deeper way. I was also lucky to get in the 18 month program.
I hated being a missionary but chose to go because that's what I thought God wanted me to do. I *thought* I loved my mission because I thought I was serving God and saving souls but deep down I hated it. It made me happy thinking I doing God's work but the actual mission was torture.
Its like being a salesman and you think you are making big bucks until you find out that, not only is the product defective, but the company who was going to pay your commission is bankrupt.
At 18 my parents and grandparents were always saying to me how a mission would be the next thing to accomplish on the Mormon conveyer belt. I don’t recall them ever asking me whether I want to go or not. It seemed like any dreams or aspirations I had was a thing of naught and had no value. All the focus was mission-mission-mission.
I had graduated early from high school before I was 18 and was fully into college. I was so happy to be out of the ‘day-care’ environment of high school and to be in the college environment where I could call my own shots on what classes I wanted, when to take them, and I no longer needed to have a hall pass to use the can. It was so refreshing to be treated like an adult for once. I had my own car and an interesting Gas-price marketing survey job to supply me with enough spending money. However, the expectation from everyone that I would be serving a mission at 19 hung around my neck like a millstone. I had no desire to go whatsoever. I was on a good college path with my education in electrical engineering and I really did not want to interrupt it.
Around this time I also had fallen in love with a beautiful Japanese Mormon girl convert that I met at a multi-area youth conference in Monterey. She was not the typical Mormon girl I was used to and I enjoyed being with her more than any girl I had ever been with. I fell in love with her as deeply as one could at 18 and I couldn’t imagine myself leaving her for 2 long years. The thought of doing so made me sick inside. I felt trapped on this Mormon conveyer belt speeding me toward a mission and I could see no way to get off.
The Mormon conveyer belt moved on with me on it and my papers were sent in. I took the church’s intelligent tests to see if I had the aptitude for learning languages. I guess I failed because the call came in January of 1977 that I would be serving in the Virginia Roanoke Mission and I was to report to the Salt Lake mission home on April 23, 1977. The prophet’s auto-pen signature machine had spoken.
Everyone was so happy for me but I wasn’t. I looked upon that April date with dread and foreboding. It was the date that my life as I knew it would end and that I would end up forfeiting everything that made my life worth living.
I say forfeited and not sacrificed because to sacrifice means to give up something good for something better. But to forfeit means to give up something good for nothing. That April date felt like a death sentence. Little did I know that this date would be the beginning of the end of any belief I had in the divinity of the Mormon Church and the end in any belief that the Lord loved for me.
When I came home, I was fataly wounded, spiritualy, because of the mission.
called final boarding to Europe and sobbed out loud in my parents arms explaining to them in whispers and between sobs that I couldn't go and didn't want to go.
this was the first time they had heard such a thing from me and I am sure they were shocked.
we were also surrounded by no fewer than 60 family members and I am sure the pressure was just too much for anyone to think straight.
they didn't say a thing.
Despite having been a zone leader, assistant to the president and the trainer of a number of "greenies" I was absolutely miserable.
so miserable that I think the experience changed me. I have never been the same since and I think my parents didn't give that moment a second thought as they went with the family to the local buffet to celebrate mormon righteousness.
I don't know. Seems like a fog. It was just the next rung on the ladder and I was like a trained seal. I was raised by the ultimate TBM's in a 100% mormon small town. I thought I was choosing to be a good mormon, but in actuality I had no concept of what any other option could be.
I didn't want to go, I didn't dread going.
I didn't want to stay, I didn't want to go home.
I was the king of the late bloomers though, and when my own thought process finally kicked in gear after I got back, I made up in spades for my early years in a mental fog.
My first little doubt came on my mission and for that I am grateful. Also, by going on a mission and working hard, I know exactly what I left behind with regards to the church. No one could tell me that I just didn't get it.
I saw a foreign country and culture, learned a language, and realized I could never live in a small mormon town again.
On the other hand, I could have been partying in L.A. in the seventies....
I was driven to go after a quick and intense reactivation at age 20. I don't regret it. No one ever pushed me to go. I almost quit midway when my GF dumped me. That was the best thing that came of my mission, to snap me out of the delusion of young love. After I got dumped I found myself. It was exciting and free, and the rest of my mission flew by euphorically. I was mostly free of pesky DLs and ZLs. I determined my own intensity level and learned how to organize myself and manage my time, and keep up the pace. It helped allot in school and jobs later. I extended a month. It's an intense experience. I admit I thought less of those moping dopy mammas boys that "didn't want to go", who sulked and couldn't get themselves going. I had an argument with one as his DL. They'd sleep half the day and stay in days. I thought they were pathetic wimps. There's a common cliche in the mission that you'll never rise higher in your life than your dedication on a mission. I also admit I thought less of guys who didn't go. I was proud of going. But... It came at a cost. I couldnt live up to my ideal, not even close. I felt condemned by every little misstep. I was well-prepared for work and school, but I was terrible at dating and marriage scared me even more...but I considered it my next "mission". I was looking for someone as intense about the gospel as me but at the same time feeling unworthy of it. By about a year after my mission I was suicidally depressed, a cycle that continued for 15 years until my faith collapsed.
I, too, dreaded the day I would have to step into the MTC and kept it as far back in my mind as I could. It was something I knew I was expected to do and all my friends were doing. It helped - immensely - that I was going to the United Kingdom which is where I wanted to go. I was able to relieve my dread with a sense of impending adventure.
I was at BYU and having the time of my life. I had great friends. I met a girl. I was very happy. As the date approached to report to the MTC it felt like how I imagine a terminally ill person feels knowing they are about to die.
The MTC was actually OK. I thought that many leaders went overboard on the attempts to induce guilt, but my branch president was pretty cool.
Arriving in the UK was both exhilarating and a sober hard slap in the face of reality. I fell in love with the country and the people. After some time many members thought I was English or even Irish rather than American. I took that as a compliment.I loved the history and the country. I was shocked that the English were not waiting for me with open arms to convert them to the truth. I was shocked that I was told to f*#k off every other door. I was shocked at the brown nosing and clicquishness of the missionaries of my mission. I was shocked to find that we were basically a door to door sales force. I was shocked to find that out of the box thinking when it came to missinary work was forbidden.
Ironic that it wasn't the English or even their lack of acceptance of Mormonism but the behavior of church leaders and dick head MP's, AP's and ZL's and cold as ice visiting regional reps that started me on the path of figuring out the whole scam.
Yes because I trusted the church, and they said serving a mission will give you so many blessings you won't know what to do with them all. But serving for 2 years wasn't something that I really wanted to do. It was never a dream to serve a mission.
In the MTC they said true happiness comes from obeying all of the (many) rules, and you can't be an effective missionary without them. So I became a real rule nazi (which is not my natural personality style) so that I could be happy in the MTC. I would berate my district for not singing a hymn when our teacher had assigned us to. I would make sure my companion and I made use of every second of study time. I barely knew myself any more. So because of that I became horribly horribly miserable. So I decided to come home because I became incredibly depressed because I deserved to be happy because no one else was following the rules as well as I was. And funnily enough, in the few hours I had before coming home I stopped following the rules. I would joke around and make fun of people (my real personality). And it was actually tolerable being in the MTC.
The MTC basically tells you what kind of person you are supposed to be. They tell you how to live every moment of every day. "Get rid of your personality and accept the personality we give to you. You'll be happier for it and be blessed." Yeah, well that one didn't work out.
Yea sure, I wanted to go. I thought it would be a rather interesting two year vacation. I paid my money and got what I got. Did I mention I am terrible at gambling?
Seriously I had some fun times and many moments when I thought about quitting and grabing the next plane to wherever I wanted to go. As others have mentioned I feel terrible about being a salesman for something I don't believe in and the people whom I taught it to. This is my one true regret.
Luckliy I was State side and had access to all the modern technology I could need. Don't let those that went overseas tell you that it is way more dangerous that the US. Baltimore is a goddamned free for all and so are the hills of Virgina and West Virgina. Granted, dieseae is much more a killer in the developing world but I will be damned if I didn't get shot at, beat up and generally having people attempting to kill me and my companion(s). Well, those are stories for another time.
I didn't know any better... thought it was the thing to do, so I went willingly with the faith my previous 19 years of living in a closed society had given me.
It started disappointing, and never improved.
Hated every day of it. I don't think I learned anything that couldn't have been learned elsewhere, and that didn't require annoying thousands of people over the two years.
I did want to go, but it wasn't what I needed at the time. My Mom had just been released from a mental institution after a psychotic break and repeated suicide attempts. I had seen my mother deathly pale and weak, with slash marks on her wrists, and instead of getting the counseling I needed I was shipped out to Australia for the church.
I loved moments of my mission, but I now recognize that I was trying to run away from the horrors of home life. I'm still screwed up from it.
I don't blame the church for this, though. It was ultimately my decision to leave, and though my bishop and other leaders encouraged me to go, they just did so under the misguided notion that it would in some way help me heal. They were very, very wrong. The best I can do now, though, is to take my experience and advocate against reliance on the faux healing powers of a distant, disinterested deity and for professional help from trained professionals.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/26/2011 04:00PM by homo sapiens maximus.
Rogertheshrubber hit the nail on the head when he said "To come home in shame is worse than not serving." That's the only thing that kept me there. I even wrote in my missionary journal that that was the only reason I was staying, but in slightly different words.
My missionary journal is full of three very telling types of things:
1. factual description of what we did. Just the facts.
2. speculative things about what I'd be doing if I were home and what I would do when I got home.
3. LOTS of expressions of how I'd be out of there in a split second and on the next plane home if I were offered the chance to go and beating myself over the head for feeling that way, (yet I never even thought of actually asking to go home.)
I had braces on my teeth later than most, so couldn't leave as soon as I turned 19. I actually pushed for the orthodontist to say everything was good enough and take the braces off early so I could leave on my mission ASAP but even then I admitted I was doing so ONLY because the earlier I left, the earlier I could be done and have it behind me. I just wanted it to be over, even before it began.
However, I don't "regret" my mission. It's part of who I am now. I went to a nice country and learned a new language. But of course there's no way in H*#l I'd go if given the chance to do it all over again.
Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 05/26/2011 05:32PM by Scott.T.
I just remembered one more thing. I recall saying, after my mission was over, on more than one occasion to more than one person, that serving a mission was like climbing a mountain. It was a lot of work and effort to get to the top, but now that its all over, it was worth it. I can say I did it.
Of course, now I think I just delayed two years of my education, and proportionately lost that much income and work experience.