Miggols99 thread reminded me of this.

We were in high school and did an exchange student program (many years ago). Most of us ended up in the US. We all had Ok to very good experiences. All except the one girl who went to Utah. I don't remember exactly where in Utah but I do remember the state and that she said the people there were religious nuts. My guess is that it was not in the city. I had not heard of mormons at the time and in retrospect I should have paid more attention because some years later I joined the church.

My friend complained that her host family wanted to take her to church every week but she didn't like their church. She went a few times but others she just wanted to stay home, they'd get furious about it. She said the "mom" was two-faced, yelling at home but sweet when not at home. The dad apparently was hardly home because of work, leaving the mom to do the raising of the little ones.

The family had at least a few small children and my friend, who was a teen at a time, ended up changing way more diapers during her short stay than she did all her previous life. We asked why would you do it? and she said she felt sorry of the kids who were, in her eyes, neglected. She also said that they kept on trying to get her to be baptized, they would not understand that she was already baptized. She was Catholic.

My friend hated the experience. She didn't get to see much of anything. When not in school, she was babysitting or refusing to go to their church. She couldn't wait to go home.

Now that I just remember that experience and think of what she told us back then I undertand better what she went through (with the insight I've learned from you guys, of course). All her stories now make sense. Poor girl.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/27/2013 09:51AM by deconverted2010.

That is awful! What an experience!

wow. Just wow.

The good part of it is she will never be a Mormon. Most likely she will put a lot of energy in to talking any friends or family out of it too.

If you get inside the belly of the beast like she did, the mormons are the best anti mormon missionaries there are.

Like she said, they put on a nice show in public. It's at home where you start to see the real story.

I think parents and officials who arrange these student exchanges need to investigate them and if that's not possible they should not let students go to mormon homes.

Too many mormons imagine they'll get love and attention by converting these poor students and it usually turns out badly.

I had an exchange student from China stay w/ me for 3 months back in 2000.

I was waay coooool and he and all his friends wanted to always hang out at my house. I learned how to eat all kinds of Chinese.

None of them ever went to any church that I knew of.

Sure do feel bad for those who end up in TBM homes...

I spent a couple of years in Australia at ANU on a fellowship arranged through Rotary Foundation. I went to school, but I lived with different families.

It was all great.

One of the families had these two Corgis. They were the most vicious little dogs I've ever encountered. When JWs or morg showed up to 'tract', she'd let the Corgis out the back door and they would attack the people at the front door from behind. She had a cockatoo (full size) who would repeatedly scream this blood curdling scream if you annoyed it. If the mishies or JWs didn't go away, she would intentionally get it to start screaming.

Nobody lasted long...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/27/2013 12:40AM by John_Lyle.

Not a mormon story, but when I was teaching school in a small town in Iowa and that is less than 1000 people, we got a foreign exchange student from Germany. The superintendent decided to have an exchange student. And I taught German, so I saw lots of Ralph but I felt so sorry for him. He was angry the whole semester. His picture of America was New York or LA or Miami and he gets sent to the prairie and farmland. Hog farms and corn fields as far as eyes could see. Now I personally see beauty in the country and farm land, but for Ralph it was a prison sentence.

This is so true. The girl who had the time of her life was one who went to New York.

I ended up in the southern US, loved it. I just had a hard time makig my i's long enough. =)

I knew a family who had an exchange student from Sweden. She came to church only a few times, maybe twice, in all the time she stayed with them. I remember someone asking her if she liked the USA better than Sweden and she just blushed and didn't want to answer. Poor girl. So, not only was she bombarded with church, but was expected to like the USA better than her homeland.

I think it should be a requirement if you are going to host a student, to leave religion out of it. Unless you share the same religion. Kids shouldn't be subjected to that kind of torture. They are kids, for Christ sake! And if you are going to host a student you should be expected/required to take them to see the sights. It doesn't make sense to have them come from such a long way to just sit at home month after month. A cultural exchange should involve going to see movies, seeing tourist attractions in your own back yard, even taking a road trip. But then again, I have been accused on more than one occasion of being naive. Maybe prospective host families need to be screened better.