From what I've read, supposedly missionary assignments (is that the right term?) are divinely inspired. Is that true?

-I mean, do Mormon royalty kids get choice and fun places overseas, or close to SLC for safety reasons?
-Do convert kids get crappy assignments?
-Do you get to ask for an assignment? After all, one can argue that if it's divinely inspired, that God is "calling" you to a particular place?
-Can you decline a particular place?

I've often wondered as a NeverMo if it's just a random selection (or a name/dartboard thing) or if the higher ups reward good Mo parent behavior. I know most of you have horror stories connected to serving missions, but I'm genuinely curious about this stuff :-)

I know Alan Osmond's sons who went on missions often went overseas. However, Jay Osmond's son Jason served a mission in the U.S.

I know a convert who served a mission in Los Angeles and another who will serve in the Czech Republic. I don't know if missionaries get to ask for an assignment but the convert who serves in the Czech Republic actually studied abroad there for a period of time. Not a big shock that she will serve her mission there...

MariaB Wrote:
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> I know Alan Osmond's sons who went on missions
> often went overseas. However, Jay Osmond's son
> Jason served a mission in the U.S.
>
Alan's second youngest was in somewhere I Georgia I think and the youngest shows no signs of going on a mission. Jay's two eldest boys were Stateside, the younger of the two being an early returner. To date, four of Donny's sons were sent overseas, two to the UK, one to Italy and the youngest of the four was sent to The Netherlands.

I would be interested to hear how many people those four kids baptized in Europe and if they baptized any native born residents.

All of the converts I have seen online this year in my former mission are african, middle eastern refugees and a few eastern european guest workers.

From "On This Day in Mormon History:"

June 2, 1979 - CHURCH NEWS article "Computers Aid Church" refers
to use of computers by Missionary Department. Due to massive
increase of missionaries, computers have assigned Mormons to
their full-time missions since church-wide computerization in
1970. First Presidency has neither oversight nor review of
mission calls. Special committee (LDS bureaucrats and one or
two general authorities) reviews computer print-outs of proposed
missionary calls and occasionally changes some mission
assignments. Signature machine signs church president's name to
letter informing LDS missionaries of their assignments.
Management Systems Corporation is dissolved in 1979, its
functions absorbed by Information Systems Department.

Wow Baura, thanks for that. I joined the church in 1979, got my mission call in 1981 and honestly truly until this very moment believed that the 12 sat around a table with the first presidency once a week, read off the submitted names and the president called out the mission and signed the mission call. That's what I was told and I've always believed it - I'm totally in a state of shock right now. I guess I should have known but I truly didn't. Wow. Wow. Now I feel even stupider than ever ...

this is great info! I wish the website would provide a link. I tried to look it up in church news archives, but it only went back as far as 1988



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/04/2016 01:51PM by liesarenotuseful.

Elizabeth Smart.

Any other questions?

She went to France, if memory serves.

She also took French in high school and was reasonably proficient, so I wouldn't chalk that one up to special privilege asserting itself so much as the computer they feed the names through doing its job.

I took 4 years of High School Spanish, 5 years if you count junior high. I was 'reasonably proficient' at it. I went to central Canada.

I'd bet there was the assertion of special privilege in her case. The rest of us are herded to wherever there are vacancies.

I wouldn't hold it against them if there was special privilege in her case. Although I've heard the French missions aren't particularly easy.

Xyandro Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I wouldn't hold it against them if there was
> special privilege in her case. Although I've
> heard the French missions aren't particularly
> easy.


I went to Paris. Yes, it WAS difficult. I made the best of it, but there was a LOT of tracting/contacting, very little baptisms. I think the mission average was 30 per month, we had around 200 missionaries. FEW were French. Most were immigrants from Africa, thinking this helped with a green card. Inactivity was HIGH.

In my previous life....meaning many years ago...I was a member of the LDS Church. Born and raised in Rome, Italy...baptized at age 15 and called on a mission while living in western Canada.
Being a native born Italian, did not apparently qualify me to go and serve a mission in my native country, instead, at age 22, after four years in Canada, I was called to serve in the Nashville, Tennessee Mission. In fact, being from Rome Italy, they thought I had so much in common with the people of central and eastern Tennessee....LOL.....Six months later, once they found out that there weren't many Italian speaking people in Tennessee, I was arrogantly sent to the Canada Toronto Mission. ...LOL.....Arrived in Toronto, in January 1979 in one of the coldest winters on records ever....To make a long story short...The Tennessee MP was a real jerk..While the one in Canada was a real Christian with a CAPITAL C....I did have some bright spots in my mission both in Tennessee and Toronto, but for the most....it was a very unpleasant experience and one that started to make me really think about the whole "circus and clowns".....As a result...I have lost all trust in corporate religions...I only believe that there is indeed a Christ, our Savior and I am sure, He does not belong to any corporate church...He cannot be bought by any one including churches.....

I went to Canada Winnipeg.


you mean that's not a "prestige mission?"

Did you ever serve in Regina? If you did between 1991 - 1999 you most likely came to my house.

There probably are certain situations where those with status within TSCC do get posh assignments but who knows.

My family was poor growing up but me and my 5 other siblings all went to foreign missions.

Well I had a friend that took several years of french in high school in hopes of going to France like his father had done.

He was sent to North Dakota.

He was from Montana.

When I was in a singles ward there was a guy who was a wonderfully talented singer. He put in for his mission and was called to the Los Angeles mission. The mission home was something like four doors down from his parents house. He was quickly reassigned to New York.

Inspired? I think not.

My parents lived in the mission I was sent to, albeit quite a distance from the regular missionary stomping grounds.

They would write to me, and the letters would be confiscated at the mission home. It was against the rules to communicate with members/missionaries/investigator/friends in the mission boundaries, outside of your current area.

It was always a battle to get my mail and remind them that my family lived in the mission boundaries.

They do truly believe the Lord inspires these "calls," even when it's probably the worst placement ever.

Mormon royalty will get the better spots. Rich Mormons can influence the Lord's decision on where their kids go.

A couple years back, there was a nonMormon mom and a convert son. The son had some health issues, which required regular access to medical care, which this care occurred through a government type of health care. To move away from the region would likely result in loss of coverage, and to end up in a foreign country could be detrimental to his overall health. This was a bowel issue, so you can imagine, foreign foods, bacteria, parasites could be a real problem, and while a normal individual could probably fight off some of the offensive microbes, this boy would probably not fare well. After much discussion with the bishop, the Lord was inspired to keep the boy in a region where his health care could be utilized and not be lost by leaving the area for two years.

A Mormon parent might not have had much to say, as the Lord knows best dontchaknow, but nonMormon mom was going to have nothing of this nonsense. This kid clearly wasn't thinking through the consequences of a mission, as young people have a tendency to do sometimes, and certainly the Lord's one and only true church doesn't give a sh!t. Good for mom for stepping up and influencing the Lord's decision.

Inspired indeed.

Do they still have prosective missionaries take a language aptitude test? I took it at YBU my freshman year. I don't remember thinking that I had done well. I did have two years of high school German, but probably only made C's because the teacher was a nice guy. I was sent to Japan.

I had a companion who was from a fairly wealthy family but I don't think she was Mormon royalty. She asked to go to our mission and that's exactly where she landed. Then there was another elder in our mission who spoke fluent German and had a father who was a professor at BYU. He was certain he would go to Germany. Instead he went to French speaking and he nearly left the MTC he was so angry about it. I think there might be some interventions or someone actually reads and appreciates what is written in the application but other administrators could probably care less. As in most situations, it just depends on who's lap your papers land in.

I had a companion (one of my favorites) who basically had a sports gambling problem (which his Stake Pres. knew about.)

He was from California and was sent to Las Vegas, NV.

He battled the temptation for sixteen months and was continually asking for a mission transfer because the temptation and pressure was becoming too much. The mission pres. kept refusing.

Finally, he had to take drastic measures. For him, he saw the only solution was to do something that would get him a mission transfer or sent home. Early one morning (I was up all night throwing up) he flew the coop when I finally fell asleep.

Apparently, he went from casino to casino and finally ended up at the RIO. He promptly locked in all of his bets in the sports book and then proceeded to pound down beer and screwdrivers. A LOT of them. He was a big guy and he was sooooo wasted.

We were in a threesome (sounds naughty) with a "visa waiter" (who looked like Vanilla Ice) going to Brazil. The two of us spent half the day looking for him and were always one step behind. Finally, at about one or two o'clock in the afternoon I had to call it in.

Some of his other missionary buds found him that evening. He was still pretty drunk. It was hilarious when they brought him home. I asked him the next day why he didn't leave me a note because I never would have called it in and just let him deal with it when and if he wanted to. He said that's exactly why he didn't leave the note (because he knew it was the only way to force me to call it in).

The adventure got him sent home. His stake president was pissed, but not at him (at the MP and church). He was honorably released.


Inspiration. It's what's not on the menu.

That might have been the story you heard but I sincerely doubt he got an "honorable release". There is no such thing.

This might have changed a bit since the "influx" of missionaries at the MTC, but this is how it typically goes: a missionary serving a foreign-language mission would spend 9 weeks (sometimes 12) in the MTC. English speaking missionaries would spend 3 weeks in the MTC.

When a missionary first arrives at the MTC, they are paired with a companion and the pairs are put in a district with others who are going to their same mission - about 8-12 missionaries per district. They take all their classes together for the duration of their stay at the MTC. Then the whole group leaves the MTC and enters the mission field at the same time.

This means that each mission is getting 8-12 missionaries at a time. They are also losing missionaries at about the same rate (more or less, depending on the mission), so the newbies are essentially replacements.

This means that it's all about filling quotas. Let's say, for example, the Sao Paolo Brazil mission currently has 40 missionaries scheduled to be going home in the first quarter of 2014. The mission president wants to keep the same number of total missionaries in the mission, so they will need to fill those 40 spots with fresh meat from the MTC. So, that means 40 kids putting in their papers in the next couple of months will be assigned to Sao Paulo, with dates that will put them in the field during the first quarter. At the same time, the Munich Germany mission has 20 missionaries scheduled to go home in the first quarter of 2014, but they want to reduce their numbers. So, only 8 kids will be assigned to Munich.

It's all done by computer program. In certain special cases (mormon "royalty"), an apostle or other higher-up may pull an individual's name and choose where to place them. But for the most part, it's simply a game of supply and demand.

Disclaimer: I have no secret insider knowledge of how this works - I just have common sense and enough anecdotal evidence to support it.

One time I'd had enough and went to the mission home to tell the MP. He was about to do transfers and asked me where I wanted to go.

I picked a city I really wanted to go to and told him who I wanted as my companion (a former district mate who I got along with well). Lo and behold, I was transferred there and so was my friend -- we had a great time!

As much as I hated my mission, I appreciated my MP's inspiration on this one. I realize there are a lot of jerk MP's, but my first one was a wonderful man who factored the human aspects in. When he died a few years ago, I made a point of placing a tribute on his online obit -- hopefully a few who read it got the message.

There are lots of examples of mission calls that have been changed when the missionary said they did not want to go where called. Obviously they don't publicize this. My university president had his mission call changed and ended up spending WWII behind enemy lines. An elder in my group at MTC got his call changed to Hawaii.

Unfortunately Mormon royalty often get sentenced to serve where their fathers served. European missions may sound fun, but they usually involve lots of tracting and very few baptisms.

When I was in the MTC for Japanese language training, there was one elder who just couldn't learn. After eight weeks of study, all he could say was, "I am a room" when he wanted to go back to his room. They sent him to Massachusetts.

I specifically asked, with my application, that I be sent to Alaska. I was sent to Samoa.

I had taken two years of French in high school, but recall having taken a language aptitude test as part of the application process. So, I was able to learn a foreign language. Nice to have that on my resume, though I haven't really spoken Samoan in 45 years.

You probably had a lot more fun in Samoa than I did in France, be grateful! At least you had warmth and the ocean, winter in France is not fun, especially riding a bike. I had French from second grade all through high school, took two years in college, took the aptitude test and lo and behold, got called to France. However, my best friend, who took the aptitude test with me and had studied German in high school, got sent to Taiwan - go figure.

At one time around age 25 or so, I was still single and got the notion in my head that I should go on a mission.


So I went to talk to the local MP about it, when he came to town to do Zone Conference. Made an appointment with him ahead of time and everything, I was so serious about it.

I love to believe the MP was "inspired."


When I sat in the office he was using, telling him how I thought it was time to go on a mission, he told me that he did not think that sisters should go on missions at all. That responsibility, he told me, fell on the shoulders of the elders.


Well, I think he was half right, looking back: sisters SHOULD NOT go on missions at all.


Of course, neither should their brothers!


Well, at least, he got half of that right.

Oh, I should add: this all happened back 35 years ago.


Today, they take any warm blooded, totally submissive, tithe paying body that applies, don't they?



Female or male, they take all MORmONs...

Yessiree, it is a crapshoot that determines where the lard's chosen will spend the supposed best two years of their lives. Just get them a movin' and movin' fast.

Who cares if the they are sent where bullets are flying, kidnapping occurs regularly, or decent health care is lacking? Who cares if they have passports confiscated, are not allowed to listen to news coverage, and are given little education about the culture and mores of where they will be slaving? Who gives a shit that they are robbing these kids of discovering more about the world that they should be out and about doing as teens?

I'll tell you who DOES NOT CARE ONE TITTLE about the implications of this abusive program.......LDS.inc.

I took high school French and also took French at ByU. I was a convert. If I was royalty it would only be because I went to BYU. I was sent to French speaking Switzerland and France. They may have given me that choice assignment because I was a bit older than the average missionary. I have no complaints. I really did enjoy serving on the French Riviera and in the Swiss Alps. OOOH LALA!!

I converted and decided to go on a mission. My family was non Mormon and gave me a going away party on a Sunday at a jazz bar in town where my brother was playing the trombone. Someone took a picture of us with me in the front and everyone was lifting up a beer behind me. I only had modeling pictures of me so I sent that one in as my mission picture with my papers. I was sent to Arizona.

Our younger son had severe ADD (not the hyperactive kind, just the inattentive kind.) He could not stay on task to save his life. Despite being very bright, he got terrible grades in school. I had been through the same thing with my older son, whose father REFUSED to consider it a medical issue, and tried to punish son into compliance. Epic fail.

I wasn't going to stand by and let it happen again with younger son. He was diagnosed with ADD and put on Dexedrine. It made an amazing difference in his ability to stay focused on what he needed to do. His grades soared.

After graduation from high school, he put in his papers for a mission. Initially, they assigned him to someplace in Central America. I asked how were we to keep him supplied with Dexedrine while he was down there, only to find that even HAVING Dexedrine on the premises was against the law there! Gee! Wouldn't you think that the "inspired" folks handing out the assignments would have seen the part about ADD and Dexedrine right there on his mission application???

I called some mission office in SLC - I don't remember which - it's been ages - and told them that Central America was out of the question due to medical issues.

Son was re-assigned Stateside, and referred to a local doctor there who could "monitor" him every once in a while, and relay the info to our family doctor, who would then authorize the local doc to prescribe another few months of Dexedrine.

This was cumbersome, but it worked. My intervention should not have been necessary. Somebody in SLC had their head in their anal aperture when the original assignment was made.

Divine inspiration? MY HAM HOCK!!!